Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Births: Peter III, Tsar of Russia, 1728; Carl Czerny, pianist, teacher and writer, 1791; Antonio Lpez de Santa-Anna, Mexican revolutionary and President, 1794; Cardinal John Henry Newman, theologian, 1801; Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, painter, 1815; Clement-Philibert-Leo Delibes, composer, 1836; Charles-Marie Jean- Albert Widor, organist and composer, 1845; George Lansbury, statesman, 1859; Gertie Millar, Countess of Dudley, actress, 1879; Sacha Guitry, actor, playwright and director, 1885; Anais Nin, author, 1903; Wystan Hugh Auden, poet, 1907; Douglas Bader, fighter pilot, 1910; Tad Dameron (Tadley Ewing Peake), jazz pianist, composer and arranger, 1917. Deaths: Pope Julius II, 1513; Robert Southwell, poet, Jesuit and martyr, hanged 1595; Jethro Tull, agricultural writer, 1741; Henry Duff Traill, author, 1900; Karl Begas, sculptor, 1916; Kurt Eisner, Bavarian premier, assassinated in Munich, 1919; Lewis Grassic Gibbon (James Leslie Mitchell), novelist, 1935; George Ellery Hale, astronomer, 1938; Malcolm X (Little), black activist, murdered 1965. On this day: John Wilkes MP, expelled from the House of Commons, was on this day found guilty of reprinting and publishing an "impious libel", the Essay on Woman, 1764; freedom of worship was established in France, 1795; Richard Trevithick demonstrated a self-powered railway locomotive in Glamorgan, Wales, 1804; the British Post Office inaugurated a mail-bag service operated by pneumatic conveyors below streets, 1863; the first republic of Cuba was founded, 1901; the Apollo Theatre, London, opened, 1901; Houston, Texas was partly destroyed by fire, 1912; the British protectorate over Egypt ended, 1922; the New Statesman was founded, 1931; it was announced that British women aged 60 and over would receive the Old Age Pension, 1940; General Eisenhower became supreme commander of Allied forces in North Africa, 1943; identity cards were abolished in Britain, 1952; in the United States, John Ehrlichman, H.R. Haldeman and John Mitchell were sentenced after the Watergate affair, 1975. Today is Ash Wednesday and the Feast Day of St George of Amastris, St Germanus of Granfel, St Peter Damian, St Robert Southwell and St Severian of Scythopolis.