In 1631 Pierre Gassendi, using Kepler’s predictions, was the first man to observe the transit of the tiny speck of Mercury across the sun; in 1872 the American brig Mary Celeste departed New York for Genoa, to be found a month later, sailing in the North Atlantic in perfect condition but with nobody on board; in 1917 the “October” Revolution (so called because this was October 26 by the old-style calendar) began in Petrograd; in 1956 Anthony Eden agreed to evacuate British troops from Suez but only if a United Nations force went in.

BIRTHS: Professor Konrad Lorenz, who in 1973 won the Nobel Prize for his observations on imprinting (the recognition of a parent figure by newborn animals), was born in Vienna on this day in 1903. Lorenz demonstrated imprinting by imitating the quacking of a mother duck in front of newly hatched mallard ducklings, who thereupon took him for their mother. But his Nobel Prize award was overshadowed when a wartime paper by the former army neurologist and psychiatrist was released; he was obliged to apologise for its racial content.

William Stukeley, founder of the Society of Antiquaries who wrote widely on druids and the monuments at Stonehenge and Avebury, born in Holbeach, Lincolnshire, 1687; Marie Curie, chemist who discovered and isolated radium, Nobel laureate of 1903 and 1911, born in Warsaw, 1867; Leon Trotsky, Russian Revolution leader, born in Yanovka, 1879.

DEATHS: Geoffrey Dawson, editor of The Times 1912-19 and 1923-41, died in London on this day in 1944. He was 37 years old in 1912 when he was appointed to modernise the paper, and successfully instituted a regular “light leader”, revitalised headlines and reduced the price to a penny. An intimate of Neville Chamberlain, he committed The Times to supporting the Prime Minister’s appeasement of Hitler, but changed his and the paper’s tune when war came.

John Kyrle (the Man of Ross), philanthropist, who lived frugally on his estates and donated his income to charity, died in Ross, Herefordshire, 1724; Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, aviator, lost in flight after passing over Calcutta, 1935; Hannah Senesh, Hungarian member of an Israeli commando unit dedicated to rescuing Jews from concentration camps, executed in Budapest, 1944; Steve McQueen, film actor, died in Mexico, 1980; Lawrence Durrell, died in Sommières, France, 1990.