Samuel Johnson was an English author. Beginning as a Grub Street journalist, he made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and political conservative, and has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". His early works include the biography The Life of Richard Savage, the poems London and The Vanity of Human Wishes, and the play Irene. After nine years of work, Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755; it had a far-reaching impact on Modern English and has been described as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". His later works included essays, an influential annotated edition of William Shakespeare's plays, and the widely read novel Rasselas. In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland; Johnson described their travels in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, a collection of biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets.

Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1747:

The London Lock Hospital, the first clinic specialising in the treatment of venereal diseases, opened.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Lock_Hospital>

1862:

American telescope-maker and astronomer Alvan Graham Clark first observed the faint white dwarf companion of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius>

1953:

The North Sea flood and its associated storm began hitting the coastlines of several European countries along the North Sea (Zuid-Beveland in the Netherlands pictured during the flood), eventually killing more than 2,000 people.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_1953>

1961:

Aboard NASA's Mercury-Redstone 2, Ham the Chimp became the first hominid launched into outer space.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ham_the_Chimp>

1971:

The Winter Soldier Investigation, a three-day media event sponsored by the anti-war organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War to publicize war crimes and other atrocities by American forces and their allies during the Vietnam War, began.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Soldier_Investigation>

2007:

Suspects were arrested in Birmingham, UK, accused of plotting to kidnap and eventual behead a Muslim British soldier serving in Iraq.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Plot_to_behead_a_British_Muslim_soldier>

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Wiktionary's word of the day:

dilapidate (v):
1. To fall into ruin or disuse.
2. To cause to become ruined or put into disrepair.
3. To squander or waste
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dilapidate>

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Wikiquote quote of the day:

At this point in history, the most radical, pervasive, and earth-shaking transformation would occur simply if everybody truly evolved to a mature, rational, and responsible ego, capable of freely participating in the open exchange of mutual self-esteem. There is the "edge of history." There would be a real New Age.   --Ken Wilber
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber>