Vivekananda Hindu
spiritual leader and reformer Vivekananda—who
attempted to combine Indian spirituality with Western material
progress, maintaining that they supplemented
and complemented
one another—died this day in Calcutta in
1902.
This Day in
History
The Declaration of Independence committee, depicted
in a 19th-century steel engraving.
The Statue
of Liberty was presented to the United States by the French in
Paris.
1865:
Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland was published.
1845:
Essayist and philosopher Henry
David Thoreau moved to his retreat at Walden
Pond, where he eventually wrote a series of reflective essays
titled Walden; or, Life in the Woods.
1826:
Two major figures of the American Revolution who became U.S.
presidents, Thomas
Jefferson and John
Adams, died—50 years to the day after the adoption of the
Declaration of Independence.
1804:
American writer Nathaniel
Hawthorne, whose greatest works, including the novel The
Scarlet Letter (1850), are marked by profound psychological and
moral insight, was born in Salem, Massachusetts.