On 20th October 1890 Sir Richard Burton died of a heart attack, aged 69.

Born in England, Burton was a many-talented man, who was known as a linguist, speaking apparently 29 languages, geographer, cartographer, orientalist, soldier, ethnologist, spy, fencer, poet, diplomat, writer, translator and explorer.

Burton made an unexpurgated translation of the classic work One Thousand and One Nights and the Kama Sutra, was one of the first Europeans to visit the African Great Lakes whilst searching for the Nile, and visited the Muslim holy city of Mecca, despite not actually being Muslim.

A truly talented man, who wrote books on the subjects he knew and his travels, as well as the translations he did, as well as many smaller pieces. At the time, his translations did bring him a certain notoriety too.

Image: By Rischgitz/Stringer (Hulton Archive) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Francis_Burton_by_Rischgitz,_1864.jpg)