Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Prince Henry the Navigator, sponsor of voyages, 1394; Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, composer and violinist, 1678; Sir Henry Raeburn, portrait painter, 1756; Robert Lindley, cellist and composer, 1776; Thomas Sturge Moore, poet and wood-engraver, 1870. Deaths: Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, 1193; Sir Thomas Malory, writer of Morte d'Arthur, 1470; William Willett, builder, and promoter of "daylight saving time", 1915; Antonin Artaud, actor, playwright and stage director, 1948; Sir Charles Scott Sherrington, neurologist, 1952; William Carlos Williams, physician and poet, 1963; Richard Thomas Church, poet and novelist, 1972. On this day: Pennsylvania was granted by charter to William Penn, 1681; the first meeting of Congress was held in New York, 1789; the Royal National Lifeboat Institution was founded, 1824; the Forth Bridge was officially opened, 1890; the Comintern (Communist International) was formed, 1919; British commandos raided the Lofoten Islands off Norway, then German-occupied, 1941; German radio declared that Dresden had been "wiped off the map of Europe" by Allied bombing, 1945; the nuclear submarine Nautilus travelled under the North Polar icecap, 1958; North Sea gas was first piped ashore near Durham, 1967; Edward Heath resigned and Harold Wilson became prime minister, forming a Labour government, 1974. Today is the Feast Day of St Adrian and his Companions, St Casimir of Poland and St Peter of Cava.