Born this day 1922 in Cilfynydd.

Sir Geraint Evans - world famous operatic baritone. 

Geraint Evans started work at the age of 14 as errand-boy for a ladies' outfitter in Pontypridd, whilst taking singing lessons in Cardiff.  During the war he served  as a radio mechanic and afterwards launched his singing career, by joining the Covent Garden Opera Company in 1948.  In 1959 he began a 24-year association with the San Francisco Opera and then in 1961 an equally fruitful connection with the Chicago Lyric Opera, he was made a Knight Bachelor in 1969.  His greatest strength was said to be his ability to bring to life, uninspiring charcters with comic genius.  

On this day 1953, Usk castle was made a Grade I listed building

Usk castle is situated on a site that the Romans established a fortress before moving it to Caerleon.  The castle was thought to have been laid out by the Norman Marcher Lord, Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare in 1120 in an attempt to control the newly taken area.  The Welsh, however, took the castle in 1138, 1174, 1184 and again in 1233 by an alliance of Richard Marshall and Llywelyn the Great.

 The rebellion of Owain Glyndwr brought significant conflict to the area as the town of Usk was burnt in 1402 and 1405, but the castle held out.  After the rebellion, the castle passed to the Duchy of Lancaster and no further redevelopment or refortification was undertaken.  

Born this day 1950, in Nairobi

Peter Hain, former MP for Neath and Secretary of State for Wales since 1991, who served as a minister for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.  Hain came to the UK from South Africa as a teenager, where he was a noted anti-apartheid campaigner in the 1970s.   

Born on this day 1859 at Cefnddwysarn near Bala.

Thomas Edward Ellis , usually known as T. E. Ellis, who was a politician and the leader of Cymru Fydd, a movement aimed at gaining home rule for Wales.

T. E. Ellis  attended Bala Grammar School, the University of Wales, Aberystwyth and New College, Oxford, graduating in history in 1884.

On leaving Oxford, Ellis briefly went into journalism, before becoming private secretary to Liberal MP John Brunner.  This took him to London and drew him closer to a political life and in 1886 he became Liberal MP for the Merionethshire constituency.

Ellis quickly became prominent as a spokesman for Welsh concerns and became the leader of the Cymru Fydd movement, working with Lloyd George to try and establish Home Rule for Wales.  In 1892 when Gladstone formed a new administration, Ellis became Chief Whip, which meant that he had to withdraw from Cymru Fydd, whose leadership was taken over by Lloyd George and John Herbert Lewis (MP for Flint Boroughs).