Anniversaries

Births: Thomas Hooker, clergyman and puritan, 1586; Joseph-Marie Jacquard, silk-weaver and inventor, 1752; George Cooper, organist, 1820; Felicien Rops, painter and engraver, 1833; Gustav Mahler, composer, 1860; Lion Feuchtwanger, novelist and playwright, 1884; 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; Thomas Blacklock, poet, 1791; Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan, playwright, 1816; Georg Simon Ohm, physicist, 1854; Friedrich Gauermann, painter, 1862; William Mulready, painter, 1863; Leo Sowerby, composer, 1895; 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; Hawaii was annexed by the USA, 1898; 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 musical show The Ace of Clubs was first produced, London 1950; the first air display was held at Farnborough, 1950; the United States, a 53,300-ton liner, captured the Blue Riband of the Atlantic from the Queen Mary on her maiden voyage from New York to Southampton, 1952; the USSR shot down a US aircraft over the Barents Sea, 1960; the musical show Mutiny was first produced, London, 1985.

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.