Anniversaries

Births: Ferdinand I, Holy Roman emperor, 1503; William Etty, painter, 1787; Edward Hodges Baily, sculptor, 1788; Thomas Gordon Hake, physician and poet, 1809; Joseph Bernard Coninck, teacher and composer, 1827; Sir Samuel Ferguson, poet, 1810; Pablo Martin Meliton de Sarasate y Navascuez, violinist and composer, 1844; Henry Watson Fowler, author of English Usage, 1858; Leonard Raven-Hill, cartoonist, artist and illustrator, 1867; Tamara Platonovna Karsavina, ballerina, 1885; Arthur Honegger, composer, 1892; Bix Beiderbecke (Leon Bismarck Beidebecke), jazz cornet-player and composer, 1903.

Deaths: Sir John Denham, poet, 1669; Giuseppe Mazzini, nationalist, 1872; Sir Charles Wyville Thomson, zoologist, 1882; Charles Frederick Worth, fashion designer, 1895; 'F. Anstey' (Thomas Anstey Guthrie), humorist and playwright, 1934; Admiral of the Fleet David Beatty, first Earl Beatty, 1936; Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, playwright and novelist, 1940; Robert Laurence Binyon, poet, 1943; Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb, writer and journalist, 1944; Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne, novelist, 1944; Jan Garrigue Masaryk, statesman, committed suicide 1948; Sir Philip Armand Hamilton Gibbs, author, 1962; Frank O'Connor (Michael O'Donovan), short-story writer, 1966; Maurice Macmillan (Viscount Macmillan of Ovenden) politician, 1984; Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko, Russian leader, 1985; Ray Milland (Reginald Truscott-Jones), actor, 1986.

On this day: the first British Census began, 1801; Napoleon was defeated by Blucher at the the Battle of Laon, 1814; the US Senate ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ceding Texas and California to the USA, 1848; Edward (later King Edward VII) married Princess Alexandra of Denmark, 1863; the Bakerloo Line on London's underground opened, 1906; DW Griffith's film In Old California was released; this was the first movie to be made in Hollywood, 1910; the Rokeby 'Venus' painting by Velazquez in the National Gallery was damaged by suffragettes, 1914; the Battle of Neuve- Chapelle began, 1915; Sir Oswald Mosley was expelled from the Labour Party, 1931; Rangoon, Burma, fell to the Japanese, 1942; Peter Twiss, test pilot, was the first man to fly at more than 1,000 mph, 1956; Crown Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands married Claus von Amsberg, 1966; James Earl Ray (Eric Starvo Galt) pleaded guilty to the murder of Martin Luther King, Memphis, 1969.

Today is the Feast Day of St Anastasia Patricia, St Attalas, St Codratus and Others, St Droctoveus or Drotte, St Hymelin, St John Ogilvie, St Kessog, St Macarius of Jerusalem and St Simplicius, pope.