June 2

One of the towering figures of Victorian and Edwardian literature, Hardy's novels — including Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd — unflinchingly portrayed rural English life and the crushing power of social convention. Later in life he turned exclusively to poetry, producing acclaimed verse collections.

The aristocratic author whose name entered the dictionary as "sadism," de Sade spent much of his life imprisoned by royal decree and later by Napoleon for his sexually transgressive novels. His philosophy, which attacked religious morality and championed extreme individual freedom, proved enormously influential on later thinkers from Nietzsche to Simone de Beauvoir.

The first English composer of international stature since Purcell, Elgar gave the world the Enigma Variations, the Cello Concerto, and his "Pomp and Circumstance" marches — the first of which, "Land of Hope and Glory," became an unofficial second British national anthem.

The wife of George Washington and the first woman to hold the unofficial role of First Lady, Martha Washington hosted the new republic's earliest state gatherings and served as a steadying personal force during the Revolutionary War, personally visiting the winter encampment at Valley Forge.

The drummer and quiet backbone of the Rolling Stones for nearly six decades, Watts provided the understated but impeccable rhythmic foundation for some of the most commercially successful rock records ever made, from "Satisfaction" to "Paint It Black."