Anniversaries

Births: Benvenuto Cellini, sculptor and goldsmith, 1500; Pietro da Cortona, painter and architect, 1596; Sir Matthew Hale, Chief Justice and law reformer, 1609; Antonio Canova, sculptor, 1757; Spencer Perceval, prime minister, 1762; Joseph von Blumenthal, violinist and composer, 1782; Lydia Huntley Sigourney, poet, 1791; Madame Albani (Marie Louise Cecile Emma Lajeunesse), soprano, 1852; Stephen Townley Crane, author, 1871; Hermann Broch, novelist, 1886; Laurence Stephen Lowry, painter, 1887; Edmund Charles Blunden, scholar and poet, 1896; John Michael Terence Wellesley Denison, actor, 1915.

Deaths: Giulio Romano (Giulio Pippi), painter, 1546; Salomon van Ruysdael, painter, buried 1670; John Radcliffe, physician and founder of the Radcliffe Library, Oxford, 1714; Alexander Cruden, compiler of the Bible Concordance, 1770; John Lindley, botanist and writer, 1865; Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen, historian and archaeologist, 1903; Alfred Jarry, poet, novelist and playwright, 1907; Ezra Loomis Pound, poet, 1972; King Wallis Vidor, film director, 1982; Phil Silvers, comedian and actor, 1985.

On this day: the Bank of Scotland was founded, 1695; 60,000 people died when Lisbon was destroyed by an earthquake, 1755; San Francisco bay was discovered by Gaspar de Portola, 1769; Lloyd's Register of Ships was first published, 1764; the Congress of Vienna opened, 1814; the first W.H. Smith bookstall opened at Euston Station, 1848; the first issue of Woman's Weekly was published, 1911; licences for radio sets were started in Britain, 1922; Kemal Pasha declared a republic in Turkey, 1922; the British Television service was inaugurated, 1936; US troops landed in the Solomon Islands, 1943; Puerto Rican nationalists attempted to assassinate President Truman, 1950; the first London production of the musical South Pacific was staged, 1951; the first Premium Bonds went on sale, 1956; the first section of the M1 was opened, 1959; more than 10,000 people died and five million were rendered homeless after a tidal wave struck Orissa, India, 1972; East Germany opened its border with Czechoslovakia, allowing all who wished to pass through, 1989.

Today is the Feast Day of All Saints, St Austremonius or Stremoine, St Benignus of Dijon, St Cadfan, Saints Caesarius and Julian, St Marcellus of Paris, St Mary, martyr, St Mathurin or Maturinus and St Vigor.