Anniversaries

Births: Giovanni Battista Morgagni, pathologist, 1682; Carlo Goldoni, playwright, 1707; Jose Francisco de San Martin, Argentinian leader, 1778; Siegfried Wilhelm Dehn, author, musician and teacher, 1799; Giovanni Morelli (Ivan Lermolieff), art critic, 1816; Pierre-Firmin-Auguste Renoir, painter, 1841; Karl May, author of westerns, 1842; Benedetto Croce, philosopher, 1866; John Foster Dulles, statesman, 1888; Dame Myra Hess, pianist, 1890; Jed Harris (Horowitz), theatrical director and producer, 1900; Zeppo (Herbert) Marx, comedian and actor, 1901; Anthony Burgess (John Anthony Burgess Wilson), novelist, philologist, composer and critic, 1917.

Deaths: Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, executed 1601; Albrecht von Wallenstein, general, assassinated 1634; Frederick I, King of Prussia, 1713; Sir Christopher Wren, architect, 1723; Eliza Hayward (Fowler), novelist, playwright and actress, 1756; William Buchan, physician and lecturer, 1805; Thomas Moore, poet and musician, 1852; George Don, botanist, 1856; Paul Julius, Freiherr von Reuter, founder of the news agency, 1899; Fritz Karl Hermann von Uhde, painter, 1911; Anton Stepanovich Arensky, composer, 1906; Sir John Tenniel, artist and illustrator, 1914; Henri-Desire Landru, multi-murderer, executed 1922; James Boyd, novelist, 1944; George Richards Minot, physician, 1950; Mark Rothko, painter, 1970; Tennessee (Thomas Lanier) Williams, playwright, 1983.

On this day: Queen Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V, 1570; the rules of cricket were formulated in the 'Star and Garter', Pall Mall, 1774; Edward John Eyre set out to explore the Great Australian Bight, 1841; paper currency, called 'greenbacks', was first issued in the US by Abraham Lincoln, 1862; Federal income tax was introduced into the US, 1913; meat and butter were rationed in Southern England, 1918; the Gaiety Theatre, Strand, London, closed, 1939; a Communist coup took place in Czechoslovakia and a People's Republic was proclaimed, 1948; the US spacecraft Pioneer X was launched, its destination being Jupiter, 1972.

Today is the Feast Day of St Caesarius of Nazianzen, St Calixto Caravario, St Ethelbert of Kent, St Gerland, St Louis Versiglia, St Tarasius, St Victorinus of Corinth and his Companions and St Walburga.