Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: William Martin Conway, first Baron Conway, art critic and mountaineer, 1856; James Louis Garvin, newspaper editor, 1868; Bobby Moore, footballer, 1941.

Deaths: Niccolo Amati, violin-maker, 1684; William Kent, landscape gardener and architect, 1748; William Strang, artist, 1921; Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin, bass singer, 1938; Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd US president, 1945; Sir Archibald Hector McIndoe, plastic surgeon, 1960; Antoine Pevsner, sculptor and painter, 1962; Josephine Baker, singer, 1975; Joe Louis (Joseph Louis Barrow), heavyweight boxer, 1981; Alan Stewart Paton, politician and writer, 1988.

On this day: the armies of the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople (Istanbul), 1204; the Union Jack (Union Flag) was first adopted in England, 1606; the Tatler was first published, 1709; Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the Austrians and Sardinians at the Battle of Montenotte, 1796; the American Civil War began at the siege of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, 1861; the first successful East to West transatlantic flights by Captain Hermann Kohl, Baron von Huenefeld and Commandant Fitzmaurice began, 1928; the first manned space flight was made by the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, 1961; the Columbia Space Shuttle went into space, completing its mission two days later, 1981.

Today is the Feast Day of St Alferius, St Julius I, pope, St Sabas the Goth and Others and St Zeno of Verona.