Anniversaries

Births: Domenichino, or Domenico Zampieri, painter, 1581; Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet and author, 1772; Alphonse-Marie-Louis de Prat de Lamartine, poet and statesman, 1790; Alfred Bernhard Nobel, industrialist and founder of the Prizes, 1833; Franklin Thomas Grant Richards, publisher and author, 1872.

Deaths: Pietro Aretino, satirist, 1556; Julius Caesar Scaliger (Bordon), philosopher and scientist, 1558; Edmund Waller, poet, 1687; Samuel Foote, actor and playwright, 1777; Horatio, first Viscount Nelson, killed at Trafalgar 1805; Jack (Jean- Louis Lebris de) Kerouac, poet and novelist, 1969.

On this day: Joseph Aspdin patented Portland cement, 1824; Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld was first produced, Paris 1858; a severe earthquake was experienced in San Francisco, 1868; the present building of the Savoy Theatre was opened, London 1929; Purchase Tax was introduced in Britain, 1940; Chinese forces occupied Tibet, 1950; the first British nuclear submarine, HMS Dreadnought, was launched, 1960; a slag heap collapsed on the village of Aberfan, South Wales, killing 140 people, 1966; Willy Brandt was elected as Chancellor of West Germany, 1969.

Today St Condedus, St Fintan or Munnu of Taghmon, St Hilarion, St John of Bridlington, St Malchus and St Tuda.