September 29
Activity of the day
Today is . . .
- Inventor’s Day in Argentina
- Feast Day of St Gabriel, patron saint of broadcasters, messengers, postal, radio, and television workers
- Feast Day of St Michael, patron saint of grocers, police officers, radiologists, and sick people
On this day . . .
- The first regular police force in London become known as ‘bobbies’ after Robert Peel (1829)
- The first electric street trams in Britain start running in Blackpool (1885)
- Italy declares war on Turkey over possession of Tripoli, in Libya (1911)
- John D Rockefeller becomes the world’s first billionaire (1916)
- The Munich Agreement between Germany and France, Italy and Britain is signed (1938)
- BBC Radio’s Third Programme starts broadcasting (1946)
- The first automatic telephone answering machine is tested by the U.S. Bell Telephone Company (1950)
Births
- Tintoretto, Italian painter (1518)
- Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish playwright and novelist (1547)
- Horatio Nelson, British naval commander (1758)
- Michelangelo Antonioni, Italian movie director (1912)
- Jerry Lee Lewis, American rock star (1935)
- Lech Walesa, Polish leader (1943)
- Sebastian Coe, English athlete and politician (1956)
- Brett Anderson, British musician/singer (1967)
Deaths
- Émile Zola, French novelist (1902)
- Winslow Homer, American painter (1910)
- Rudolf Diesel, German engineer (1913)
- Carson McCullers, American author (1967)
- Roy Lichtenstein, American artist (1997)