Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Jean-Baptiste Colbert, statesman and founder of the French Navy, 1619; John Locke, philosopher, 1632; Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, painter, 1780; Oliver Wendell Holmes, physician and writer, 1809; John Leech, caricaturist and illustrator, 1817; Maurice-Polydore Marie-Bernard Maeterlinck, poet and playwright, 1862; Jack (Weldon Leo) Teagarden, jazz musician, vocalist and bandleader, 1905; Ingrid Bergman, actress, 1915. Deaths: John Fletcher, playwright, 1625; Louis Couperin, composer, 1661; Felicien-Cesar David, composer, 1876; The Rev William Archibald Spooner, perpetrator of "Spoonerisms", 1930; Eamon de Valera, statesman, 1975; Ingrid Bergman, actress, 1982; Lee Marvin, actor, 1987; Mary Pearson Norton, children's author (of The Borrowers), 1992. On this day: the Spanish fleet was defeated by Edward III at Winchelsea, 1350; the Factory Act, regulating the employment of children, was passed, 1833; the city of Melbourne, Australia, was founded, 1835; the Treaty of Nanking was signed, ending the Anglo-Chinese war, and agreeing the lease of the Hong Kong territories to Britain, 1842; the Sporting Times published an "obituary" for English cricket, and first mentioned "the Ashes", 1882; the Rugby League (originally "Northern Union"), was formed from 21 clubs in the North of England, 1895; the Soviet Union exploded a hydrogen bomb, 1953. Today is the Feast Day of St Edwold of Cerne, St Medericus or Merry, St Sabina of Rome and the Beheading of John the Baptist.