March 31 - Born On This Day!

Not much in the way of joyful events for this day - dear me, what's wrong with history? (Did you know they began building the Titanic On This Day?)

 However, a few exciting people were born on March 31 over the centuries, so here are the ones I know best. Enjoy! 

1621 - Andrew Marvell - English poet, author of such beauties as "To His Coy Mistress" which urges the lady to sleep with him now, because while "the grave's a fine and private place...none, I think, do there embrace."  He was a republican during Cromwell's time, managed to survive without too much hassle in the Restoration monarchy and even talked Charles II out of executing John Milton, author of Paradise Lost,  who was a close friend of Marvell's. Hundreds of years later they're both  still giving us pleasure. 

Andrew Marvell, public domain

Speaking of giving pleasure, it's the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach and Josef Haydn, both wonderful composers who certainly make me want to sing along with the tunes! And Bach also gave the world a lot of extra Bach musicians and composers!

1809 - Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, author of, among other things, The Government Inspector, a send up of bureaucracy, which inspired that very funny Danny Kaye movie The Inspector General. 

Nikolai Gogol, public domain

1844 - Andrew Lang was the author/collector of all those coloured fairy books, which had samples of everything from Grimm fairy tales to Greek myths. You can get them all for free on Gutenberg. I have several on my cyber bookshelf. 

If you've missed out on any of these folk, you shouldn't have much trouble finding them online.