Portrait of Jack London

Birthday profile

Jack London

American author, journalist and social activist (1876–1916)

Born
January 12, 1876
Died
November 22, 1916
Zodiac sign
Capricorn
Birth year
1876

About Jack London

John Griffith London (né Chaney; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of animal welfare, workers' rights and socialism. London wrote several works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction exposé The People of the Abyss, War of the Classes, and Before Adam. His most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in Alaska and the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote about the South Pacific in stories such as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen".

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

Jack London timeline

  1. Born: January 12, 1876
  2. Died: November 22, 1916

The world when Jack London was born

Jack London was born in 1876. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst National League baseball season
  • Top headlineBattle of Little Bighorn — Custer's Last Stand
  • Technology milestoneAlexander Graham Bell patents the telephone
  • Notable inventionTelephone
  • World population~1.56B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderUlysses S. Grant
  • U.S. population43.4M

1876 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Jack London's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18762026
Population43.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.