Anniversaries

Births: John Arbuthnot, physician and author, 1667; Pedro Antonio Correia Garcao, poet, 1724; Alexander II, Tsar of Russia, 1818; Jules-Henri Poincare, mathematician and astronomer, 1854; William Randolph Hearst, newspaper proprietor, 1863; Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor, 1879; Sir Malcolm Sargent, conductor, 1895; Edward Kennedy 'Duke' Ellington, jazz composer and bandleader, 1899; Richard Carlson, actor and director, 1912.

Deaths: John Cleveland, poet, 1658; Wallace Carothers, chemist and developer of nylon, 1937; Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, film director, 1980; Barbara Goolden, novelist, 1990.

On this day: the Siege of Orleans was relieved, 1429; Elizabeth Canning was convicted of perjury and transported, 1754; Captain Cook landed at Kurnell, Botany Bay, Australia, 1770; at Oxford University a statute was passed, admitting women to examinations, 1884; in Italy, the German army surrendered unconditionally to Field Marshal Alexander, 1945; in the US, a navy munitions train blew up in a marshalling yard at Roseville, California, setting off a chain of 100 more explosions, 1973.

Today is the Feast Day of St Catherine of Siena, St Hugh of Cluny, St Joseph Cottolengo, St Robert of Molesmes and St Wilfrid the Younger.

Lectures

National Gallery: Norman Coady, 'Poetry and Painting (4): Palma Vecchio: Portrait of a Poet', 1pm.

Victoria & Albert Museum: Olivia Callea, 'Chinese Porcelain', 2.30pm.

British Museum: John NcNabb, 'The Stone Age: experiments with stones and bones', 1.15pm.