Anniversaries

Births: Domenichino, or Domenico Zampieri, painter, 1581; George Ernst Stahl, chemist, 1660; Katsushika Hokusai, painter, wood-engraver and printmaker, 1760; Alexandre-Etienne Choron, musical scholar and composer, 1772; Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet and writer, 1772; George Combe, phrenologist, 1788; Alphonse-Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine, poet and statesman, 1790; Alfred Bernhard Nobel, industrialist and founder of the Nobel Prizes, 1833; Franklin Thomas Grant Richards, publisher and writer, 1872; Sir Georg Solti (Gyorgy Stern), conductor, 1912; Leonard Rossiter, actor, 1926.

Deaths: Pietro Aretino, satirist, 1556; Julius Caesar Scaliger (Bordon), philosopher and scientist, 1558; Edmund Waller, poet, 1687; Samuel Foote, actor and playwright, 1777; Horatio, first Viscount Nelson, killed at Trafalgar 1805; George Frederick Bodley, architect, 1907; Count Carl Sturghk, Austrian prime minister, assassinated by Friedrich Adler, a social democrat, 1916; Arthur Schnitzler, playwright and novelist, 1931; Ejnar Hertzprung, astronomer, 1967; Jack (Jean-Louis Lebris de) Kerouac, poet and novelist, 1969; Bob Todd, actor, 1992; Burt Lancaster (Burton Stephen Lancaster), actor, 1994.

On this day: the Spanish fleet was defeated by the Dutch admiral Maarten Tromp, 1639; the Franco-Spanish fleet was defeated at the Battle of Trafalgar, 1805; Joseph Aspdin patented Portland cement, 1824; Offenbach's opera Orpheus in the Underworld was first produced, Paris, 1858; a severe earthquake was experienced in San Francisco, 1868; Alberto Santos Dumont flew an airship around the Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1901; Chinese forces occupied Tibet, 1950; the first British nuclear submarine, HMS Dreadnought, was launched, 1960; 140 lives were lost at Aberfan, South Wales, occurred, when a slag heap collapsed on the village, 1966.

Today is the Feast Day of St Condedus, St Fintan or Munnu of Taghmon, St Hilarion, St John of Bridlington, St Malchus and St Tuda.