Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Bernhard Nieuwentijt, mathematician, 1654; Sir Charles James Napier, military commander, 1782; Camillo Benso, Conte di Cavour, statesman, 1810; Jay Cooke, banker, 1821; Charles Samuel Keene, artist and illustrator, 1823; Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov, composer, 1865; Hugo Eckener, aeronautical engineer, 1868; Laurence Robert Binyon, poet and playwright, 1869; Herbert Clark Hoover, 31st US president, 1874.

Deaths: John de Witt and Cornelius de Witt, statesmen, assassinated 1672; Allan Ramsay, portrait painter, 1784; Johann Michael Haydn, composer, 1806; Charles Wentworth Dilke, antiquarian, critic and journalist, 1864; Charles Eline Francatelli, chef de cuisine, 1876; Edward William Lane, translator of the Thousand and One Nights, 1876; George Long, scholar and editor, 1879; Louis Vulliemin, historian, 1879; Otto Lilienthal, aviator, 1896; Oswald Veblen, mathematician, 1960.

On this day: the Scots defeated the English at the Battle of Otterburn, 1388; the Spanish and the English defeated the French at the Battle of St Quentin, 1557; the French took Arras, 1640; the Marine Aquarium was opened in Brighton, 1872; the first Promenade Concert was given by (later Sir) Henry Wood at the Queen's Hall, London, 1895; the Parliament Act was passed, reducing the power of the House of Lords, 1911; British Members of Parliament voted to receive salaries for the first time (pounds 400 p.a.), 1911.

Today is the Feast Day of St Laurence of Rome.