Rudyard Kipling's Birthday
Next: December 30, 2026
Mowgli, Kim and the Just So Stories.
The story
Where it comes from
Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, now Mumbai, on 30 December 1865, and this Story marks his birthday. Sent to relatives in England at six, he returned to India at 17 to work for newspapers in Lahore and Allahabad, and India filled his writing, from Plain Tales from the Hills to Kim, the story of a boy's adventures in the Himalayas. The Jungle Book (1894) made Mowgli known to children all over the world. His praise of the British Empire, which made his poems popular with soldiers, is read far more critically today.
How it's celebrated
There is no organised observance. It is a good evening to read one of the Just So Stories (1902) aloud at bedtime, or to set The Jungle Book beside Disney's 1967 film and see how much the two stories differ.
Did you know
- Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907 at the age of 41, he is still the youngest literature laureate.
- As a child in Bombay he spoke English, Hindi and Portuguese.
- In 1926 he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Society of Literature, which only Walter Scott, George Meredith and Thomas Hardy had been given before him.
Coming up next
- Hogmanay · December 31, 2026
- Edison Lights Up Menlo Park · December 31, 2026
- Ōmisoka · December 31, 2026
- New Year's Day · January 1, 2027
- Public Domain Day · January 1, 2027
- Isaac Asimov's Birthday · January 2, 2027