Ion Heliade Rădulescu was a Wallachian-born Romanian academic, Romantic and Classicist poet, essayist, memoirist, short story writer, newspaper editor and politician, as well as prolific translator of foreign literature into Romanian and the author of books on linguistics and history. For much of his life, he was a teacher at the Saint Sava College in Bucharest, which he helped reopen. He was a founding member of the Romanian Academy, and the first President thereof. Heliade Rădulescu is considered one of the foremost representatives of Romanian culture from the first half of the 19th century, having first become noted for his association with Gheorghe Lazăr and the latter's support for discontinuing education in Greek. Over the following decades, he had a major contribution in shaping the modern Romanian language, but raised controversy when he came to advocate the massive introduction of Italian neologisms to the Romanian lexis. A Romantic nationalist landowner siding with moderate liberals, he was among the leaders of the 1848 Wallachian revolution, after which he was forced to spend several years in exile. Adopting an original form of conservatism, which emphasized the role of boyars in Romanian history, Heliade Rădulescu was rewarded for supporting the Ottoman Empire, and came to clash with the radical wing of the 1848 generation.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1357: The foundation stone of Charles Bridge in Prague was laid by Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bridge)

1816: The Congress of Tucumán declared the independence of Argentina, then known as the United Provinces of the River Plate, from Spain. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Tucum%C3%A1n)

1922: Johnny Weissmuller swam the 100-meter freestyle in 58.6 seconds, breaking a world swimming record and the "minute barrier." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Weissmuller)

1955: The Russell-Einstein Manifesto was issued in the midst of the Cold War, calling for a conference where scientists would "appraise the perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell-Einstein_Manifesto)

2002: The African Union was launched in Durban, South Africa, with President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki as its first chairman. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Union)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

Our destiny is frequently met in the very paths we take to avoid it. -- Jean de La Fontaine (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean_de_La_Fontaine)