The Story of Writing

Rocky Mountain National Park is created, and happy birthdays to Angela Davis and Jonathan Carroll - with a reading from Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own."

Happy Burns night! Mendelsohn's "Wedding March" hits the big time, and the birthday club includes Robert Burns, of course, W. Somerset Maugham, and Virginia Woolf - with a reading of Burns' "A Red, Red Rose."

Gold is discovered in California, canned beer is sold for the first time in the U.S., and happy birthday to Edith Wharton - with a reading from Mark Twain's "Roughing It."

The first female medical doctor in the U.S., Wham-O buys the rights to a flying toy disc, the U.S. ratifies the 24th Amendment to the Constitution - and a reading from Agatha Christie's "Murder in Mesopotamia."

The U.S. Supreme Court issues its decision in "Roe v. Wade," Apple Inc. introduces the Macintosh home computer, and happy birthday to Lord Byron - with a reading from Byron's "Don Juan."

The first novel published in the U.S. is released and the birthday club includes Ito Noe and Elaine Showalter. Today's reading is from "The House of Mirth," by Edith Wharton.

Happy birthday to Huddie Ledbetter and Fareed Zakaria - with a reading from "Democracy and Social Ethics," by Jane Addams.

Goethe's play "Faust: A Tragedy" (part 1) premieres, the ACLU is founded, and happy birthday to Edgar Allan Poe - with a reading from one of Poe's letters.

Happy birthday to Alan Alexander Milne - with a reading from one of his best known works "The House at Pooh Corner."

Happy birthday to Anne Bronte - with a reading from her second novel, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall."

Miguel Cervantes publishes "Don Quixote," Virginia adopts the Statute of Religious Freedom as written by Thomas Jefferson, Ernest Shackleton reaches the magnetic South Pole, and the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords. Happy Birthday to Susan Sontag - and a reading from Cervantes' "Don Quixote."

Happy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Jean-Francois Roberval is commissioned to colonize New France. The Pemberton Medicine Company is incorporated. James Naismith publishes the rules of basketball and Wikipedia is launched. The birthday club includes Moliere, Richard Martin, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Today's readings are from King's "The Three Evils of Society," and "A K...

The U.S. Congress ratifies the Treaty of Paris, which formalized peace with England and independence for the United States. Happy birthday to Emily Hahn and Maureen Dowd. And a reading from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."

Emile Zola publishes "J'accuse!" and exposes the French military's deceit during the Dreyfus Affair. Happy birthday to Shonda Rhimes - and a reading from Zola's "J'accuse!"

The birthday club includes Laura Adams Armer, Jack London, Haruki Murakami, and Issa Rae - and a reading from London's "Call of the Wild."

Louis B. Mayer announces the creation of the American Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the U.S. Surgeon General publishes the report "Smoking and Health," and happy birthday to Aldo Leopold - with a reading from Leopold's "The Sand County Almanac."

Thomas Paine publishes "Common Sense," "The New England Journal of Medicine" publishes "Addiction Rare in Patients Treated with Narcotics," the birthday club includes Stephen Ambrose, Jim Croce, Donald Fagen, Pat Benatar, and Shawn Colvin - and a reading from Voltaire's "Candide."

The iPhone is introduced to the world, the birthday club includes Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Krantz, and Joan Baez - and a reading from de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex."

The first U.S. State of the Union, the birthday club includes Gypsy Rose Lee and Graham Chapman - and a reading from "O Pioneers!" by Willa Cather.

Marian Anderson becomes the first person of color to perform on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera and happy birthdays to Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson and Zora Neale Hurston - with a reading from Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God."

FDR delivers his "Four Freedoms" speech, and happy birthday to Charles Sumner and Alan Watts - and a reading from Watts.

Ford switches to an eight-hour workday with a pay bump to $5 a day, "Waiting for Godot" premieres, and the birthday club includes Umberto Eco and Hayao Miyazaki - and a reading from "Their Eyes Were Watching God," by Zora Neale Hurston.

Solomon Northup regains his freedom, happy birthday to Doris Kearns Goodwin - and a reading from "A Tale of Two Cities," by Charles Dickens.

Quite the birthday club: J. R. R. Tolkien, Anna Stevenson, and Stephen Stills - and a reading from "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," by Agatha Christie.

The Palmer Raids sweep the U.S., happy birthday to environmentalist Robert Marshall - and a reading from the U.S. Wilderness Act of 1964.