ANNIVERSARIES
16 JULY 1945
US researchers conduct the first test of a nuclear weapon in New Mexico. The following month, the US detonates atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Japan surrenders, ending the Second World War.
8 JULY 1822
Percy Shelley drowns off Italy
The poet’s ship goes down in a violent storm
The summer of 1822 promised to be a distracting one for Percy Bysshe Shelley. The poet was sojourning in Casa Magni, a bay-front house near Lerici on Italy’s Ligurian coast, where he planned to while away the days writing, seeing friends and sailing in his boat, the Don Juan. On the afternoon of 8 July, though, his plans went awry.
Shelley was sailing the back from Livorno to Lerici with his friend Edward Williams and a boat boy, Charles Vivian, when the calm seas began to squall and a violent summer storm sprang up.
