Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Giambattista Vico, philosopher and jurist, 1668; Josephine de Beauharnais (Marie-Josephe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie), wife of Napoleon, 1763; Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb, playwright novelist and actor, 1876; William Ewart Berry, first Viscount Camrose, newspaper proprietor, 1879; Anna Akhmatova (Anna Andreyevna Gorenko), poet, 1889; Edward, Duke of Windsor, 1894; Dr Alfred Charles Kinsey, sex researcher and writer, 1894; Winifred Holtby, novelist, 1898. Deaths: Vespasian (Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus), Roman emperor, 79; Pedro de Mendoza, soldier and explorer, at sea, 1537; Sir James Hall, geologist and chemist, 1832; Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope, traveller and eccentric, 1839; Horatio MacCulloch, landscape painter, 1867; Sir Joseph Prestwich, geologist, 1896; Cecil James Sharp, founder of the English Folk Society, 1924; Kay Kyser (James Kern Kyser), bandleader and quizmaster, 1985. On this day: all provincial printing offices were closed by order of the Star Chamber, 1585; a treaty of peace and friendship with the American Indians was signed by the Quaker settler William Penn, 1683; the first evening newspaper, Dawks's News-Letter, (appearing three times a