The Story of Writing

The US buys Alaska from Russia and the birthday club includes Anna Sewell, Carl Lutz, Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin, Shahla Sherkat, Marie-Christine Koundja, and Tobias Hill - with a reading from Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism."

Queen Victoria establishes the nation of Canada and Queen Elizabeth II ends the British Parliament's ability to make or amend laws in Canada. The birthday club includes Sheila Kitzinger, Eric Idle, Alec Wilkinson, Jo Ann Mapson, and Evelyn C. White - with a reading from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."

The birthday club includes Maxim Gorky, Nelson Algren, Iris Chang, and Jennifer Weiner - with a reading from Algren's "Chicago: City on the Make."

Congress overrides a veto of civil rights legislation and the birthday club includes Jane Colden, Charles Mackay, and Jelena Dimitrijević - with a reading of Mackay's "No Enemies."

The Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty is signed and the birthday club includes Julie-Victoire Daubie, Robert Frost, Joseph Campbell, Viktor Frankl, and Tennessee Williams - with a reading from Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning."

Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from Oxford, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr speaks of the death of segregation, and the birthday club includes Flannery O'Connor and Gloria Steinem - with a reading from O'Connor's "Wise Blood."

The Quartering Act enrages American colonists, tuberculosis is identified, and the birthday club includes Matilda Joslyn Gage, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Erica Kennedy - with a reading from Gage's "Woman, Church, and State."

Patrick Henry speaks out during the Second Revolutionary convention, Archbishop Oscar Romero pleads for peace in El Salvador, and the birthday club includes Akira Kurosawa and Subhadra Joshi - with a reading from Henry's speech.

The first treaty between indigenous tribes and European Americans is signed, the top court in the US rules in favor of contraceptives and pre-marital sex, and the birthday club includes Louis L'Amour, Al Neuharth, Stephen Sondheim, George Benson, and Andrew Lloyd Webber - with a reading from George Eliot's "Middlemarch."

The state of Tennessee prohibits the teaching of human evolution, the first comic-con, the UN Framework Convention on Climate, and the birthday club includes Dorothea Beale, Son House, Forrest Mars, Senior, and Solomon Burke - with a reading from Beale's "Work and Play in Girls’ Schools."

Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is published, Albert Einstein publishes his theory of relativity, the birthday club includes Ovid, Anne Bradstreet, Carl Reiner, and Spike Lee - with a reading from Ovid's "Metamorphoses."

Minna Canth, Philip Roth, and Clara Breed were born on this day - with a reading from Breed's article "Americans with the Wrong Ancestors."

Wilfred Owens, Fred Shuttlesworth, John Updike, Unita Blackwell, and Frances Cress Welsing - with a reading of Owens' "Anthem for Doomed Youth."

It is the birthday of Bayard Rustin and Nat King Cole - with a reading from Frances Hodgson Burnett's "The Enchanted Garden."

The birthday club includes Ethel Anderson, Eric P. Kelly, Ursula Goodenough, and Jorge Ramos - with a reading from Kelly's "The Christmas Nightingale."

It is the Ides of March, the US President says, "We Shall Overcome," and the birthday club includes "Lightnin'" Hopkins, Kate Bornstein, and Ben Okri - with a reading from Alexandre Dumas' "The Man in the Iron Mask."

The U.S. creates its first national wildlife refuge and the birthday club includes Arthur O'Shaughnessy, Albert Einstein, Billy Crystal, and Jerry Greenfield - with a reading from O'Shaughnessy's "Ode."

The U.S. passes the law that confirmed freedom to any enslaved person who escaped the South, and the birthday club includes Janet Flanner, L. Ron Hubbard, Edward O'Hare, and Al Jaffee - with a reading from Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland."

The birthday club includes Jack Kerouac, Harry Harrison, Virginia Hamilton, James Taylor, and Dave Eggers - with a reading from Willa Cather's "The Song of the Lark."

"Rigoletto" premiers, and it is the birthday of Wanda Gag, Ralph Abernathy, and Douglas Adams - with a reading from Edith Wharton's "The Age of Innocence."

"Treatise on Tolerance," the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and Hallie Quinn Brown and Lillian Wald were born on this day, with a reading from Voltaire's "Treatise."

The "capitalist bible" is published, the U.S. Supreme Court issues its ruling on "The Amistad," and Vita Sackville-West and Mickey Spillane were born on this day - with a reading from Sackville-West's "The Land."

The first article calling for the end of slavery is published in the American colonies, and the birthday club includes Juana de Ibarbourou, John McPhee, and Carole Bayer Sager - with a reading from Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace."

Bloody Sunday compels President Johnson to write the Voting Rights Act, and the birthday club includes Luther Burbank, Maurice Ravel, E. L. James, and Bret Easton Ellis - with a reading from one of Burbank's letters on science.

The Dred Scott decision is handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court, "aspirin" gets its name, and the birthday club includes Cyrano de Bergerac, Ring Lardner, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez - with a reading from Lardner's "Two Kings and a Pair."