Anniversaries

Births: John Howard, prison reformer, 1726; Karl Friedrich August Hering, violinist and composer, 1819; Giovanni Verga, writer, 1840; Joseph Roth, author, 1894; Lord George-Brown, statesman, 1914.

Deaths: Taddeo Zuccaro (Zucchero), painter, 1566; Thomas Telford, civil engineer, 1834; Henri Rousseau, painter, 1910; Tancred Borenius, art historian, 1948; John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, philologist and novelist, 1973.

On this day: the Great Fire of London began, 1666; men between the ages of 19 and 41 were conscripted under the National Service Bill, 1939; Japan surrendered to the Allies, aboard the USS Missouri, 1945.

Today is the Feast Day of St Agricolus, St Antoninus of Pamiers, St Brocard, St Castor of Apt, St William of Roskilde and The Martyrs of September 1792.