Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Louis XVII, King of France, 1785; Heinrich Adam, landscape painter, 1787; Alfred Victor, Comte de Vigny, poet, 1797; Baron Georges-Eugne Haussmann, replanner of Paris, 1809; Charles Mackay, poet and journalist, 1814; George Job Elvey, organist and composer, 1816; Sir William Quiller Orchardson, painter, 1835; Wilhelm Konrad von Rntgen, physicist, 1845; Paul-Marie Thodore-Vincent d'Indy, composer, 1851; Sir Frederick Henry Royce, motor-car designer, 1863; Heinrich Mann, novelist, 1871; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, architect, 1886; Margaret Irwin, novelist, 1889; Ferde Grof (Ferdinand Rudolf von Grof), composer, 1892; Karl Mannheim, sociologist, 1893; Dragoljub (Draza) Mihajlovic, soldier and nationalist, 1893; Gloria May Josephine Swanson, actress, 1899.

Deaths: Pope Gregory XI, 1378; Theodorus Dirk de Bry, engraver and publisher, 1598; James VI of Scotland/James I of Great Britain, 1625; Gianbattista Tiepolo, painter, 1770; Joseph-Marie Vien, painter, 1809; Sir George Gilbert Scott, architect, 1878; Sir Henry Taylor, poet, 1886; John Bright, statesman, 1889; Myles Birket Foster, painter, 1899; Jean-Charles Cazin, landscape painter, 1901; Eugne Carrire, painter, 1906; Samuel Colman, landscape painter, 1920; Sir James Dewar, physicist and inventor of the vacuum flask, 1923; Leslie Stuart (Thomas Augustine Barrett), popular composer ("Lily of Laguna"), 1928; Enoch Arnold Bennett, novelist, 1931; Michael Joseph Savage, New Zealand prime minister, 1940; Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, cosmonaut, killed in an aircraft accident 1968.

On this day: Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield was published, 1766; the United States Navy was formed, 1794; the Treaty of Amiens was concluded between France and Britain, 1802; France declared war on Russia, 1854; universal suffrage was introduced in Spain, 1890; Nikita Khrushchev became chairman of the Council of Ministers in the Soviet Union, 1958; a United Nations Peace Force took over in Cyprus, 1964; in Tenerife, a Pan Am jumbo jet collided on take-off with a KLM jumbo-jet on the runway, killing 583, 1977; the musical show Starlight Express was first produced, London 1984.

Today is the Feast Day of St Alkeld or Athilda and St John of Egypt.