The Old Man and the Sea, composed in 1951 in Cuba and published in 1952, was the last major work of fiction to be written by Ernest Hemingway and published in his lifetime. Likely his most famous work, it centers upon an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Though the novella has been the subject of disparate criticism, it is noteworthy in twentieth century fiction and in Hemingway's canon, reaffirming his worldwide literary prominence and significant in his selection for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Man_and_the_Sea

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

325: The First Council of Nicaea was formally opened. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea)

1498: Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrived at Calicut, India. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_da_Gama)

1570: Abraham Ortelius issued the first modern atlas. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Ortelius)

1862: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Act)

1927: By the Treaty of Jedda, the United Kingdom recognized the sovereignty of King Ibn Saud in the Kingdoms of Hejaz and Nejd, which later merged to become the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Saud)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind." -- John Stuart Mill (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill)