Anniversaries

Births: Pope Leo X, 1475; Paul-Joseph Barthez, physician, 1734; Carl Friedrich Zelter, conductor and composer, 1758; Sir David Brewster, physicist, and inventor of the kaleidoscope, 1781; Louis-Hector Berlioz, composer, 1803; Louis-Charles- Alfred de Musset, playwright and poet, 1810; Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov, Russian Marxist revolutionary, 1856; Fiorello Henry La Guardia, mayor of New York City, 1882; Victor McLaglen, actor, 1883.

Deaths: Llewelyn ab Gruffydd, last native Prince of Wales, killed in battle 1282; Bernardino Pinturicchio (Betto di Biago), painter, 1513; Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Conde, 1686, soldier, 1686; Sir Roger l'Estrange, journalist and translator of Aesop's Fables, 1704; Charles XII, King of Sweden, killed 1718; Edmund Curll, bookseller and pamphleteer, 1747; Colley Cibber, playwright and actor, 1757; Jean-Francois-Casimir Delavigne, playwright and poet, 1843; Richard Doyle, artist, 1883; John Loughborough Pearson, architect, 1897; Matthias Hohner, musical instrument maker, 1902; Menelek II, Emperor of Abyssinia (Ethiopia), 1913; Emilie Albertina Olive Schreiner, novelist, 1920; John William Mackail, scholar, 1945; Egbert Roscoe (Ed) Murrow, journalist and broadcaster, 1965.

On this day: James II fled from England, 1688; Ferdinand VII became king of Spain after the abdication of his father, Charles VI, 1814; Indiana became the 19th of the United States, 1816; the first motor show opened in Paris, 1894; the Boers under Piet Cronje repulsed the British, led by Lord Methuen at the Battle of Magersfontein, Orange Free State, 1899; public buildings were burnt in Dublin, the damage being estimated a pounds 3m, 1920; the Statute of Westminster came into effect, 1931; King George VI acceded to the throne, 1936; the Fascist Grand Council in Rome decided to withdraw Italy from membership of the League of Nations, 1937; the US declared war on Germany and Italy, 1941; the new Waterloo Bridge was opened, 1945; the UN refused to admit Spain to the organisation, and recommended that member-countries should break diplomatic relations with that country, 1946; the prototype of Concorde airliner was shown for the first time at Toulouse, 1968.

Today is the Feast Day of St Barsabas, St Damasus I, Pope, St Daniel the Stylite and Saints Fuscianus, Victoricus and Gentianus.