On November 30, 1835, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was born in Florida, Missouri. He grew up in nearby Hannibal, whose Mississippi River setting inspired classics like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain worked as a typesetter, riverboat pilot, journalist, and lecturer before gaining fame as an author. His sharp humor and use of regional speech patterns helped define a distinctly American literary voice. Twain’s essays and novels often satirized social pretensions, racism, and political hypocrisy. His birth is a key date in U.S. cultural history, marking the arrival of one of the nation’s most influential writers.
