Anniversaries

Births: Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor, 1678; John Field, pianist and composer, 1782; Sir Richard Wallace, founder of the Wallace Collection, 1818; George Bernard Shaw, playwright, 1856; Francesco Cilea, composer, 1866; Sergei Alexandrovich Kussevitsky, conductor, 1874; Carl Gustav Jung, psychologist, 1875; Georg Grosz, expressionist artist, 1893; Aldous Leonard Huxley, novelist, 1894; Robert Ranke Graves, poet, 1895; Charles Butterworth, actor, 1896; Paul William Gallico, writer, 1897; Salvador Allende Gossens, Chilean statesman, 1908.

Deaths: Pope Paul II, 1471; John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, poet, 1680; Gerard Audran, artist and engraver, 1703; Samuel Houston, Texan soldier and president, 1863; Otto I, King of Greece, 1867; Sir James Augustus Henry Murray, lexicographer, 1915; Sir Edward John Poynter, painter, 1919; 'Daisy', Dowager Countess of Warwick, Victorian beauty, 1938; Benjamin Lee Whorf, linguist and anthropologist, 1941.

On this day: the Lancastrians defeated the Yorkists at the Battle of Banbury (Edgecote), 1469; the French fortress of Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, surrendered to British forces, 1758; New York became the 11th of the United States, 1788; a violent earthquake erupted in Naples, with the loss of over 6,000 lives, 1805; Liberia was proclaimed an independent republic, 1847; Lionel Rothschild (elected 1847) was the first Jewish MP to take his seat in Parliament, 1858; the Royal Assent was given to the Bill disestablishing the Irish Church, 1869; the London Evening News newspaper was first published, 1881; Wagner's opera Parsifal was first performed, Bayreuth, 1882; the (Federal) Bureau of Investigation was inaugurated, 1908; the Labour Party came to power after the General Election, 1945; the Suez Canal was nationalised by Egypt, 1956; the 29,000-ton liner Andrea Doria sank after colliding with the 11,600-ton liner Stockholm, 1956; Prince Charles was created Prince of Wales by the Queen, 1958; over 1,100 people died in earthquakes at Skopje, Yugoslavia, 1963; the Maldive Islands became independent, 1965.

Today is the Feast Day of St Anne, St Bartholomea Capitanio, St Joachim and St Simeon the Armenian.