Nathaniel Bowditch, self-taught mathemetician, astronomer, and navigator, b. 1773. We read Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham last year. He’s a very interesting character, a Yankee seaman and an extraordinary mathematician and ship’s captain. Let your boys read this one, and anyone who is interested in numbers and math.

Edward Bellamy, Utopian novelist, b. 1850. His very popular novel, Looking Backward, was set in the future in the year 2000, and in it Bellamy envisioned a socialist utopia. People have been trying, unsucccessfully, to make the novel come true ever since he wrote it.

A.E. Houseman, poet, b. 1859.

Betty MacDonald, author of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and its sequels, b. 1908. Mrs. MacDonald also wrote The Egg and I, which inspired the 1947 movie with Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray.