Anniversaries

Births: Leone Battista Alberti, painter, poet, musician and architect, 1404; Mary I, Queen of England, 1516; Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, statesman and historian, 1608; Sir Richard Baker, English chronicler, 1645; Johann Christian Heinrich Rinck, organist and composer, 1770; Niccolo Paganini, violinist and composer, 1784; Marshall Hall, physician, 1790; George Peabody, industrialist and philanthropist, 1795; Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa (Gadadhar Chatterjee), Hindu mystic, 1836; Isidor Georg Henschel, baritone, pianist and composer, 1850; Jean-Adrien-Antoine-Jules Jusserand, diplomat and historian, 1855; Max Klinger, painter, etcher and sculptor, 1857; Edward Arnold, (Gunther Edward Arnold Schneider), actor, 1890; Wendell Louis Wilkie, politician, 1892; Andres Segovia, guitarist, 1894; Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko, general, 1895; Andre Breton, Surrealist poet and art critic, 1896.

Deaths: Fra Angelico (Giovanni da Fiesole), painter, 1455; George, Duke of Clarence, put to death in the Tower 1478; Cornelius Heinrich Agrippa (von Nettesheim), scholar and astrologer, 1535; Martin Luther, Protestant reformer, 1546; Michelangelo Buonarroti, artist, 1564; Maurice Quentin de La Tour, pastel artist, 1788; Sir Jeffry Wyatville, architect, 1840; Nicholas I, Tsar of Russia, 1855; Carolus-Duran (Charles-Auguste-Emile Durand), painter, 1917; Sir Malcolm Morris, dermatologist, 1924; Elbridge Thomas Gerry, lawyer and philanthropist, 1927; James John Corbett ('Gentleman Jim'), pugilist, 1933; Gustave Charpentier, composer, 1956; Jacob Robert Oppenheimer, physicist, 1967; Hans Richter, painter and film-maker, 1976.

On this day: John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress was published, 1678; the Order of the Bath was revived, 1725; the Italian Parliament was opened, 1861; the first Congress of the Confederate States met in Richmond, Virginia, 1862; Charleston was taken by the Union fleet, 1865; a direct telegraph line was established between London and New Zealand, 1876; Emile Loubet was elected President of France, 1899; in South Africa, Piet Cronje surrendered to the British at Paardeberg, 1900; Germany's blockade of Britain by submarine began, 1915; the Golden Gate International Exposition opened in San Francisco, 1939; after the French submarine Le Surcouf was rammed by a merchant ship in the Caribbean, 30 men lost their lives, 1942; a constitutional monarchy was proclaimed in Nepal by the King, 1951; The Gambia became an independent state within the Commonwealth, 1965.

Today is the Feast Day of St Angilbert, St Colman of Lindisfarne, St Flavian of Constantinople, St Helladius of Toledo, St Leo and Paregorius, St Simeon of Jerusalem and St Theotonius.