Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Ibn Khaldun, historian, 1332; Maximilian I, King of Bavaria, 1756; Sir Francis Beaufort, admiral and hydrographer, 1774; Jacques-Francois Fromental-Elie Halevy (Elie Levy), composer, 1799; Sir Henry Parkes, statesman, 1815; Amelia Jenks Bloomer, women's rights campaigner, 1818; Julia Ward Howe, poet and social reformer, 1819; Joseph Joachim Raff, composer, 1822; Jay Gould, railway builder, 1836; James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, frontier scout, 1837; Enoch Arnold Bennett, novelist, 1867; Georges-Henri Rouault, Expressionist painter, 1871; Isadora Duncan, dancer, 1878; Samuel Dashiell Hammett, detective-story writer, 1894; Sir John Douglas Cockcroft, physicist, 1897; Hubert Horatio Humphrey, US senator and Vice-President, 1911; Vincent Leonard Price, actor and writer, 1911. Deaths: Thomas Muntzer, Anabaptist campaigner, executed 1525; John Calvin, theologian, 1564; Archibald Campbell, Marquess of Argyll, soldier, beheaded 1661; Francois-Emile Babeuf, French revolutionary, 1797; Niccolo Paganini, violinist, 1840; Joseph Bosworth, lexicographer and scholar, 1876; Robert Koch, bacteriologist, 1910; Sir Joseph Wilson Swan, physicist and chemist, 1914; Henry Adams, historian, 1918; Field Marshal Sir Thomas Blamey, soldier, 1951; Jawalharlal Nehru, statesman, 1964. On this day: the Habeas Corpus Act was passed, 1679; St Petersburg (Leningrad) was founded by Peter the Great, 1703; the trial of William Palmer, doctor and poisoner, ended with a verdict of guilty, 1856; at the naval battle of Tsushima Straits, the Russian fleet of 32 vessels was annihilated by the Japanese under Togo, 1905; the Battle of Aisne started, 1918; the first transatlantic air flight, with a five-man US crew, arrived at Lisbon, 1919; the Cunard liner Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, 1936; the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, opened, 1937; the German battleship Bismarck was sunk, 1941; the physicist Auguste Picard was the first man to ascend into the stratosphere, reaching a height of 51,000ft in a balloon, 1931; the European Defence Community was set up, 1952. Today is the Feast Day of St Augustine of Canterbury, St Eutropius of Orange, St Julius of Durostorum, St Melangel or Monacella and St Restituta of Sora.