The Story of Writing

The House Committee on Un-American Activities holds its first session and the birthday club includes Miles Davis, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, and Raina Telgemeier - with a reading from Alan Hollinghurst's "The Line of Beauty."

Why did the Universalist Church consider Ralph Waldo Emerson a heretic? Maybe we should be glad it did...

The Constitutional Congress begins in Philadelphia, "Star Wars" hits movie screens, and the birthday club includes Ralph Waldo Emerson and Rosario Castellanos - with a reading from Emerson's "Self Reliance."

The birthday club includes Bob Dylan and Michael Chabon - with a reading from Lorella Cidroni's "Italian Critics of Capitalism."

The birthday club includes Margaret Fuller, Isabella Ford, Scott O'Dell, Margaret Wise Brown, and Mitch Albom - with a reading from Fuller's "Woman in the Nineteenth Century."

Lewis and Clark begin their exploration across the western half of North America, Verdi premiers "Requiem," the people of Ireland vote to legalize same-sex marriage, and the birthday club includes Su Xun and Arthur Conan Doyle - with a reading from Doyle's "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1."

"Bleeding Kansas," Clara Barton establishes the American Red Cross, and the birthday club includes Alexander Pope and Harold Robbins - with a reading from Pope's "An Essay on Man."

William Shakespeare's sonnets are published for the first time, Levi Strauss gets the patent for denim jeans with rivets, and the birthday club includes Honore de Balzac and John Stuart Mill - with a reading of Shakespeare's "Sonnet #17."

"Centigrade" flips the Celsius temperature scale, Parks Canada is established, and the birthday club includes Jim Lehrer and novelist Jodi Picoult - with a reading from Picoult's book "Off the Page."

Rhode Island bans slavery (sort of) and the birthday club includes Omar Khayyam, Frank Capra, and Tina Fey - with a reading from Khayyam's "The Rubaiyat."

The Buttonwood Agreement establishes the first stock exchange in the U.S., SCOTUS rules against racist segregation of public schools, and it's the birthday of Dorothy Richardson - with a reading from her book, "Pointed Roofs."

The U.S. Congress passes the Sedition Act, the first Academy Awards ceremony is held in Los Angeles, and the birthday club includes Margaret Rey and Studs Terkel - with a reading from Terkel's "Touch and Go: A Memoir."

Robespierre pushes through the "Self-Denying Ordinance," Standard Oil is found to be an "unreasonable monopoly," and the birthday club includes L. Frank Baum, Katherine Anne Porter, and Utah Phillips - with a reading from Porter's "The Never-Ending Wrong."

The birthday club includes George Lucas, Robert Zemeckis, Christine Brennan, Raphael Saadiq, and Mark Zuckerberg - with a reading from George Orwell's "1984."

Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom declares that Britain would remain neutral in the U.S. Civil War, the MOVE bombing, and a reading from Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's "Two Offers."

The birthday club includes Albert Murray, Burt Bacharach, and George Carlin - with a reading from "Never Cry Wolf," by Farley Mowat.

The first book is published and the birthday club includes Harriet Quimby and Irving Berlin - with a reading of "Love 6" by Rose Auslander.

Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman to be nominated to be U.S. President, Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of the UK, and the very first issue of Marvel Comics' "The Hulk" was published. The birthday club includes Max Steiner, Ariel Durant, and Bel Kaufman - with a reading from Kaufman's semi-autobiographical novel "Up the Down Staircase."

The birthday club includes J. M. Barrie, Richard Adams, and Alan Bennett - with a reading from Bennett's "The History Boys."

It is Victory in Europe Day, the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, and the birthday club includes Gary Snyder and Naomi Klein - with a reading from Klein's book "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate."

Beethoven premiers his 9th Symphony, Geoffrey Dummer publishes his idea of an integrated circuit, and the birthday club includes David Hume, Ruth Prawer-Jhabvala, and Angela Carter - with a reading from Hume's “Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences.”

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt creates the Works Progress Administration and the birthday club includes Orson Welles, Bob Seger, and Martha Nussbaum - with a reading from Nussbaum's " Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities."

The birthday club includes Soren Kierkegaard, Karl Marx, Tammy Wynette, and Michael Palin - with a reading from Kierkegaard's book "Either/Or."

The May 4th Movement in China and the Kent State shootings in Ohio - with a reading from Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea."

SCOTUS rules against race-based real-estate agreements and the birthday club includes Septima Poinsette Clark and Pete Seeger - with a reading from Clark's "Purpose of Citizenship Schools."