^B{^#!16!6 January^N! Epiphany. Feast day of St John de Ribera, St Erminold, St Wiltrudis, St Guarinus.
^B{871^B} English king Alfred defeated the Danes at the Battle of Ashdown. ^B{1540^B} King Henry VIII was married to Anne of Cleves, his fourth wife. ^B{1720^B} The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble published its findings. ^B{1838^B} The first public demonstration of the electric telegraph was given by its inventor, Samuel Morse. ^B{1928^B} The River Thames flooded, drowning four people, and severely damaging paintings stored in the Tate Gallery's basement. ^B{1945^B} The Battle of the Bulge, or Ardennes offensive, ended, with 130,000 German and 77,000 Allied casualties. ^B{1988^B} La Coupole, the Parisian brasserie made famous by generations of notable artists and writers who frequented it, was sold for ú6 million to be converted into an office block.
^B{^I{^#!14!Born ^N}King Richard II of England, ^B{1367^B}; St Joan of Arc, ^B{1412^B}; Gustave DorΘ, French artist and illustrator, ^B{1833^B}; Carl Sandburg, US poet, ^B{1878^B}; Loretta Young, US film actress, ^B{1913^B}; Rowan Atkinson, English actor and comedian, ^B{1957^B}; Kapil Dev, Indian cricketer, ^B{1959^B}.
^B{^I{^#!14!Died ^N}Fanny Burney, English novelist and diarist, ^B{1840^B}; Gregor Mendel, Austrian monk and biologist, ^B{1884^B}; Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US president, ^B{1919^B}; Archibald Joseph Cronin, Scottish novelist, ^B{1981^B}; Rudolf Nureyev, Russian dancer, ^B{1993^B}; Dizzy Gillespie, US jazz trumpeter, ^B{1993^B}.
