German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844. The noted philosopher is known for his writings on good and evil, the end of religion in modern society, and the concept of a “super-man”.
Nietzsche began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24. Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade.
In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until she died in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900. Nietzsche’s writing spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony.
Throughout his productive life, Nietzsche struggled to have his work published, confident that his books would have culturally transformative effects. While he did not live long enough to witness his fame, he did learn that his work was the subject of a series of lectures by Georg Morris Cohen Brandes, delivered at the University of Copenhagen in 1888.
Nietzsche died on August 25, 1900, from pneumonia and a stroke. The Nietzsche manuscripts were eventually moved to the Goethe and Schiller Archive in Weimar.