12 February 1809 - Charles Darwin born.

The author of many books and papers on matters of science, chiefly remembered for On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection (1859) based on decades of study, mostly carried out on his scientific voyage around the world 1831-36, one of the most influential books ever published. He followed it up with two more important works The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) and The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). 

On the same day thousands of miles away in Kentucky another great 19th century figure was born - Abraham Lincoln.

13 February 1571 - Benvenuto Cellini died.

Italian goldsmith and sculptor. After making his name in the service of the Papacy in making jewellery and medals Cellini entered the service of the King of France where he gained experience in bronze-casting. Upon his return to Florence he was created his masterpiece Perseus With the Head of Medusa (1554).  

In 1840 the 2nd Duke of Sutherland commissioned a bronze casting of the original, the only one ever made, which stands today in Trentham Gardens, north Staffordshire. I've seen it many times and it's a magnificent piece of art. The original is in Florence.

14 February 1975 - Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse died.

P G Wodehouse the English author of hundreds of humorous stories, the most notable being his Jeeves and Wooster tales and the Blandings series in a career spanning over 70 years.

Despite being seen as quintessentially English he spent much of his life in France and the USA. He was interned by the Germans in 1940 and the following year, in return for release from an internment camp, he made several sanitized radio broadcasts detailing life as an internee. In 1943 he was allowed to return to Paris.

After the liberation of France in 1944 he was arrested by the French as a collaborator but released without charge. Refused permission to live in England he settled in the USA, in fact he never set foot in England after 1939.

Several attempts in the 1960s to award him a knighthood for his services to literature were blocked and it was only in the New Years Honours 1975 that a knighthood was conferred, he died six weeks later aged 93.  

The first thing I did was lockdown was lifted in 2020 was to go to a bookshop to buy something, anything; I bought a compendium of 35 Jeeves and Wooster short stories. 

The first thing I did when lockdown was lifted in 2020 was to go to a bookshop to buy something, anything; I bought a compendium of 35 Jeeves and Wooster short stories. 

Wow and double wow

I was given the full series on DVD for my birthday last year from my sister, watched the first six or seven so far, there are 23. 

15 February 1883 - Sax Rohmer born. 

The pen name of the English crime writer Arthur Ward. His chief claim to fame is as the creator of the Chinese criminal mastermind Fu Manchu in dozens of novels and short stories between 1913 and 1959 the year of Rohmer's death. A number were published posthumously in the 1970s. Many of the Fu Manchu stories have been dramatized for film and TV.

Quite why is unclear.

16 February 1951 - Pamela Colman "Pixie" Smith died.

English illustrator who designed the tarot cards for the Waite-Smith tarot deck in 1909 which have become the accepted style of tarot cards to this day. 

17 February 1980 - Graham Sutherland died.

English abstract artist. His best known works are one which survives - Christ in Glory in the Tertramorph (1962) a huge 75ft x 39ft tapestry in Coventry Cathedral and one which doesn't - his 1954 Portrait of Winston Churchill. It was commissioned by both Houses of Parliament and presented to Churchill on his 80th birthday. However he hated it and it was never put on display, instead it was locked away in his home at Chartwell. Years later in 1978 after the death of Lady Churchill it was revealed that the painting had been cut up and burnt soon after Churchill was presented with it. 

18 February 1564 - Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarotti Simoni died.

Simply known as Michelangelo, the greatest of the Renaissance sculptors and painters. 

He made his name in Rome in the 1490s before returning to his native Florence where a series of important commissions earned him a recall to Rome under Papal patronage. Throughout his long career of nearly 70 years he produced some of the best known works of the age - the painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508-12), two incredible sculptures - Pietà (1499) and David (1504). He died aged 88 still working on the redesigning of a church in Rome.

She illustrated Stoker's last novel The Lair of the White Worm in 1911.

19 February 2016 - Umberto Eco died.

Italian writer known in his home country for his prolific and varied output. Outside Italy he is remembered for his debut novel The Name of the Rose (1980) a murder mystery set in a 14th century monastery later made into a film. His subsequent novels received less attention.

20 February 1961 - (George) Percy Grainger died.

Composer born in Australia who lived in the USA from the age of 32, remembered as the collector and re-arranger of European folk music on his many travels across the continent, perhaps most notably Country Gardens, the quintessentially English tune.

21 February 1907 - Wystan Hugh Auden born.

The English poet W H Auden who took took US/UK citizenship in 1946. 

22 February 1797 - Hieronymus, Baron von Münchausen died.

The real life figure satirized in the 1785 book by Rudolf Raspe - Baron Münchausen's Narrative of His Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia.

The real von Münchausen was born into a minor German noble family and fought for the Russians in the Russo-Turkish Wars of the 1730s and 40s. He retired to his German estates in 1760 with the title of Freiherr (Baron) where he would host dinners with tales of his exploits against the Turks attracting visitors from afar to hear his stories. 

After hearing of Münchausen's tales the German writer Rudolf Raspe expanded and adapted them into a novel in 1785, they have been dramatized for film and TV several times since.    

Von Münchausen died aged 76 in 1797 in the middle of divorce proceedings with his second wife aged 23 who had given birth to a child he claimed was not his.