Born in 1929 – Chaim Potok, American rabbi and author.

“I looked at my right hand, the hand with which I painted. There was power in that hand. Power to create and destroy. Power to bring pleasure and pain. Power to amuse and horrify. There was in that hand the demonic and the divine at one and the same time. The demonic and the divine were two aspects of the same force. Creation was demonic and divine. Creativity was demonic and divine. I was demonic and divine.”

–from Potok’s 1972 novel, My Name is Asher Lev.

Previously: Potok

Born in 1884 – Robert J. Flaherty, American director and producer.

Above: Still from Flaherty’s 1922 film, Nanook of the North.

Previously: Flaherty

Born in 1895 – Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist.

“The Revolution won’t happen with guns, rather it will happen incrementally, year by year, generation by generation. We will gradually infiltrate their educational institutions and their political offices, transforming them slowly into Marxist entities as we move towards universal egalitarianism.”

Born in 1933 – Kim Novak, American actress.

Above: Novak in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film, Vertigo.

Also: Peter Gabriel

Born in 1866 – Lev Shestov, Russian philosopher.

“The scientist will not take a step without looking around him, without asking where he is going, without calculating, and is afraid to budge from his place. He wishes to know beforehand where he will arrive. The believer goes forward, without looking to the right or to the left, without asking where he is going, without calculating. Which of these two methods leads us to ‘truth?'”

Born in 1800 – Henry Fox Talbot, English photographer and politician, invented the calotype, a photographic process using paper coated with silver iodide.

Above: An oak tree in winter, a calotype negative and print created by Talbot in 1842.

Born in 1941 – Michael Apted, English director and producer.

Above: Jackie Bassett, Lynn Johnson and Sue Davis, subjects of Apted’s Up series, with photos of their younger selves.

Also: Boris Pasternak

Born in 1932 – Gerhard Richter, German painter and photographer.

Above: Richter’s 1982 painting, Two Candles.

Also: Alice Walker

Born in 1878 – Martin Buber, Austrian-Israeli philosopher and academic.

“The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda.”

Also: Dmitri Mendeleev

In 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev repealed Article 6 in the Communist Party platform, making way for a multi-party system.

Shortly after, U.S. President Bush increased spending of the Star Wars Defense system, leading Central Committee Member Georgi Abatov to remark, “I think you Americans are not yet prepared to live without an enemy. You just don’t know what to do without an enemy.”