It was on this date, February 12, 1809 (the same date as American politician Abraham Lincoln), that British naturalist Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury. He was set to study theology at Christ’s College, Cambridge, but gave it up for a chance to study nature aboard the HMS Beagle, during a voyage to Patagonia (South […]

It was on this date, February 11, 1847, that Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio. In his entire life he had only three months of formal education. His mother educated Edison at home. By age ten Edison had read Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason: “I can still remember the flash of enlightenment that […]

It was on this date, February 10, 1775, that British essayist Charles Lamb was born in London. While studying at Christ’s Hospital, he formed a deep friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and also befriended William Godwin. Lamb’s London circle of friends favoring political reform included Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Hazlitt, Henry Brougham, Lord Byron, Thomas […]

It was on this date, February 10, 1898, that German dramatist Berthold Brecht was born in Augsburg, Bavaria, the product of a Catholic father and a Protestant mother. Being attracted to Socialism and to theater, Brecht combined the two and became a leading reformer on the 20th century stage. Brecht wrote in his Diaries, “The […]

It was on this date, February 9, 1893, that the first public strip-tease took place in Paris. Perhaps Mona, an artist’s model who thought she had more than just the prettiest legs, and, to prove it, jumped nude onto a table for the art students, was unaware that she was making history. She got a […]

It was on this date, February 8, 1819, that the English author and art critic John Ruskin was born in London. Few other writers of the Victorian-Edwardian era in Britain were as influential as Ruskin with his writings. His major works included Modern Painters (9 parts, 1843-46), and also The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) […]

It was on this date, February 7, 1885, that Nobel-winning American novelist Sinclair Lewis was born in Sauk Centre, a prairie village in Minnesota, the son of a country doctor. As a boy he was interested in all religions, but particularly the Roman Catholic Church, yet he taught Protestant Sunday School as a youth and […]

It was on this date, February 7, 1812, that the greatest novelist in the English language, Charles Dickens, was born in Landport, Hampshire, England. While his father was in Marshalsea debtor’s prison for living beyond his means, Dickens interrupted his education to work in a bootblacking factory. He later completed his education with self-education and […]

It was on this date, February 6, 1564 (by some accounts), that British poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury, the son of a shoemaker. He nevertheless studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, excelling in the Bible and Reformation theologians as well as philosophy and history. Pausing from his studies to work in […]

It was on this date, February 5, 1840, that English engineer and prolific inventor Sir Hiram Maxim was born in Sangersville, Maine. His first engineering work was in America, and he took out patents for such things as gas appliances and electric lamps. Maxim also invented a pneumatic gun, a smokeless gunpowder, a mousetrap, carbon […]