Classics Calendar for April 13

Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello

Here are today's milestones:

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Born on this day:

Thomas Jefferson (1743; died July 4, 1826) American statesman; The Declaration of Independence; Notes on the State of Virginia; The Jefferson Bible

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Samuel Beckett (1906; died December 22, 1989) Irish novelist, playwright, and poet; Murphy; Molloy; Malone Dies; The Unnamable; Waiting for Godot; Watt; Endgame; Krapp's Last Tape; How It Is; Nobel Prize in Literature 1969

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Eudora Welty (1909; died July 23, 2001) American short story writer and novelist; short story collections Music from Spain; The Golden Apples; novels The Robber Bridegroom; Delta Wedding; The Ponder Heart; The Shoe Bird; Losing Battles; The Optimist's Daughter; Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1973)

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Seamus Heaney (1939; died August 30, 2013) Irish poet; playwright; and translator of Beowulf; poetry includes Opened Ground: Selected Poems: 1966-1996; Nobel Prize in Literature (1995)

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Died on this day:

Jean de la Fontaine (1695; born July 8, 1621) French fabulist; Fables choisies

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Ishikawa Takuboku (1912; born February 20, 1886) Japanese poet; A Handful of Sand; Sad Toys

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Wallace Stegner (1993; born February 18, 1909) American novelist, short story writer, and historian; Angle of Repose; The Spectator Bird; Crossing to Safety; Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1972)

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Muriel Spark (2006; born February 1, 1918) Scottish novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist; The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; The Mandelbaum Gate; The Driver's Seat; Memento Mori

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Günter Grass (2015; born October 16, 1927) German novelist, poet, playwright, and artist who wrote The Tin Drum; Cat and Mouse; Dog Years; Crabwalk; What Must Be Said; Nobel Prize in Literature (1999)

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Bonus Classic:

Singhasan Battisi (after the 11th century) Indian story collection on the virtues of a ruler

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