January 3rd in stamps Mussolini, Pierre Larousse, J.R.R. Tolkien

Here are some events that happened on January 3rd. It could be an event or a person that died or was born on that day


1875 Died: Pierre Larousse, French lexicographer and publisher (b. 1817)

Pierre Athanase Larousse (October 23, 1817 – January 3, 1875) was a French grammarian, lexicographer and encyclopaedist.  He published many of the outstanding educational and reference works of 19th-century France, including the 15 volume Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle.

From 1848 to 1851 he taught at a private boarding school, where he met his future wife, Suzanne Caubel (although they would not marry until 1872). Together, in 1849, they published a French language course for children.  In 1851 he met Augustin Boyer, another disillusioned ex-teacher, and together they founded the Librairie Larousse et Boyer (Larousse and Boyer Bookshop). They published progressive textbooks for children, and instruction manuals for teachers, with an emphasis on developing the pupils' creativity and independence. In 1856 they published the New Dictionary of the French Language, the forerunner of the Petit Larousse, but Larousse was already starting to plan his next, much larger project. On December 27, 1863 the first volume of the great encyclopedic dictionary, the Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle (Great Universal 19th-Century Dictionary), appeared.  It was praised by Victor Hugo and became a classic. It is still highly respected in its modern, revised form. In 1869 Larousse ended his partnership with Boyer and spent the rest of his life working on the Great Dictionary. The dictionary was finished (15 volumes, 1866–76; supplements 1878 and 1890),  by Larousse's nephew Jules Hollier in 1876, after Larousse's death (in Paris in 1875) from a stroke caused by exhaustion.

The publishing house Éditions Larousse still survives, but was acquired by Compagnie Européenne de Publication in 1984, Havas in 1997, Vivendi Universal in 1998 and the Lagardère Group in 2002.

French stamp depicting Pierre Larousse

1892 Born: J.R.R. Tolkien, English writer, poet, and philologist

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE FRSL (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and academic, who is best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.

He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, from 1945 to 1959.  He was at one time a close friend of C. S. Lewis—they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.

After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and Middle-earth within it. Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings.

While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature, more precisely, of high fantasy. In 2008, The Times ranked him sixth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Forbes ranked him the fifth top-earning "dead celebrity" in 2009.

Stamps from Great Britain depicting Tolkien's works

1925 – Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy.

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who was the leader of the National Fascist Party. He ruled Italy as Prime Minister from 1922 to 1943; he constitutionally led the country until 1925, when he dropped the pretense of democracy and established a dictatorship.

Known as Il Duce ("The Leader"), Mussolini was the founder of Italian Fascism. In 1912, Mussolini had been a leading member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), but was expelled from the PSI for advocating military intervention in World War I, in opposition to the party's stance on neutrality. Mussolini served in the Royal Italian Army during the war until he was wounded and discharged in 1917. Mussolini denounced the PSI, his views now centering on nationalism instead of socialism and later founded the fascist movement which came to oppose egalitarianism and class conflict, instead advocating "revolutionary nationalism" transcending class lines.

Following the March on Rome in October 1922, Mussolini became the youngest Italian Prime Minister up to that date. After removing all political opposition through his secret police and outlawing labor strikes, Mussolini and his followers consolidated their power through a series of laws that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship. Within five years, Mussolini had established dictatorial authority by both legal and extraordinary means and aspired to create a totalitarian state. In 1929, Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty with the Vatican, ending decades of struggle between the Italian state and the Papacy, and recognized the independence of Vatican City.

Italian and German stamps depicting Mussolini