Anniversaries

Births: Cardinal Jules Mazarin (Giulio Mazarini), statesman, 1602; John Gibson Lockhart, editor, novelist and critic, 1794; James Abbott McNeill Whistler, painter and writer, 1834; Emmeline Pankhurst, social reformer and suffragist, 1858; Gustav Klimt, art nouveau painter, 1862; Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, traveller and archaeologist, 1868; Woody Guthrie, folk singer, 1912.

Deaths: Madame de Stael (Anne- Louise Germaine Necker), Baronne de Stael, writer, 1817; Edward Calvert, artist and wood-engraver, 1883; Alfred Krupp, industrialist, 1887; Grock (Karl Adrien Wettach), clown, 1959; Konstantin Georgiyevich Paustovsky, writer and journalist, 1968.

On this day: the Grand Council of Nimes ended, 1096; during the French Revolution, the Bastille in Paris was stormed, 1789; the first ascent of the Matterhorn was made by Edward Whymper, 1865; dynamite was first demonstrated by Alfred Nobel, 1867; the first BBC television play, The Man With a Flower in His Mouth, was transmitted, 1930.

Today is Bastille Day (Fete Nationale) in France and the Feast Day of St Camillus de Lellis, St Deusdedit of Canterbury, St Marcellinus or Marchelm, St Ulric of Zell.