Anniversaries

Births: Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury, statesman, 1563; John Edward Masefield, poet and novelist, 1878; John Drinkwater, author and playwright, 1882; Charles Kay Ogden, linguist and originator of Basic English, 1889; Molly Picon, actress and comedienne, 1899; Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Mortenson), actress, 1926.

Deaths: James Gillray, caricaturist, 1815; Sir David Wilkie, painter, at sea off Gibraltar 1841; Louis Napoleon, Prince Imperial of France, killed in the Zulu War 1879; Camilo Castelo Branco, novelist, committed suicide 1890; Lizzie Andrew Borden, alleged axe murderess, 1927; Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, novelist, 1941; John Dewey, educationist and philosopher, 1952; Helen Adams Keller, blind, deaf and mute scholar, 1968; Richard Greene, actor, 1985.

On this day: the Act of Settlement, regulating succession to the throne, was passed, 1701; Sir James Clark Ross located the magnetic North Pole, 1831; the Battle of Jutland ended, 1916; 99 people died when the submarine HMS Thetis sank in Liverpool Bay, 1939; General Charles de Gaulle became Prime Minister of France, 1958; Andreas Baader, a leader of the West German terrorist Baader-Meinhoff gang, was captured in Frankfurt, 1973.

Today is the Feast Day of St Candida or Wite, St Caprasius of Lerins, St Inigo or Eneco, St Justin, St Pamphilus of Caesarea, St Proculus the Bishop, St Proculus the Soldier, St Simeon of Syracuse, St Theobald of Alba and St Wistan.