Anniversaries

Anniversaries

TODAY: Births: Sir Henry Rider Haggard, novelist, 1856; Sir Julian Sorell Huxley, biologist, 1887; Erich Maria Remarque, novelist, 1898; Sir Peter Pears, tenor, 1910. Deaths: St John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, executed 1535; Benjamin Robert Haydon, painter and writer, committed suicide 1846; Sir Henry Hughes Wilson, field marshal, assassinated 1922; Walter John de la Mare, poet, 1956; Judy Garland (Frances Gumm), actress and singer, 1969; Darius Milhaud, composer 1974; Joseph Losey, film director, 1984; Fred Astaire (Frederick Austerlitz), actor and dancer, 1987. On this day: the first cricket match was played at Lord's, 1814; the first barbed wire was patented, Kent, Ohio 1867; Queen Victoria celebrated her Diamond Jubilee, 1897; the Wallace Collection was opened, 1900; German armies invaded the Soviet Union, 1941. Today is the Feast Day of St Aaron of Brittany, St Alban of Verulam, St Eberhard of Salzburg, St John Fisher, St Joseph Cafasso, St Paulinus of Nola and St Thomas More.

TOMORROW: Births: Giambattista Vico, philosopher and jurist, 1668; Anna Akhmatova (Anna Andreyevna Gorenko), poet, 1889; Edward, Duke of Windsor, 1894; Dr Alfred Charles Kinsey, sex investigator and author, 1894; Winifred Holtby, novelist, 1898. Deaths: James Mill, philosopher and economist, 1836; Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope, traveller and eccentric, 1839; Mark Gertler, painter, 1939; Michael Arlen (Dikran Kouyoumdjian), novelist, 1956; Olivia Manning, novelist, 1980. On this day: the first evening newspaper, Dawks's News-Letter, was published in London, 1696; the British diplomats Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean fled to the Soviet Union, 1951. Today is the Feast Day of St Agrippina, St Etheldreda or Audrey, St Libert or Liebert, St Thomas Corsini and St Thomas Garnet.