Which is how long it takes, approximately, to read The Story of Civilization

Historian Ariel Durant was born on this day in 1898. She and her husband, Will, wrote The Story of Civilization, the tenth volume of which, Rousseau and Revolution, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1968.

Ariel Durant wrote:

"It is good that a historian should remind himself, now and then, that he is a particle pontificating on infinity."