Anniversaries

Births: William Worrall Mayo, physician, 1819; Walt Whitman, author and poet, 1819; Walter Richard Sickert, painter, 1860; Sir Francis Edward Younghusband, explorer, 1863; William Heath Robinson, illustrator, 1872; Florence Desmond (Dawson), actress, 1905; Don Ameche (Dominic Felix Amici), actor, 1908.

Deaths: Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), painter, 1594; Franz Joseph Haydn, composer, 1809; Joseph Grimaldi, actor and clown, 1837; Elizabeth Blackwell, physician (the first woman doctor), 1910; Adolf Eichmann, Nazi war criminal, hanged 1962; Jack Dempsey, heavyweight boxer, 1983.

On this day: Samuel Pepys discontinued writing his diary because of failing eyesight, 1669; the universal right to vote was abolished in France, 1850; the Peace of Vereeniging brought the end of the Boer War, 1902; the Union of South Africa was formed from Cape Colony, Natal, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, 1910; the White Star liner Titanic was launched at Belfast, 1911; the Union of South Africa became a republic, 1961; an earthquake shook Yungay, Huascaran, Peru, and about 18,000 people lost their lives, 1970.

Today is the Feast Day of Saints Cantius, Cantianus, Cantianella and Protus, St Mechtildis of Edelstetten and St Petronilla.