Anniversaries

Births: Margaret, Queen of Scotland, 1489; John Harvard, founder of the University, baptised, 1607; John Ray, zoologist, 1627; Christian Johann Doppler, physicist, 1803; Louisa May Alcott, author, 1832; Tz'u Hsi, dowager empress of China, 1834; Eugene Le Roy, novelist, 1836; Sir William Blake Richmond, painter, 1842; Gertrude Jekyll, landscape architect, 1843; Sir John Ambrose Fleming, electrical engineer, 1849; Clive Staples Lewis, scholar and writer, 1898; Carlo Levi, novelist, painter and journalist, 1902.

Deaths: Pope Clement IV, 1268; Philip IV, King of France, 1314; Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, lover of Isabella, Edward II's queen, executed 1330; Giovanni Bellini (Giambellini), painter, 1516; Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal and Lord Chancellor, 1530; Hans Holbein the Younger, painter, 1543; Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, 1780; Giambattista Bodoni, type designer and printer, 1813; Sir Francis Cowley Burnand, humorist and editor of Punch, 1836; Giulia Grisi, operatic singer, 1869; Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini, composer, 1924; Rosa Lewis (Ovenden), cook and hotelier, 1952; Erich Wolfgang Korngold, composer, 1957; Norman Alfred William Lindsay, artist and novelist, 1969; Graham Hill, racing driver, killed in an air crash, 1975; Natalie Wood (Natasha Gurdin), actress, 1981; Ralph Rex Bellamy, actor, 1991.

On this day: the first Japanese Diet opened, 1890; Von Hindenburg became the German commander-in-chief on the Western Front, 1916; Nicholas, King of Montenegro was deposed and the kingdom united with Serbia under King Peter, 1918; Admiral Richard Byrd made the first flight over the South Pole, 1929; Yugoslavia was proclaimed a Federal People's Republic, 1945; the United Nations proposed a plan for the partition of Palestine, 1947; Parliament passed a Bill making the IRA an illegal organisation, 1974.

Today is the Feast Day of St Brendan of Birr, St Radbod, St Saturninus or Sernin of Toulouse and St Saturninus, martyr.