Anniversaries

Births: John Burke, genealogist, founder of Burke's Peerage, 1787; King Camp Gillette, inventor of the safety-razor, 1855; Stella Gibbons, poet and novelist, 1902; Kathleen Mary Kenyon, archaeologist, 1906.

Deaths: St Edward the Confessor, 1066; Catherine de Medici, Queen of France, 1589; Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, explorer, 1922; John Calvin Coolidge, 30th US president, 1933; Amy Johnson (Mollison), aviator, 1941; Brian Alexander Johnston, cricket commentator, 1994.

On this day: the first demonstration of X-rays was given by Wilhelm Rontgen, 1896; the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia) was established, 1919; Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I met in Jerusalem, the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches for over 500 years, 1964.

Today is Wassail Eve (tonight is Twelfth Night) and the Feast Day of St Apollinaris, St Convoyon, St Dorotheus the Younger, St Gerlac, St John Nepomucene Neumann, St Simeon Stylites and St Syncletica.