Birthdays and Anniversries

Birthdays

Mr George Baker, actor and writer, 65; Mr Cynog Dafis MP, 58; Mr David Davies, chairman and chief executive, Johnson Matthey, 56; The Rev Norman Drummond, Scottish Governor, BBC, and Chairman, Broadcasting Council for Scotland, 44; Mr Alex Falconer, MEP, 56; Professor Roderick Floud, Provost, London Guildhall University, 54; Sir Anthony Gill, chairman, Docklands Light Railway, 66; Mr David Gower, cricketer, 39; Sir Nicholas Henderson, former diplomat, 77; Miss Gaie Johnson Houghton, jockey, 55; The Earl of Ilchester, managing director, County Border Newspapers, 76; Baroness McFarlane of Llandaff, Professor Emeritus, Department of Nursing, Manchester University, 70; Professor Maxwell McGlashan, chemist, 72; Miss Ali MacGraw, film actress, 58; Sir William Macpherson of Cluny, High Court judge, 70; Mr William Manchester, author and history professor, 74; Maj-Gen Giles Mills, former resident Governor, Tower of London, 74; Professor Sir Dimitri Obolensky, historian, 78; Mrs Marie Patterson, former TUC president, 62; Miss Jane Powell, singer and actress, 67; Mr Charles H. Price, former US ambassador to the UK, 65; Mr Steve Race, musician and broadcaster, 75; Dr Richard Repp, Master of St Cross College, Oxford, 60; Miss Debbie Reynolds, actress, 64; Mr Bryan Robertson, author, historian and broadcaster, 71; Mr Arnold Sidebottom, cricketer, 42; Mr Leonard van Geest, chairman, Littlewoods, 46; Mr Dafydd Wigley MP, 53.

Anniversaries

Births: William Harvey, physician, discoverer of the circulation of the blood, 1578; Abbe Prevost (Antoine-Francois Prevost d'Exiles), writer, 1697; Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, statesman, 1815; Edwin Austin Abbey, painter, 1852; Ferruccio Benvenuto Busoni, musician, 1866; Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninov, composer, 1873; Edgar Richard Horatio Wallace, journalist and thriller writer, 1875; Lon (Alonso) Chaney, actor, 1883; Wallace Beery, actor, 1885; Clementine Ogilvy, Baroness Spencer-Churchill, widow of Sir Winston Churchill, 1885; Leonard Bloomfield, linguist, 1887; Dame Cicely Courtneidge, actress, 1893. Deaths: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France and of England, 1204; Robert III, King of Scotland, 1406; Dr John Langhorne, writer, cleric and translator, 1779; Dr Isaac Milner, theologian and mathematician, 1820; Chester Harding, portrait painter, 1866; John Frederick Denison Maurice, theologian and founder of Christian Socialism, 1872; Ex- Emperor Karl Franz Josef of Austria, 1922; Mortimer Menpes, painter and etcher, 1938; John Atkinson Hobson, economist, 1940; Lev Davidovich Landau, physicist, 1968; Max Ernst, Surrealist painter and sculptor, 1976; Rene Cutforth, journalist and broadcaster, 1984; Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge, author, 1984. On this day: the telephone link between London and Paris was officially opened, 1891; the Territorial Army was founded, 1908; old age pensions were first paid (to British subjects over the age of 70), 1909; the first aviation unit of the British army was formed, the Air Battalion, Royal Engineers 1911; the Royal Air Force came into being, 1918; Adolf Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, 1924; a Hebrew university was inaugurated by Lord Balfour on Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, 1925; persecution of the Jews in Germany began, 1933; London's Green Belt legislation came into being, 1935; electricity undertakings in Britain, both private and municipal, were nationalised as the British Electricity Authority, 1947; Newfoundland, up to this date a separate Dominion, became the 10th province of Canada, 1949; the world's first meteorological satellite was launched, Tiros 1 1960; 590 US prisoners were released by the North Vietnamese, 1973; Purchase Tax and Selective Employment Tax were abolished in Britain, and Value Added Tax (VAT) took their place, 1973; boundary changes were made in England and Wales, affecting all counties, 1974. Today is the Feast Day of St Catharine of Palma, St Gilbert of Caithness, St Hugh of Bonnevaux, St Hugh of Grenoble, St Macarius the Wonderworker, St Melito and St Valery or Walaricus.