Anniversaries

Births: Leone Battista Alberti, painter, poet, musician and architect, 1404; Mary I, Queen of England, 1516; Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, statesman and historian, 1608; Kaspar Merian, engraver, 1627; Sir Richard Baker, English chronicler, 1645; Count Alessandro Volta, physicist, 1745; Johann Christian Heinrich Rinck, organist and composer, 1770; Thomas Girtin, painter, 1775; Niccolo Paganini, violinist and composer, 1784; Marshall Hall, physician, 1790; George Peabody, industrialist and philanthropist, 1795; Baron Hendrik Leys, painter, 1815; Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa (Gadadhar Chatterjee), Hindu mystic, 1836; Ernst Mach, physicist, 1838; Isidor Georg Henschel, baritone, pianist and composer, 1850; Jean-Adrien- Antoine-Jules Jusserand, diplomat and historian, 1855; Max Klinger, painter, etcher and sculptor, 1857; Sholem Aleichem (Solomon J. Rabinowitz), Yiddish writer, 1859; Edward Arnold, (Gunther Edward Arnold Schneider) actor, 1890; Wendell Louis Wilkie, politician, 1892; Andres Segovia, guitarist, 1894; Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko, general, 1895; Andre Breton, poet and art critic, 1896.

Deaths: Fra Angelico (Giovanni da Fiesole), painter, 1455; George, Duke of Clarence, put to death in the Tower 1478; Cornelius Heinrich Agrippa (von Nettesheim), scholar and astrologer, 1535; Martin Luther, Protestant reformer, 1546; Michelangelo Buonarroti, artist, 1564; Maurice Quentin de La Tour, pastel artist, 1788; Sir Jeffry Wyatville, architect, 1840; Nicholas I, Tsar of Russia, 1855; Sir Malcolm Morris, dermatologist, 1924; Elbridge Thomas Gerry, lawyer and philanthropist, 1927; James John Corbett ('Gentleman Jim'), pugilist, 1933; Gustave Charpentier, composer, 1956; Jacob Robert Oppenheimer, physicist, 1967; Hans Richter, painter and film-maker, 1976.

On this day: Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, was published, 1678; the Order of the Bath was revived, 1725; the Italian Parliament was opened, 1861; the first Congress of the Confederate States met in Richmond, Virginia 1862; Charleston was taken by the Union fleet, 1865; a direct telegraph line was established between London and New Zealand, 1876; Emile Loubet was elected President of France, 1899; Piet Cronje surrendered to the British at Paardeberg in South Africa, 1900; Germany's blockade of Britain by submarine began, 1915; the Golden Gate International Exposition opened in San Francisco, 1939; 30 men died after the French submarine Le Se Surcouf was rammed by a merchant ship in the Caribbean, 1942; the King proclaimed a constitutional monarchy in Nepal, 1951; the Gambia became an independent state within the Commonwealth, 1965.

Today is the Feast Day of St Angilbert, St Colman of Lindisfarne, St Flavian of Constantinople, St Helladius of Toledo, St Leo and Paregorius, St Simeon of