Anniversaries

TODAY: Births: Winthrop Mackworth Praed, poet and politician, 1802; Sir Richard Wallace, founder of the Wallace Collection, 1818; George Bernard Shaw, playwright, 1856; Carl Gustav Jung, psychologist, 1875; Andre Eugene Maurice Charlot, theatrical manager and actor, 1882; Andre Maurois (Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog), author, 1885; Georg Grosz, artist, 1893; Aldous Leonard Huxley, novelist, 1894; Robert Ranke Graves, poet, 1895; Paul William Gallico, writer, 1897; Salvador Allende Gossens, statesman, 1908. Deaths: John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, poet, 1680; George Borrow, writer, 1881; Sir James Augustus Henry Murray, lexicographer, 1915. On this day: Lionel Rothschild (elected 1847) was the first Jewish MP to take his seat in Parliament, 1858; the Royal Assent was given to the Bill disestablishing the Irish Church, 1869; the London Evening News newspaper was first published, 1881; Wagner's opera Parsifal was first performed, Bayreuth 1882; the (Federal) Bureau of Investigation was inaugurated, 1908; the Labour Party came to power after the General Election, 1945; the Suez Canal was nationalised by Egypt, 1956; Prince Charles was created Prince of Wales, 1958; over 1,100 people died in earthquakes at Skopje, Yugoslavia, 1963. Today is the Feast Day of St Anne, St Bartholomea Capitanio, St Joachim and St Simeon the Armenian.

TOMORROW: Births: Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hardwicke), builder of country mansions, 1518; Thomas Campbell, poet, 1777; Alexandre Dumas fils, playwright, 1824; Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge, Orientalist, 1857; Joseph Hilaire Pierre Belloc, poet and author, 1870; Anton Dolin (Patrick Healey-Kay), dancer and choreographer, 1904. Deaths: St Joseph of Arimathea, 82; John Graham of Claverhouse, first Viscount Dundee, soldier, killed 1689; Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov, poet and novelist, 1841; John Dalton, physicist and chemist, 1844; Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, Egyptologist, 1942; Gertrude Stein, novelist and poet, 1946; Edward Godfrey Richard Aldington, novelist and biographer, 1962; Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, dictator, 1970; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, 1980; James Mason, actor, 1984; Sir Osbert Lancaster, artist and writer, 1986. On this day: Austria once more became independent, 1955; the St James's Theatre, London, closed, 1957; a Judiciary Committee in the US voted to impeach President Nixon, 1974. Tomorrow is the Feast Day of St Aurelia, Natalia and their Companions, St Pantaleon, The Martyrs of Salsette, The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and St Theobald of Marly.