Anniversaries

Births: Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), poet, 70 BC; Akbar the Great, Mogul Emperor, 1542; Evangelista Torricelli, physicist, 1608; Allan Ramsay, poet, 1686; Elizabeth Inchbald (Simpson), actress and author, 1753; Samuel Holyoake, writer of hymns, 1762; James Elmes, architect and antiquary, 1782; Wilhelm von Kaulbach, painter, 1805; Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov, poet and novelist, 1814; William Alexander Barrett, writer on music, 1836; James-Joseph-Jacques Tissot, painter and illustrator, 1836; Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher, 1844; John Lawrence Sullivan, champion heavyweight boxer, 1858; Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, novelist, 1881; SS Van Dine (William Huntington Wright), mystery writer, 1888; Melville Cooper, actor, 1896; Charles Percy Snow (Baron Snow), scientist, civil servant and novelist, 1905; Mervyn Le Roy, film director, 1900.

Deaths: Pope Gregory XIV, 1591; Simone Cantarini (Il Pesarese), painter and etcher, 1648; Adam Frans van der Meulen, painter, 1690; Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, explorer, 1730; John Morgan, physician, 1789; Tadeusz Andrzej Bonawentura Kosciuszko, patriot, killed 1817; Letitia Elizabeth Landon, poet and novelist, 1838; Mata Hari (Margaretha Geertruida Zelle), executed for espionage 1917; Raymond-Nicolas-Landry Poincare, statesman, 1934; Pierre Laval, Vichy Government leader, executed 1945; Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, committed suicide 1946; Clara Kimball Young, actress, 1960; Cole Albert Porter, composer and lyricist, 1964; James Phillip McAuley, poet, 1976; Pat O'Brien, actor, 1983.

On this day: the new calendar, as promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII, came into force in Italy and Spain, when 5 October became 15 October, 1582; Pilatre de Rozier was the first man to make a balloon ascent, 1783; a brilliant great comet was observed over Europe, 1811; the Great Exhibition closed, Hyde Park 1851; the Gaiety Theatre opened as the Strand Musick Hall, London 1864; Cologne Cathedral was solemnly opened, 1880; the Comedy Theatre opened, London 1881; Bulgaria joined the Central Powers in the First World War, 1915; the US Navy took over Zeppelin Z3 (as reparation payment) under the new name of Los Angeles, 1924; the airship Graf Zeppelin completed its first transatlantic flight, 1928; the Paris Peace Conference ended, 1946; in the US, demonstrations were staged to protest against the Vietnam War, 1969; the first women - Mrs Irene Miller and Mrs Vera Komarkova - reached the summit of Annapurna One in the Himalayas, 1978.

Today is the Feast Day of St Euthymius the Younger, St Leonard of Vandoeuvre, St Teresa of Avila and St Thecla of Kitzingen.