Ludwig Wittgenstein was born on 26 April 1889 in Neuwaldegg. An Austrian-born philosopher who worked mostly in Cambridge, Wittgenstein came from one of Vienna's wealthiest families and studied under Bertrand Russell. His Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, completed after he served in the First World War, argued that the limits of language are the limits of the world, and he believed it solved the main problems of philosophy. He then gave away his fortune and taught in village schools before returning to Cambridge. His later work, published after his death as Philosophical Investigations, rejected much of his earlier thinking and examined language through everyday use and language games. He is among the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century.
Before and after
- 1 April 1889Origins of Osaka
- 7 April 1889Birth of Gabriela Mistral
- 16 April 1889Birth of Charlie Chaplin
- 20 April 1889Birth of Adolf Hitler
- 26 April 1889Birth of Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 28 April 1889Birth of António de Oliveira Salazar
- 11 June 1889Birth of Anna Akhmatova
- 5 July 1889Birth of Jean Cocteau
- 8 July 1889Launch of The Wall Street Journal
More in Art, literature & culture
- 1792Publication of Dream of the Red Chamber
- 7 April 1837Publication of The Little Mermaid
- 21 February 1848Publication of The Communist Manifesto
- 18 September 1851Founding of The New York Times
- 1857Rise of Symbolism
- 28 December 1895The Lumiere brothers hold the first public film screening
The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 19th century.