Anniversaries

Thursday 15 April 1993 23:02 BST
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Births: Sir Hans Sloane, physician and naturalist, 1660; John Hadley, mathematician and inventor of the first reflecting telescope, 1682; Ford Madox Brown, painter, 1821; Wilbur Wright, aviation pioneer, 1867; Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, comedian, 1889.

Deaths: Filippo Brunelleschi, architect, 1446; Aphra Behn, playwright and novelist, 1689; Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes, painter, 1828; Marie (Gresholtz) Tussaud, waxworks show proprietor, 1850.

On this day: Martin Luther arrived at the Diet of Worms, 1521; Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, was decisively defeated at Culloden by Cumberland, 1746; the English Channel was flown by a woman, Harriet Quimby, 1912; the island of Malta was awarded the George Cross by King George VI, 1942.

Today is the Feast Day of St Bernadette, St Contardo, St Drogo or Druon, St Encratis, St Fructuosus Braga, St Joseph Benedict Labre, St Magnus of Orkney, St Optatus and the Martyrs of Saragossa, St Paternus or Pair of Avranches and St Turibius of Astorga.

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