Anniversaries

Births: Gaius Julius Caesar, Roman soldier, 100 BC; Josiah Wedgwood, potter, 1730; Thomas Guthrie, founder of 'Ragged School', 1803; Henry David Thoreau, author and naturalist, 1817; Eugene- Louis Boudin, painter, 1825; Edwin Longsden Long, painter, 1829; Karl Heinrich Barth, teacher and pianist, 1847; Sir William Osler, physician, 1849; George Eastman, photographic pioneer, 1854; Anton Stepanovich Arensky, composer, 1861; Amedeo Modigliani, painter and sculptor, 1884; George Butterworth, composer, 1885; Oscar Hammerstein II, lyricist and author, 1895; Kirsten Flagstad, operatic singer, 1895; Pablo Neruda (Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto), Chilean poet and diplomat, 1904; Yul Brynner (Youl Bryner), actor, 1915.

Deaths: Jack (John) Cade, English rebel leader, 1450; Desiderius Erasmus, scholar, 1536; Jean Picard, astronomer, 1682; Titus Oates, impostor and conspirator, 1705; Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, writer, 1846; Robert Stevenson, lighthouse engineer, 1850; Charles Frederick Goldie, artist, 1947; Douglas Hyde, poet, historian and first president of the Irish Republic, 1949; Joseph Jongen, composer, 1953; Kenneth More, actor, 1982.

On this day: William I (The Lion) of Scotland was defeated at Alnwick, Northumberland, 1174; the Crusaders took Acre, 1191; Henry VIII married Catherine Parr at Hampton Court Palace, 1543; the Armada set sail from Spain, 1588; Crimea was evacuated, 1856; Victoria Embankment, London, was opened by the Prince of Wales, 1870; Britain took possession of Cyprus, 1878; Alfred Dreyfus was pardoned, his sentence quashed and he was restored to his regiment, 1906; 500 lives were lost when the Japanese battleship Kawachi blew up in Tokuyama Bay, 1918; Reed International agreed to sell the Mirror Group newspapers to Robert Maxwell's Pergamon Press, 1984.

Today is the Feast Day of St Felix, Saints Hermagoras and Fortunatus, St Jason, St John Gualbert, St John Jones, St John the Iberian, St Veronica.