Anniversaries

Births: Sir John Vanbrugh, playwright, baptised 1664; William Congreve, playwright, 1670; Charles James Fox, politician, 1749; Edith Wharton, novelist, 1862.

Deaths: Lord Randolph Churchill, politician, 1895; Amedeo Modigliani, painter and sculptor, 1920; Sir Winston Churchill, statesman, 1965; George Cukor, film director, 1983.

On this day: Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov was first performed, Petrograd 1874; the first train passed over the Forth Bridge, 1890; the first troop of Boy Scouts was formed in Britain, 1908.

Today is the Feast Day of St Babylas of Antioch, St Felician of Foligno, St Francis of Sales and St Macedonius the Barley-eater.