Anniversaries

Births: Thomas Hooker, clergyman and puritan, 1586; George Cooper, organist, 1820; Gustav Mahler, composer, 1860; Marc Chagall, painter and designer, 1887; George Cukor, film director, 1899; Vittorio de Sica, film director, 1901.

Deaths: Edward I, King, 1307; Giacomo da Vignola, architect, 1573; Thomas Hooker, clergyman and puritan, 1647; Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan, playwright, 1816; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author, 1930; Sir Allen Lane, publisher and founder of Penguin Books, 1970; Dame Flora Robson, actress, 1984. On this day: Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I of Russia signed the Peace Treaty of Tilsit, 1807; Captain Matthew Calbraith Perry arrived in Japan, opening contacts with the West, 1853; Kelvin Hall exhibition building in Glasgow was destroyed by fire, 1925; the BBC broadcast the first gramophone record programme, presented by Christopher Stone, 1927; the Vatican City became a sovereign state, 1929; the war between China and Japan began, 1937; the Soviet Union shot down a US aircraft over the Barents Sea, 1960.

Today is the Feast Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Saints Ethelburga, Ercongota and Sethrida, St Felix of Nantes, St Hedda of Winchester, St Palladius and St Pantaenus.