Births: St Francis Xavier, Jesuit missionary, 1506; Gerhard Douw, painter, 1613; William Wordsworth, poet, 1770; William Ellery Channing, Unitarian minister, 1780; Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey, sculptor and benefactor, 1781; Hermann Berens, flautist and composer, 1826; Gilbert Arthur A Beckett, playwright and author, 1837; Daisy (Margaret Mary Julia) Ashford, author, at 9 years old, of The Young Visiters, 1881; Gabriela Mistral (Lucila Godoy Alcayaga), poet, 1889; Sir David Alexander Cecil Low, cartoonist and caricaturist, 1891; Billie Holiday (Eleanora Fagan), jazz singer, 1915.

Deaths: Richard (Dick) Turpin, highwayman, hanged 1739; El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), painter, 1614; Sir William Davenant, poet and playwright, 1668; Albert Venn Dicey, jurist, 1922; Joseph Aloysius Lyons, statesman, 1939; Henry Ford, motor manufacturer, 1947; James (Jim) Clark, car-racing champion, killed 1968; Sheik Abeid Karume, dictator of Zanzibar, assassinated 1972.

On this day: the metre was made the official measuring unit of length in France, 1795; the Rev S. Smith and his wife were convicted of the murderous assault on John Leech, 1858; during the American Civil War, the Battle of Shiloh ended after Federal reinforcements arrived, causing the Confederates to withdraw, 1862; the Canadian Grand Trunk Railway was completed, 1914; the first London production of the musical show The Desert Song was staged, 1927; President Niceto Alcala Zamora of Spain was deposed, 1936; 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; the Cominform was dissolved, 1956; Spain relinquished its protectorate over Morocco, 1956.
