Anniversaries

Births: Joseph Nicephore Niepce, photographic inventor, 1765; Gottfried Wilhelm Fink, composer, 1783; Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, painter, 1802; Ludwig Mond, chemist and industrialist, 1839; Piet (Pieter Cornelis) Mondriaan, abstract painter, 1872; Joseph- Maurice Ravel, composer, 1875.

Deaths: St Thomas Aquinas, Christian philosopher, 1274; Sir Arthur Helps, essayist and historian, 1875; Aristide Briand, French premier, 1932; Percy Wyndham Lewis, writer and artist, 1957.

On this day: Napoleon defeated Blucher at the Battle of Craonne, 1814; the first telephone was patented by Alexander Graham Bell, 1876; the transatlantic radio-telephone was established, 1926; the Rhineland was reoccupied by Germany, 1936; British forces withdrew from Rangoon, 1942; the announcement was made for the forming of British commercial radio stations, 1967.

Today is the Feast Day of St Ardo, St Drausius or Drausin, St Esterwine, St Paul the Simple and St Theophylact.