#RIP #OTD 1889, poet (Pauline, Paracelsus, Sordello, The Ring and the Book), playwright, Robert Browning died at his son’s home Ca’ Rezzonico in Venice, aged 77. Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey @wabbey https://t.co/17Y1dyJNf3 pic.twitter.com/Wok1bWkN9G

— RIP The Final Footprint (@RIPTFF) December 12, 2023

#RIP #OTD in 1923 novelist (Le Diable au corps, Le bal du Comte d'Orgel), poet Raymond Radiguet died at age 20 in Paris of typhoid fever. Père Lachaise in Paris https://t.co/17Y1dyJNf3 pic.twitter.com/UgmutfeCUG

— RIP The Final Footprint (@RIPTFF) December 12, 2023

12 December 1929. Leading British playwright, John Osborne, was born in London. His play, Look Back in Anger, ushered in a new movement in British drama, and led Osborne to be known as the first of the “Angry Young Men”. pic.twitter.com/Vlt81hWoWB

— Prof. Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) December 12, 2023

#RIP #OTD in 1999 U. S. Army Air Corp veteran, author of novels (Catch-22, Something Happened), short stories, plays, screenplays, Joseph Heller died of a heart attack at his home in East Hampton, on Long Island, aged 76. Cedar Lawn Cemetery, East Hampton https://t.co/17Y1dyJNf3 pic.twitter.com/5sONVl5fhQ

— RIP The Final Footprint (@RIPTFF) December 12, 2023

#RIP #OTD in 2020 novelist (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley's People, The Little Drummer Girl, A Perfect Spy) John le Carré died after sustaining a fall at his home in Truro, England, aged 89. Cremation https://t.co/17Y1dyJNf3 pic.twitter.com/ACmRb5t2wO

— RIP The Final Footprint (@RIPTFF) December 12, 2023

#RIP #OTD in 1784, poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer, Dr. Johnson, Samuel Johnson died at a friends house in Islington, London at the age of 75. Westminster Abbey @wabbey https://t.co/jGcQXQKGo9 pic.twitter.com/hHmC7h428g

— RIP The Final Footprint (@RIPTFF) December 13, 2023

14 December 1503. Physician, astrologer and clairvoyant, Nostradamus (Michel de Nostredameas), was born at St. Remy, Provence, France. He’s best known for his book, Les Prophéties, a collection of 942 poetic predictions of future events, which was first published in 1555. pic.twitter.com/vP11WT5O17

— Prof. Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) December 14, 2023

14 December 1946. Best selling historian, Antony Beevor, was born in London. A master of gripping narrative history, he has chronicled the Second World War in Europe in a series of books, primarily on its key battles. pic.twitter.com/QgM10ZUOX6

— Prof. Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) December 14, 2023

#RIP #OTD in 1953 author (The Yearling) Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings died in St. Augustine, Florida of a cerebral hemorrhage, aged 57. Antioch Cemetery near Island Grove, Florida https://t.co/tqIjlrw242 pic.twitter.com/JkeLG07AkO

— RIP The Final Footprint (@RIPTFF) December 14, 2023

16 December 1775. Jane Austen, one of the greatest English novelists, was born in Steventon Rectory, Hampshire. Her novels include: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. The £10 Bank of England note contains her image. pic.twitter.com/RI8acxLlii

— Prof. Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) December 15, 2023

#RIP #OTD in 2011 author, journalist, orator, columnist, (the epistemological razor, Hitchen's razor) Christopher Hitchens died from esophageal cancer at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, aged 62. Body donated to medical research https://t.co/o2lN0MciWR pic.twitter.com/i7lSPrpbJH

— RIP The Final Footprint (@RIPTFF) December 15, 2023

#RIP #OTD in 1965 playwright, novelist (Of Human Bondage), short story writer W. Somerset Maugham died in Nice, France at the age of 91. Cremated remains scattered near the Maughan Library, The King’s School, Canterbury https://t.co/cxgNAwtCcJ pic.twitter.com/2g9FOuH3MP

— RIP The Final Footprint (@RIPTFF) December 16, 2023

#RIP #OTD in 1273, Persian poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, Mevlana or Mawlānā (Our Master), Rumi died in Konya, Turkey, age 66. Yeşil Türbe (Green Tomb, قبه الخضراء; the Mevlâna Museum) https://t.co/63I36B73zg pic.twitter.com/uahrWn5PeH

— RIP The Final Footprint (@RIPTFF) December 17, 2023

17 December 1892. The first issue of Vogue magazine was published. It featured a debutante emerging from an ethereal cloud of butterflies and roses. It was drawn by AB Wenzell, a popular fashionable artist. pic.twitter.com/1gwfuUBb7Q

— Prof. Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) December 17, 2023

18 December 1792. Radical political writer, Thomas Paine, was tried in Britain for treason, in his absence, for publishing, The Rights of Man, in which he had supported the French Revolution, and called for the abolition of the British Monarchy. pic.twitter.com/TXqOg2Eyj6

— Prof. Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) December 18, 2023

#RIP #OTD in 1848, novelist (Wuthering Heights) Emily Brontë died from tuberculosis at the Brontë family home in Haworth Parsonage, Haworth, England at the age of 30. Church of St Michael and All Angels family capsule, Haworth https://t.co/8YJHUXPU2X pic.twitter.com/siLX0X5Mbf

— RIP The Final Footprint (@RIPTFF) December 19, 2023

#RIP #OTD in 1968, writer (The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, The Pearl), John Steinbeck, died of heart disease in New York City, aged 66. Cremated remains Hamilton Family Estate in Garden of Memories Memorial Park in Salinas, California https://t.co/Meq91Dj6B2 pic.twitter.com/7yz8b0Jpct

— RIP The Final Footprint (@RIPTFF) December 20, 2023

#RIP #OTD in 1375 author (Decameron) and poet, correspondent of Petrarch, Renaissance humanist, the Certaldese, Giovanni Boccaccio died at the age of 62 in Certaldo, Tuscany, Italy. Chiesa dei Santi Jacopo e Filippo, Certaldo https://t.co/ps7wRwW9AB pic.twitter.com/cLXztxqE2b

— RIP The Final Footprint (@RIPTFF) December 21, 2022

21 December 1795. Legendary historian, Leopold von Ranke, was born in Weihe (now in Germany. He was the pioneer of source-based and footnoted history. He thought History could only become a rigorous branch of academic research by adding verifiable footnotes. pic.twitter.com/vKN5VNXkEx

— Prof. Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) December 21, 2023