Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Philip II (Philip-Augustus), King of France, 1165; St Francis de Sales, French bishop, 1567; Jean-Baptiste Greuze, painter, 1725; Asher Brown Durand, painter and engraver, 1796; Jules Michelet, historian, 1798; Auguste Bournonville, dancer and choreographer, 1805; Sir Francis Hastings Doyle Bt, poet, 1810; Gustave-Adolphe Hirn, physicist and meteorologist, 1815; Roark Whitney Wickliffe Bradford, novelist, 1896; William "Count" Basie, jazz pianist and bandleader, 1904.

Deaths: Richard Crashaw, poet, 1649; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, writer, 1762; Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count von Rumford, physicist, 1814; William Maginn, poet and journalist, 1842; Conrad Martens, painter, 1878; Charles Joseph Kickham, novelist and poet, 1882; Sir Aston Webb, architect, 1930; Leonard Constant Lambert, composer, 1951; Sir Jacob Epstein, sculptor, 1959; Norman Shelley, actor, 1980; Benigno Aquino, Philippine politician, assassinated 1983.

On this day: Wellington defeated the French forces under General Junot at the Battle of Vimiero, 1808; Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte was selected as Crown Prince of Sweden, 1810; the Mona Lisa painting was stolen from the Louvre, 1911; the Battle of Bapaume-Peronne started, 1918; the London dock strike ended, 1923; Civil Defence was started in Britain, 1939; the Dumbarton Oaks conference started, 1944; Hawaii became the 50th of the United States, 1959; it was announced in the Soviet Union that the coup had failed and that President Mikhail Gorbachev had been reinstated, 1991.

Today is the Feast Day of St Abraham of Smolensk, Saints Bonosus and Maximian, Saints Luxorius, Cisellus and Camerinus, St Pius X, pope and St Sidonius Apollinaris.