Gazette: Anniversaries

TODAY: Births: Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, 1396; Catherine ("Skittles") Walters, courtesan, 1839; William Butler Yeats, poet, 1865; Basil Rathbone (Philip St John Basil Rathbone), actor, 1892; Dorothy Leigh Sayers, thriller writer and playwright, 1893. Deaths: Alexander the Great, 323 BC; Benjamin David (Benny) Goodman, clarinettist and bandleader, 1986. On this day: Queen Victoria made her first railway journey (from Slough to Paddington in 23 minutes), 1842; Mrs Geraldine Brodrick of Sydney, Australia, gave birth to nonuplets (of whom two boys and four girls survived), 1971; inflation in Britain reached 25 per cent, 1975. Today is the Feast Day of St Antony of Padua, St Aquilina, St Felicula and St Triphyllius. Today is the official birthday of the Queen.

TOMORROW: Births: Harriet Beecher Stowe, novelist, 1811; Burl Ives (Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives), actor and singer, 1909; Sam Wanamaker (Samuel Watenmaker), actor, director and producer, 1919; Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (Che), Argentinian revolutionary, 1928. Deaths: Edward FitzGerald, poet and translator of The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym, 1883; Jerome Klapka Jerome, writer, 1927; Emmeline Pankhurst (nee Goulden), women's rights champion, 1928; Gilbert Keith Chesterton, writer, 1936; Maxim Gorky (Alexei Maximovich Pyeshkov), writer, 1936; John Logie Baird, television pioneer, 1946; Henry (Enrico) Mancini, film music composer, 1994. On this day: at Dunkirk, the English and French decisively beat off the Spanish in the Battle of the Dunes, 1658; Henley Regatta was held for the first time, 1839; the world's first motor-race was run in Paris, 1895; the Hawaiian Islands were set up as a Territory of the United States, 1900; the "Black Bottom" dance was introduced in George White's Scandals at the Apollo Theatre, New York, 1926; the German army entered and occupied Paris, 1940; a ceasefire was agreed in the Falklands, 1982. Tomorrow is the Feast Day of St Dogmael, St Methodius the Confessor and Saints Valerius and Rufinus.