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William Henry Ireland was born in London in 1777. His father, Samuel Ireland, was a successful publisher of travelogues and collector of antiquities. At an early age William became a collector of books and while apprenticed to a mortgage lawyer he started to experiment with forgery - forging signatures on genuinely old paper.

In 1794 he...

Edgar Allan Poe was born Edgar Poe in 1809 to Elizabeth and David Poe, both actors. They died when he was three and he was taken in by John Allan, a tobacco merchant living in Virginia. He became estranged from his foster father in the mid to late 1820s and joined the US Army under the name Edgar Perry - he served for two years before...

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The 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie proclaimed by Ayatollah Khomeini (then leader of Iran) triggered by the publication of The Satantic Verses in 1988/ It was reaffirmed in 2005 by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's current spiritual leader, and again in February 2006 when the government-run Matyrs Foundation announced, &...