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L. Frank Baum became a success with his 1883 production of "The Maid of Arran" in 1882. He was a dreamer, had a printing press and an amateur newspaper, "The Rose Lawn Home Journal" and published a coin and stamp collecting guide. He failed at almost everything through poor business sense. He had been an actor, though only successfully in "The Maid of Arran," a newspaper editor ("The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer"), a store owner (Baum's Bazaar, from which he filed for bankruptcy on New Year's Day of 1899), and motion picture producer and director. He met everything with enthusiasm and talent, but things did not work just right and only became successful again as a writer. Diverse in audience and subject matter, he is best remembered for his fourteen Oz books and their subsidiary fantasies. He is said to have singlehandedly created the fantasy genre out of the Andersen-style literary fairy tale. He used a variety of pseudonyms for juvenile series made at the publishers request, the best known and most successful being as Edith Van Dyne, who was once played by an actress at a luncheon with another publisher who wanted to meet her. The name was later used by Emma Speed Sampson, who continued some of his series.

Baum was a kind and gentle family man, who never swore or told dirty jokes, nor was he able to punish his four sons, whom Maud had to handle for him. He was born with a bad heart and suffered several minor attacks, including one induced by The Peekskill Military Academy at age 14. He loved to make fun of the military after that incident, as one can see in his Oz books. He created and headed The Oz Film Manufacturing Company in 1914 and directed one film the year later, after which his son Frank Joslyn Baum took it over, changing the name to Dramatic Feature Films, after the Oz name had been cursed as box-office poison, despite excellent critical reception of J. Farrell MacDonald's The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914).

He continued writing, sitting up in bed long after his health had failed him, and his final Oz book was published posthumously in 1920. It was only his second attempt at science fiction. Baum's writing attracted legions of fans of all ages, both during and after his lifetime. His work has influenced such writers as Gore Vidal, Ray Bradbury, and Terry Brooks. The Oz series has been continued both officially and unofficially after his death. Frank Joslyn Baum sold the film rights of the first Oz book to MGM in 1934, and Walt Disney soon picked up the rest, unable to secure the original from them, for he, too, had desired to make a film version, as had been done before by Baum himself, Otis Turner, Ray C. Smallwood, Larry Semon, Ethel Meglin, Ted Eshbaugh, and many subsequent to 1939. Ironically, Baum moved to Hollywood at Ozcot to have a quiet place to write, which, of course, resulted in the OFMC. One other notable work by Baum is Tamawaca Folks, a spoof of his vacation town of Macatawa Michigan, taking the name of Michigan author John Esten Cooke and changing it to John Estes Cooke. Baum himself has a supporting role (under a different name) in the novel, which was based on all the vacationers. Baum's health problems limited his life to 63 years, but his literary output was remarkable, though mostly forgotten. An episode of the television series Death Valley Days (1952) features him and Maud as characters.

The Anglo-Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925, acquired a reputation as the greatest dramatist in the English language during the first half of the 20th Century for the plays he had written at the height of his creativity from "Mrs. Warren's Profession" in 1893 to "The Apple Cart" in 1929. His works have been revived on Broadway from 1894 to 2010. His most famous work in the 21st Century is My Fair Lady (1964), the musical adaptation of Pygmalion (1938).

A Shavian drama (his reputation was so great, he had his own adjective ascribed to his works) had a biting social critique leavened by humor. According to his Nobel Prize citation, "His ideas were those of a somewhat abstract logical radicalism; hence they were far from new, but they received from him a new definiteness and brilliance. In him these ideas combined with a ready wit, a complete absence of respect for any kind of convention, and the merriest humor - all gathered together in an extravagance which has scarcely ever before appeared in literature."

He was a major international celebrity and a force in British politics, being a charter member of the Fabian Society. The Fabians were committed to democratic socialism, that is, using parliamentary mechanisms to encourage a gradual adoption of socialist policies through political reform rather than revolution.

Nikola Tesla (28 June 1856 - 7 January 1943) was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.

Born and raised in the Austrian Empire, Tesla studied engineering and physics in the 1870s without receiving a degree, gaining practical experience in the early 1880s working in telephony and at Continental Edison in the new electric power industry. In 1884 he emigrated to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen. He worked for a short time at the Edison Machine Works in New York City before he struck out on his own. With the help of partners to finance and market his ideas, Tesla set up laboratories and companies in New York to develop a range of electrical and mechanical devices. His alternating current (AC) induction motor and related poly-phase AC patents, licensed by Westinghouse Electric in 1888, earned him a considerable amount of money and became the cornerstone of the poly-phase system which that company eventually marketed.

Attempting to develop inventions he could patent and market, Tesla conducted a range of experiments with mechanical oscillators/generators, electrical discharge tubes, and early X-ray imaging. He also built a wireless-controlled boat, one of the first-ever exhibited. Tesla became well known as an inventor and demonstrated his achievements to celebrities and wealthy patrons at his lab, and was noted for his showmanship at public lectures. Throughout the 1890s, Tesla pursued his ideas for wireless lighting and worldwide wireless electric power distribution in his high-voltage, high-frequency power experiments in New York and Colorado Springs. In 1893, he made pronouncements on the possibility of wireless communication with his devices. Tesla tried to put these ideas to practical use in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project, an intercontinental wireless communication and power transmitter, but ran out of funding before he could complete it.

After Wardenclyffe, Tesla experimented with a series of inventions in the 1910s and 1920s with varying degrees of success. Having spent most of his money, Tesla lived in a series of New York hotels, leaving behind unpaid bills. He died in New York City in January 1943. Tesla's work fell into relative obscurity following his death, until 1960, when the General Conference on Weights and Measures named the SI unit of magnetic flux density the Tesla in his honor. There has been a resurgence in popular interest in Tesla since the 1990s.

Booker T. Washington was born on 5 April 1856 in Franklin County, Virginia, USA. He was married to Margaret James Murray, Olivia Davidson and Fanny Norton Smith. He died on 14 November 1915 in New York City, New York, USA.

H. Rider Haggard was born on 22 June 1856 in Bradenham, Norfolk, England, UK. H. Rider was a writer, known for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, King Solomon's Mines (1985) and Allan Quatermain. H. Rider was married to Mariana Louisa Margitson. H. Rider died on 14 May 1925 in London, England, UK.

Austrian neurologist and 'father of psychoanalysis'. Freud was born to Jacob Freud, a Jewish wool merchant, and Amalia (neé Nathansohn). The family settled in Vienna when Freud was young. In 1873 he started medicine at the University of Vienna, at which time he adopted the shortened form of his name, "Sigmund." Freud served a year of compulsory military service and got his M.D. in 1881. He then stayed on for another year as a demonstrator in the physiology laboratory. From 1882 to 1886, he worked as an assistant at the General Hospital in Vienna. During this period, Dr. Josef Breuer related to Freud how he had treated a young woman suffering from hysteria with 'talking cures' while in a state of self-hypnosis. This is considered the prototype of psychoanalysis. Late in 1885, Freud went to Paris on grant to study at the Salpetriere, a mental hospital, with the famed French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot. Charcot had pioneered the treatment of nervous disorders by hypnosis. On Freud's return to Vienna in 1886 he took up his post as lecturer in neuropathology at the university and also established a private practice in nervous diseases. In 1887 he established a close friendship with Wilhelm Fliess, the Berlin otolaryngologist, with whom he discussed his work and ideas. Fleiss is called "the midwife of psychoanalysis". In 1891 he and his family moved to an apartment at Berggasse, 19. Here for the next 45 years Freud did most of his psychoanalytical treatments on his patients. Freud's first published work was entitled 'On Aphasia, a Critical Study' (1891). Freud first used the term "psychoanalysis" for his new treatment in 1896. Some of his other famous works include: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psychoneuroses (1909) and The Interpretation of Dreams (1913). Freud was appointed "Professor Extraordinary" of Neurology at the University in 1902. The same year he had also begun to meet informally at Berggasse, 19, with a group of medical colleagues interested in learning about the new discipline. In 1909 Freud was invited to Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, with Carl Jung and Sandor Ferenczi, to speak about his theories. An avid cigar smoker he developed cancer of the jaw in 1923. He underwent operations, radiotherapy and the discomfort of an oral prosthetic device that to some extent affected his speech. In 1930 the city of Frankfurt awarded Freud its Goethe Prize for work that had "opened access to the driving forces of the soul." He was elected in 1936 a corresponding member of the Royal Society of London (in the company of Newton and Darwin). The growing danger of anti-Semitism and Nazi persecution made it apparent that the Freuds would suffer the fate of other Jews if they stayed in Vienna. With the help of US government officials Freud, his wife and daughter Anna were allowed to leave Austria. It was Freud's wish to "die in freedom," and so he did in his new home at 20 Maresfield Gardens, which is now the Freud Museum.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of Princeton University and as the governor of New Jersey before winning the 1912 presidential election. As president, Wilson changed the nation's economic policies and led the United States into World War I in 1917. He was the leading architect of the League of Nations, and his progressive stance on foreign policy came to be known as Wilsonianism.

Etienne Girardot was born on 22 February 1856 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Kennel Murder Case (1933), The Garden Murder Case (1936) and The Dragon Murder Case (1934). He was married to Dr. Violetta Shelton. He died on 10 November 1939 in Hollywood, California, USA.

Thomas Jefferson was born on 10 September 1856 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Tarzan of the Apes (1918), The Missing Links (1916) and Rip Van Winkle (1914). He was married to Daisy Jefferson and Eugenia Paul. He died on 2 April 1932 in Hollywood, California, USA.

Joynson Powell was born on 8 February 1856 in Chelsea, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Murder! (1930). He died on 20 November 1937 in Regent's Park, London, England, UK.

Kate Phillips was born on 28 July 1856 in Essex, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Sands of Time (1919) and A Lowland Cinderella (1921). She was married to H.B. Conway (actor). She died on 9 September 1931 in London, England, UK.

Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain (24 April 1856 - 23 July 1951), commonly known as Philippe Pétain, was a French general who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of World War I, during which he became known as The Lion of Verdun (French: Le lion DE Verdun). From 1940 to 1944, during World War II, he served as head of the collaborationist regime of Vichy France. Pétain, who was 84 years old in 1940, ranks as France's oldest head of state.

American stage actor, musical comedy star, and vaudevillian who was a legendary figure of his time and who fathered a family of performers who went on to notable careers in motion pictures. Born Edward Fitzgerald at 23 8th Avenue in New York City, March 9, 1856, to an Irish-immigrant tailor, Richard Fitzgerald, and his wife Mary, Eddie moved to Chicago with his family after his father's death in an insane asylum from syphilis in 1862. His mother reportedly cared for Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's widow, during Mrs. Lincoln's mental illness. At the age of 8, Eddie began entertaining on the street for tips, doing acrobatic dances. He changed his name to Foy when he was 15, and he and partner Jack Finnigan went on the road, dancing for meals in bars. They got work as supernumeraries in dramatic productions and Foy claimed to have worked in such a capacity with the leading actor of his day, Edwin Booth. With another partner, Jim Thompson, Foy traveled for three years in a saloon/theatre circuit through the West, including an extended stay in Dodge City, Kansas, where he met Doc Holliday, 'William Barclay 'Bat' Masterson', and Wyatt Earp. Also on the circuit was a girl singer act, the Howland Sisters. Eddie fell for one of them, Rose Howland, and they married in 1879. In 1882, the four (Thompson had married another singer) returned East, joining the Carncross Minstrels in Philadelphia. Shortly thereafter, however, Rose Foy and her newborn died in childbirth. By 1887, Foy was back in the West, touring with David Henderson's troupe across the country. He met Lola Sefton in San Francisco and they were a couple for the next decade until her death. (Many sources described them as husband and wife, though no record of a marriage has been found.) After Sefton's death, Foy started his own company and two years later married one of his dancers, Madeline Morando. She gave him eleven children, the seven surviving ones becoming world-famous in their father's act as The Seven Little Foys. In 1903, while playing the Iroquois Theatre, Foy heroically attempted to calm the crowd after fire broke out. Six hundred people died. Foy escaped by crawling through a sewer. Three years after bringing his children into the act, Foy and his family appeared in a film for Mack Sennett, one of only a handful the senior Foy would do. However, his children, in particular Bryan Foy and Eddie Foy Jr., would enjoy substantial careers in the movies. Eddie Sr. continued to headline in vaudeville and musical theatre until his death from a heart attack in 1928 while performing in vaudeville in Kansas City, Missouri.

Gabrielle Réjane was born on 6 June 1856 in Paris, France. She was an actress, known for Madame Sans-Gêne (1911), Madame Sans-Gêne (1900) and Miarka, the Child of the Bear (1920). She was married to Paul Porel. She died on 14 June 1920 in Paris, France.

Many people today know the names of George M. Cohan and Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., but Charles Frohman, though lesser known, reigned supreme in the theatrical world for over a generation. From a young age Frohman's heart and soul belonged in the theatre. His lower-middle-class family moved from Sandusky, Ohio, to New York City in 1874 and he landed a job as a night clerk for the New York Graphic. In 1876 the paper sent him to Philadelphia to expand its circulation during the Centennial Exposition, and it was there he first demonstrated his entrepreneurial talents by organizing newsboys to more efficiently exploit the market. He then moved over briefly to the New York Tribune and moonlighted by selling theatre tickets at night, soaking in everything he could learn about the theatrical business. In 1880, at the age of 20 with 50 cents to his name after paying for a seat for the hit play "Shenandoah", he successfully schmoozed its producers into selling him its road-show rights. From this point onward there was no stopping Charles Frohman in his desire to conquer the entertainment business, which at the time was headquartered in New York City with the Broadway theater district its nerve center.

He began by leasing an unprofitable house named Proctor's Theatre and gradually created a stock production company. In the early 1890s he built his own theatre, the Empire. He, younger brother Gustave Frohman and older brother Daniel Frohman became the leading theatre impresarios of the Gilded Age. By the turn of the century Charles Frohman was the #1 theatrical producer in the world. He solidified his position by creating a theatrical monopoly with a handful of Broadway and regional theatre owners, known as the Theatrical Syndicate, which would come to dominate virtually every aspect of theatrical production through its proprietary booking network. His syndicate controlled not only first-run and revival Broadway shows, but dozens of road-show companies that continuously traversed the US and Canada, in addition to a number of productions that almost always illuminated London and Paris.

Despite his titular status within his company, however, Frohman was always detail-oriented. He believed that a large degree of his success was due to his actors and paid an unusual amount of attention to their development (or non-development), billing, promotion, costumes, etc., down to the tiniest booking details. In brief, he was a hands-on producer and he held a seemingly hypnotic hold over his troupes (no less a legend than Ethel Barrymore idolized him). He also worked extensively in London and formed a separate stage company to fill his five leased theatres there. By the outbreak of World War I, he could claim to have produced over 700 plays and employed a staff that exceeded 1,000 on both sides of the Atlantic.

Back in the States he owned or leased six theatres on Broadway and some 200 across the country, and had dozens of road-show companies traversing the nation by rail at any given time. Oddly, he rarely attended opening nights at any of his theatres, preferring to keep tabs on audience reactions by employing dozens of runners who kept him informed at intermissions and final curtains. Few of his business associates knew him intimately; he was shy and steadfastly avoided socializing, preferring to remain ensconced inside his suite at the Knickerbocker Hotel whenever in New York City. By modern definition, Frohman would be considered moderately neurotic and perhaps mildly obsessive-compulsive. He was occasionally practically agoraphobic, had an intense fear of darkness and rigidly held to theatrical superstitions, all rolled into a shroud of secrecy surrounding his private life (accused of being a homosexual by his detractors, he was also rumored to be secretly married to Maude Adams, a stage actress who would be termed a "superstar" today). In business Frohman was considered cold and calculating, often ruthlessly crushing competitors to the extent that lesser producers only survived on Broadway because he let them. He suffered a debilitating fall while at his home in White Plains, New York, in 1912 and the resulting arthritis proved so painful that he required use of a cane. Back in the Knickerbocker Hotel, Frohman became a virtual invalid.

In 1915 he opted to make a European trip to check on the crop of productions in London with playwright Charles Klein and his valet. Unfortunately he chose passage on the Lusitania, then the fastest ship to London. His friends and associates were aghast at his decision and tried to dissuade him from making the voyage. The German Embassy had issued a proclamation declaring the Lusitania a military target; Frohman reacted by dictating his company's entire 1916 season in advance and dismissed their fears for his safety, telling his friend Al Hayman, "If you want to write to me, just address the letter care of the German Submarine U-4." By eyewitness accounts, Frohman remained characteristically calm after the torpedoing of the ship, dismissing offers of assistance and offering his life belt to a female passenger. Among his last reported words was a line from J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan": "Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life."

Frohman's body was recovered and arrived in New York on May 24, 1915. He was given two funerals (John Barrymore was one of the pallbearers), with simultaneous memorial services across the US and in London. Maude Adams retired from acting upon his death. By the following year, Frohman's all-powerful theatrical syndicate would be broken by the Shubert Brothers.

Frank Daniels was born on 15 August 1856 in Dayton, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for Crooky (1915), What Happened to Father (1915) and Captain Jinks' Evolution (1916). He was married to Elizabeth Sanson (actress). He died on 12 January 1935 in West Palm Beach, Florida, USA.

Melbourne MacDowell was born on 22 November 1856 in South River, New Jersey, USA. He was an actor, known for Speed Mad (1925), Feel My Pulse (1928) and Savages of the Sea (1925). He was married to Mrs. Caroline Wells Neff, Wilhelmina Marie Strauss, Fanny Davenport (d. 1898) (first), Virginia Drew Trescott and Nellie Irving. He died on 18 February 1941 in Oakland, California, USA.

Elbert Hubbard was born on 19 June 1856 in Bloomington, Illinois, USA. He was a writer, known for A Message to Garcia (1916), A Message to Garcia (1936) and Justinian and Theodora (1910). He was married to Alice Moore and Bertha C. Crawford. He died on 7 May 1915 in off the coast of Ireland.

Hymn-composer, author and conductor Charles H. Gabriel, Sr. was educated in the public schools of Wilton, Iowa. In San Francisco, California he conducted church choirs, and later he compiled hymnals for publishing companies. He joined ASCAP in 1940, and his sacred-music compositions include "Awakening Chorus", "All Hail Immanuel", "He Is So Precious To Me", "Since Jesus Came Into My Heart", "Way of the Cross Leads Home", and "Brighten the Corner Where You Are." He wrote the music for "Will The Circle Be Unbroken," with original lyrics by Ada R. Habershon. A. P. Carter wrote new lyrics to the melody, and The Carter Family's 1927 recording of this version created the standard popularly known ever since.

American playwright, author, and stage director who acted in a few silent films. He was the twin brother of actor J. Edwin Brown, who with sister Alice Brown survived him. He was buried at Hollywood Cemetery, Hollywood, California.

J. Edwin Brown was born on 29 February 1856 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for The Black Box (1915), Jenny Be Good (1920) and The Gunsaulus Mystery (1921). He died on 6 January 1933 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Kate Adams Keller was born on 12 October 1856 in Arkansas, USA. She died on 15 November 1921 in Montgomery, Montgomery County, Alabama, USA.

William Shea was born on 6 October 1856 in Dumfries, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, UK. He was an actor, known for Davy Jones' Parrot (1910), Davy Jones and Captain Bragg (1910) and Davy Jones' Domestic Troubles (1910). He died on 5 November 1918 in Brooklyn, New York, USA.

Thomas Anstey Guthrie was born on 8 August 1856 in Kensington, London, England, UK. Thomas Anstey was a writer, known for One Touch of Venus (1948), The Fourteenth Man (1920) and Guest of Honour (1934). Thomas Anstey died on 11 March 1934.

Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg was born on 29 November 1856 in Hohenfinow, Brandenburg, Kingdom of Prussia [now Brandenburg, Germany]. He was a writer, known for The First World War (2003), Pathé's Weekly, No. 11 (1912) and Hearst-Selig News Pictorial, No. 37 (1915). He died on 1 January 1921 in Hohenfinow, Brandenburg, Germany.