Anniversaries

Births: Charles Lamb, essayist and poet, 1775; Samuel Plimsoll, social reformer, 1824; Sir Walter Parratt, organist, 1841; Giovanni Muzzioli, painter, 1854; Howard Spring, novelist, 1889; Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, novelist, 1890; Jimmy (James Francis) 'Schnozzola' Durante, comedian, 1893; William Tatem Tilden, tennis champion, 1893; Maurice Harold Macmillan, first Earl of Stockton, statesman and publisher, 1894; John Franklin Enders, microbiologist, 1897; Bertolt Brecht (Eugen Berthold Friedrich), playwright and poet, 1898; Lon Chaney Jr (Creighton Chaney), actor, 1906; Joyce Irene Grenfell, actress, writer and entertainer, 1910.

Deaths: Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, consort of Mary, Queen of Scots, murdered 1567; Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, lawyer and philosopher, 1755; Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, author, 1837; Samuel Prout, water-colour painter, 1852; Sir David Brewster, physicist, 1868; Claude Bernard, physiologist, 1878; Paul-Jean Clays, painter, 1900; Joseph, first Baron Lister, surgeon, 1912; Edgar Richard Horatio Wallace, thriller writer, 1932; Pope Pius XI (Achille Ratti), 1939; Marshal of the RAF Hugh Montague, first Viscount Trenchard, administrator, 1956; Cardinal Aloizje Stepinac, Primate of Hungary, 1960.

On this day: the Treaty of Paris, ceding Canada and other territories to Britain, was signed, 1763; Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, 1840; Upper and Lower Canada were united, 1841; Lord Beaverbrook was appointed as minister in charge of propaganda, 1918; New Delhi was inaugurated as the capital of India, 1931; 'Pay As You Earn' income tax was introduced, 1944.

Today is the Feast Day of St Austreberta, St Scholastica, St Soteris, St Trumwin and St William of Maleval.