CAMILLE  BOHANNON      

On July 11, 1960, the 34-year-old novelist Nelle Harper Lee
published her first novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.

The book was instantly successful. In the United States, it
is widely read in high schools and middle schools. To Kill
a Mockingbird has become a classic of modern American
literature, winning the Pulitzer Prize, was translated into 
some 40 languages and has sold more than 40 million
copies.

Nelle Harper Lee (April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016)

SANDY KOZEL

Introducing… The Beatles is the first Beatles album released in the United States. Originally scheduled for a July 1963 release, the LP
came out on 10 January 1964, on Vee-Jay Records, ten days before Capitol‘s Meet the Beatles!. The latter album, however, entered the
U.S. album chart one week before the former. Consequently, when
Meet The Beatles! peaked at #1 for eleven consecutive weeks, Introducing…The Beatles stalled at #2 where it remained nine consecutive weeks. It was the subject of much legal wrangling,
but ultimately, Vee-Jay was permitted to sell the album until late
1964, by which time it had sold more than 1.3 million copies. On 24
July 2014 the album was certified gold and platinum by the RIAA. 

ROSS SIMPSON

Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870)

Born in Portsmouth, England, Dickens left school at the age of 12
to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors’
prison. After three years he was returned to school, before he began
his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for
20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories
and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, and campaigned vigorously for children’s rights, education and other social reforms.

In 1836 Dickens married Catherine Hogarth, with whom he would
have nine children. He died from a stroke in 1870 at the age of 58,
with his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, still unfinished.