July 11

1754 - Birth of Thomas Bowdler, English physican and censor (d. 1825)

His name is the origin of the term "bowdlerize" and his form of censorship consisted in removing what was considered offensive without other changes. "In 1818, after retiring to the Isle of Wight, he published his Family Shakespeare in 10 volumes, in which he 'endeavoured to remove every thing that could give just offence to the religious and virtuous mind' and 'in which nothing is added to the original text, but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family.'"

1899 - Birth of E.B. White, American writer (d. 1985)

His estate joined an amicus brief favoring the extension of copyright terms in Eldred v. Ashcroft. The brief argues that it sometimes takes decades for children's books to become classics. Ironically, E.B. White's works were almost immediately successful upon publication.

Most of his Western Canon is in the public domain, which, in the view of copyright maximalists, makes us all thieves of Western culture.

The Gershwin estate continues to bring in significant royalties from licensing the copyrights on Gershwin's work. The estate supported the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act because its 1923 cutoff date was shortly before Gershwin had begun to create his most popular works. The copyrights on those works expire in 2007 in the European Union and between 2019 and 2027 in the United States of America.

1971 - Death of John W. Campbell (b. 1910), American writer and editor

His encouragement of good science fiction writing has benefitted us all.