Classics Calendar for January 30

Disney's 1985 cartoon The Black Cauldron is based
loosely on the first two books of Lloyd Alexander's
young adult pentalogy The Chronicles of Prydain

Here are today's milestones:

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Born on this day:

Walter Savage Landor (1775; died September 17, 1864) English author and poet known for Imaginary Conversations; Rose Aylmer

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Barbara W. Tuchman (1912; died February 6, 1989) American historian; The Guns of August; Stilwell and the American Experience in China; Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction (1962 and 1971)

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Lloyd Alexander (1924; died May 17, 2007) American author of children's literature; The Chronicles of Prydain (The Book of Three; The Black Cauldron; The Castle of Llyr; Taran Wanderer; The High King); the Westmark trilogy (Westmark; The Kestrel; The Beggar Queen)

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Richard Brautigan (1935; died ca. September 16, 1984) American novelist, poet, and short story writer whose work often uses black comedy, parody, and satire. Best known for his novels Trout Fishing in America and In Watermelon Sugar.

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Died on this day:

Mohandas Gandhi (1948; born October 2, 1869) Indian activist and philosopher who wrote Autobiography, or the Story of My Experiments with Truth

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Herbert E. Bolton (1953; born July 20, 1870) American historian; Anza's California Expeditions

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Ross Calvin (1970; born November 22, 1889) American writer; Sky Determines

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Bonus Classic:

The Song of Roland (c. 1080) French epic poem based on the Battle of Roncevaux (778)

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