ANNIVERSARIES

Births: Gaspard de Coligny, Huguenot leader and soldier, 1519; Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, 1620; Giambattista Bodoni, printer and typographer, 1740; Jacques Pierre Joseph Rode, violinist and composer, 1774; Heinrich Barth, explorer, 1821; Sir Francis Galton, anthropologist and geneticist, 1822; Leon Achard, lyric tenor, 1831; Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, naturalist, 1834; Henry Brooks Adams, historian, 1838; Hugo Marie de Vries, botanist, 1848; Sir William Gurney Benham, editor and newspaper proprietor, 1859; George Macaulay Trevelyan, historian, 1876; Robert Joseph Flaherty, film maker, 1884; Louis Calhern (Karl Henry Vogt), actor, 1895; Katherine Cornell, actress, 1898; Sir Geraint Evans, operatic baritone, 1922.

Deaths: Alfonso III, King of Portugal, 1279; Henry Deane, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1503; Richard Mead, royal physician, 1754; Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, painter, 1823; Franois-Joseph Gossec, composer, 1829; Lionel Lukin, lifeboat inventor, 1834; Elisha Kent Kane, explorer, 1857; Henry Walter Bates, explorer and naturalist, 1892; Giosu Carducci, poet, 1907; James Harvey Robinson, historian, 1936; Henry Cabot Lodge, statesman, 1985.

On this day: Spain was invaded by France, 1808; the Athenaeum Club, London, was founded, 1824; the Confederate forces surrendered Fort Grant to General Ulysses S. Grant, 1862; a fire broke out at Windsor Castle, causing limited damage, 1865; the fortress of Belfort capitulated to the Germans, 1871; the Fianna Fail party, led by Eamon de Valera, won the Irish general election, 1932; in Spain, the "Popular Front" won the general election, 1936; HMS Cossack rescued British prisoners from the Altmark in Norwegian waters, 1940; US forces took Bataan, in the Philippines, 1945; the musical Gay's the Word was first produced, London 1951; Fidel Castro became prime minister of Cuba, 1959; the first London production of the musical Fiddler on the Roof took place, 1967.

Today is the Feast Day of Saints Elias, Jeremy and their Companions, St Gilbert of Sempringham, St Juliana of Cumae and St Onesimus the Slave.