Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Edmund Kean, actor, 1789; Kate Greenaway, artist and children's book illustrator, 1846; Nat "King" Cole (Nathaniel Adams Coles), singer and pianist, 1919; Rudolf Hametovich Nureyev, ballet star and director, 1938. Deaths: Harold Harefoot, King of England, 1040; Jan van Mieris, painter, 1690; Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, playwright and poet, 1741; Helen Hayes, actress, 1993. On this day: the Duchy of Cornwall was created, 1337; Oliver Cromwell declared England to be a Commonwealth, abolishing the position of King, 1649; Captain Lawrence Oates, with Scott's expedition, walked out into the Antarctic wastes, never to return, 1912; Marie Stopes opened her first birth control clinic in London, 1921. Today is the Feast Day of St Patrick, The Martyrs of the Serapeum, St Gertrude of Nivelles, St Joseph of Arimathea and St Paul of Cyprus.