Blow the dust off the clock. Your watches are behind the times. Throw open the heavy curtains which are so dear to you -- you do not even suspect that the day has already dawned outside.
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Born: December 11, 1918
1945: sentenced to eight years for anti-Soviet activities
1962: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich published in Russia
1970: Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature
1974: First volume of The Gulag Archipelago published
February 13, 1974: Exiled from his native Russia
1994: Returns to Russia
August 3, 2008: dies in Moscow
