The Story of Writing

Union General William T. Sherman orders the evacuation of Atlanta, and the birthday club includes C. J. Dennis, Elinor Wylie, Edith Sitwell, Dorothy Marie Donnelly, and Sonny Rollins - with a reading from Sherman's memoirs.

The Pilgrims set sail on the Mayflower, Louisa Ann Swain becomes the first American woman to legally cast a ballot, and the birthday club includes Isabella Leonarda, Jane Addams, and Robert Pirsig - with a reading from Addams' speech to the Chicago Political Equality League.

Russia imposes a tax on beards, the UK declares war on China, and U.S. forces arrest "Tokyo Rose." Happy birthday to Jonathan Kozol - with a reading from Kozol's "Savage Inequalities."

Los Angeles is founded, Kodak is registered as a trademark, and Evelyn Waugh publishes "A Handful of Dust." The birthday club includes Richard Wright and Beyonce - with a reading from "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," by Kate Douglas Wiggin.

The British Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell dies, the Treaty of Paris ends the American Revolutionary War, and Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery. The UN institutes the international treaty called The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the U.S. and China formally ratifies the Paris global climate agreement - with a reading from Frederick Douglass&#39...

For the first time, Theodore Roosevelt says "Walk softly and carry a big stick," the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, and the birthday club includes Eugene Field and Billy Preston - with a reading from Roosevelt's essay "Lincoln and Free Speech."

The first female switchboard operator begins working, and the birthday club includes Johann Pachelbel, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Harriet Shaw Weaver, Liz Carpenter, and Lily Tomlin - with a reading from "The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood," by Elspeth Huxley.

Union forces attack Atlanta, Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his "navigable balloon," Russian and the UK carve up Persia, the U.S. asserts its neutrality, and German soldiers - dressed in Polish uniforms - attack a small town in Germany as a pretense to justify invading Poland and starting the Second World War. The birthday club includes Roger Dean, Van Morrison, and Itzhak Perlman - with...

Ernest Shackleton rescues every crew member who served on his doomed expedition on the Endurance. The birthday club includes Mary Shelley, Virginia Lee Burton, Kitty Wells, Molly Ivins, and Anna Politkovskaya - with a reading from Boris Pasternak's "Dr. Zhivago."

The Beatles play their last (paid) concert and the birthday club includes John Locke, Charlie Parker, and Temple Grandin - with a reading from Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding."

The oldest magazine continuously published in the U.S. puts out its first issue, and Pepsi-Cola is named. The infamous anniversary of the murder of Emmet Till and the anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Today's reading is from the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech from that March.

Canada's Famous Five begin the march to equal rights and the Kellog-Briand Pact - which prohibited starting a war - is signed. The birthday club includes Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the writer known as C. S. Forester, and Alice Coltrane - with a reading from "The Great Gatsby," by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The French National Assembly approves "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen," John Fitch gets the U.S. patent for the steamboat, and Quebec legislates French is the official language of the Canadian Province. The birthday club includes Zona Gale, Caroline Pafford Miller, and Ben Bradlee - with a reading from "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" by Arthur Conan...

The Great Moon Hoax begins, the U.S. National Park Service is created, and the birthday club includes Walt Kelly and Leonard Bernstein - with a reading from Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre."

Nesmeterakhem writes in Egyptian hieroglyphics for the last time, the Treaty of Cordoba is signed, and the Panic of 1857 begins. Happy birthdays to Howard Zinn, Paolo Coelho, and Ava DuVernay - with a reading from Willa Cather's "My Antonia."

England's King George proclaims that the American colonists were revolting, the "Salad Bowl" strike begins in California, and the World Wide Web is opened to the world. It is the birthday of William Ernest Henley - with a reading from the Duchess of Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish.

The Siege of Leningrad begins and the birthday club includes Claude Debussy, Dorothy Parker, Ray Bradbury, and Annie Proulx - with a reading from Parker's "Coda."

British explorer James Cook claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, Nat Turner leads a slave revolt in Virginia, and the Lincoln-Douglas debates begin. Today's reading is from "Minnie's Sacrifice," written by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

Charles Darwin publishes his theory of natural selection, the end of the U.S. Civil War is declared, and Canada seriously considers its dissolution. The birthday club includes H. P. Lovecraft, Tarjei Vesaas, and Wilhelm Moberg - with a reading from Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."

The eastern U.S. learns "there's gold in them thar hills" in California, the liberation of Paris begins, and happy birthday to Ogden Nash - with a reading from "The Bell in the Fog & Other Stories," by Gertrude Atherton.

The Spanish language gets its grammar rules, women in the U.S. get the right to vote, Nabokov's "Lolita" is published in the U.S., and anti-Apartheid activist Steven Biko is arrested in South Africa. Happy birthday to Antonio Salieri and Margaret Murie - with a reading from "The Marrow of Tradition," by Charles Chesnutt.

Sir Walter Raleigh tries to create the colony of Roanoke in the New World, George Orwell's "Animal Farm" is published, and the birthday club includes Fredrika Bremer, Mark Felt, and Jonathan Franzen - with a reading from "Bliss," by Katherine Mansfield.

The Gurindji get some of their land back, and the birthday club includes T. E. Lawrence, Georgette Heyer, Wallace Thurman, William Keepers Maxwell, Jr., Charles Bukowski, and Diana Wynne Jones - with a reading from Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph."

The movie "The Wizard of Oz" hits the silver screen, and the birthday club includes Walter Scott, Oscar Peterson, Stanley Milgram, and Stieg Larsson - with a reading from "Mrs. Dalloway," by Virginia Woolf.

U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act, and the birthday club includes Ernest Thompson Seton, Ernest Thayer, David Crosby, Steve Martin, and Danielle Steele - with a reading from Steele's work.