Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Frans Francken the Younger, painter, 1581; Lorenzo Lippi (Perlone Zipoli), poet and painter, 1606; Andre Massena, duc de Rivoli, Prince d'Essling, French marshal and soldier, 1756; Maximilien-Francois Marie- Isidore de Robespierre, French revolutionary, 1758; Karl Christian Friedrich Krause, philosopher, 1781; Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst, violinist and composer, 1814; Sigmund Freud, neurologist and psychoanalyst, 1856; Robert Edwin Peary, Arctic explorer, 1856; Luis Maria Drago, statesman, 1859; William Edmund, first Baron Ironside, soldier, 1880; Stanley Arthur Morison, typographer, 1889; Rudolph Valentino (Rodolfo Alfonzo Raffaele Pierre Philibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla), actor, 1895; Max Ophuls (Maximilian Oppenheimer), film director, 1902; Harry Martinson, author, poet and playwright, 1904; Stewart Granger, (James Lablanche Stewart), actor, 1913; George Orson Welles, actor, director and writer, 1915. Deaths: Juan Luis Vives (Ludovicus Vives), philosopher, 1540; Robert Bruce Cotton, antiquary, 1631; Cornelius Jansen, theologian, 1638; Frans Francken the Younger, painter, 1642; Sir William Hamilton, metaphysicist, 1856; Friedrich Heinrich Alexander, Baron von Humboldt, explorer and scientist, 1859; Henry David Thoreau, poet and essayist, 1862; Louis-Marie de la Haye, Vicomte de Cormenin, jurist, 1868; Franz von Lenbach, portrait painter, 1904; Edward VII, King, 1910; Lyman Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz, 1919; Count Maurice-Polydore Marie-Bernard Maeterlinck, poet and playwright, 1949; Maria Montessori, physician and educationist, 1952; Wilfrid Hyde White, actor, 1991; Marlene Dietrich (Maria Magdalene Dietrich), actress, 1992; Ivy Benson, bandleader, 1993; Ann Todd, actress, 1993. On this day: King Henry VIII ordered that the Bible should be placed in every English church, 1536; the island of Manhattan was bought from the Indians by the Dutch settler, Peter Minuit, for trinkets worth about $25, 1626; the first postage stamp, the Penny Black, was issued, 1840; the Union army was routed by the Confederates under General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia, 1863; Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Henry Burke were assassinated by the Fenian "Invincibles" in Phoenix Park, Dublin, 1882; Epping Forest was dedicated by Queen Victoria for the perpetual use of the people, 1882; conductors on the London General Omnibus Company in London went on strike over a new ticket-issuing system, 1891; King George V acceded to the throne, 1910; the German Zeppelin Hindenburg crashed and was destroyed by fire at Lakehurst, New Jersey, 1937; Josef Stalin became leader of the government of the Soviet Union, 1941; Corregidor surrendered to the Japanese, 1942; Roger Bannister was the first to run a mile in under four minutes, 1954; Princess Margaret married Antony Armstrong- Jones in Westminster Abbey, 1960; Spain closed the border between Gibraltar and Spain to all but Spaniards, 1968; The Guitar Player, a painting by Jan Vermeer worth over pounds 1m, was found in a London churchyard, after being stolen from Kenwood House, Hampstead, 1974. Today is the Feast Day of St Edbert, St Evodius of Antioch, St John Before the Latin Gate and St Petronax.