Anniversaries

Births: Reginald Pole, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1500; Ignazio Fiorillo, composer, 1715; the Chinese Siamese twins, Chang and Eng, 1811; Jean-Lon Germe, painter, 1824; Alfred Stevens, painter, 1828; Filippo Capocci, organist and composer, 1840; Ottmar Mergenthaler, inventor of the Linotype machine, 1854; Anatoly Konstantinovich Lyadov, composer, 1855; Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne, novelist, 1865; George Grossmith, the Younger, actor, 1874; Irving Berlin (Israel Isadore Baline), 1888; Paul Nash, painter, 1889; Dame Margaret Rutherford, actress, 1892; William Grant Still, composer, 1895; Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov, novelist, 1905.

Deaths: Sir Edward Dyer, poet, buried 1607; Matteo Ricci, Jesuit missionary in China, 1610; Otto von Guericke, physicist, 1686; Jules Hardouin-Mansart, architect, 1708; Catharine Cockburn, playwright and author, 1749; William Pitt, First Earl of Chatham, statesman, 1778; Spencer Perceval, prime minister, assassinated in the House of Commons by John Bellingham 1812; Jeanne-Franoise Julie-Adelade Bernard Recamier, society leader, 1849; Franois-Eugne Vidocq, adventurer and detective, 1857; Sir John Frederick Herschel, astronomer, 1871; Max Reger, composer, 1916; Big Jim Colosimo, Chicago racketeer, shot dead by Al Capone, 1920; Juan Gris, Cubist painter, 1927; Frederic William Goudy, typographer and printer, 1947; Barbara Hutton, heiress, 1979; Chester Gould, cartoonist, 1985; Harold Adrian Russell ''Kim'' Philby, spy for the Soviet Union, 1988.

On this day: Constantinople was dedicated as the new capital of the Roman Empire, 330; the French army was victorious against the Allies (Austria, England and Holland) at the Battle of Fontenoy, 1745; Peter Stuyvesant, explorer, arrived at New Amsterdam (New York), 1647; Minnesota became the 32nd of the United States, 1858; the City of Greater New York, consisting of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Richmond, was created, 1898; the first London performance of the operetta Princess Caprice was presented, 1912; the New York World's Fair reopened, 1940; the Kingsway Theatre, London, closed, 1941; Siam changed its name to Thailand, 1949; the liner France was launched at St Nazaire, 1960; the Daily Sketch appeared for the last time, 1971; in the River Plate estuary, 63 crew members and 10 passengers lost their lives when the refrigerator ship Royston Grange caught fire after a collision with a tanker, 1972; the musical Cats was first produced, London 1981.

Today is the Feast Day of St Ansfrid, St Asaph, St Comgall, St Francis di Girolamo, St Gengulf or Gengoul, St Ignatius of Laconi, St Mayeul or Majolus, St Mamertus, St Richard Reynolds, St Tudy or Tudec of Brittany and St Walter of L'Esterp.