Check out Google today, it's so cool!! http://www.google.ca/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne (French pronunciation: [ʒyl vɛʁn]; February 8, 1828 – March 24, 1905) was a French author from Brittany who pioneered the science-fiction genre. He is best known for novels such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before air travel and practical submarines were invented, and before practical means of space travel had been devised. He is the third most translated individual author in the world, according to Index Translationum. Some of his books have been made into films. Verne, along with Hugo Gernsback and H. G. Wells, is often popularly referred to as the "Father of Science Fiction".[1]
Biography -Early Life
Jules Gabriel Verne was born in Nantes, Brittany in France, to Pierre Verne, an attorney, and his wife, Sophie. The eldest of five children, Jules spent his early years at home with his parents in the bustling harbor city of Nantes. The family spent summers in a country house just outside the city, on the banks of the Loire River. Here Verne and his brother Paul would often rent a boat for a Franc a day. The sight of the many ships navigating the river sparked Jules's imagination, as he describes in the autobiographical short story Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse. At the age of nine, Jules and Paul, of whom he was very fond, were sent to boarding school at the Saint Donatien College (Petit séminaire de Saint-Donatien). As a child, he developed a great interest in travel and exploration, a passion he showed as a writer of adventure stories and science fiction. His interest in writing often cost him progress in other subjects.
Read More here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne
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I love how it says he spent his early years at home with his "parents" and that he spent a lot of time playing beside the river. I think it's so important to be living near "water" as a child. There's just something magical about it, and it makes your mind grow. You learn so much from it.
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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/comic-riffs/2011/02/animation_of_the_day_todays_aq.html
By Michael Cavna Happy 183rd, Monsieur Verne. And to think: That age means you were dreaming up certain submarine functions before they were even a proper reality. In a league of your own, indeed.
