Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hardwicke), builder of country mansions, 1518; Jean Bernoulli, mathematician, 1667; Thomas Campbell, poet, 1777; 1784; Sir George Biddell Airy, Astronomer Royal, 1801; Alexandre Dumas fils, playwright, 1824; Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge, orientalist and museum curator, 1857; Joseph Hilaire Pierre Belloc, poet and author, 1870; Anton Dolin (Patrick Healey-Kay), dancer and choreographer, 1904. Deaths: St Joseph of Arimathea, 82; John Graham of Claverhouse, first Viscount Dundee, soldier, killed 1689; Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov, poet and novelist, 1841; John Dalton, physicist and chemist, 1844; Ferruccio Benvenuto Busoni, pianist and composer, 1924; Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, Egyptologist, 1942; Gertrude Stein, novelist and poet, 1946; Edward Godfrey Richard Aldington, novelist and biographer, 1962; Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, Portuguese prime minister and dictator, 1970; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, 1980; James Mason, actor, 1984; Sir Osbert Lancaster, artist and writer, 1986. On this day: Cromwell defeated the Royalists at the Battle of Gainsborough, 1643; the Bank of England was granted a 12-year charter by Act of Parliament, 1694; Adelaide, South Australia, was founded, 1836; the Atlantic telegraph cable, laid by the Great Eastern, was completed, 1866; a radio compass was used for the first time to direct navigation of aircraft, 1920; insulin was isolated by Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best, Toronto 1921; the German army entered Ukraine, 1941; the Comet - the first jet-propelled airliner - flew for the first time, 1949; the armistice between North Korea and the United Nations forces was signed, 1953; Austria once more became independent, 1955; the St James's Theatre, London, closed, 1957; a Judiciary Committee voted to impeach Richard Nixon, the US President, 1974. Today is the Feast Day of St Aurelia, Natalia and their Companions, St Pantaleon, the Martyrs of Salsette, the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and St Theobald of Marly.