Anniversaries

TODAY: Births: Benvenuto Cellini, sculptor and goldsmith, 1500; Pietro da Cortona, painter and architect, 1596; Sir Matthew Hale, Chief Justice and law reformer, 1609; Antonio Canova, sculptor, 1757; Spencer Perceval, prime minister, 1762; Laurence Stephen Lowry, primitive painter, 1887; Edmund Charles Blunden, scholar and poet, 1896. Deaths: Salomon van Ruysdael, painter, buried 1670; John Radcliffe, physician and founder of the Radcliffe Library, Oxford, 1714; Ezra Loomis Pound, poet, 1972; Phil Silvers, comedian and actor, 1985. On this day: the Bank of Scotland was founded, 1695; 60,000 people died when Lisbon was destroyed by an earthquake, 1755; the first W.H. Smith bookstall opened, Euston Station 1848; the British Television service was inaugurated, 1936; the first section of the M1 motorway was opened, 1959; East Germany opened its border with Czechoslovakia, 1989. Today is the Feast Day of All Saints, St Austremonius or Stremoine, St Benignus of Dijon, St Cadfan, Saints Caesarius and Julian, St Marcellus of Paris, St Mary, martyr, St Mathurin or Maturinus and St Vigor.

TOMORROW: Births: Victor Thomas Trumper, cricketer, 1877; Luchino Visconti, Duca di Modrone, film director, 1906; Burt Lancaster (Burton Stephen Lancaster), actor, 1913. Deaths: Richard Hooker, theologian, 1600; Jenny Lind (Johanna Maria), soprano, 1887; George Bernard Shaw, playwright, 1950; Leo Baeck, reform rabbi, 1956; James Grover Thurber, humorous writer and cartoonist, 1961. On this day: the Morning Post newspaper was first published, 1772; Ladysmith, in Natal, South Africa, was besieged by the Boers, 1899; the Daily Mirror was first published, as a daily newspaper for women, 1903; Russia declared war on Turkey, 1914; Lord Balfour made his Declaration regarding a Jewish national home in Palestine, 1917; the world's first regular broadcasting station, KDKA Pittsburgh, started transmitting, 1920; the first crossword puzzle to appear in a British newspaper was published in the Sunday Express, 1924; Haile Selassie was crowned as Emperor of Ethiopia, 1930; the book publisher Penguin was acquitted of obscenity in the matter of publishing the book Lady Chatterley's Lover, 1960; Channel Four television was started, 1982. Tomorrow is the Feast Day of All Souls, St Marcian of Cyrrhus and St Victorinus of Pettau.