It's the birthday of graphic artist M. C. Escher, born in Leeuwarden, Netherlands (1898), the son of a civil engineer. He was a bad student in high school and failed his exams, but was able to enroll in the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem, slated to study architecture. After a week, he decided that he would rather be a graphic artist. He spent three years at the school and then moved to Italy.

He met his wife there and they settled in Rome for 11 years. Each year he would travel widely throughout Italy, sketching nature scenes that he would later incorporate into his graphic art. He also visited Spain, including Granada, where he saw the 14th-century Moorish castle the Alhambra. At the Alhambra he encountered and became fascinated by the Regular Division of the Plane, based on interlocking shapes or combinations of shapes known as tessellations. He made a series of Regular Division Drawings, eventually completing 137 such, and published several books featuring them. His designs are sometimes featured on neckties.

He said, "Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?"

-The Writer's Almanac