Anniversaries

Births: Johann Wilhelm Hassler, organist and composer, 1747; John Tyler, 10th US President, 1790; Edward George Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, statesman, 1799; Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, architect, 1869; Dora de Houghton Carrington, artist, 1893; Sir William Turner Walton, composer, 1902.

Deaths: Thomas Coram, philanthropist, 1751; Emanuel Swedenborg (Svedberg), scientist and philosopher, 1772; Charles Wesley, writer of hymns, 1788; Mrs Maria Anne Fitzherbert, mistress of George IV, 1837; John Jacob Astor (John Jakob Ashdour), fur trader, 1848; Paul-Emile Botta, archaeologist, 1870; Georges- Pierre Seurat, Impressionist painter, 1891; Robert Falcon Scott, Arctic explorer, 1912; Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, composer, 1924; Karol Szymanowski, composer, 1937; Joyce Cary (Arthur Joyce Tunel Cary), novelist, 1957; Vera Mary Brittain, author, 1970; Raymond William Postgate, historian and novelist, 1971; Joseph Arthur, first Baron Rank, cinema magnate, 1972; Annunzio Paolo Mantovani, musician, 1980; Paul Henreid, actor, 1992.

On this day: Britain ceded the Ionian Islands to Greece, 1864; the Royal Albert Hall was opened by Queen Victoria, 1871; Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin was first performed, Moscow 1879; the magazine Horse and Hound was first published, 1884; Richmond Park was opened to the public, 1904; it was claimed in Germany that in the general election 99 per cent of voters had voted for the National Socialist (Nazi) party, 1936; the last flying bomb fell in England, 1945; Redoutable, the first French nuclear submarine, was launched by President de Gaulle, 1967; Lt William Calley was found guilty of murdering 22 civilians at My Lai, Vietnam, and received a life sentence, Georgia 1971; the last US troops left Vietnam, 1973; the first close-up pictures of Mercury were taken by the US spacecraft Mariner 10, 1974.

Today is the Feast Day of Saints Armogastes, Masculas, Achinimus and Saturus, St Berthold, St Cyril of Heliopolis, St Gundleus or Woolo, St Gwladys, Saints Jonas, Barachisius and Others, St Mark of Arethusa and St Rupert of Salzburg.