Anniversaries

Births: Philip III, King of Spain, 1578; William Henry Bentinck, third Duke of Portland, prime minister, 1738; Gustave-Leon Huberti, conductor and composer, 1843; Peter Behrens, architect and industrial designer, 1868; James Branch Cabell, novelist, 1879; Arnold Joseph Toynbee, historian, 1889; Vere Gordon Childe, archaeologist, 1892; Francois Duvalier, Haitian dictator ('Papa Doc'), 1907.

Deaths: Pope Sergius III, 911; James Hepburn, fourth Earl of Bothwell, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, 1578; Thomas Otway, playwright, 1685; George Frederick Handel, composer, violinist and organist, 1759; William Whitehead, poet, 1785; Thomas Wright, ironfounder and prison philanthropist, 1875; Dr Ludovik Lazarus Zamenhof, creator of Esperanto, 1917; Ernest Bevin, statesman and trade union leader, 1951; Agnes Elisabeth Lutyens (Mrs Edward Clark), composer, 1983; Simone de Beauvoir, writer and feminist, 1986; Leslie Charteris (Leslie Charles Bowyer Yin), creator of 'The Saint', 1993.

On this day: the Yorkists defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Barnet, 1471; Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the US, was shot by an assassin, John Wilkes Booth, 1865; Alexander Solovieff attempted to assassinate Tsar Alexander II of Russia, 1879; the Pan American Union was established, 1890; the Stresa Conference between Britain, France and Italy ended, 1935; the first quintuplets in Scotland were born to Mrs Linda Bostock, of Armadale, West Lothian, 1972.