Born in 1865 – Rudyard Kipling, Indian-English author and poet.

Listen to Michael Caine read Kipling’s poem, “If–“:

In 1989 – Czech writer, philosopher, and dissident Václav Havel was elected the first post-communist President of Czechoslovakia.

“We still don’t know how to put morality ahead of politics, science, and economics. We are still incapable of understanding that the only genuine backbone of our actions–if they are to be moral–is responsibility. Responsibility to something higher than my family, my country, my firm, my success.”

In 1999, we walked down the aisle to this:

Born in 1943 – Cokie Roberts, American journalist and author.

Born in 1923: René Girard, French literary critic, philosopher, and anthropologist.

“No doubt the virgin birth of Jesus still resorts to the same ‘code’ as do the monstrous births of mythology. But precisely because the codes are parallel, we should be able to appreciate what is unique to it – what makes it radically different from the messages of mythology:

The various episodes around the birth of Christ, make palpable the humble beginnings of the revelation, its complete insignificance from the standpoint of the mighty. Right from the start the child Jesus is excluded and dismissed – he is a wanderer who does not even have a stone on which to lay his head. The inn has no room for him. Informed by the Magi, Herod searches everywhere for him in order to put him to death.

Throughout these episodes, the Gospels and the Christian tradition…place in the foreground beings foredoomed to play the part of victim – the child, the woman, the pauper and domestic animals.”

Born in 1919–Roy DeCarava, American photographer.

Above: Haynes, Jones, and Benjamin (1956)

“But if it’s true it’s beautiful. Truth is beautiful. And so my whole work is about what amounts to a reverence for life itself.”

Born in 1890 – Fritz Lang, Austrian-American director, producer, and screenwriter.

Above: Brigitte Helm in Lang’s 1927 film, Metropolis.

Born in 1835 – Mark Twain, American author and critic.

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

Born in 1935 – Les Blank, American film director and producer.

Above: Production still from Blank’s 1980 film Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.

American activist Sojourner Truth died on this day in 1883.

“When I left the house of bondage I left everything behind. I wanted to keep nothing of Egypt on me, and so I went to the Lord and asked him to give me a new name.”