Anniversaries

Births: Euripides, playwright, 480 BC; Gaius Octavius, Augustus Caesar, first Roman Emperor, 63 BC; Jeremy Collier, clergyman and historian, 1650; Peter von Cornelius, painter, 1783; Karl Theodor Korner, poet, playwright and patriot, 1791; Charles-Leon Francois Kreutzer, critic and composer, 1817; Armand-Hippolyte Louis Fizeau, physicist, 1819; James Carroll Beckwith, portrait painter, 1852; William Archer, dramatic critic and playwright, 1856; Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, novelist and poet, 1861; Emma Magdalena Rosalia Marie Josepha Barbara, Baroness Orczy, novelist, 1865; John, Baron Boyd Orr, nutritionist, 1880; Walter Lippman, journalist and author, 1889; Paul Delraux, painter, 1897.

Deaths: Nicholas-Francois Mansart, architect, 1666; Robert Dodsley, poet, publisher and bookseller, founder of the Annual Register, 1764; Richard Parkes Bonington, landscape painter, 1828; John Vanderlyn, painter, 1852; Prosper Merimee, novelist, 1870; Urbain Jean-Joseph Leverrier, astronomer, 1877; Thomas Webster, figure painter, 1886; William Wilkie Collins, novelist, 1889; Eliza Cook, poet, 1889; Ivar Andreas Aasen, philologist, 1896; Julius Adam, painter, 1913; John Morley, first Viscount Morley, statesman, 1923; Sigmund Freud, psychoanalyst, 1939; Elinor Glyn, novelist, 1943; Pablo Neruda (Neftali Ricardo Reyes), poet, 1973.

On this day: the Greeks defeated the Persians at the Battle of Salamis, 480 BC; the Lancastrians were defeated by the Yorkists at Bloreheath, 1459; the Battle of Worcester was won by Prince Rupert, 1642; the naval battle between the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis was fought off Flamborough Head, 1779; the British under Wellesley defeated Scindia and the Rajah of Berar at Assaye, 1803; the New York Daily Sun newspaper appeared for the first time, 1833; Johann Gottfried Galle discovered the planet Neptune, 1846; the Germans announced that their 'conquest of Poland was completed', 1939; two awards for gallantry, the George Cross and the George Medal, were instituted, 1940; General Juan Peron was re- elected as president of Argentina, 1973.

Today is the Feast Day of St Adamnan or Eunan of Iona and Saints Andrew, John, Peter and Antony.