Anniversaries

TODAY

Births: Thomas Gainsborough, painter, baptised 1727; Sir Squire Bancroft, actor and manager, 1841; Otto Klemperer, conductor, 1885.

Deaths: August Strindberg, playwright, 1912; James Gordon Bennett, newspaper proprietor, 1918; Henry John Heinz, food manufacturer, 1919; Sir Henry Rider Haggard, novelist, 1925; Jean Rhys (Williams), novelist, 1979.

On this day: Edward Jenner was successful in his first public vaccination experiment, 1796; the British mandate in Palestine ended and Israel was proclaimed an independent state, 1948; the Skylab space station was launched from Cape Kennedy, 1973.

Today is the Feast Day of St Carthage the Younger, St Erembert, St Mary Mazzarello, St Matthias, St Michael Garicoits and St Pontius of Cimiez.

TOMORROW

Births: Lyman Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz, 1856; Pierre Curie, physicist, 1859; James Mason, actor, 1909.

Deaths: Edmund Kean, actor, 1833; Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, poet, 1886; Rita Hayworth (Margarita Carmen Cansino), actress, 1987.

On this day: the Ashmolean Museum, Oxfordwas founded, 1679; a British nuclear bomb was exploded at Christmas Island, in the central Pacific, 1957; Mme Edith Cresson became the first woman prime minister of France, 1991.

Tomorrow is the Feast Day of Saints Bertha and Rupert, St Dymphna, St Gerebernus, St Hallvard, St Hilary of Galeata, St Isaias of Rostov, St Isidore of Chios, St Isidore the Farmer, St Peter of Lampsacus and St Torquatus and his Companions.