Anniversaries

Births: Nero, Roman emperor, AD37; George Romney, portrait painter, 1734; Janos Bolyai, mathematician, 1802; Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, engineer, 1832; Sir Alfred East, painter and etcher, 1849; Dr Lazarus Ludovic Zamenhof, oculist and creator of Esperanto, 1859; Josef Hoffmann, architect, 1870; Jean Paul Getty, multi-millionaire, 1892; General Sir Miles Christopher Dempsey, 1896.

Deaths: Haakon IV, King of Norway, 1263; Jan Vermeer (Jan van der Meer van Delft), painter, 1675; Giuseppe Bossi, painter, 1816; Leon Faucher, economist and statesman, 1854; Sir George Cayley, aeronautics pioneer, 1857; Chief Sitting Bull, Sioux Indian leader, killed 1890; Whitelaw Reid, US ambassador to Great Britain, 1912; Thomas Wright 'Fats' Waller, jazz pianist, 1943; Charles Laughton, actor, 1962; Walter Elias Disney, cartoonist and creator of 'Mickey Mouse', 1966.

On this day: the first meteorological recordings were begun in Tuscany, Italy, 1654; the states of the American union ratified the Bill of Rights, 1791; the French recaptured Rome and overran the Kingdom of Naples, 1798; Napoleon and his army entered Warsaw, 1806; the remains of Emperor Napoleon were interred at Les Invalides, Paris, 1840; the premiere of the film Gone With the Wind took place at Atlanta, Georgia, 1939; the General Assembly of the United Nations voted to admit the Chinese People's Republic, 1961; in Israel, Adolf Eichmann was found guilty of crimes against the Jewish people, 1961; food riots broke out in Poland, 1970; John Paul Getty III was released by kidnappers who had held him for five months and cut off his ear, 1973.

Today is the Feast Day of St Mary di Rosa, St Nino, St Paul of Latros and St Valerian.