Anniversaries

Births: Robert de Sorbon, founder of the Paris college of the Sorbonne, 1201; Jean Baptiste Regnault, painter, 1754; Charles X, King of France, 1757; Giuseppi Bonomi ('The Younger'), sculptor and draughtsman, 1796; Charles-Camille Saint-Saens, composer, 1835; Emil Hermann Fischer, organic chemist, 1852; Reynaldo Hahn, composer, 1875; Max Theodor Felix von Laue, phyicist, 1879; Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, Russian leader, 1888; Aimee Semple McPherson, evangelist, 1890; Alastair Sim, actor, 1900; Jacques Tati (Tatischeff), actor and film director, 1908; John Lennon, composer and singer, 1940.

Deaths: Robert Grosseteste, theologian, 1253; Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, mistress of Charles II, 1709; Sir Richard Blackmore, physician, poet and writer, 1729; Karl Friedrich Schinkel, architect and painter, 1841; Joseph Farwell Glidden, inventor of barbed wire, 1906; Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, medical missionary, 1940; Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli), 1958; Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, South American Marxist revolutionary, captured and shot, 1967; Andre Maurois (Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog), writer, 1967.

On this day: Louis XII, King of France, married Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, 1514; Yale College received its charter, 1701; the first Luddite riots began in Manchester against the introduction of machinery for spinning cotton, 1779; the first petrol-driven motor bus began operating in London, 1899; the reconstructed Kingsway Theatre opened, London 1907; the Labour government fell, 1924; a Croatian terrorist assassinated King Alexander of Yugoslavia and Louis Barthou, the French foreign minister, Marseilles 1934; the first London production of the musical show Porgy and Bess was presented, 1952; Uganda became independent, 1962; the breathalyser test came into force in Britain, 1967.

Today is the Feast Day of Saints Andronicus and Athanasia, St Demetrius of Alexandria, St Denis or Dionysius of Paris, St Dionysius the Areopagite, Saints Eleutherius and Rusticus, St Ghislain or Gislenus, St Louis Bertran, St John Leonardi, St Publia and St Savin.

Synagogue services

Details of synagogue services to be held tomorrow may be obtained by telephoning the following. Sabbath begins in London at 6.06pm.

United Synagogues: 071-387 4300. Federation of Synagogues: 071-247 4471. Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues: 071-580 1663. Reform Synagogues of Great Britain: 081-349 4731. Spanish and Portuguese Jews Congregation: 071- 289 2573. New London Synagogue (Masorti): 071-328 1026.