Today In History; Karl Marx, Political Philosopher

1818: Born and educated in Prussia, political philosopher and economist Karl Marx first tried to support himself as a journalist in Germany and France, but his radical social beliefs too often landed him in trouble. He finally settled in London in 1849. His best-known works include Das Kapital (Capital) and, with his colleague Friedrich Engels, the Manifest der kommunistischen Partei (the Communist Manifesto), which describes the class struggle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie, defines communism as distinct from other socialist movements, proposes a number of specific social reforms and calls on workers to unite in revolution. "The interests of capitalists and wage-laborers are diametrically opposed to each other," wrote Marx.