Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Pierre Bonnard, painter, 1867; (Henri-Alban) Alain-Fournier, writer, 1886; Louis Aragon, poet and novelist, 1897; Thomas Clayton Wolfe, novelist, 1900; Sir Michael Murray Hordern, actor, 1911. Deaths: St Francis of Assisi, 1226; William Morris, writer, artist and printer, 1896; Carl Nielsen, composer, 1931; Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, composer, 1953; Sir Henry Malcolm Watts Sargent, conductor, 1967; Woody (Woodrow Wilson) Guthrie, singer and composer, 1967; Jean Anouilh, playwright, 1987. On this day: Gilbert and Sullivan's Yeomen of the Guard was first performed, 1888; Queen Victoria and her children were filmed while at Balmoral, 1896; the international distress signal SOS was adopted, 1906; the official name of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was changed to Yugoslavia, 1929; Italian troops invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia), 1935; the first British atomic device was exploded in the Monte Bello islands, in the Pacific, 1952; East and West Germany were reunited as the Federal Republic of Germany, 1990. Today is the Feast Day of St Attilanus, St Froilan, St Gerard of Brogne, St Ewald the Dark, St Ewald the Fair, St Hesychius and St Thomas Cantelupe of Hereford.