Gazette: Anniversaries

Births: Sir Astley Paston Cooper, surgeon, 1768; William Dent Priestman, oil engine inventor, 1847; William Ernest Henley, poet and critic, 1849; Moritz Moszkowski, composer, 1854; Edgar Lee Masters, poet and novelist, 1869; Sir Henry Thomas Tizard, scientist, 1885; Ernst Krenek, composer, 1900; Leonard Constant Lambert, composer and critic, 1905; Arthur Adamov, playwright, 1908; Gene Kelly (Eugene Curran Kelly), dancer and singer, 1912.

Deaths: Flavius Stilicho, Roman general, beheaded 408; Sir William Wallace, Scottish patriot, executed 1305; Sir Thomas Littleton (Lyttelton), legal author and jurist, 1481; Guillaume Bude (Guglielmus Budaeus), classical scholar, 1540; Luis de Leon, scholar and poet, 1591; George Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham, court favourite, assassinated by John Felton 1628; Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, physicist, 1806; Alexander Wilson, ornithologist, 1813; Philip Henry Gosse, naturalist, 1888; Felicien Rops, painter and engraver, 1898; Rudolph Valentino (Rodolfo Alfonzo Raffaele Pierre Philibert Guglielmi), actor, 1926; Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, political radicals, executed for murder 1927; Adolph Loos, architect, 1933; Albert Roussel, composer, 1937; Sidney Coe Howard, playwright, in an accident 1939; Robin Hyde (Iris Guiver Wilkinson), novelist, 1939; Oscar Hammerstein II, lyricist, 1960; Irving Fine, composer, 1962; Francis Xavier Bushman, actor, 1966; Lancelot Thomas Hogben, scientific writer, 1975.

On this day: the French defeated the Flemings at the Battle of Cassel, 1328; Mexico was declared to be independent, 1821; Hong Kong was taken by the British, 1839; the Treaty of Prague was signed, making peace between Austria and Prussia, 1866; the Albert Bridge across the Thames at Chelsea was opened, 1873; Japan declared war on Germany, 1914; Namur, Belgium, was captured by German troops, 1914; the Battle of Mons began, 1914; Feisal I was crowned as King of Iraq, 1921; the Soviet Union-German Non-Aggression Pact was signed, 1939; John Cobb, a British motorist, drove at 368.85mph on Bonneville Salt Flats, 1939; the Battle of Stalingrad began, 1942; the World Council of Churches was founded, 1948.

Today is the Feast Day of Saints Asterius and Claudius, St Eugene or Eoghan of Ardstraw, St Philip Benizi, St Rose of Lima and St Tydfil.