Anniversaries

Births: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, painter, 1573; Pierre de Maupertius, astronomer and mathematician, 1698; William Julius Mickle, poet, 1735; Richard Bright, physician and discoverer of "Bright's disease", 1789; Prosper Merimee, playwright and novelist, 1803; Alexandre Cabanel, painter, 1823; Georges Clemenceau, statesman, 1841; Edward Herbert Thompson, explorer and archaeologist, 1856.

Deaths: St Wenceslaus, Prince of Bohemia, martyred 929; Andrea del Sarto, painter, 1530; Thomas Gambier Parry, painter, and inventor of the "spirit fresco" process, 1888; Herman Melville, novelist, 1891; Louis Pasteur, chemist, 1895; Emile-Edouard Charles-Antoine Zola, novelist, 1902; Gregg Toland, film cameraman, 1948; Edwin Powell Hubble, astronomer, 1953; Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst, artist and feminist, 1960; Arthur "Harpo" Marx, comedian, 1964; Andre Breton, poet and pioneer of Surrealism, 1966; Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egyptian statesman, 1970; Wystan Hugh Auden, poet, 1973; Pope John Paul I (Albino Luciani), reigned only 33 days, 1978; Sir Robert Helpmann, dancer and actor, 1986.

On this day: the Persians were defeated by the Greeks at the Battle of Marathon, 490 BC; during the Hundred Years' War, Calais surrendered to the English, 1347; Judge Jeffreys was appointed Lord Chancellor of England, 1685; "God Save the King", the national anthem, was sung for the first time, at the Drury Lane Theatre, London, 1745; Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was admitted to the register as the first qualified woman physician and surgeon in Britain, 1865; Marks and Spencer's first shop opened in Manchester, 1894; the Radio Times was first published, 1923; two US Army aircraft completed the first round the world flight, ending at Seattle, 1924.

Today is the Feast Day of St Annemund or Chamond, St Eustochium of Bethlehem, St Exuperius or Soupire of Toulouse, St Faustus of Riez, St Ferreolus of Vienne, St Lioba and St Wenceslaus of Bohemia.