Anniversaries

Births: James Gibbs, architect, 1682; Sir Richard Arkwright, inventor of the spinning frame, 1732; Jean-Francois Champollion, Egyptologist and decipherer of the Rosetta Stone, 1790; Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), 1805; 'Lord' George Sanger, circus proprietor, 1827; Joseph Arthur, First Baron Rank, miller and film magnate, 1888.

Deaths: Michael Drayton, poet, 1631; John Cotton, Puritan leader in America, 1652; Thomas Robert Malthus, economist, 1834; Dr James Cowles Prichard, ethnologist, 1848; Hugh Miller, geologist, 1856; Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, painter, 1865; Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, journalist, 1924; Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, first Earl of Halifax, Viceroy of India, 1959; Andrei Nikolayevich Tupolev, aircraft designer, 1972.

On this day: HMS Bounty, commanded by William Bligh, sailed for the South Seas, 1787; Joseph Hansom patented a type of cab, 1834; the Federal Reserve Bank was founded in the US, 1913; British forces took Benghazi, 1941; Rene-Jules-Gustave Coty was elected president of France, 1953; 117 people died when the cruise liner Lakonia burned in the Atlantic (919 people were saved), 1963; Managua, capital of Nicaragua, was destroyed by an earthquake, with the loss of 12,000 lives, 1972.

Today is the Feast Day of St Dagobert II of Austrasia, St Frithebert, St John of Kanti, St Servulus, The Ten Martyrs of Crete, St Thorlac and Saints Victoria and Anatolia.