May 15

Events

1536 – Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, stands trial in London on charges of treason, adultery and incest. She is condemned to death by a specially-selected jury.

Births

1909 – James Mason, English actor

1910 – Constance Cummings, English actress

1910 – Constance Cummings, English actress

1915 – Hilda Bernstein, English-South African author

1923 – John Lanchbery, English composer and conductor

1926 – Anthony Shaffer, English playwright, screenwriter, novelist, barrister, and advertising executive

1936 – Ralph Steadman, English cartoonist

Steadman was born in Wallasey, Cheshire, and brought up in Abergele, North Wales. From a lower middle class background, his father was a commercial traveller and his mother was a shop assistant at T J Hughe in Liverpool. He attended Ysgol Emrys Ap Iwan (high school), and then later East Ham Technical College and the London College of Printing during the 1960s, doing freelance work for Punch, Private Eye, the Daily Telegraph, The New York Times and Rolling Stone during this time.