Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Sir Henry Percy (Harry Hotspur), soldier and politician, 1364; Honore de Balzac (Balssa), novelist, 1799; Margery Allingham, detective story writer, 1904; James Maitland Stewart, actor, 1908; Moshe Dayan, Israeli military commander, 1915. Deaths: Christopher Columbus, explorer and navigator, 1506; John Clare, farmer and poet, 1864; Sir Max (Henry Maximilian) Beerbohm, caricaturist and writer, 1956; Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth, sculptor, 1975. On this day: Vasco da Gama, Portuguese navigator, arrived at Calicut, India, 1498; the foundation stone of the Royal Albert Hall was laid, 1867; Amelia Earhart was the first woman to make a solo crossing of the Atlantic, 1932; the first US hydrogen bomb was dropped over Bikini atoll, 1956. Today is the Feast Day of St Austregisilus or Outrill, St Basilla or Basilissa, St Baudelius, St Bernardino of Siena, St Ethelbert and Saints Thalelaeus, Asterius, Alexander and Others.