ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1519 Catherine de Medici, mother of three kings of France; 1771 Richard Trevithick, designer of steam engines; 1852 Frank Winfield Woolworth, American founder of the chain stores; 1892 Sir Arthur Harris, wartime bomber commander; 1902 Baron Philippe de Rothschild, racing driver, yachtsman and wine producer; 1906 Samuel Beckett, playwright; 1911 Emilio Coia, cartoonist; 1939 Seamus Heaney, poet; .

Deaths: 1824 Janes Taylor, poet and author of nursery rhymes 1996 George Mackay Brown, Orcadian poet and story-teller; 2001 Jimmy Logan, entertainer and actor; 2006 Dame Muriel Spark, novelist; 2015 Günter Grass, German novelist and poet; 2018 Miloš Forman, Czechamerican film director.