Alexander Pushkin (1799) It was on this date, June 6, 1799, that the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Пу́шкин), was born in Moscow. His great-grandfather, Hannibal, was a black African émigré who had served Peter the Great. His family was aristocratic but poor. Nevertheless, Pushkin […]

Martin Van Buren (1782) It was on this date, December 5, 1782, that the 8th President of the United States (4 March 1837 - 4 March 1841), and the first US President born in the United States, Martin Van Buren, was born in New York. Of Dutch ancestry, he attended the Dutch Reformed Church. A […]