Born in 1907 – Charles Eames, American designer, architect and film maker.

Above: Eames, with his wife and design partner, Ray.

“Innovate as last resort. More horrors are done in the name of innovation than any other.”

Born in 1946 – Rick Adelman, American basketball player and coach.

Born in 1890 – Egon Schiele, Austrian painter and soldier.

Above: 

Liegende Frau (Reclining Woman), gouache and black crayon on paper from 1917.

In 1509, a seventeen-year-old Henry VIII of England married Catherine of Aragon, his brother’s widow.

In 1794, Maximilian Robespierre inaugurated the French Revolution’s new state religion, the Cult of the Supreme Being. 

At the Festival of the Supreme Being (pictured above in a painting by Pierre-Antoine Demachy) Robespierre declared the truth and “social utility” of his new religion, the guiding principle of which was devotion to conception of Reason.

Born in 1917 – Gwendolyn Brooks, American poet.

“One reason that cats are happier than people is that they have no newspapers.”

Born in 1875 – Thomas Mann, German author and critic.

“A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.“

Previously: Alexander Pushkin

It is Indian Arrival Day in Suriname. 

Indian Arrival Day is celebrated in various countries to mark the arrival of Indians as indentured labor.  They were brought to Suriname under the false pretext of visiting a holy place, ‘Sri Ram’ for pilgrimage. 

Indians form 27% of Suriname’s population, largest among all communities. 

Born in 1926 – Allen Ginsberg, American poet.

“Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.”

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Born in 1953 – Cornel West, American philosopher, author, and academic.

“To be a Christian is to live dangerously, honestly, freely – to step in the name of love as if you may land on nothing, yet to keep on stepping because the something that sustains you no empire can give you and no empire can take away.”