Anniversaries

Births: Henry Francis Lyte, hymn-writer, 1793; Nicolas-Leonard Sadi Carnot, physicist, 1796; Brigham Young, Mormon leader, 1801; Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, composer, 1803; Otto I, King of Greece, 1815; William Stillman, painter and journalist, 1828; John Edward Masefield, poet and novelist, 1878; John Drinkwater, author and playwright, 1882; Charles Kay Ogden, linguist and originator of Basic English, 1889; Molly Picon, actress and comedienne, 1899; (Beatrice) Joan Caulfield, actress, 1922; Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Mortenson), actress, 1926.

Deaths: Marcus Didius Salvius Julianus, Roman emperor, murdered 193; Cornelius Huysmans, painter, 1727; James Gillray, caricaturist, 1815; Sir David Wilkie, painter, at sea off Gibraltar 1841; Charles Lever, novelist, 1872; Louis Napoleon, Prince Imperial of France, killed in Zulu War, 1879; Camilo Castelo Branco, novelist, committed suicide 1890; Lizzie Andrew Borden, alleged axe murderess, 1927; Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, novelist, 1941; Ion Antonescu, dictator, executed for war crimes 1946; Helen Adams Keller, blind, deaf and mute scholar, 1968; Richard Greene, actor, 1985.

On this day: the Act of Settlement, regulating succession to the throne, was passed, 1701; Kentucky became the 15th of the United States, 1792; Tennessee became the 16th of the United States, 1796; the US frigate Chesapeake was captured by HMS Shannon, 1813; Sir James Clark Ross located the magnetic North Pole, 1831; Mehemet Ali became Viceroy of Egypt, 1841; the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain was founded, 1841; during the American Civil War, the Union forces overcame the Confederates at the Battle of Fair Oaks, 1862; lunch was served on the first Pullman train on a British railway which ran from St Pancras to Bedford, 1874; the first London performance of the operetta Gipsy Love was staged, 1912; Bombardier Billy Wells was knocked out by Georges Carpentier in the heavyweight boxing championship of Europe, 1913; the first Zeppelin air-raid took place over Britain, 1915; the submarine HMS Thetis sank in Liverpool Bay with the loss of 99 lives, 1939; British forces completed their evacuation of Crete, 1941; a combined television and radio licence was introduced in Britain, 1946; the first Premium Bonds were drawn, 1957; General Charles de Gaulle became prime minister of France, 1958; the Iraq Petroleum Company was nationalised by the Iraqi state, 1972; Andreas Baader, a leader of the West German terrorist Baader-Meinhoff gang, was captured in Frankfurt, 1973; the monarchy was abolished in Greece, and George Papadopoulos became the first president of the republic, 1973.

Today is the Feast Day of St Candida or Wite, St Caprasius of Lerins, St Inigo or Eneco, St Justin, St Pamphilus of Caesarea, St Proculus the Bishop, St Proculus the Soldier, St Simeon of Syracuse, St Theobald of Alba and St Wistan.