Rauner Special Collections Library

Way back in 1476, William Caxton returned to England from the continent with some fancy new tech to show off. While in Flanders he learned the relatively young art of printing. After a few years practicing the trade there, he packed up his press and headed home to see if there was an appetite for the printed word in England. There was.

Over the next 15 years, Caxton produced the earliest printed works in England. His taste was decidedly English. His first publication was Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, but he followed with other major works of English history and literature.

Winnie-the-Pooh was first published on October 14, 1926 as the second of four wildly successful children’s books by Alan Alexander (A. A.) Milne (When We Were Very Young, Winnie-the-Pooh, Now We Are Six, and The House at Pooh Corner). One hundred years later, these stories and characters are as beloved as ever, and Milne is remembered mainly as a children’s author. But Milne’s writing career began well before he introduced the world to Pooh, Piglet, and their friends.

After Copernicus laid out his fancy new theory placing the Sun at the center of the universe, and then Galileo argued so forcefully for it, you would think that any self-respecting astronomer would acquiesce and admit the Earth no longer held primacy in the universe. But Tycho Brahe was a stubborn cuss, and a stickler for good observation. He figured with the more accurate observations he could make with his state-of-the-art observatory, he could prove Copernicus and Galileo to be fools for doubting the long-held dogma that the Earth was the center of everything.