Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Pietro Locatelli, violinist and composer, 1695; Matthew Boulton, engineer, 1728; Joseph Wright, painter, 1734; John Francis, sculptor, 1780; James Joseph Sylvester, mathematician, 1814; Ernst Pasque, baritone, composer and novelist, 1821; Louis Henry Sullivan, architect, 1856; Jean- Joseph Marie-Auguste Jaures, socialist writer and speaker, 1859; Marcel Grandjany, composer, 1891; Cecil Parker (Cecil Schwabe), actor, 1897; Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, immunologist, 1899; Alan Ladd, film actor, 1913. Deaths: Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, 1658; Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, playwright, 1883; Sir Arthur Streeton, painter, 1943; e.e. cummings (Edward Estlin Cummings), poet, 1962; Frederick Louis MacNiece, poet and playwright, 1963; Ho Chi Minh, president of North Vietnam, 1969; Frederic Dannay, novelist (one-half of the team called "Ellery Queen"), 1982; Arthur Schwartz, popular composer, 1984; Frank Capra, writer and film director, 1991. On this day: the Battle of Dunbar was fought, when Cromwell defeated the Scots, 1650; Oliver Cromwell defeated the Royalist troops at the Battle of Worcester, 1651; Richard Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, 1658; the Gregorian calendar was introduced, replacing the Julian, when 3rd September became 14th September, 1752; the American War of Independence came to an end after Britain and the US signed Treaty of Paris, 1783; Bartholomew Fair, dating from 1123, was proclaimed at Smithfield, London, for the last time, 1855; the Royal British Bank failed, with debts of over pounds 500,000, 1856; the Afghans massacred the members of the British legation in Kabul, 1879; the Princess Alice, a pleasure boat, collided with the Bywell Castle and sank in the Thames with the loss of over 650 lives, 1878; the French government was removed to Bordeaux, 1914; Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, was destroyed and 5,000 killed when a hurricane hit the city, 1930; Sir Malcolm Campbell set up a land speed record of 301.13 mph, 1935; Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, 1939; the Germans torpedoed the liner Athenia off the Irish coast, 1939; under the Lend-Lease agreement, the US sent destroyers to Britain, 1940; the Allies landed at Salerno, on the mainland of Italy, and the Italian government surrendered, 1943; the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was established, 1953; Sweden changed its rule of the road from left to right, 1967; the spacecraft Viking 2 landed on Mars and sent back photographs to the Earth, 1976. Today is the Feast Day of St Aigulf or Ayoul of Lerins, St Cuthburga, St Gregory the Great, St Hildelitha, St Macanisius, St Phoebe, St Remaclus and St Simeon Stylites the Younger