Ursula K. Le Guin (October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction. She wrote more than twenty novels and over a hundred short stories, in addition to poetry, literary criticism, translations, and children's books. She achieved critical and commercial success with A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) and The Left Hand of Darkness (1969). Le Guin was influenced by cultural anthropology, Taoism, feminism, and the writings of Carl Jung. Many of her stories used anthropologists or cultural observers as protagonists. Several works reflect Taoist ideas about balance and equilibrium. Le Guin often subverted typical speculative fiction tropes, such as through her use of dark-skinned protagonists in the Earthsea fantasy series. She won eight Hugo Awards, six Nebulas, and twenty-two Locus Awards, and in 2003 became only the second woman honored as a Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1867:

The first and second of three treaties were signed near Medicine Lodge, Kansas, between the United States and several Native American tribes in the Great Plains, requiring them to relocate to areas in present-day western Oklahoma. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_Lodge_Treaty

1959:

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, opened in New York City. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_R._Guggenheim_Museum

1969:

Siad Barre led Supreme Revolutionary Council forces in a military coup and established the Somali Democratic Republic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Democratic_Republic

1983:

At the 17th General Conference on Weights and Measures, the length of a metre was redefined as the distance that light travels in vacuum in ​1⁄299,792,458 of a second. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

smell you later: (humorous, informal) See you later; goodbye. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smell_you_later

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us!   --Samuel Taylor Coleridge https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge