Amado Nervo, Theodore Dreiser, C. S. Forester, and Sergey Mikhalkov are the acclaimed authors who were born or died on a day like this.

Amado Nervo
Amado Nervo, also known as Juan Crisóstomo Ruiz de Nervo was the Mexican Ambassador to Argentina and Uruguay, journalist, poet, and educator. He was born in Nayarit on a day like this in 1879. While Nervo had early plans to join the priesthood, economic hardship led him to accept a desk job in Tepic. He later moved to Mazatlán, where he alternately worked in the office of a lawyer and as a journalist for El Correo de la Tarde (The Evening Mail). He went on to become a successful poet, journalist, and international diplomat. In 1894, he continued his career in Mexico City, where he became known and appreciated, working in the magazine Blue, with Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera. Nervo gained a national reputation in the literary community, after the publication of his novel El bachiller ("The Bachelor") and his books of poetry, including Místicas ("Mystical") and Perlas Negras ("Black Pearls"). In 1902, Nervo wrote La Raza de Bronce ("The Bronze Race") in honor of Benito Juárez, former president of Mexico. His poetry was known for its use of metaphor and reference to mysticism, presenting both love and religion, as well as Christianity and Hinduism. Nervo is noted as one of the most important Mexican poets of the 19th century. He passed away on May 24, 1919, aged 48.

Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was born on a day like this in 1871. He was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His first novel, "Sister Carrie", published in 1900, tells the story of a woman who flees her country life for the city (Chicago) and there lives a life far from a Victorian ideal. His second novel, "Jennie Gerhardt", was published in 1911. His first commercial success was "An American Tragedy", published in 1925, which was made into a film in 1931 and again in 1951. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency. Though primarily known as a novelist, Dreiser published his first collection of short stories, "Free and Other Stories" in 1918. The collection contained 11 stories. Other works include "Trilogy of Desire", which was based on the life of the Chicago streetcar tycoon Charles Tyson Yerkes and composed of "The Financier" (1912), "The Titan" (1914), and "The Stoic". The last was published posthumously in 1947. Dreiser passed away on December 1945 at the age of 74.

C. S. Forester
Cecil Scott "C.S." Forester was the pen name of Cecil Louis Troughton Smith, an English novelist who rose to fame with tales of naval warfare. Forester was born on a day like this in 1899 in Cairo. His most notable works were the 12-book "Horatio Hornblower" series, depicting a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic era, and "The African Queen" (1935; filmed in 1951 by John Huston). His novels "A Ship of the Line" and "Flying Colours" were jointly awarded the 1938 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. He wrote several volumes of short stories set during the Second World War. Those in "The Nightmare" (1954) were based on events in Nazi Germany, ending at the Nuremberg Trials. Stories in "The Man in the Yellow Raft" (1969) followed the career of the destroyer USS Boon, while many of those in "Gold from Crete" (1971) followed the destroyer HMS Apache. In addition to his novels of seafaring life, Forester also published two crime novels, "Payment Deferred" (1926), and "Plain Murder" (1930), and two children's books. One, "Poo-Poo and the Dragons" (1942), was created as a series of stories told to his younger son George to encourage him to finish his meals. The second, "The Barbary Pirates" (1953), is a children's history of those early 19th century pirates. Forester died on April 2, 1966, aged 66.

Sergey Mikhalkov
Sergey Vladimirovich Mikhalkov was a Soviet and Russian author of children's books and satirical fables. He had the opportunity to write the lyrics of his country's national anthem on three different occasions, spanning almost 60 years. As a 29-year-old in 1942, Mikhalkov's work drew the attention of the Soviet Union's leader Joseph Stalin, who commissioned him to write lyrics for a new national anthem. At the time, the country was deeply embroiled in World War II and Stalin wanted a Russian theme for the national anthem, to replace the Internationale. The new anthem was presented to Stalin in the summer of 1943 and was introduced as the country's new anthem on January 1, 1944. Mikhalkov wrote new lyrics in 1970, but they were not submitted to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet until May 27, 1977. The new lyrics, which removed any reference to Stalin, were approved on September 1 and were made official with the printing of the new Soviet Constitution in October 1977. Use of the Soviet anthem, with Mikhalkov's lyrics, continued until 1991, when it was retired by President Boris Yeltsin after the USSR disintegrated. However, when Vladimir Putin took over from Yeltsin in 2000, he began to clamor for a restoration of Alexandrov's music in place of Yeltsin's choice. Apart from the national anthem, Mikhalkov produced a great number of satirical plays and provided scripts for several Soviet comedies. He also successfully revived a long derelict genre of satirical fable. He was awarded three Stalin Prizes (1941, 1942, 1950) and numerous other awards. Mikhalkov died on a day like this in 2009, aged 96.

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