On January 19, 1809, poet, author and literary critic Edgar
Allan Poe was  born in Boston, Massachusetts.

By the time he was three years old, both of Poe’s parents had
died, leaving him in the care of his godfather, John Allan, a
wealthy tobacco merchant. After attending school in England,
Poe entered the University of Virginia (UVA) in 1826. After
fighting with Allan over his heavy gambling debts, he was
forced to leave UVA after only eight months. Poe then served
two years in the U.S. Army and won an appointment to West
Point. After another falling-out, Allan cut him off completely
and he got himself dismissed from the academy for rules
infractions.

Poe had published three works of poetry by that time, none
of which had received much attention.

        
            Roger Joseph Ebert (June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013)

(AP) – Roger Ebert, the most famous and popular film reviewer of his time
who became the first journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize for movie criticism and,
on his long-running TV program, wielded the nation’s most influential thumb,
died Thursday at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, his office said. Only
a day earlier, he announced on his blog that he was undergoing radiation
treatment after a recurrence of cancer. Ebert had been a film critic for the
Chicago Sun-Times since 1967.