Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Robert Erskine Childers, author and Irish nationalist, 1870; Louis, first Earl Mountbatten of Burma, last Viceroy of India, 1900; George Orwell (Eric Blair), author and essayist, 1903. Deaths: Ernest Theodor Amadeus Hoffman, writer, composer and caricaturist, 1822; George Armstrong Custer, cavalry officer, killed in battle 1876; Johnny Mercer, composer, lyricist and singer, 1976. On this day: the heirs of Louis the Pious fought the indecisive Battle of Fontenoy, 841; Lucien Smith took out the first patent for barbed wire, 1867; the Strand Magazine published the first "Sherlock Holmes" story by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1891; Erskine Childers became president of the Irish Republic, 1973. Today is the Feast Day of St Adalbert of Egmond, St Eurosia, St Febronia, St Gallicanus, St Gohard, St Maximus of Turin, St Moloc or Luan, St Prosper of Aquitaine, St Prosper of Reggio, St Thea and St William of Vercelli or Monte Vergine.