Anniversaries

Births: Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hardwicke), builder of country houses, 1518; Jean Bernoulli, mathematician, 1667; Thomas Campbell, poet, 1777; Mauro Giuliani, composer, 1781; Andre-Georges-Louis Onslow, composer, 1784; Sir George Biddell Airy, Astronomer Royal, 1801; Alexandre Dumas fils, playwright, 1824; Giosue Carducci, poet, 1835; Vladimir de Pachmann, pianist, 1848; Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge, orientalist and museum curator, 1857; Enrique Granados, pianist and composer, 1867; Ernst von Dohnanyi, composer, 1877; Joseph Hilaire Pierre Belloc, poet and author, 1870; Anton Dolin (Patrick Healey-Kay), dancer and choreographer, 1904.

Deaths: St Joseph of Arimathea, 82; Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, Marshal-General of France, 1675; John Graham of Claverhouse, First Viscount Dundee, soldier, killed 1689; Pierre- Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, astronomer and mathematician, 1759; Gilbert Charles Stuart, painter, 1828; Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov, poet and novelist, 1841; John Dalton, physicist and chemist, 1844; Ferruccio Benvenuto Busoni, pianist and composer, 1924; Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, Egyptologist, 1942; Gertrude Stein, novelist and poet, 1946; Edward Godfrey Richard Aldington, novelist and biographer, 1962; Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, prime minister and dictator, 1970; James Mason, actor, 1984; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, 1980.

On this day: Albert I, son of Rudolf of Habsburg, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor, 1298; Cromwell defeated the Royalists at the Battle of Gainsborough, 1643; at the Battle of Killicrankie, Viscount Dundee (Claverhouse) for the Highlanders, defeated the Whig General Mackay, 1689; the Bank of England was granted a 12 year charter by Act of Parliament, 1694; Revolution broke out in Paris, in opposition to the laws of Charles X, 1830; Adelaide, South Australia, was founded, 1836; Chartist riots broke out in Birmingham and other towns, 1839; the Atlantic telegraph cable, laid by the SS Great Eastern, was completed, 1866; Captain Charles Fryatt, a British seaman, was executed by the Germans for attempting to use his ship, the SS Brussels to ram a German submarine, 1916; a radio compass was used for the first time to direct navigation of aircraft, 1920; insulin was isolated by Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best at the University of Toronto, 1921; in Paris, Paul Gorgoulov, assassin of President Doumer, was condemned to death, 1932; the German army entered the Ukraine, 1941; the De Havilland Comet - the first jet-propelled airliner - flew for the first time, 1949; the armistice between North Korea and the United Nations forces was signed, 1953; Austria once more became independent, 1955; the St James's Theatre, London, closed, 1957; in the US, a Judiciary Committee voted to impeach President Nixon, 1974.

Today is the Feast Day of St Aurelia, Natalia and their Companions, St Pantaleon, The Martyrs of Salsette, The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and St Theobald of Marly.