Anniversaries

Births: John III Sobieski, King of Poland, 1624; Donatien Alphonse- Francois, Marquis de Sade, writer and libertine, 1740; Count Alessandro di Cagliostro (Giuseppe Balsamo), impostor, 1743; Robert Fuhrer, composer, 1807; Grace Aguilar, novelist and historian, 1816; Pope Pius X (Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto), 1835; Thomas Hardy, novelist, 1840; Paul-Albert Besnard, painter and etcher, 1849; Sir Edward William Elgar, composer, 1857; Paul Felix Weingartner, conductor, 1863; Arthur Stuart Menteth Hutchinson, novelist, 1879; Nubar Sarkis Gulbenkian, philanthropist, 1896; Lotte Reiniger, film animator, 1899; (Peter John) Johnny Weissmuller, swimmer and film ''Tarzan'', 1903.

Deaths: Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury, 959; Alvaro de Luna, politician and poet, executed 1453; Pieter Aertszen, historical painter, 1575; Madeleine de Scudery, poet and novelist, 1701; Robert Foulis, bookseller and printer, 1776; John Wilson, poet, 1789; Manuel del Ppolo Vicente Rodrguez Garca, tenor and composer, 1832; Maximilien Paul-Emile Littre, lexicographer, 1881; Giuseppe Garibaldi, nationalist leader, 1882; Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky, playwright, 1886; Sir Redvers Henry Buller VC, general, 1908; Friedrich Hegar, composer and conductor, 1927; Herman Darewski, composer, 1947; Emile-Auguste Chartier (''Alain''), philosopher, 1951; George Simon Kaufman, playwright, 1961; Victoria Mary Sackville-West, writer, 1962; George Alfred, Baron George-Brown, statesman, 1985; Andres Segovia, guitarist, 1987; Sir Rex Carey Harrison, actor, 1990.

On this day: King Henry V of England married Catherine de Valois, 1420; Lord George Gordon led ''No Popery Riots'' in London, 1780; Corfu was occupied by Greek troops, 1864; President Grover Cleveland married Miss Frances Folsom at the White House, 1886; Japan took possession of Formosa (Taiwan) from China, 1895; the world's first patent for wireless telegraphy was granted to Guglielmo Marconi, 1896; under the terms of the Snyder Act, US-born Indians became US citizens, 1924; clothes rationing began, 1941; the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place in Westminster Abbey, 1953.

Today is the Feast Day of St Attalus, St Erasmus or Elmo, St Eugenius I, pope, Saints Marcellinus and Peter, St Nicholas the Pilgrim, St Pothinus and his Companions and St Stephen of Sweden.