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Project Gutenberg, founded in 1971, is the oldest producer and distributor of free ebooks.

According to Michael Hart (March 8, 1947 – September 6, 2011), founder of Project Gutenberg, the mission of Project Gutenberg is simple: to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks.
This mission is, as much as possible, to encourage all those who are interested in making eBooks and helping to give them away.

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Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist James George Frazer died in 1941.

He is best known for his influential work "The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion," which explores the similarities among magical and religious beliefs across diverse cultures. Frazer proposed that human belief progressed through three stages: primitive magic, replaced by religion, and finally replaced by science.

Books by James George Frazer at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1241

Cover of "The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion" by James George Frazer, Volume II, from 1894, displaying title and author's name on a textured grey background.

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French playwright and political activist Olympe de Gouges was born in 1748.

She is best known for writing the "Déclaration des droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne" in 1791, which she wrote as a response to the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" of 1789. Her advocacy for her revolutionary ideas led to her arrest and she was eventually guillotined in 1793 during the Reign of Terror for her political activities.

Olympe de Gouges at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53595

Book cover titled "Olympe de Gouges: Les Droits de la Femme" featuring a greyscale illustration of Olympe de Gouges with classical hairstyle and attire, and a quote in French at the bottom that translates to "Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights."

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Audible realities and phonic fantasies: The first major book on acoustics.

By Corinne Mona, Assistant Librarian at The Niels Bohr Library & Archives

Before there were walkie talkies, there was Athanasius Kircher. In 1673, Kircher published Phonurgia nova : sive Conjugium mechanico-physicum artis & naturae paranympha phonosophia concinnatum (1673), which is chock-full of inventive ways to transmit sound.

https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/ex-libris-universum/audible-realities-and-phonic-fantasies?utm_source=email%2CNBLA&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign%20=monthly_emails&dm_i=1ZJR,8M71P,4FGHXK,ZPUOX,1

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Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in 1840.

Some of his most famous works include the ballets Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, & Sleeping Beauty; his operas such as Eugene Onegin & The Queen of Spades; & his symphonies, particularly the 4th, 5th, & the 6th, known as the "Pathétique". His "1812 Overture", written to commemorate Russia's defense against Napoleon's Grande Armée in 1812, is also incredibly popular.

Tchaikovsky at PG:
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Book cover of "The Life & Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" by Modeste Tchaikovsky, edited from the Russian with an introduction by Rosa Newmarch, illustrated edition published by John Lane Company in 1906, featuring white and red text blocks on a decorative dark floral background.

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Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore was born in 1861.

Tagore wrote poetry, short stories, novels, and plays. He is best known for his poetry, and his collection "Gitanjali" is particularly renowned. This work earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. By way of translations, Tagore influenced Pablo Neruda, Gabriela Mistral, Octavio Paz, José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez.

Books by Rabindranath Tagore at PG:
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Title page of the 1913 Macmillan edition of Tagore's Gitanjali. Cover of the 1913 edition of "Gitanjali" by Rabindranath Tagore, published by Macmillan and Co., Ltd., featuring the title, author's name, and an introduction by W. B. Yeats.

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English poet and playwright Robert Browning was born in 1812.

His early long poems Pauline and Paracelsus were acclaimed, but his reputation dwindled for a time – his 1840 poem Sordello was seen as wilfully obscure. By the death of Elizabeth Barrett in 1861 he had published the collection Men and Women. His Dramatis Personae and book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book made him a leading poet.

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Vintage book cover illustration showing a young girl in a yellow dress holding a white rabbit, with the title "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" and the series name "Every Boy's Library" displayed on the cover.

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in 1940.

John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.

The book was first published in April 14, 1939. The book won the National Book Award & Pulitzer Prize for fiction, & it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. When preparing to write the novel, Steinbeck wrote: "I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this [the Great Depression and its effects]."

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American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher Henry David Thoreau died in 1862.

In addition to "Walden," Thoreau is well-known for his essay "Civil Disobedience," which was inspired by his 1846 arrest for refusing to pay poll taxes as a protest against slavery and the Mexican-American War. His political writings later influenced many political leaders, including Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Books by Henry David Thoreau at PG:
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Original title page of Walden, with an illustration from a drawing by Thoreau's sister Sophia. Title page of the book "Walden; or, Life in the Woods" by Henry D. Thoreau, featuring an illustration of a small cabin surrounded by trees. The page includes a quotation and the publication details, "Boston: Ticknor and Fields. MDCCCLIV (1854)."

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in 1757.

English poet Christopher Smart is admitted into St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in London, beginning his six-year confinement to mental asylums.

A "Commission of Lunacy" was taken out against Smart, and he was admitted to St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics as a "Curable Patient". It is possible that Smart was confined by John Newbery over old debts and a poor relationship between the two.

Books by Christopher Smart at PG:
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Austrian Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud was born in 1856.

He is considered the father of psychoanalysis. Freud's main contributions lie in his theories of the unconscious mind, the mechanisms of repression, and the role of sexuality in human psychology, which he discussed in major works like The Interpretation of Dreams, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, and Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality.

Books by Sigmund Freud at PG:
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Cover of the book "The Interpretation of Dreams" by Prof Sigmund Freud, I.L.D, displayed in gold lettering on a textured dark grey background.

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American author L. Frank Baum died in 1919.

His breakthrough came with the publication of Mother Goose in Prose (1897), which was followed by Father Goose, His Book (1899), a collection that became a bestseller. In 1900, Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, illustrated by W.W. Denslow. Baum's Oz series eventually spanned fourteen books with Baum introducing new characters and lands in each subsequent volume.

Books by L. Frank Baum at PG:
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Vintage book cover design of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" featuring a graphic illustration of a green and red lion, with text by L. Frank Baum and pictures by W.W. Denslow.

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German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer Alexander von Humboldt died in 1859.

His most significant and famous expedition was to Latin America (1799 to 1804). Accompanied by Aimé Bonpland, he explored vast regions, including the Orinoco River, the Andes, the Amazon River, and even observed the political & social conditions of the Spanish colonies. His journey also included a visit to the United States.

Alexander von Humboldt at PG:
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Ideas for a geography of plants together with a nature painting of the tropical countries. Historical scientific illustration from Alexander von Humboldt's "Geographie der Pflanzen in den Tropen-Ländern", showing a cross-section of Chimborazo volcano in Ecuador depicting various plant species at different altitudes, surrounded by columns of detailed text and tables listing species names and elevations, with a cloud-filled sky in the backdrop.

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American author of fantasy fiction and belles-lettres James Branch Cabell died in 1958.

His career took a significant turn with the publication of "Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice" (1919), which is part of a larger series called "The Biography of the Life of Manuel". Although largely overlooked today, James Branch Cabell was highly regarded in his time, with admirers such as H.L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis.

Books by James Branch Cabell at PG:
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Vintage book cover titled "Chivalry" by James Branch Cabell, featuring ornate red and gold embossing with a central emblem.

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American mathematician Anna Johnson Pell Wheeler was born in 1883.

She received her Ph.D. in 1909 with a dissertation on "Biorthogonal Systems of Functions with Applications to the Theory of Integral Equations," a topic in functional analysis that was innovative at the time. Wheeler was instrumental in bringing German mathematician Emmy Noether to Bryn Mawr in 1933, after the latter's expulsion from the University of Göttingen by the Nazi government.

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in 1927. Virginia Woolf's stream of consciousness novel To the Lighthouse is published by Hogarth Press in London. It is seen as a landmark of high modernism.

Virginia and her husband Leonard published it together at their Hogarth Press in London in 1927. The first impression of 3000 copies of 320 pages measuring 191 by 127 mm was bound in blue cloth.The book outsold all Woolf's previous novels, and the royalties enabled the Woolfs to buy a car.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/89

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English writer and poet Edith Nesbit died in 1924.

She published over 60 books for children, including novels, collections of stories, and picture books. Among her most famous works are "The Railway Children," "Five Children and It," and "The Phoenix and the Carpet." Her work is seen as a precursor to the modern children's fantasy literature genre, influencing later writers such as C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling.

Books by Edith Nesbit at PG:
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Red cover of "The Enchanted Castle" by E. Nesbit featuring an embossed illustration of three children and a castle behind a fountain, with gold lettering.

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"Here and there among men, there are those who pause in the hurried rush to listen to the call of a life that is more real…"

American writer Harold Bell Wright was born in 1872.

Wright's writing career began in earnest with the publication of "That Printer of Udell's" in 1902. His subsequent novel, "The Shepherd of the Hills" (1907), is perhaps his most famous work.

Books by Harold Bell Wright at PG:
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Blue book cover of "The Shepherd of the Hills" featuring a vintage illustration of a man and woman sitting close together on a rock, enclosed in an oval frame.

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Italian maker of musical instruments Bartolomeo Cristofori was born in 1655.

Cristofori's most significant invention, the piano, came about as he sought to develop a new keyboard instrument that could offer a greater dynamic range than the harpsichord. His groundbreaking idea was to create a mechanism where the strings were struck by hammers, allowing the volume of sound to vary with the force applied to the keys, the so called "gravicembalo col piano e forte".

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English novelist and poet Charlotte Smith was born in 1749.

Smith's first significant literary success came with the publication of "Elegiac Sonnets" in 1784. In addition to her poetry, Smith wrote several novels: her first novel, "Emmeline, or The Orphan of the Castle" (1788), was followed by others such as "Ethelinde" (1789), "The Old Manor House" (1793), and "Desmond" (1792).

Books by Charlotte Smith at PG:
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The Young Philosopher was Smith's last novel and a piece of "outspoken radical fiction". Charlotte Turner Smith - Eighteenth Century Collections Online Smith, Charlotte Turner. The young philosopher. Vol. 1. London: Printed for T. Cadell, Jr. and W. Davies, 1798. Title page of the book "The Young Philosopher: A Novel" in four volumes by Charlotte Smith, featuring an excerpt of poetry, indicating it was printed in London by T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies in the Strand, 1798.

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American geneticist Nettie Stevens died in 1912.

In 1905, Stevens published a pivotal paper detailing her observations on the mealworm beetle, Tenebrio molitor. She identified that male mealworms had a pair of unequal-sized chromosomes, while females had two X chromosomes. This discovery supported the theory that sex is determined by specific chromosomes, a significant advancement in the field of genetics.

Books by Nettie Stevens at PG:
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Book cover for "Studies in Spermatogenesis (Part 1 of 2)" by N. M. Stevens, featuring an abstract geometric design in red and blue on a navy background, with the Project Gutenberg logo at the bottom.

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"“Age is my alarm clock,” the old man said. “Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have one longer day?”

in 1953.

Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.

The story was initially published in its entirety in the September 1st, 1952 issue of Life magazine. It was later issued as a book by Charles Scribner's Sons.

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Italian diplomat, author, philosopher and historian Niccolò Machiavelli was born in 1469.

The Prince is a 16th-century political treatise written in the form of a realistic instruction guide for new princes. "Discourses on Livy" is another important work by Machiavelli, which is a broader political analysis but centers on the concept of republican government, as opposed to the monarchical focus in "The Prince".

Books by Niccolò Machiavelli at PG
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in 1715.

A total solar eclipse is visible across northern Europe and northern Asia, as predicted by Edmond Halley to within four minutes accuracy. He also drew a predictive map showing the path of totality across Great Britain. The original map was about 20 miles off the observed eclipse path, mainly due to his use of inaccurate lunar ephemeris. After the eclipse, he corrected the eclipse path, and added the path and description of the 1724 total solar eclipse.

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English poet, author and humorist Thomas Hood died in 1845.

His humorous works often included puns and wordplay, which became immensely popular. These works were frequently published in magazines, including Punch. Some of his well-known comic poems include "Miss Kilmansegg and Her Precious Leg" and "The Song of the Shirt", which highlights the dire conditions of the working class and is considered one of his best works.

Thomas Hood at PG:
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American illustrator Jessie Willcox Smith died in 1935.

Smith’s career took off when she began working for the Ladies' Home Journal, for which she created many covers and interior illustrations. She illustrated over 60 books throughout her career, including classics such as Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies, Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses, and Clement Moore’s The Night Before Christmas.

Jessie Willcox Smith at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/7158

Fairy Tales, Boston Public Library Smith, Jessie Willcox, 1863-1935 (artist); L. Prang & Co. (publisher). An illustration of a woman and two children reading a book titled "Fairy Tales" in a garden, sitting on a hammock with lush greenery and flowers in the background.
Cover image from from The Princess and the Goblins - by George MacDonald, illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith, 1920. Jessie Willcox Smith, illustrator - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34339 Vintage painting of a young girl in a white headscarf and blue cloak, reaching forward with a curious expression, with a dark, shadowy background and parts of a flower barely visible.

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