February 21

On the 21st in 1848, Karl Marx published the Communist Manifesto. It, obviously, has been through many editions and ranks highly on the list of the most widely influential political documents. While the title page credits authorship to both Karl Marx (pictured. no, that is not Jerry Garcia) and Friedrich Engels, no less an authority than Engels himself acknowledges that the work is solely that of Marx. Recent research however has established that the typo on page 278 was the result of Engel’s horrid handwriting. Written in England, courtesy of the good offices of the British Library, where Marx did most of his research, the first edition appeared in German. As of 2007, the British Library was still trying to collect the rent, which Marx neglected to pay in a timely fashion.