{"id":2366,"date":"2015-11-30T22:56:22","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T06:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/?p=2366"},"modified":"2025-06-27T13:04:49","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T20:04:49","slug":"mark-twains-180th-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/2015\/11\/30\/mark-twains-180th-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Twain&#8217;s 180th Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>by Reinhard Kargl<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<div id=\"attachment_2368\" style=\"width: 265px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Mark_Twain_Brady-Handy_photo_portrait_Feb_7_1871_cropped.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2368\" class=\"wp-image-2368 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Mark_Twain_Brady-Handy_photo_portrait_Feb_7_1871_cropped-255x400.jpg\" alt=\"Mark_Twain,_Brady-Handy_photo_portrait,_Feb_7,_1871,_cropped\" width=\"255\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Mark_Twain_Brady-Handy_photo_portrait_Feb_7_1871_cropped-255x400.jpg 255w, http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Mark_Twain_Brady-Handy_photo_portrait_Feb_7_1871_cropped.jpg 521w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 255px) 100vw, 255px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2368\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mark Twain, detail of photo by Mathew Brady, February 7, 1871<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Today I am celebrating the\u00a0180th birthday of one of my favorite personalities: printer, typesetter, journalist, humorist, philosopher, businessman, lecturer, world traveler, family man, passionate American, and of course, author Samuel Longhorn Clemens (M:.M:.), better known under one of his pen names, \u201cMark Twain\u201d. (Clemens also wrote under the name of &#8220;Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass&#8221;).<\/p>\n<p>Twain had a great interest in the sciences, among them astronomy. (He was born in the year of Comet Halley\u2019s appearance in 1835, and just as he predicted, he died in the year of the comet\u2019s subsequent appearance of 1910). In his autobiography, he wrote:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;I came in with Halley&#8217;s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don&#8217;t go out with Halley&#8217;s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: &#8216;Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.&#8217; &#8220;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Lesser known among Twain\u2019s many other talents and pursuits is that he was also an ardent inventor and innovator \u2014 who earned (and lost) fortunes with his patents and contraptions, going from great wealth to bankruptcy and back to wealth several times in his life. Among other things, he invented a history trivia game and a self-pasting scrapbook, which earned him $50,000 in the years after 1873.<\/p>\n<p>Twain was also quite a lady\u2019s man, and one of his inventions, the &#8220;Improvement in adjustable and detachable straps for garments\u201d (U.S. Patent\u00a0121992 A,\u00a0Dec 19, 1871) must have made interesting dinner conversation in Victorian houses.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Screen-shot-2011-06-30-at-5.50.53-PM-thumb-615x488-56060.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-full wp-image-2367 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Screen-shot-2011-06-30-at-5.50.53-PM-thumb-615x488-56060.png\" alt=\"Screen shot 2011-06-30 at 5.50.53 PM-thumb-615x488-56060\" width=\"533\" height=\"423\" srcset=\"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Screen-shot-2011-06-30-at-5.50.53-PM-thumb-615x488-56060.png 533w, http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Screen-shot-2011-06-30-at-5.50.53-PM-thumb-615x488-56060-400x317.png 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 533px) 100vw, 533px\" \/><\/a><\/p><div id=\"apf_post_footer\"><h4>Related Articles:<\/h4>\n<ul><li class=\"apf_footer\"><a href=\"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/?p=3449\">A Space Poster With Mysterious Origins<\/a><\/li><li class=\"apf_footer\"><a href=\"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/?p=3445\">Coat And Hat Stands<\/a><\/li><li class=\"apf_footer\"><a href=\"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/?p=3442\">Cover of LIFE Magazine, 1941<\/a><\/li><li class=\"apf_footer\"><a href=\"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/?p=3428\">Did Rocket Pioneer Robert Goddard Ever Work On Mount Wilson?<\/a><\/li><li class=\"apf_footer\"><a href=\"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/?p=3422\">Christmas At Hollywood And Vine<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Reinhard Kargl Today I am celebrating the\u00a0180th birthday of one of my favorite personalities: printer, typesetter, journalist, humorist, philosopher, businessman, lecturer, world traveler, family man, passionate American, and of course, author Samuel Longhorn Clemens (M:.M:.), better known under one of his pen names, \u201cMark Twain\u201d. (Clemens also wrote under the name of &#8220;Thomas Jefferson [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america-english","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2366"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3337,"href":"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366\/revisions\/3337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}