Anniversaries

Births: John III Sobieski, King of Poland, 1624; Donatien-Alphonse-Francois, Marquis de Sade, writer and libertine, 1740; Robert Fuhrer, composer, 1807; Grace Aguilar, novelist and historian, 1816; Pope Pius X (Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto), 1835; Thomas Hardy, novelist, 1840; Sir Edward William Elgar, composer, 1857; Paul Felix Weingartner, conductor, 1863; (Peter John) Johnny Weissmuller, swimmer and film 'Tarzan', 1903.

Deaths: Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury, 959; Alvaro de Luna, politician and poet, executed, 1453; Robert Foulis, bookseller and printer, 1776; John Wilson, poet, 1789; Manuel del Popolo Vicente Rodriguez Garcia, tenor and composer, 1832; Giuseppe Garibaldi, nationalist leader, 1882; Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, playwright, 1886; Sir Redvers Henry Buller VC, general, 1908; Friedrich Hegar, composer and conductor, 1927; Herman Darewski, composer, 1947; 1951; Victoria Mary Sackville-West, writer, 1962; Sir Rex Carey Harrison, actor, 1990.

On this day: King Henry V of England married Catherine de Valois, 1420; Lord George Gordon led 'No Popery Riots' in London, 1780; Corfu was occupied by Greek troops, 1864; Japan took possession of Formosa (Taiwan) from China, 1895; the world's first patent for wireless telegraphy was granted to Guglielmo Marconi, 1896; clothes rationing began, 1941; the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place in Westminster Abbey, 1953.

Today is the Feast Day of St Attalus, St Erasmus or Elmo, St Eugenius I, pope, Saints Marcellinus and Peter, St Nicholas the Pilgrim, St Pothinus and his Companions and St Stephen of Sweden.