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Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, Brahmo philosopher, visual artist, playwright, composer, and novelist whose avant-garde works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A celebrated cultural icon of Bengal, he became Asia's first Nobel laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature. His home schooling, life in Shelidah, and extensive travels made Tagore an iconoclastic pragmatist; however, growing disillusionment with the British Raj caused the internationalist Tagore to back the Indian Independence Movement and befriend Mahatma Gandhi. Despite the loss of virtually his entire works included Gitanjali and Ghare-Baire, while his verse, short stories, and novels — many defined by rhythmic lyricism, colloquial language, meditative naturalism, and philosophical contemplation — received worldwide acclaim. (read more...)
The only known photograph of Frédéric François Chopin (IPA: [fʁedeʁik fʁɑ̃swa ʃɔpɛ̃]), (March 1, 18101 – October 17, 1849). Chopin was a Polish piano composer of the Romantic period, widely regarded as one of the most famous, influential and prolific composers for piano, and Poland's most significant composer. (read more...)
Photograph believed to have been taken by Louis-Auguste Bisson in 1849.
1Some sources give February 22, for an explanation see here.
- ... that former Regimental Sergeant Major Harry Lapwood was known as having the loudest voice in the New Zealand House of Representatives?
- ... that in 1951, Bulgarian politician and exile G. M. Dimitrov helped found the first Bulgarian NATO company?
- ... that Edith Killgore Kirkpatrick published a short book of favorite songs titled Louisiana Let's Sing in honor of her husband Claude's unsuccessful candidacy for Governor of Louisiana in 1963?
- ... that canal engineer Hugh Henshall was both pupil of and brother-in-law to James Brindley, the famous canal architect of the Industrial Revolution?
- ... that it took Peter Steinfeld six and a half weeks to write the opening eleven pages of his first screenplay, Drowning Mona?
List of projects that involve biography articles:
See also: Biographies of living persons • Manual of Style (biographies)
"History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth."
Interviewed by George Plimpton in The Paris Review, Winter 1986
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Births
- 1823 - Alfred Russel Wallace, British naturalist and biologist (d. 1913)
- 1824 - Wilkie Collins, British novelist (d. 1889)
- 1926 - Soupy Sales, American comedian
- 1935 - Elvis Presley, American singer and guitarist (d. 1977) (pictured)
- 1941 - Graham Chapman, British comedian (d. 1989)
- 1947 - David Bowie, English musician
Deaths
- 1324 - Marco Polo, Italian explorer (b. 1254)
- 1642 - Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer (b. 1564)
- 1825 - Eli Whitney, American inventor (b. 1765)
- 1941 - Robert Baden-Powell, English founder of scouting (b. 1857)
- 1976 - Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China (b. 1898)
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