Mark Twain was born in 1835, when Halley's Comet appeared, and said he expected to go out with it. The comet returned in 1910, and Twain died one day after its closest approach to the Sun.
ILLUSTRATION · AIMark Twain was born in 1835, a year Halley's Comet appeared, and he died in 1910, one day after the comet's closest approach to the Sun.
Twain, born Samuel Clemens, arrived on November 30, 1835. His biographer Albert Bigelow Paine wrote that 'a great comet was in the sky that year.'
Paine also recorded Twain's prediction: "I came in with Halley's comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's comet."
The ending
Halley's Comet made its closest approach to the Sun on April 20, 1910, and Twain died the next day, April 21, the medical historian Howard Markel wrote for PBS NewsHour. NASA notes that the comet's orbit between 1835 and 1910 was its shortest recorded, 74.42 years.
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