Anniversaries

TODAY: Births: Frederic-Francois Chopin, composer, 1810; Lytton Giles Strachey, author and biographer, 1880; Alton Glenn Miller, bandleader, 1904. Deaths: Thomas Campion, poet and composer, 1620; Mack Gordon (Morris Gittler), lyricist, 1959; Jackie Coogan, actor, 1984. On this day: 1,200 French Huguenots were massacred at Vassy, 1562; the Spectator was first published, 1711; slavery was abolished by Pennsylvania, the first US state to do so, 1780. Today is the Feast Day of St Aubin or Albinus of Angers, St David or Dewi, St Felix III, Pope, St Rudesind or Rosendo and St Swithbert.

TOMORROW: Births: Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of the Bodleian Library, 1545; Bedrich Smetana, composer, 1824; Kurt Julian Weill, composer, 1900. Deaths: John Wesley, founder of Methodism, 1791; David Herbert Lawrence, novelist, 1930; Howard Carter, painter and Egyptologist, 1939. On this day: an attempt was made by Robert Maclean to assassinate Queen Victoria, 1882; the French prototype Concorde made its first test flight, 1969. Tomorrow is the Feast Day of St Chad or Caedda, St Joavan of Brittany and The Martyrs under the Lombards.