So we beat on

Francis Scott Key's cousin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, was born on this date in 1896. His significant novels, inspired by the Jazz Age, included This Side of Paradise (1920), The Beautiful and Damned (1922), The Great Gatsby (1925), Tender Is the Night (1934) and The Last Tycoon (published posthumously, 1942). He also authored many short stories. Fitzgerald suffered from alcoholism since his college days, and died of a massive heart attack on December 21, 1940. The opening line from his masterpiece The Great Gatsby is inscribed on his tombstone:

So we beat on, boats against the current,

Borne back ceaselessly into the past.