Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: James Wyatt, architect, 1746; Charles Stanhope, third Earl Harrington, politician and scientist, 1753; Sir Joseph Paxton, architect and landscape gardener, 1801; Elisha Graves Otis, inventor of the safety lift, 1811; Sir George Gabriel Stokes, mathematician and physicist, 1819; Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, composer, 1823; Frederic Clay, composer, 1840; Juliana Horatia Ewing, writer of children's books, 1841; Stanley Baldwin, first Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, statesman, 1867; King Haakon VII of Norway, 1872; Louis Gruenberg, composer, 1884; Rupert Chawner Brooke, poet, 1887; Walter Van Tilburg Clark, writer, 1909.

Deaths: James II, King of Scotland, killed 1460; Grinling Gibbons, sculptor and wood carver, 1721; Thomas Godfrey, poet and playwright, 1763; Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, philosopher and writer, 1780; Sir Richard Arkwright, inventor of the spinning frame, 1792; Pierce Egan the Elder, sporting writer, 1849; Marie-Joseph Eugene Sue, novelist, 1857; Joachim Ventura, Jesuit preacher, 1861; Joseph Severn, painter, 1879; William George Fargo, a founder of the Wells-Fargo express company, 1881; Jean-Louis Charles Garnier, architect, 1898; Augustus Saint-Gaudens, sculptor, 1907; Reinhold Begas, sculptor, 1911; Sir Roger David Casement, Irish nationalist, executed for treason 1916; Joseph Conrad (Josef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski), novelist, 1924; Albert Frederick Pollard, historian, 1948; Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, novelist, 1954; Paul Goodman, novelist, playwright and poet, 1972; Archbishop Makarios III, President of Cyprus, 1977; Ida Lupino, actress, 1995.

On this day: Hannibal won a victory over Rome at Cannae, 216 BC; Christopher Columbus left Palos in Andalusia, Spain, on his first voyage to America, 1492; Hudson's Bay was discovered by Henry Hudson, 1610; the trial of Eugene Aram, murderer, took place at York, 1759; La Scala opera house in Milan was opened, 1778; the first recorded cricket match between Eton and Harrow was played, 1805; the cornet was first used in an orchestra, employed in Paris for William Tell, at its first presentation, 1829; the uprising in Paris, known as the July Revolution, ended, 1830; John Hanning Speke discovered the source of the river Nile to be Lake Victoria, 1858; British troops under Colonel Younghusband and General Macdonald entered the forbidden city of Lhasa, Tibet, 1904; the first ship passed through the Panama Canal, 1914; Germany declared war on France, 1914; the London Pavilion, previously a music hall, opened as a theatre, 1918; Lt John Macready carried out the first aerial crop-dusting operation at Troy, Ohio, 1921; in Germany, Adolf Hitler became "Der Fuhrer", 1934; Latvia became part of the Soviet Union, 1940; Whittaker Chambers, an editor for Time magazine, named Alger Hiss, a former US State Department official, as a member of the Communist underground, 1948; the Council of Europe was inaugurated, 1949; the first VTOL aircraft - "The Flying Bedstead" - was flown in Britain, 1954; the US nuclear-powered submarine Nautilus made its first undersea crossing of the North Pole, 1958; the French colony of Niger became independent, 1960.

Today is the Feast Day of St Germanus of Auxerre, St Thomas of Hales or Dover, St Walthen or Waltheof.