Anniversaries

Births: Antonio Maria Gasparo Sacchini, opera composer, 1734; Franz Berwald, composer, 1796; George Catlin, artist and author, 1796; Richard Hol, composer and organist, 1825; Edmund John Armstrong, poet, 1841; Alan Francis Brooke, first Viscount Alanbrooke, Field Marshal, 1883; Raymond Thornton Chandler, novelist, 1888; Ras Tafari Makonnen, Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, 1892; Michael Wilding, actor, 1912.

Deaths: Sir Henry Percy (Harry Hotspur), killed in battle, 1403; Richard Gibson, miniature-painter, 1690; Domenico Scarlatti, composer and harpsichordist, 1757; Elizabeth Hamilton, writer, 1816; Isaac Merritt Singer, sewing machine inventor, 1875; Sir John Simon, public health pioneer, 1904; Jean-Jacques Henner, painter, 1905; Sir William Ramsay, chemist, 1916; Glenn Hammond Curtiss, aviator, 1930; James Maxton, politician, 1946; David Wark Griffith, film director, 1948; Robert Joseph Flaherty, documentary film maker, 1951; Henri-Petain, soldier and Vichy leader, 1951; Edward Montgomery Clift, actor, 1966; Sir Henry Hallett Dale, physiologist, 1968; Eddie Rickenbacker (Edward Vernon Rickenbacher), First World War fighter pilot, 1973; Rosemary Sutcliff, historical novelist, 1992.

On this day: the Battle of Shrewsbury was fought by the Percys against King Henry IV, 1403; Charles Stuart, the Young Pretender, landed at Eriskay Island in the Hebrides, 1745; the Jewish Disabilities Removal Act was passed by Parliament, 1858; John Boyd Dunlop applied to patent a pneumatic tyre, 1888; In London, the 'blitz' began with an all- night air raid, 1940; King Farouk of Egypt was deposed by General Neguib, 1952; the Greek military junta resigned, 1974; the Duke of York married Sarah Ferguson, 1986.

Today is the Feast Day of St Anne or Susanna, St Apollinaris of Ravenna, St Bridget of Sweden, St John Cassian, St Liborius, St Romula and her Companions, The Three Wise Men.