Anniversaries

Births: Laszlo V (Ladislav) or Ladislas Posthumus, boy King of Hungary, 1440; George Washington, first US President, 1732; Johann Nikolaus Forkel, organist, 1749; Gilbert Wakefield, classical scholar, 1756; Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher, 1788; Niels Vilhelm Gade, composer, 1817; James Russell Lowell, poet and diplomat, 1819; Sir Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, first Baron Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, 1857; Heinrich Rudolph Hertz, physicist, 1857; Norman Alfred William Lindsay, cartoonist, illustrator and novelist, 1879; Arthur Eric Rowton Gill, artist, sculptor and typographer, 1882; Marguerite Clark, actress, 1883; Lew Cody (Louis Joseph Cote), actor, 1884; Olave St Clair, Lady Baden-Powell, World Chief Guide from 1930, 1889; Edna St Vincent Millay, poet, 1892; Luis Bunuel, film director, 1900; Robert George Young, actor, 1907; Romulo Betancourt, statesman, 1908; Warren Stanley Tute, novelist, sailor and playwright, 1914.

Deaths: Amerigo Vespucci, navigator, 1512; Govaert Flinck, painter, 1660; John Wilson, lutenist, singer and composer, 1674; James Barry, historical painter, 1806; Dr Adam Ferguson, philosopher and historian, 1816; Sydney Smith, social reformer, 1845; Sir William Allan, painter, 1850; Jean-Baptiste- Camille Corot, painter, 1875; Sir Charles Lyell, geologist, 1875; Sir Leslie Stephen, biographer, writer and editor, 1904; Stefan Zweig, writer, 1942; Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen, novelist, 1973; Oskar Kokoschka, painter and playwright, 1980; Andy Warhol (Andrew Warhola), pop artist and film-maker, 1987; Glenway Wescott, novelist and poet, 1987.

On this day: Robert II acceded to the throne of Scotland, 1370; the Westminster Assembly ended, 1648; the last invasion of Britain took place when the French landed at Fishguard, and were made prisoners, 1797; Florida was ceded to the US by Spain, 1819; Frank Winfield Woolworth opened his first "five-and-ten-cent-store", at Utica, New York, 1879; the first British cinema to be built, the Central Hall, Colne, Lancashire, opened, 1906; the National Council for Civil Liberties was founded, 1934; Dr Selman Abraham Waksman announced his discovery of streptomycin, 1946; an IRA bomb attack at Aldershot killed seven people, 1972; Pakistan recognised the independence of Bangladesh, 1974.

Today is the Feast Day of St Baradates, St Margaret of Cortona and Saints Thalassius and Limnaeus.