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Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in Zundert, Netherlands. His father, named Theodorus van Gogh, was a Protestant minister. His mother, named Anna Cornelia Carbentus, was a daughter of the "book-binder to the King" Willem Carbentus; who had bound the first Consitution of Holland. Vincent Van Gogh was given the name of his elder brother, who had died at birth a year before Van Gogh was born. He had two junior brothers and three sisters, and was strongly attached to his brother Theo.

Young Van Gogh was brought up in a religious and strict atmosphere. He was severely punished by his grandmother at one time. He had a very uncontrollable temper, was highly emotional, and lacked self-confidence. From the age of 7 to 11 he was taught at home by a governess. Then from the age of 11 to 15 he was sent to boarding schools in the Netherlands. His first art teacher was Constantijn Huysmans, a professional artist, who taught the young Van Gogh basic drawing and composition. From 1869-1873 Van Gogh worked for an established art dealer, Goupil & Cie, in the Hague. Then he worked in London and Paris until 1876, when he was fired for showing resentment to the customers. Van Gogh went to England as a minister's assistant. Then he studied theology at the University of Amsterdam for one year, but gave up. He tried to follow his father's profession and become a preacher in Belgium, but was dismissed after a year for "underminig the dignity of the priesthood."

He studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Brussels for six months in 1880 and 1881. In the summer of 1881 Van Gogh fell in love with his widowed cousin, Kee Vos, but was cruelly rejected by her. He became upset and resentful. This led to a violent quarrel with his father on Christmas, and he moved in with an alcoholic prostitute for a year. In 1884 Van Gogh had a romance with a neighbor's daughter, who shared his interest in art, but their marriage was opposed by both families. This and the death of his father in March of 1885 caused depression. At that time Van Gogh made his first major work, "The Potato Eaters". In September of 1885 he was accused of making one of his sitters, a young peasant girl, pregnant and was ostracized by the local Church. He moved to Antwerp, where he studied color theory and painting at the Antwerpen School of Arts, and matriculated in January of 1886. While he was away, his mother and sister moved. They left behind almost all of his paintings, of which 70 were bought by a junk dealer and some were burned.

From March 1886 to February 1888, Van Gogh lived in Paris. There he met the Impressionists: Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, Paul Signac, Georges Seurat, and brothers Lucien and Camille Pissarro. The Impressionist's use of light and color inspired Van Gogh on updating his own palette. During the Paris years, his color scheme became brighter and lighter. His use of complementary colors in proximity produced remarkable decorative effects. He wrote: "I want to use colours that complement each other, that cause each other to shine brilliantly, that complete each other like a man and a woman." Van Gogh also adopted some ideas of pointillism, but developed his own technique with stronger brush-strokes, sharp composition, and his own color scheme using complementary colors. He created about 200 oil paintings during his two years in Paris.

In February of 1888 Van Gogh moved to Arles with a plan to found an art colony. His friend Paul Gauguin joined in October. Van Gogh presented him several paintings of sunflowers, but their cooperation lasted only for two months. Their arguments about art and life were exacerbated by drinking and rivalry for prostitutes. Van Gogh's mental state was alternating between fits of depression and lucidity. At times, his madness led to aggressive actions. In December of 1888 he attacked Paul Gauguin with an open razor, was stopped, but eventually cut part of his ear off and gave it to a prostitute. Paul Gauguin sent a note to his brother Theo and left forever. Theo immediately came to help. Van Gogh was sent to the state mental hospital of St. Paul in Saint Remy de Provence. There he lived for a year and made some of his best works: "Starry Night", "Vincent's Bedroom", and several paintings of Irises.

Van Gogh was released in May of 1890 and moved to live in Auvers-sur-Oise under supervision of Dr. Gachet. His health improved enough to give him energy for the most intensive work marathon. In just two months there he painted ninety excellent works. This included portraits of Dr. Gachet, landscapes, still-lives, and "Wheat Field with Crows". In a state of depression he went out into the wheat field and shot himself in the chest on July 27, 1890. Fatally wounded, Van Gogh died two days later in the arms of his brother Theo. He was laid to rest at the cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise.

Van Gogh's disobedience drove his creativity towards new horizons. Although categorized as a Post-impressionist, Van Gogh pioneered the style of Expressionism and had a very important influence on 20th century art. He influenced many artists and art movements, such as Henri Matisse and the French Fauves, Ernest Ludwig Kirchner and German Expressionists, as well as Francis Bacon and other artists. Van Gogh was been the topic of several biographical films. He was played most memorably by Kirk Douglas in Lust for Life (1956) and by Tim Roth in Vincent & Theo (1990). The highly popular song "Vincent" by Don McLean was a tribute to Van Gogh.

Gunfighter John Wesley Hardin was one of the most notorious killers to come out of the Old West (while staying overnight at a hotel, he was awakened by the snoring of a man in the next room; Hardin reached over, grabbed his pistol and fired a shot through the wall, killing the man). He was a Southerner who harbored a deep hatred of blacks; the first man he is known to have killed, when he was 15, was black, and while fleeing the law for that murder he shot and killed at least one, and possibly four, Union soldiers, most of them black, who were attempting to arrest him.

Hardin later got a job herding cattle on the Chisholm Trail, but the combination of his white-hot temper, a quick draw and the prodigious amounts of alcohol he regularly imbibed resulted in his killing at least seven men along the way; when the herd arrived in Abilene, KS, he got into more gunfights, resulting in three more deaths. He returned to Texas soon afterwards, got married and settled down to raise a family (he had three children), but he soon reverted to his old ways, adding four more murders to his total, before being captured by a county sheriff. Although jailed, he soon broke out and was on the run again.

His hatred of Northerners in general and blacks in particular caused him to become involved in a political battle between pro- and anti-Reconstruction forces in Texas (he naturally took the side of the latter) in 1873 and he killed a former State Police officer who led the pro-Reconstruction forces. In 1874 he murdered a sheriff's deputy in Brown County, TX. The deputy was well liked, and it roused the fury of the locals, who formed a lynch mob. The mob actually lynched three men for the murder, none of whom had anything to do with it but all of whom were related to Hardin, which is why they were hanged; by this time Hardin had managed to flee to Florida (his wife and parents remained safe in protective custody). In 1877 he was captured in Pensacola, FL, by Texas Rangers (during his stay in Florida he was suspected of at least one and probably five more murders). He was tried for the Brown County deputy's murder in 1878 and sentenced to 25 years in prison, but only served 16 years before being pardoned in 1894. While in prison he had studied law, and after his release he was admitted to the Texas bar.

In 1895 Hardin testified as a defense witness in a murder trial in El Paso, and after the trial was over he decided to stay in that city and open up a law practice. Although he tried to remain "straight" after becoming a lawyer, he was--almost inevitably--drawn back to his old ways by his pride and a return to the heavy drinking he had once been known for. On top of that, El Paso Constable John Selman Sr., an outlaw in his own right, had an ongoing conflict with Hardin; Selman's son, a lawman, had attempted to arrest a female acquaintance of Hardin's and was pistol-whipped by Hardin for his trouble. Seething over Hardin's beating of his son, Selman entered the Acme Saloon where Hardin often played dice. The bustle of the saloon allowed Selman to enter unnoticed by Hardin. He got behind Hardin and shot him several times, although the first one actually killed him. Like many of the legendary figures of the old west, Hardin had met a violent end from someone who hadn't the courage to face him man-to-man and shot him in the back. It was said that in his last moments, even though slowed own by age and without the advantage of his youthful quick reactions, Hardin still managed to reach for his pistol before he died, although not aware of who it was who had shot him.

In the end, he died as he had lived--by the gun.

Lily Langtry was born on 13 October 1853 in Jersey, Channel Islands. She was an actress, known for His Neighbor's Wife (1913). She was married to Sir Hugo de Bathe, Edward Langtry and Frederick Gebhardt. She died on 12 February 1929 in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

Handsome American actor, playwright and stage director/producer William Gillette was born in Hartford, CT, in 1853. His father Francis was a former United States Senator and crusader for women's suffrage and the abolition of slavery; his mother Elisabeth Daggett Hooker is a descendant of Rev. Thomas Hooker, who either wrote or inspired the first written constitution in history to form a government.

In 1873 William left Hartford to begin his apprenticeship as an actor, briefly working for a stock theatre company in New Orleans and then returning to New England. He made his debut at the Globe Theatre in Boston with Mark Twain's play "The Guilded Age" in 1875. His first major Civil War drama, "Hold by the Enemy", was a major step forward to modern theatre in that it abandoned many crude devices of Victorian melodrama and introduced realism into the sets, props, costumes, sound effects and performances; it was a critical and commercial success in America and Britain.

Gillette is probably best remembered, however, as the first actor to be universally acclaimed for portraying Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famed detective Sherlock Holmes, playing the role first on stage in 1899 and continuing for more than 35 years. He also wrote many stage versions from Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novels and even starred in the film version, Sherlock Holmes (1916), directed by Arthur Berthelet for the Essanay Film Co. He had previously appeared in two other films, his debut being in J.P. McGowan's The Battle at Fort Laramie (1913) and the following year he played support as Jack Lane in The Delayed Special (1914), both of which starred Helen Holmes and were made for the Kalem Film Co. Gillette also became popular on radio, performing the first radio serial version of Sherlock Holmes in 1930 and in 1935. His last stage appearance was in Austin Strong's "Three Wise Fools" in 1936. He wrote 13 original plays, seven adaptations and some collaborations, encompassing farce, melodrama and novel adaptation. He also wrote two pieces based on the US Civil War, "Held by the Ememy" and "Secret Service", which were highly acclaimed. In 1882 he married Helen Nichols, who died in 1888 from peritonitis; he never remarried.

Gillette died from pulmonary hemorrhage in Connecticut in 1937 at age 83.

Born in London, England, in 1853, prolific actor/director (300+ credits) Tom Ricketts is mostly forgotten today, but his chief claim to fame is that he directed the first motion picture shot in Hollywood.

Ricketts began his show-business career as an actor on the London stage, and gained a reputation as one of the best Shakespearean actors of his day. Ricketts never seemed to rest, working up until a few days before his death in 1939. He left for work one day with a bad cold, which quickly developed into pneumonia. His health went downhill rapidly and he died only a few days later. His wife, the actress Josephine Ditt (aka Josephine Ditt), was not notified of his death at the time; she was still suffering from the effects of a stroke that she had in December of 1938.

Henry C. DeMille was born on 17 September 1853 in Washington, North Carolina, USA. He was a writer, known for Forty Winks (1925), Men and Women (1925) and The Lost Paradise (1914). He was married to Beatrice DeMille. He died on 9 February 1893 in Pompton, New Jersey, USA.

Beatrice DeMille was born on 30 January 1853 in Liverpool, England, UK. She was a writer and assistant director, known for The Heir to the Hoorah (1916), The Devil-Stone (1917) and Unconquered (1917). She was married to Henry C. DeMille. She died on 8 October 1923 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.

David Belasco was born on 25 July 1853 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for The Man Without a Face (1993), The Return of Peter Grimm (1935) and Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1930). He was married to Cecilia Loverich. He died on 14 May 1931 in New York City, New York, USA.

Frederick Treves was a famous pioneer in abdominal surgery. Today he is mostly remembered as the physician to the Elephant Man. On May 4, 1901, Treves was knighted by King Edward VII on whom he had performed an appendicectomy.

Johnston Forbes-Robertson (1853-1937) was an English actor and theatrical impresario that George Bernard Shaw and other critics considered to be the finest Hamlet (1913) of his generation. Forbes-Robertson had trained to be an artist and was not overly fond of acting, but he took to the boards to make a living. He did his apprenticeship with Samuel Phelps' company and made his theatrical debut in 1874. He played the second lead in the company of Henry Irving, indisputably the greatest actor of his generation and the first actor to be knighted.

Forbes-Robertson did not play Hamlet until he was 44 years old, but excelled at it. He was famed for his magnificent voice. Other Shakespearean roles he was hailed for were Leontes in "The Winter's Tale", Othello and Romeo. Shaw wrote the part of Julius Caesar in Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) specifically for Forbes-Robertson.

In 1913, at the age of 60, he became the fifth actor since Irving was knighted in 1895 to made a knight bachelor. He retired from the stage the same year but continued to produce plays. He died in Dover in 1937 at the age of 84.

Laura La Varnie was born on 2 March 1853 in Jefferson City, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Vanity Fair (1923), The Bells (1926) and Mine to Keep (1923). She was married to Frank La Varnie. She died on 18 September 1939 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Novelist and dramatist Hall Caine, though largely forgotten now, was a hugely popular writer in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Born Thomas Henry Hall Caine on May 14, 1853, in Runcorn, Cheshire, England, his father was a Manx Man who moved to Liverpool, where he apprenticed as a ship's smith. After Hall's birth (he hated the name Thomas and never used it, even after he was knighted), the family moved back to Liverpool, where young Hall grew up. Hall Caine frequently took many trips to visit the Caine family on the Isle of Man.

He was apprenticed to an architect and surveyor and plied his trade as a surveyor while self-educating himself through wide reading. He became a lecturer and theatrical critic, which introduced him to some influential people such as actor Sir Henry Irving and author Bram Stoker, who dedicated Dracula (1931) to him. He became the secretary, factotum and nurse to Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the last years of the great poet's life.

Aside from a memoir of Rossetti that sold well, Caine's early endeavors in serious literature met with little success. However, when he abandoned literary criticism for romantic fiction (in the Walter Scott vein), he became popular. "Shadow of a Crime", an 1885 novel featuring a love triangle, was a best-seller. In 1887 he published a critical book about Samuel Taylor Coleridge that failed, but his return to fiction that same year with The Deemster (1917), a romance set in the Isle of Man, was a hit (a deemster is a judge on the Isle of Man).

In all, he published 15 romantic novels over 40 years. Many had themes influenced by his Christian socialist political sympathies. His popularity was immense, and his 1897 novel "The Christian" (later made into a film, The Christian (1915)) was the first novel to sell over a million copies in the United Kingdom. In August 1902, when King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra visited the Isle of Man, Caine was invited on board the royal yacht as the royal couple toured the island (the queen was a fan). He was a major celebrity in his own right, as well as a celebrated author.

During World War One he wrote propaganda articles urging the United States to join the fight against Germany and her allies. He declined a baronetcy in 1917 but accepted a knighthood, insisting he be styled Sir Caine Hall. After the Great War his popularity began to decline, as his style was considered old-fashioned. His return to fiction in 1921 with "The Master of Man: The Story of a Sin", another romance set in the Isle of Man, did not reach the level of popular success he was accustomed to and was poorly received by critics. He was derided as Victorian.

Many of his novels were made into movies during the silent era. "The Manxman" was turned into The Manxman (1929), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The last film made from a Hall Caine property was The Bondman (1929), also released in 1929. Such was the decline of his reputation and popularity that no sound film has ever been made from his works.

Caine is little remembered today, as his novels are considered badly written; the characterizations are fuzzy and one plot is much like the other. In 1931 G.K. Chesterton wrote his literary epitaph: "Bad story writing is not a crime. Mr. Hall Caine walks the streets openly, and cannot be put in prison for an anticlimax."

He died on August 31, 1931, at the age of 78, the same year that Chesterton dismissed him as a bad writer. He was the father of Sir Derwent Hall Caine, 1st Baronet (1891-1971), actor, publisher and Labour politician.

Howard Pyle was born on 5 April 1853 in Wilmington, Delaware, USA. He was a writer, known for The Black Shield of Falworth (1954), World Fairy Tale Series (1994) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (2018). He died on 9 November 1911 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy.

Dan Mason was born on 9 February 1853 in Syracuse, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Valley of the Giants (1927), The Scarlet Letter (1917) and The Wall Street Whiz (1925). He was married to Millicent La Fonte (aka Millie La Fonte). He died on 6 July 1929 in Baersville, New York, USA.

W.H. Bainbridge was born on 21 March 1853 in England, UK. He was an actor, known for Passion Fruit (1921), Traffic in Souls (1913) and God's Country and the Woman (1916). He died on 24 October 1931 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Cecil Rhodes was born on 5 July 1853 in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England, UK. He died on 26 March 1902 in Muizenberg, Cape Colony.

Herbert Ayling was born on 28 September 1853 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for The Richest Girl (1918) and Outcast (1917). He was married to Reina C. Wynan and Maria T. Madden. He died on 28 August 1919 in New York, New York, USA.

Katharina Schratt was born on 11 September 1853 in Baden, Lower Austria, Austrian Empire. She was an actress, known for The Great Cattle War (1920). She was married to Nikolaus Kiss de Ittebe. She died on 17 April 1940 in Vienna, Austria.

King Chulalongkorn was born on 20 September 1853 in Thailand. He died on 23 October 1910 in Thailand.

William T. Rock was born on 31 December 1853 in Birmingham, England, UK. He was an actor and producer, known for Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman (1905), National Red Cross Pageant (1917) and A Vitagraph Romance (1912). He died on 27 July 1916 in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, USA.

James Daly was born on 30 November 1853 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for The Road o' Strife (1915), Sorrows of Happiness (1916) and The Fortune Hunter (1914). He was married to Clara Lambert. He died on 9 November 1933 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

Duchess Maria Edinburgh of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was born on 17 October 1853 in Tsarskoye Selo, Russia [now Pushkin, Saint Petersburg, Russia]. She was married to Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Alfred. She died on 25 October 1920 in Zurich, Switzerland.

John Burton was born on 7 January 1853 in Wisconsin, USA. He was an actor, known for Huck and Tom (1918), The Fair Barbarian (1917) and The Ghost Breaker (1914). He died on 25 March 1920 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Charles Dungan was born on 18 June 1853 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He is known for T'Other Dear Charmer (1918), The Man Without a Country (1917) and The Beloved Blackmailer (1918).

George Barnum was born on 22 March 1853 in New York, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Minnie (1922), Sherlock Brown (1922) and The Mountain Woman (1921). He was married to Matilda. He died on 30 March 1937 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.