Anniversaries

Births: Henry VIII, King, 1491; Sir Peter Paul Rubens, painter, 1577; Jean- Jacques Rousseau, writer and philosopher, 1712; Luigi Pirandello, playwright, 1867; Richard Charles Rodgers, composer and lyricist, 1902.

Deaths: Pope Paul I, 767; Robert O'Hara Burke, explorer of Australia, 1861; Victor Thomas Trumper, cricketer, 1915.

On this day: during the First Crusade, the Crusaders regained Antioch from the Turks, 1098; the Morning Chronicle newspaper was first issued, 1769; the British were defeated by Washington's army at the Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey, 1778; Queen Victoria was crowned, 1838; a mutiny of Russian sailors took place on the battleship Potemkin, 1905; Westminster Cathedral was consecrated, 1910; the Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria and his wife were shot by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian revolutionary, Sarajevo 1914; the Seychelles became an independent republic within the Commonwealth, 1976.

Today is the Feast Day of St Heimrad, St Irenaeus of Lyons, St John Southworth, St Paul I, Pope, Saints Plutarch, Potamiaena and Companions and Saints Sergius and Germanus of Valaam.