Anniversaries

TODAY

Births: Prince Henry the Navigator, sponsor of voyages, 1394; Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, composer and violinist, 1678; Sir Henry Raeburn, portrait painter, 1756; Thomas Sturge Moore, poet and wood-engraver, 1870. Deaths: Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, 1193; Sir Thomas Malory, writer of Le Morte d'Arthur, 1470; Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, playwright and novelist, 1852; Antonin Artaud, actor, playwright and stage director, 1948. On this day: the Royal National Lifeboat Institution was founded, 1824; the Forth Bridge was officially opened, 1890; German radio declared that Dresden had been "wiped off the map of Europe" by Allied bombing, 1945. Today is the Feast Day of St Adrian and his Companions, St Casimir of Poland and St Peter of Cava.

TOMORROW

Births: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, painter, 1696; Rosa Luxemburg, Spartacist (socialist) agitator, 1871; Heitor Villa-Lobos, composer, 1887; Sir Rex Carey Harrison, actor, 1908. Deaths: Antonio Allegri da Correggio, painter, 1534; Thomas Augustine Arne, composer (of "Rule, Britannia") 1778; Flora Macdonald, Jacobite heroine, 1790; Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev, composer, 1953; Joseph Stalin, Russian leader, 1953. On this day: the foundation stone of New College, Oxford, was laid, 1397; Covent Garden Theatre, London, was destroyed by fire, 1856; civil disobedience in India ended, 1931; Winston Churchill made a speech referring to an "Iron Curtain" across Europe, 1946. Tomorrow is the Feast Day of Saints Adrian and Eubulus, St Eusebius of Cremona, St Gerasimus, St John Joseph of the Cross, St Kieran of Saighir, St Phocas of Antioch, St Piran and St Virgil of Arles.