The Story of Writing

The birthday club includes Countee Cullen, Mel Blanc, James Chaney, and Idina Menzel - with a reading of Cullen's "Saturday's Child."

Sojourner Truth gives her "Ain't I A Woman?" speech, Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" premiers in Paris, and Hillary and Norgay reach the peak of Everest. And happy birthday to Bob Hope - with a reading from T. H. White's "The Sword in the Stone."

The Sierra Club is founded, and the opinion piece that launched Amnesty International is published. The birthday club includes Ian Fleming, T-Bone Walker, and Maeve Binchy - with a reading from John Muir's "My First Summer in the Sierra."

The birthday club includes Julia Ward Howe, Dashiell Hammett, and Rachel Carson - with a reading from Carson's "Silent Spring."

The House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities holds its first session, and the birthday club includes Miles Davis, Levon Helm, Stevie Nicks, Lauryn Hill, and Raina Telgemeier. Today's reading is from Ludmilla Petrushevskaya's "Immortal Love."

The 1787 U.S. Constitutional Convention, JFK's call to put a man on the moon, and "Star Wars" hits movie screens. The birthday club includes Ralph Waldo Emerson and Rosario Castellanos - with a reading from Emerson's "Self-Reliance."

The Judgment of Paris, and a birthday club of Bob Dylan and Michael Chabon - with a reading from Chabon's "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay."

The birthday club includes Margaret Fuller, Isabella Ford, Par Lagerkvist, Scott O'Dell, Margaret Wise Brown, and Mitch Albom - with a reading from Fuller's "Woman in the 19th Century."

The Corps of Discovery sets off, the Associated Press takes shape, the Wright Bros. get the patent for their flying machine, and Verdi's "Requiem" premieres in Milan. Happy birthdays to Su Xun and Arthur Conan Doyle - with a reading from Doyle's "A Case of Identity."

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

Shakespeare's sonnets are published, and the birthday club includes Honore de Balzac and John Stuart Mill. This episode includes a reading of Shakespeare's "Sonnet #17."

Centigrade flips Celsius, King George II issues the land grant that became Ohio, and Parks Canada and Sierra Gorda are established. The birthday club includes Jim Lehrer and Jodi Picoult. And a reading from Charles Chesnutt's "The House Behind the Cedars."

The first statute in the American colonies that banned slavery, and the birthday club includes Omar Khayyam, Frank Capra, and Tina Fey - with a reading from Khayyam's "The Rubaiyat."

The Buttonwood Agreement, Brown v. Board of Education, the World Health Organization finds homosexuality is not an illness, but a natural variation of human sexuality, and happy birthday to Dorothy Richardson - with a reading from her novel "Pointed Roofs."

The Sedition Act of 1918, the first Academy Awards ceremony, and the U.S. Surgeon General warns the addictive properties of nicotine are equal to heroin and cocaine. The birthday club includes Margret Rey and Studs Terkel - with a reading from Terkel's "Touch and Go: A Memoir."

Robespierre proposes the self-denying ordinance, Standard Oil is declared a monopoly and broken up. 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 - all with a reading from "There Is Confusion," by Jessie Redmon Fauset.

The UK's Queen Victoria proclaims that nation's neutrality in the U.S. Civil War and the Philadelphia police bomb MOVE - with a reading from UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill's speech known as "Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat."

The birthday club includes Albert Murray, Burt Bacharach, and George Carlin - with a reading from e. e. cummings' "somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond."

The first book (that we know of) is published and happy birthdays to Harriet Quimby, Irving Berlin, and Rose Auslander - with a reading from Auslander's "Love VI."

Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated to run for U.S. President, Winston Churchill becomes English Prime Minister, and the birthday club includes Max Steiner, Ariel Durant, and Bel Kaufman - with a reading from Kaufman's "Up the Down Staircase."

The English and Portuguese sign the Treaty of Windsor, and happy birthdays to J. M. Barrie and Richard Adams - with a reading from Barrie's "Peter Pan."

Victory in Europe Day, smallpox is declared eradicated, and happy birthdays to Robert Johnson and Naomi Klein - with a reading from Klein's "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate."

Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony premiers in Vienna, Germany surrenders to end its involvement in the Second World War, and the birthday club includes Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Angela Carter - with a reading from Carter's "The Lady of the House of Love."

The Works Progress Administration is created in the U.S., 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."