The Biography of Bertolt Brecht Bertolt Brecht was born on February 10, 1898 in Augsburg, Germany. His first poems, heavily influenced by Rimbaud and Verlaine, were published at age 16. He served as an orderly in the German army during the First World War, but by its end was deeply disenchanted...

Hearing early in 1609 that a Dutch optician, named Lippershey, had produced an instrument by which the apparent size of remote objects was magnified, Galileo at once realized the principle by which such a result could alone be attained, and, after a single night devoted to consideration of the law...