September 21

The father of modern science fiction, whose novels The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, and The Island of Doctor Moreau essentially invented the genre's central preoccupations: time travel, alien invasion, invisibility, and the ethics of science. His 1898 Martian invasion story panicked radio listeners when adapted by Orson Welles in 1938.

The brooding Montreal poet who became one of the most revered singer-songwriters of his era, whose "Hallelujah" has been covered more than 300 times and whose late-career albums — released in his 70s and 80s — were among his finest. He was ordained a Buddhist monk and wrote with equal command about desire, loss, faith, and irony.

The most commercially successful horror writer in history, whose novels Carrie, The Shining, It, The Stand, and Misery have defined popular horror for fifty years. He has published over 60 novels and 200 short stories, many of which have been adapted into landmark films and television series.

Composer of The Planets suite (1916), one of the most beloved and influential orchestral works of the 20th century, whose movement "Mars, the Bringer of War" virtually invented the sound of outer space in film music. Holst was bemused by the fame The Planets brought him and felt it overshadowed his other work.

The father of Ghanaian independence who led the first sub-Saharan African country to throw off colonial rule in 1957, and who championed pan-Africanism as a philosophy of continental unity. His vision inspired independence movements across Africa, even as his later authoritarian turn undermined the democracy he had built.