Anniversaries

Births: Lorenzo Lippi, poet and painter, 1606; Maximilien-Francois-Marie-Isidore de Robespierre, revolutionary, 1758; Sigmund Freud, neurologist and psychoanalyst, 1856; Stanley Arthur Morison, typographer, 1889; Rudolph Valentino (Rodolfo Alfonzo Raffaele Pierre Philibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla), actor, 1895; George Orson Welles, actor, director and writer, 1915.

Deaths: Friedrich Heinrich Alexander, Baron von Humboldt, explorer and scientist, 1859; Henry David Thoreau, poet and essayist, 1862; Edward VII, King, 1910; Lyman Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz, 1919; Count Maurice- Polydore-Marie-Bernard Maeterlinck, poet and playwright, 1949; Maria Montessori, physician and educationist, 1952; Edgar Mittelholzer, novelist, 1965; Marlene Dietrich (Maria Magdalene Dietrich), actress, 1992.

On this day: King Henry VIII ordered that the Bible should be placed in every English church, 1536; the island of Manhattan was bought from the Indians by the Dutch settler Peter Minuit, for trinkets worth about dollars 25, 1626; the first postage stamp was issued, the Penny Black 1840; conductors on the London General Omnibus Company in London went on strike over a new ticket-issuing system, 1891; King George V acceded to the throne, 1910; Josef Stalin became leader of the government of the Soviet Union, 1941; Princess Margaret married Antony Armstrong-Jones in Westminster Abbey, 1960; Spain closed the Gibraltar/Spanish border to all but Spaniards, 1968.

Today is the Feast Day of St Edbert, St Evodius of Antioch, St John Before the Latin Gate and St Petronax.