What Will They Learn?

Born in Russia in 1860, Anton Chekhov was a Russian playwright and author. A master of the modern short story, Chekhov's works were both concise and precise, with every introduced element being necessary to further the story's plot, a principle in drama now called "Chekhov's gun."

George Gordon, best known as Lord Byron, was a key figure in the Romantic movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Byron was primarily a poet as well as a satirist and was famous for his tendency to depict the dramatic, often violent nature of his life and experiences in his poetry.

Born on May 23, 1707 in Småland, Sweden, Carl Linnaeus was a Swedish explorer and naturalist who was the first to design principles for the defining of the genera and species of organisms. Linnaeus also developed a uniform system for naming them that scientists still used today called binomial nomenclature.

Shakespeare's Richard II is a five act play that recounts the life and tragic end of King Richard II.

René Descartes was a French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher who is widely considered to be the founder of modern philosophy. One of the first to abandon Scholastic Aristotelianism, Descartes formulated the first modern version of mind-body dualism, and promoted observation and experimentation in science.

Betsy Ross was born on this day in Gloucester, New Jersey. Ross was a seamstress who, according to legend, designed the first flag of the United States in 1776 at the request of George Washington.

Victorian novelist Mary Ann Evans, more commonly known by her pen name George Eliot, was was born in Warwickshire, England in 1819. She is best known for developing a characteristic of modern fiction called psychological analysis, and her best known works include The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), and Middlemarch (1871). She died in London on December 22, 1880.

Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, India. Considered to be the father of India, he lead the Indian Independence Movement and is famous for his doctrine of nonviolent protest.

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775 in Hampshire, England. Credited with giving the novel its modern character, the author often depicted the life of ordinary people in the English middle-class. She published four novels during her lifetime, including some of her most famous works, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice.

Considered to be one of the greatest composers of all time, Ludwig van Beethoven's work was both inspired by the classical traditions of his predecessors and influenced by the humanist movement. Although Beethoven struggled with deafness throughout his life, he continued to compose, creating his most important works after he was unable to hear at all. Become a WhatWillTheyLearn member to discover which schools require Fine Arts!

On December 9, 1793 Noah Webster established New York's first daily newspaper, the "American Minerva." The paper aimed to have “the earliest intelligence, collected from the most authentic sources,” and ran for 744 issues from 1793 and 1796. Eventually, it was bought out and turned into the New York Sun, which was published until 1950.