1809: The creator of the first detective story was born today. Edgar Allan Poe's first novel, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," was published in 1841 and his works were to inspire the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and scores of others fiction writers.
1769: Happy birthday to James Watt, the first man to use a steam engine to turn a wheel.
1946: The Queen of country and western, Dolly Parton, popped into the world, so to speak, on this day.
1978: The last VW Beetle rolled off the production line today. The tough little runabout, of which Hitler was a fan, was the first European car to sell more than a million units of a single basic model.
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