Anniversaries

Births: Teofilo Folengo (Girolamo Folengo), poet and monk, 1491; Edmond Halley, astronomer and mathematician, 1656; Edward Robert, first Earl of Lytton ('Owen Meredith'), diplomat and poet, 1831; Johann Karl Friedrich Zollner, scientist, 1834; Eugen Gura, baritone, 1842; (Abraham) Bram Stoker, author of Dracula 1847; Wenzel Josef Krug, musical theorist and composer, 1858; Herbert, first Baron Austin, motor car manufacturer, 1866; Ilmari Krohn, musician and composer, 1867; Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, Master of the King's Musick, 1883; Neil Miller Gunn, novelist, 1891; Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind, 1900; Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, statesman, 1901.

Deaths: Louis VIII, King of France, 1226; John Duns Scotus, philosopher, 1308; Melozzo da Forli, painter, 1494; John Milton, poet, 1674; Andrea Appiani, fresco painter, 1817; Thomas Bewick, wood engraver, 1828; Tom Sayers, pugilist, 1865; Charles Francis Hall, Arctic explorer, 1871; Fred Archer, jockey, committed suicide 1886; Cesar-Auguste Franck, composer, 1890; Mohammed Nadir Shah, King of Afghanistan, assassinated 1933; Ivan Alexeyevich Bunin, poet, 1953; Edgard Varese (Edgar Victor Achille Charles Varese), composer, 1965; Wendell Corey, actor, 1968; Gottfried von Cramm, tennis player, 1976; Norman Rockwell, artist and illustrator, 1978; Edward Jeffrey Irving Ardizzone, artist, 1979; Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (Skriabin), statesman and diplomat, 1986.

On this day: Cicero revealed Catiline's conspiracy in the Senate, 68 BC; the Louvre, Paris, was opened to the public for the first time, 1793; Abraham Lincoln was re-elected as President of the US, 1864; Wilhelm Rontgen discovered X-rays, 1895; Theodore Roosevelt was re-elected as US President, 1904; Adolf Hitler made his attempted putsch in Munich, 1923; Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected as 32nd US President, 1932; the Allies landed in North Africa, 1942; John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected as 37th US President, 1960; the first local radio station in Britain, Radio Leicester, opened, 1967; Covent Garden market in London closed, 1974.

Today is the Feast Day of St Cuby or Cybi, St Deusdedit, The Four Crowned Martyrs, St Godfrey of Amiens, St Tysilio or Suliau and St Willehad.