James Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. He is best known for his short story collection Dubliners, and for his novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Together with Virginia Woolf and Dorothy Richardson, he is credited with the development of the stream of consciousness technique in which the same weight is given to both the internal world of the mind and the external world of events and circumstances as factors shaping the actions and views of fictional characters. His fictional universe is firmly rooted in Dublin and reflects his family life and the events and friends and enemies from his school and college days. In this, he became both one of the most cosmopolitan and local of all the prominent English-language modernists.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1725:

J. S. Bach led the first performance of his chorale cantata Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin, BWV 125, based on Luther's paraphrase of the Nunc dimittis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mit_Fried_und_Freud_ich_fahr_dahin,_BWV_125

1848:

Mexican–American War: During the American occupation of Mexico City, diplomats signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the war and had Mexico cede 1.36 million square kilometres (530,000 sq mi) of territory and the United States pay US$15 million. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Guadalupe_Hidalgo

1913:

New York City's Grand Central Terminal, the world's largest train station by number of platforms, opened immediately after midnight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Terminal

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

Boaty McBoatface: 1. (transitive, humorous, neologism) To hijack or troll (a vote, especially one held online; or an organization conducting such a vote), by supporting a joke option. 2. An autonomous underwater vehicle launched in 2017, currently in service with the British Antarctic Survey to study the polar oceans. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Boaty_McBoatface

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Groundhog Day, apart from everything else, is a demonstration of the way time can sometimes give us a break. Just because we're born as SOBs doesn't mean we have to live that way.   --Roger Ebert https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roger_Ebert