Literary/history buffs might be interested to know that on this day in 1935 T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) died in a motorcycle accident at the age of 46. The New York Times reported on his death the following day:
Wrapped in the Union Jack he served so well, the body of Colonel T. E. Lawrence was borne this morning to the little slate-roofed mortuary adjoining the hospital at Bovington Camp in Dorset, where the organizer of the great “Revolt in the Desert” had died a few hours earlier.
Lawrence is best know as a man of action and adventure but he had hoped to be remembered as a man of letters:
His literary reputation rests on a body of writing which is almost entirely autobiographical. It includes at least 6,000 letters written between 1906 and his death in 1935, and two autobiographical books. The first, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, is an account of his service with the Arab Revolt. The second, The Mint, is centered on his experiences as an anonymous recruit in the ranks of the RAF. It was there, to the astonishment and distress of many contemporaries, that he chose to spend his life after 1922.