Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Marcus Tullius Cicero, orator and statesman, 106 BC; Pietro Antonio Metastasio, poet, 1698; Jean-Baptiste Madou, painter and lithographer, 1796; Douglas William Jerrold, playwright and humorist, 1803; Antoine- Thomson d'Abbadie, explorer, 1810; Robert Whitehead, inventor of the naval torpedo, 1823; Sir James Jebusa Shannon, painter, 1862; Henry Handel Richardson (Ethel Florence Richardson), novelist, 1870; Clement Richard Attlee, first Earl Attlee, statesman, 1883; Herbert Stanley Morrison, Baron Morrison of Lambeth, statesman, 1888; John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, writer, 1892; Ray Milland (Reginald Truscott-Jones), actor, 1907. Deaths: Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, diplomat and patron of the arts, 1497; Jeremiah Horrocks, astronomer, 1641; Luca Giordano, painter, 1705; Josiah Wedgwood, potter, 1795; Bartholomew Elliott George Warburton (Eliot Warburton), novelist, 1852; Rachel (Elisa Felix), actress, 1858; Pierre-Athanase Larousse, editor and encyclopaedist, 1875; Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, educationist and pioneer of kindergartens, 1894; William Joyce ("Lord Haw-Haw"), traitor, executed 1946; Conrad Nicholson Hilton, hotel magnate, 1979. On this day: Martin Luther was excommunicated, 1521; George Washington defeated the British army at the Battle of Princeton, 1777; work on the Brooklyn-New York bridge began, 1870; Marshal Francisco Serrano became dictator of Spain, 1874; the Siege of Sidney Street took place, when anarchists led by "Peter the Painter" were besieged by the police in the East End of London, 1911; the price of bread in London was raised to 9d (nine old pence) for a 4lb loaf, 1916; Howard Carter discovered the sarcophagus in the tomb of Tutankhamun, 1924; Sir Edmund Hillary reached the South Pole, 1958; Alaska became the 49th of the United States, 1959. Today is the Feast Day of St Antherus, pope, St Bertilia of Mareuil, St Genevieve or Genovefa and St Peter Balsam.