Anniversaries

Births: Giorgio Vasari, painter, architect and writer, 1511; Samuel Rogers, poet, 1763; Eduard Eggeling, pianist and composer, 1813; Emily Jane Bronte, novelist, 1818; Adalbert Hrimaly, composer and conductor, 1842; Richard Burdon Haldane, first Viscount, statesman and founder of the Territorial Army, 1856; Thorstein Bunde Veblen, economist, 1857; Henry Ford, motor-car manufacturer, 1863; Jean-Jacques Bernard, playwright and novelist, 1888; Dorothy Violet (Ashton) Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington, poet, 1889; Henry Moore, sculptor, 1898; Professor Cyril Northcote Parkinson, historian and inventor of 'Parkinson's Law', 1909.

Deaths: Philip I, King of France, 1108; Jacopo Palma (Negreti), painter, 1528; William Penn, Quaker leader, 1718; Thomas Gray, poet, 1771; Denis Diderot, encyclopaedist, 1784; Richard Rush, statesman, 1859; Sir Charles Hastings, physician, founder of the British Medical Association, 1866; Walter Horatio Pater, writer, 1894; Otto, Furst von Bismarck-Schonhausen, chancellor, 1898; Adolf Schreyer, painter, 1899; John Lawrence Toole, actor and theatrical manager, 1906; Emperor Mutsuhito of Japan, 1912; Field Marshal Hermann von Eichhorn, German military dictator in the Ukraine, assassinated, 1918; Sir Joseph Cook, prime minister of Australia, 1947; Howard Dietz, lyricist, 1983; Lynn Fontanne, actress, 1983; Ian Gow MP, killed at his home after a bomb, set by the IRA, exploded in his car, 1990.

On this day: the Battle of Warsaw ended, with the defeat of the Poles, 1656; the Jacobites were defeated at Newton Butler, 1689; the New York and Staten Island ferryboat exploded, with the loss of 100 lives, 1871; Toronto (then called York) was founded by General John Simcoe, 1793; a great fire in New York resulted in dollars 1m worth of damage, 1890; Kurt von Schuschnigg became Chancellor of Austria, 1934; the first Penguin books were published, 1935; the world's first port radar station opened at Liverpool, 1948; Harold Adrian Russell ('Kim') Philby, British journalist and spy, was granted asylum in the Soviet Union, 1963; England won the football World Cup, beating West Germany 4-2 at Wembley, 1966; Greece and Turkey signed an interim peace agreement over Cyprus, 1974.

Today is the Feast Day of Saints Abdon and Sennen, St Julitta of Caesarea, St Peter Chrysologus and St Tatwin, archbishop of Canterbury.