In 1889, the journalist Nellie Bly (aka Elizabeth Cochrane) began her attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days. She completed the trip in 72 days.

Born in 1821 – Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist.

Razumikhin on “the views of the socialists” in Dostoevsky’s 1866 novel Crime and Punishment:

“Nothing is admitted!…I’m not lying!…I’ll show you their books: with them one is always a ‘victim of the environment’ – and nothing else! Their favorite phrase! Hence directly that if society itself is normally set up, all crimes will at once disappear, because there will be no reason for protesting and everyone will instantly become righteous. Nature isn’t taken into account, nature is driven out, nature is not supposed to be! With them it’s not mankind developing all along in a historical, living way that will finally turn by itself into a normal society, but, on the contrary, a social system, coming out of some mathematical head, will at once organize the whole of mankind and instantly make it righteous and sinless, sooner than any living process, without any historical and living way! … That’s why they have such an instinctive dislike of history: ‘there’s nothing in it but outrage and stupidity’–and everything is explained by stupidity alone! That’s why they so dislike the living process of life: there’s no need for the living soul! The living soul will demand life, the living soul won’t listen to mechanics, the living soul is suspicious, the living soul is retrograde! … But your nature….wants life, it hasn’t completed the life process yet, it’s too soon for the cemetery! You can’t overleap nature with logic alone! Logic will presuppose three cases, when there are a million of them! Cut away the whole million, and reduce everything to the one question of comfort! The easiest solution to the problem! Enticingly clear, and there’s no need to think! Above all, there’s no need to think! The whole of life’s mystery can fit on two printed pages!”

Also: Kurt Vonnegut

Born in 1697 – William Hogarth, English painter, illustrator, and critic.

Above: Hogarth’s 1755 painting, An Election Entertainment, from his “Humours of an Election” series.

Born in 1818 – Ivan Turgenev, Russian author and playwright.

From Turgenev’s 1862 novel Father’s and Sons:

“In my opinion,” retorted Bazarov, “Raphael is no better than a copper penny and they’re no better than he is.”

“Bravo! Bravo! Listen to that, Arkady…that’s how young people of today should express themselves! It’s unthinkable that they shouldn’t follow you! Previously, young people had been expected to learn. Because they didn’t want to appear to be ignoramuses, they worked hard willy-nilly. But now all they have to say is: Everything in the world’s nonsense! and that’s that. Young people are delighted. The fact is that previously they were simply dunces and now they’ve suddenly become nihilists!”

Born in 1897 – Dorothy Day, American journalist and activist.

“Don’t worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth.”

Born in 1879 – Leon Trotsky, Russian theorist and politician, founder of the Red Army.

“Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that happen to a man.”

Above: Trotsky, with Frida Kahlo. (Colorised by Marco Zazaya.)

Born in 1930 – Derrick Bell, American scholar, author and critical race theorist.

“Power in the hands of the reformer is no less potentially corrupting than in the hands of the oppressor.”