Gazette: Anniversaries

Births: Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle, soldier, writer and musician, composer of the Marseillaise, 1760; John Wilkes Booth, actor and assassin of Abraham Lincoln 1838; Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton, millionaire grocer and sportsman, 1850; Fred Astaire (Frederick Austerlitz), dancer and actor, 1899; David Oliver Selznick, film producer, 1902; Monica Enid Dickens (Mrs Roy Olin Stratton), novelist, 1915.

Deaths: Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus the Thracian, Roman emperor, murdered 238; Katsushuka Hokusai, artist, 1849; Sir Henry Morton Stanley, journalist and explorer, 1904; John Cameron Andrieu Bingham Morton ("Beachcomber"), humorous writer, 1979.

On this day: Jamaica was captured by the English, 1655; Warren Hastings was impeached in Parliament by Edmund Burke, 1787; the Peace of Frankfurt- am-Main was concluded between Germany and France, 1871; Imperial Institute, London, was opened, 1893; Germany invaded the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium, starting the Battle of Flanders, 1940; Winston Churchill began his office as Prime Minister, 1940; the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV), later called the Home Guard, was formed, 1940; the House of Commons was destroyed during the heaviest air raid on London, 1941; Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy, flew to Scotland and made a parachute landing near Glasgow, 1941.

Today is the Feast Day of St Alphius, St Antoninus of Florence, St Calepodius, St Cataldus or Cathal, St Conleth or Conlaed, St Epimarchus, St Gordian, St John of Avila and St Solange.