Anniversaries

Births: Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti, composer and harpsichordist, 1685; Johan Helmich Roman, composer, 1694; Heinrich Friedrich Karl, Baron von Stein, statesman, 1757; Georges-Jacques Danton, French revolutionary leader, 1759; Henry Thomas Cockburn, Lord Cockburn, judge, 1779; Joseph Mayseder, violinist and composer, 1789; Helmuth Karl Bernhard, Graf von Moltke, general, 1800; Joseph Aloysius Hansom, architect and inventor of the safety cab, 1803; Henry Thomas Smart, organist and composer, 1813; Vassili Vassilevich Vereshchagin, artist and traveller, 1842; Andrey Bely (Boris Nikolayevich Bugayev), poet, 1880; Mahalia Jackson, gospel singer, 1911; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, 1919.

Deaths: Alfred the Great, King of England, 899; Gilles de Rais, Marshal of France, hanged for murder 1440; William Hogarth, artist and engraver, 1764; Carolina Oliphant, (Baroness Nairne), ballad writer, 1845; Charles Proteus (Karl August Rudolf) Steinmetz, electrical engineer, 1923; Victor Schertzinger, composer and lyricist, 1941; Sir Mark Aurel Stein, archaeologist, 1943; Gerty Theresa Cori (Radnitz), biochemist, 1957; Alma Cogan, singer, 1966; Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky, helicopter pioneer, 1972; Field Marshal Sir Gerald Walter Robert Templer, 1979.

On this day: the Erie Canal, North America, was opened, 1825; Asiatic cholera appeared in Sunderland, 1831; Victor Emmanuel was proclaimed King of Italy, 1860; the English Football Association was formed, 1863; the Gunfight at the OK Corral took place at Tombstone, Arizona, 1881; the new Gaiety theatre in the Strand, London, was opened, 1903; the union between Sweden and Norway was ended, and Prince Charles of Denmark ascended the Norwegian throne as Haakon VII, 1905; the Territorial Army was founded, 1907; the October Revolution took place in Russia (reckoned by New Style, 7 November), 1917; in the United States, Mrs T.W. Evans of Miama, Florida, became the first mother of a child to be born in an aircraft, 1929; the International Atomic Energy Agency was formed, 1956; Pan Am inaugurated the first New York-Paris jet passenger service, 1958; BOAC inaugurated the first New York-London jet passenger service, 1958; Nato was moved from Paris to Brussels, 1966; after 26 years on the throne, the Shah of Iran crowned himself and his Queen in Tehran, 1967.

Today is the Feast Day of St Bean, St Cedd, St Eata, Saints Lucian and Marcian and St Rusticus of Narbonne.

Appointments

Mr George Robert Bartlett QC, to be President of the Lands Tribunal.