Anniversaries

Births: Jean-Germain Drouais, painter, 1763; Henry Mayhew, author and journalist, 1812; John Larkin Hopkins, organist and composer, 1819; Andrew Carnegie, industrialist and philanthropist, 1835; Carl Friedrich Benz, automobile pioneer, 1844; Christian Felix Klein, mathematician, 1849; Harley Granville Barker, actor, playwright and critic, 1877; Leonard Sidney Woolf, publisher, 1880; Pope John XXIII (Angelo Roncalli), 1881; Helene Chadwick, silent screen actress, 1897.

Deaths: King Herod the Great, 4 BC; Andrea Doria, admiral and statesman, 1560; Giles Farnaby, composer, buried, 1640; Richard Glover, poet, 1785; Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey, sculptor and benefactor, 1841; David Roberts, painter, 1864; Heinrich Barth, explorer, 1865; Dame Lilian Mary Baylis, founder of the Old Vic, 1937; Johannes Vilhelm Jensen, novelist, 1950; Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, industrialist and philanthropist, 1957; Dame Myra Hess, pianist, 1965; Upton Beall Sinclair, novelist, 1968; Sir Anton Dolin (Sydney Francis Patrick Chippendall Healey-Kay), ballet dancer and choreographer, 1983; Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson, poet and critic, 1985.

On this day: the White Ship, bound from Normandy to England with 300 passengers aboard, was wrecked off Barfleur, with great loss of life, 1120; New York was evacuated by the British, 1783; Ferdinand de Lesseps was put on trial with his companions for embezzlement in connection with the Suez Canal Company, 1892; the Duchess Theatre, London, opened, 1929; King George II was restored to the throne of Greece after a referendum, 1935; the Royalty Theatre, Soho, London, closed, 1938; HMS Barham was sunk by a U-boat off Sollum, with the loss of 868 lives 1941; the play The Mousetrap, by Agatha Christie, opened in London, 1952; 12 new local radio stations were authorised by the Government, 1969; in Greece, President Papadopoulos was deposed after a military coup, and was succeeded by General Phaidon Gizikis, 1973; the colony of Surinam (Dutch Guiana) became an independent republic, 1975.

Today is the Feast Day of St Mercurius of Caesarea and St Moses the Martyr.