Anniversaries

Births: Charles Edward Stephens, pianist and composer, 1821; Numa-Denis Fustel de Coulanges, historian, 1830; Stephane Mallarme, poet, 1842; Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov, composer, 1844; Rudolf Diesel, engineer and inventor, 1858; Arthur Neville Chamberlain, statesman, 1869; Wilfred Owen, poet, 1893; Betty Compson (Eleanor Luicime Compson), actress, 1897; Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria, chief of the Russian secret police, 1899; Friederich Robert Donat, actor, 1905.

Deaths: St Edward the Martyr, King of the English, murdered 978; Ivan IV (the Terrible), Tsar of Russia, 1584; Sir Robert Walpole, first Earl of Orford, statesman, 1745; Sir Henry Simpson Lunn, travel-agency founder, 1939; William Churchill De Mille, film and theatrical producer, 1955; Louis Bromfield, novelist, 1956; Farouk I, ex-king of Egypt, 1965; Lauritz Melchior, tenor, 1973; Umberto II, ex-king of Italy, 1983.

On this day: six farm labourers in Tolpuddle, Dorset, were sentenced to be transported for forming a trade union, 1834; the American Express Company was organised at Buffalo, New York, 1850; the rising of the Communards began in Paris, 1871; Prince Bismarck resigned as Chancellor of Germany, 1890; the first 'walk in space' from the Soviet spaceship Voskhod 2 was made by Alexei Leonov, 1965; 700,000 barrels of oil were spilled into the sea when the Torrey Canyon oil tanker grounded off the Cornish coast, 1967.

Today is the Feast Day of St Alexander of Jerusalem, St Anselm of Lucca, St Cyril of Jerusalem, St Edward the Martyr, St Frigidian or Frediano and St Salvator of Horta.