The Story of Writing

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

The March 4th Movement in Beijing, the Freedom Riders get rolling, and Ohio National Guard troops shoot and kill four students at Kent State - with a reading from Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea."

The U.S. Supreme Court rules against race-based "covenants" that prevented selling homes to people of color. Happy birthdays to Septima Poinsette Clark and Pete Seeger - with a reading from Clark's "Citizenship Schools Class Workbook."

The all-Japanese-American 552nd Artillery Group rescues forced marchers from a Nazi death camp. And it is the birthday of Dr. Benjamin Spock - with a reading from Charlotte Armstrong's "The Unsuspected."

The Kingdom of Great Britain comes to be, Carl Linnaeus publishes "Species Plantarum," the Memphis Massacre, workers' rallies and the Haymarket affair give life to May Day. And happy birthday to Joseph Heller - with a reading from Heller's "Catch-22."

George Washington takes the oath for U.S. President, the U.S. acquires the Louisiana Purchase, and Niagara Falls becomes the United States' first state park. Happy birthdays to John Crowe Ransom, Annie Dillard, and Jane Campion - with a reading from Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek."

Happy birthdays to Jerry Seinfeld and Amy Krouse Rosenthal - with a reading from Rosenthal's "Modern Love" essay in The New York Times, titled "You May Want to Marry My Husband."

During the U.S. war in Vietnam, Muhammad Ali refuses to be drafted into the U.S. Army, and happy birthdays to Harper Lee and Terry Pratchett - with a reading from Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird."

Happy birthday to Mary Wollstonecraft - with a reading from her landmark work, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman."

Napoleon Bonaparte pardons French emigres, and the birthday club includes Ma Rainey, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Bernard Malamud - with a reading from Malamud's "The Magic Barrel."

The double-helix structure of DNA is described for the first time, the U.S. patent is issued for the microchip, and happy birthday to blues guitarist Albert King - with a reading from Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina."

It is the birthday of the U.S. Library of Congress, as well as Anthony Trollope and Robert Penn Warren - with a reading from Trollope's "The Way We Live Now."

The birthday club includes George Steiner, Jim Fixx, Roy Orbison, and Victoria Glendinning - with a reading from Steiner's "Lessons of the Masters."

Earth Day becomes a thing, and the birthday club includes Henry Fielding, Immanuel Kant, Vladimir Nabokov, and Louise Gluck - with a reading from Fielding's "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling."

Happy birthdays to Charlotte Bronte and John Muir - with a reading from Bronte's "Jane Eyre."

The Spanish-American War begins, Enoch Powell gives his "River of Blood" speech and happy birthday to Gro Harlem Brundtland - with a reading from her introduction to "Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future."

The Netherlands recognize the U.S. as an independent nation, Mae West is sentenced to jail for obscenity - and a reading from Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God."

The birthday club includes James McHune Smith, Kathy Acker, and Susan Faludi - with a reading from Anne Bronte's "Agnes Grey."

Christopher Columbus signs the "Capitulations of Santa Fe," and the birthday club includes Thornton Wilder, Cynthia Ozick, and Nick Hornby - with a reading from Wilder's "The Bridge of San Luis Rey."

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt creates the Natural Bridges National Monument in the state of Utah. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. writes his open letter from Birmingham Jail - and a reading from Dr. King's letter.

Samuel Johnson publishes "A Dictionary of the English Language," a conference leads to the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and it is the birthday of Henry James - and a reading from James' "The Portrait of a Lady."

The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and the birthday club includes Jean Pierre-Bloch and Loretta Lynn - with a reading from "The Origins of Totalitarianism," by Hannah Arendt.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded, and the the birthday club includes Samuel Beckett, Eudora Welty, Seamus Heaney, and Christopher Hitchens - with a reading from Beckett's "Waiting for Godot."

Jonas Salk's polio vaccine is found to be "safe and effective," and the birthday club includes Beverly Cleary, Tom Clancy, and Amy Ray - with a reading from Baruch Spinoza's "Ethics."

U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, and the birthday club includes Ellen Goodman, Hattie Gossett, and Marta Breen - with a reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese."