1899 Scott Joplin granted copyright for his “Maple Leaf Rag”, the most famous ragtime composition, by the US Copyright Office
Why Famous: Scott Joplin is known as the “King of Ragtime”, famous for such compositions like “The Maple Leaf Rag” and “The Entertainer”.

A travelling musician, Joplin was at the Chicago World Fair in 1893, where Ragtime became a national craze. He went on to publish his own Ragtime compositions before starting his own Opera Company and composing operas, self-publishing his ” Treemonisha” opera in 1911.

Joplin’s music was largely forgotten after his death in 1917 but rediscovered in the 1960s and 1970s. The film “The Sting” (1973) featured music inspired by Scott Joplin and Marvin Hamlisch won an Academy Award for his soundtrack. His version of the “The Entertainer” then became a top ten hit.

Born: November 24, 1868
Birthplace: Texarkana, Texas, USA
Star Sign: Sagittarius

Died: April 1, 1917 (aged 48)
Cause of Death: Syphilitic dementia
onthisday.com

Source: The internet

“Child, child, have patience and belief, for life is many days, and each present hour will pass away. Son, son, you have been mad and drunken, furious and wild, filled with hatred and despair, and all the dark confusions of the soul – but so have we. You found the earth too great for your one life, you found your brain and sinew smaller than the hunger and desire that fed on them – but it has been this way with all men. You have stumbled on in darkness, you have been pulled in opposite directions, you have faltered, you have missed the way, but, child, this is the chronicle of the earth. And now, because you have known madness and despair, and because you will grow desperate again before you come to evening, we who have stormed the ramparts of the furious earth and been hurled back, we who have been maddened by the unknowable and bitter mystery of love, we who have hungered after fame and savored all of life, the tumult, pain, and frenzy, and now sit quietly by our windows watching all that henceforth never more shall touch us – we call upon you to take heart, for we can swear to you that these things pass.”
― Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again