Karl Marx was born on May 5, 1818 in the city of Trier in the Rhineland(thats in Germany) His parents were Jewish but converted to Christianity due to the current treatment of Jews and Karl was a baptized Protestant. He would later develope a great disliking for Jews, and when discussing Jews came to say, “What is the mundane basis of Judaism? Practical needs: self-interest. What is the mundane cult of the Jews? Huckstering. What is the Jews’ mundane god? Money.” He had a good childhood(espicially compared to his siblings considering he was the only one to reach adulthood) At age 12 he was enrolled at the Friedrich-Wilhelm Gynasium where he was exposed to the very liberal ideals of the teachers some of who were accuesed of anti-government sentiments. During his youth he became friends with Edgar von Westphalen, whose sister Jenny would later wed Karl. Their relationship was discouraged since the Marxs were still considered Jews and the von Westphalens were Christians. This didnt stop them, however, from becoming secretly engaged when Karl was 18 and Jenny was 22. In October, 1835, Karl began taking classes at the U. of Bonn near Trier. He spent large amounts of money, drank, and got into fights. At the end of the summer term his father transferred him to the U. of Berlin. He continued to spend money and ask his father for more making continuous arguements that would end only with the death of his father, brought about tuberculosis. In 1841 he received his doctorate from U. of Jena. He then returned to the Rhineland and joined the staff of the Rheinische Zeitung, a paper that presented the radical and new ideas of communism. Here he met Freidrich Engels, his futer collaborator. The paper was, however, eventually banned; so Karl married Jenny(1843) and moved to Paris to help with a journal that was in the planning(Duetsch-Franzosiche Jahrbucher). By the end January 1848 Karl Marx completed the Communist Manifesto, the first of his two greatest contributions to radical literature, the other of which was Das Kapital(1867). He took credit in starting or helping to start some revolutions, including those in Paris and across Europe. He died peacefully in his home in London on March 14, 1883.