Anniversaries

Births: Edward I, King, 1239; Pedro Calderon de la Barca, playwright, 1600; John Wesley, evangelist, 1703; Hermann Goldschmidt, painter and astronomer, 1802; Ferdinand Freiligrath, poet, 1810; Henry Hertzberg Lawson (Larsen), author and poet, 1867; Don Gillis, composer, 1912.

Deaths: Giacomo Torelli, theatrical designer, 1678; Prosper-Jolyot de Crebillon, playwright, 1762; Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, Methodist reformer, 1791; Lord William Bentinck, governor-general of India, 1839; William Hart, landscape and cattle painter, 1894; Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, painter, 1898; Arthur Christopher Benson, scholar and author, 1925; John Cowper Powys, novelist and poet, 1963.

On this day: Francis Drake proclaimed English sovereignty over New Albion (now California), 1579; the Battle of Bunker Hill, beginning the American War of Independence, was fought, 1775; the Third Estate (tiers etat) or Commons, formed themselves into the French National Assembly, 1789; the first military port in Germany, Wilhelmshaven, was officially inaugurated, 1869; the river steamboat service on the Thames started, 1905; Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union 1940; the British Expeditionary Force from France was finally evacuated, 1940; in East Berlin, a rising took place against the Communist government, 1953; China reported that she had exploded a hydrogen bomb, 1967; General Leopoldo Galtieri was ousted as president of Argentina, 1982; the South African parliament repealed a law, by which apartheid was ended, 1991.

Today is the Feast Day of St Adolph, St Antidius, St Avitus or Avy of Perche, St Bessarion, Saints Botulph and Adulph, St Emily de Vialar, St Gregory Barbarigo, St Herve or Herveus of Brittany, St Hypatius, St Molling, St Nectan, Saints Nicander and Marcian and St Teresa of Portugal.