#OTD in 1910.
Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy dies of pneumonia aged 82 at Astapovo railway station, after a day's train journey south, fleeing from his home.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy
Books by Leo Tolstoy at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/136
#OTD in 1906.
Frank Wedekind's play Spring Awakening: A Children's Tragedy (Frühlings Erwachen), completed 1901, receives its first staging, directed by Max Reinhardt.
The Awakening of Spring at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/35242
Isobel Wylie Hutchison (1889–1982)—author, poet, film-maker, botanist, #arctic explorer—was born #OTD, 30 May. A 🎂 🧵
WalkHighlands shares an extract from PEAK BEYOND PEAK, describing how she tackled the Corrieyairack Pass between the #Cairngorms & Loch Ness
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#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #hillwalking #mountaineering
#OTD in 1902.
J. M. Barrie's comedy The Admirable Crichton is first performed, at the Duke of York's Theatre in London, starring H. B. Irving, Henry Kemble and Irene Vanbrugh.
José-Maria de Heredia was born #OTD in 1842.
He published in 1893 Les Trophées comprising 198 sonnets that retrace the history of the world or depict privileged moments as well as four longer poems.
José-Maria de Heredia at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/5697
#OTD in 1900.
August Strindberg's To Damascus (Till Damaskus, first two parts) receives its première at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm with August Palme and Harriet Bosse, Strindberg's future wife, in the leading rôles.
Anna Bayerová was born #OTD in 1853.
She studied at University of Bern since University of Vienna denied her entry there. She provided critical healthcare to women & children often focusing on underserved & rural communities.
#OTD in 1850.
Alfred Tennyson is named Poet Laureate of the UK in succession to William Wordsworth, but only after Samuel Rogers has declined the offer because of his age and Tennyson is assured that birthday odes will not be required of him.
#OTD in 1918.
Wilfred Owen is killed in action aged 25, at the Sambre–Oise Canal, with only five of his poems published. News of his death reaches his parents in Shrewsbury a week later on Armistice Day.
Endre Ady was born #OTD in 1877.
Some of his notable poetry collections include "Új versek" (New Poems, 1906), "A Holnap" (Tomorrow, 1908), and "A halottak élén" (At the Head of the Dead, 1918).
Books by Endre Ady at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/39489
#OTD in 1862.
Charles Dodgson sends the handwritten manuscript of Alice's Adventures Underground to Alice Liddell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Liddell
French and American writer, journalist and pianist Ève Curie was born #OTD in 1904.
She is best known for writing a biography of her mother, Madame Curie (1937). Ève was the only member of her family who did not choose a career as a scientist and did not win a Nobel Prize, although her husband, Henry Richardson Labouisse Jr., did collect the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 on behalf of UNICEF.
101 years ago, #OTD in 1925, Edwin Hubble announced that Andromeda and other spiral nebulae were definitely separate galaxies outside the Milky Way, in a paper read to an AAS meeting by H.N. Russell.
There was no doubt that the Universe was more than just our little island of stars.
The City is of Night; perchance of Death…
James “B.V.” Thomson (1834–1882) – poet, journalist, translator, anarchist, atheist – was born #OTD, 23 Nov, in Port Glasgow. Best known for his long poem THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT, he influenced TS Eliot & is seen as a progenitor of Modernism
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https://psychogeographicreview.com/the-city-of-dreadful-night/
#Scottish #literature #poetry #Victorian #19thCentury #modernism #TSEliot
#OTD in 1893.
Arthur Conan Doyle surprises the reading public by revealing in the story "The Adventure of the Final Problem", published in The Strand Magazine, that Sherlock Holmes had apparently died at the Reichenbach Falls on 4 May 1891.
#OTD in 1924.
The New York Times published evidence from Edwin Hubble stating that the Andromeda Nebula, previously believed to be part of the Milky Way, is in fact another galaxy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Hubble
#OTD in 1930.
American novelist Sinclair Lewis is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was the first writer from the United States to receive the award.
Sinclair Lewis Nobel Lecture:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1930/lewis/lecture/
#OTD in 1878.
Henry Irving's production of Hamlet, with himself in the title rôle playing opposite Ellen Terry as Ophelia, opens at the Lyceum Theatre, London (of which they have taken over the management). The tendency of actor-managers to emphasise the importance of their own central character did not always meet with the critics' approval.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet
Hamlet at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1524
#OTD in 1877.
Anna Sewell's animal welfare novel Black Beauty is published. It was written from a horse as main character's perspective. Sewell wrote it in the last years of her life, during which she was bedridden and seriously ill.
#OTD in 1891.
Maurice Maeterlinck's play The Blind (written in 1890) is premièred. Les Aveugles is, along with L'Intruse, one of Maurice Maeterlinck's first two plays.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blind_(play)
Les Aveugles is available at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48368
"Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel."
Jack London died #OTD in 1916.
A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction.
When you were people
We could have loved you,
Found out your names
And brought you presents…
—“Poem for Innocent Victims of War” by AC Jacobs (1937–1994) – born #OTD, 30 May
Published in NAMELESS COUNTRY: Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2018)
A 🎂 🧵
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https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784106751/nameless-country/
#Scottish #literature #poetry #Jewish #diaspora #20thcentury #warpoetry
#OnThisDay, 24 Nov 2015, mathematician Katherine Johnson receives the US Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work on the space programme.
Her story was told in 'Hidden Figures'.
#OnThisDay, 1 Aug 1786, Caroline Herschel discovers comet C/1786 P1, becoming one of the first women to find one (and have it named after her). Her brother was appointed court astronomer to King George III. When Caroline took a government salary for helping him she became the first woman to be paid for her astronomical work.
This week, 2025, Prof Michele Dougherty became the first woman to be Astronomer Royal.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenInSTEM #Histodons
#OTD in 1899.
William Gillette's play Sherlock Holmes, based (with authorisation) on the writings of Arthur Conan Doyle, opens in New York City with himself in the title rôle.
![Leo Tolstoy in his office. CREATED/PUBLISHED: [1908 May]; CREATOR: Prokudin-Gorskii, Sergei Mikhailovich, 1863-1944, photographer. REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.](/proxy/post_attachment/518491/e7b27576ac.jpeg "Leo Tolstoy in his office. CREATED/PUBLISHED: [1908 May]; CREATOR: Prokudin-Gorskii, Sergei Mikhailovich, 1863-1944, photographer. REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.")
