Anniversaries

TODAY: Births: Honore-Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, statesman, 1749; Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, composer, 1839; Ernest Bevin, statesman, 1881; Victoria Mary Sackville-West, novelist, 1892; Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, astronaut, 1934. Deaths: David Rizzio, musician and secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, murdered 1566; Jules Mazarin, cardinal and statesman, 1661; Samuel Jebb, physician and scholar, 1772; Arnold Toynbee, social philosopher, 1883. On this day: Pope Gregory VII declared all married Roman Catholic priests to be excommunicated, 1074; Napoleon Bonaparte married Josephine de Beauharnais, 1796; Louis-Philippe of France founded the French Foreign Legion in Algeria, 1831; King George V laid the foundation stone of London County Hall, 1912. Today is the Feast Day of St Bosa, St Catharine of Bologna, St Dominic Savio, St Frances of Rome, St Gregory of Nyssa and St Pacianus.

TOMORROW: Births: John Playfair, mathematician and geologist, 1748; Tamara Platonovna Karsavina, ballerina, 1885; Bix Beiderbecke, jazz cornet-player and composer, 1903. Deaths: Charles Frederick Worth, fashion designer, 1895; Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko, Russian leader, 1985; Ray Milland (Reginald Truscott-Jones), actor, 1986. On this day: the first British Census began, 1801; D.W. Griffith's film In Old California was released, the first movie to be made in Hollywood, 1910; James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the murder of Martin Luther King, Memphis, Tennessee, 1969. Tomorrow is the Feast Day of St Anastasia Patricia, St Attalas, St Codratus and Others, St Droctoveus or Drotte, St Hymelin, St John Ogilvie, St Kessog, St Macarius of Jerusalem and St Simplicius, pope.