Anniversaries

Births: Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, composer, 1839; Ernest Bevin, statesman, 1881; Victoria Mary Sackville-West, novelist, 1892; Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, astronaut, 1934.

Deaths: Jules Mazarin (Giulio Mazarini), cardinal and statesman, 1661; Arnold Toynbee, social philosopher, 1883; Wilhelm I, former Emperor of Germany, 1888.

On this day: Napoleon Buonaparte married Josephine de Beauharnais, 1796; Louis-Philippe of France founded the French Foreign Legion in Algeria, 1831; the capital of Russia was moved from Petrograd (Leningrad) to Moscow, 1918; Eamon de Valera became president of the Irish Free State, 1932; the Soviet Union sent 'Laika', the first dog into space, in Sputnik 9, 1961.

Today is the Feast Day of St Bosa, St Catharine of Bologna, St Dominic Savio, St Frances of Rome, St Gregory of Nyssa and St Pacianus.