Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Blaise Pascal, mathematician and philosopher, 1623; Johann Wenzel Anton (Jan Vaclav Antonin) Stamitz, violinist and composer, baptised 1717; Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois, French revolutionary, 1749; Hugues-Felicite- Robert de Lamennais, church reformer, 1782; John Gibson, sculptor, 1790; Richard Monckton Milnes, first Baron Houghton, MP and poet, 1809; Ferdinand David, violinist and composer, 1810; Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Baptist minister, 1834; Sir Frank (Francis) Job Short, engraver and painter, 1857; Sir George Alexander (George Samson), actor-manager, 1858; Douglas, first Earl Haig, soldier, 1861; Sir Max Pemberton, writer and editor, 1863; Charles Coburn, actor, 1877; Bessie Wallis Warfield, Duchess of Windsor, 1896; Walter Reginald Hammond, cricketer, 1903; Sir Ernst Boris Chain, bacteriologist and pioneer of penicillin, 1906. Deaths: Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, court favourite, beheaded 1312; Matthew Merian the Elder, engraver and bookseller, 1650; Sir Joseph Banks, naturalist and explorer, 1820; Maximilian, Archduke of Austria and Emperor of Mexico, executed 1867; John Percy, metallurgist, 1889; Sir James Matthew Barrie, writer and playwright, 1937; Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Soviet spies, executed 1953; Jean Arthur (Gladys Georgianna Greene), actress, 1991; Sir William Gerald Golding, novelist, 1993; Vivian Ellis, songwriter and composer, 1996. On this day: King Louis XI of France created a (private) Royal Mail service, 1464; an Act was passed founding the Metropolitan Police, 1829; the Earl of Rosse announced his discovery of spiral nebulae, 1850; the first Zeppelin dirigible airship, the Deutschland, was launched, 1910; a republic was proclaimed in Portugal, 1911; all German titles and names were renounced by the British Royal Family, who adopted the name Windsor, 1917; King George V conferred peerages on members of the Teck and Battenberg families, 1917; a census was taken in Great Britain, 1921; Kuwait became independent, 1961. Today is the Feast Day of St Bruno-Boniface, St Deodatus or Die, Saints Gervase and Protase, St Juliana Falconieri, St Odo of Cambrai and St Romuald.