Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Dr Charles Burney, organist and historian of music, 1726; William Wordsworth, poet, 1770; Franois-Marie Charles Fourier, social reformer, 1772; Daisy (Margaret Mary Julia) Ashford, author, aged nine, of The Young Visiters, 1881; Billie Holiday (Eleanora Fagan), jazz singer, 1915. Deaths: Richard (Dick) Turpin, highwayman, hanged 1739; El Greco, painter, 1614; Phineas Taylor Barnum, showman, 1891; Henry Ford, motor manufacturer, 1947; Jim Clark, car-racing champion, killed 1968; On this day: in France, the metre was made the official measuring unit of length, 1795; Italy invaded Albania, 1939; the World Heath Organisation was formed as a specialised UN agency, 1948; Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden was elected Secretary-General of the United Nations, 1953. Today is the Feast Day of St Aphraates, St Celsus or Ceallach of Armagh, St George the Younger, St Hegesippus, St Henry Walpole, St Herman Joseph and St John Baptist de la Salle.