The Story of Writing

Kristallnacht, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the birthday club includes Maud Howe Elliott, Mary Travers, Ti-Grace Atkinson, and Allison Wolfe - with a reading from "Frankenstein," by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, Black and white union members in New Orleans strike together, FDR presents the Civil Works Administration, and it's quite the birthday club with Sarah Fielding, Bram Stoker, Margaret Mitchell, and Kazuo Ishiguro - with a reading from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

The London Gazette, Lord Dunmore's Offer of Emancipation, abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy is murdered by a mob bent on destroying his printing press, the women of Colorado get the right to vote, Jeanette Rankin becomes the first woman elected to Congress, and happy birthday to Albert Camus and Joni Mitchell - with a reading from "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes," by Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Charter of the Forest is sealed, and the birthday club includes Derrick Bell, Michael Cunningham, and Colton Whitehead - with a reading from "Anne of Green Gables," by L. M. Montgomery.

Guy Fawkes is found guarding a large pile of gunpowder under the English House of Parliament, Susan B. Anthony is arrested and fined $100 for voting, the U.S. issues its first patent for the automobile, France and England declare war on the Ottoman Empire, and happy birthday to the Android mobile operating system and Art Garfunkel - with a reading from Susan B. Anthony's "convicted"...

Sigmund Freud publishes "The Interpretation of Dreams," and happy birthday to Will Rogers and Charles Frazier - with a reading from Will Rogers newspaper column.

England's first and second Act of Supremacy, Olympe de Gouges is guillotined for writing about women's rights, creating the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, and happy birthday to Ludovic Kennedy - with a reading from "Wuthering Heights," by Emily Bronte.

The Balfour Declaration, Penguin Books faces prosecution for publishing "Lady Chatterley's Lover," LBJ and his "Wise Men" decide to give the U.S. more optimistic reports on the progress of the Vietnam War, and the birthday club includes Moa Martinson and Isobel Andrews - with a reading from "Self Reliance," by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

William Shakespeare's "Othello" and "The Tempest" premier in London, English statesman Edmund Burke publishes his polemic on the French Revolution, the U.S. Library of Congress gets its own building, and happy birthday to Stephen Crane and Susanna Clark - with a reading from "The Red Badge of Courage," by Stephen Crane.

Martin Luther posts his 95 Theses on a church door, the Netherlands' Leiden University Library opens, today's birthday club includes Marie Louise Andrews, Tom Paxton, and Ali Farka Touré - with a reading from W. E. B. DuBois' "The Souls of Black Folks."

Nat Turner is arrested for starting a slave revolt in Virginia, Czar Nicholas II issues the October Manifesto, the radio broadcast of H. G. Wells’s "The War of the Worlds," Jackie Robinson signs with the Brooklyn Dodgers and breaks the color barrier in Major League Baseball, and today's birthday club includes Elizabeth Madox Roberts, Zoe Akins, Ruth Gordon, and Jean Chapman - with a...

The opera "Don Giovanni" opens in Prague, The Red Cross is established, "Black Tuesday" on the New York Stock Exchange, and happy birthday to David Remnick - with a reading from Jane Austen's "Emma."

Christopher Columbus lands in Japan - or so he thought, Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Pacific Ocean, the first and oldest university in the new world is established, Harvard was, too, nearly 100 years later, Jonathan Swift publishes "Gulliver's Travels" - and today's birthday club includes Evelyn Waugh, Virginia Held, and Susan Harris - with a reading from "The Picture of D...

"The Extermination Order" of Missouri, Vasily Arkhipov refuses to launch a nuclear torpedo, and Sylvia Plath's birthday - with a reading from "The Secret Garden," by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

The most famous gunfight of the American West, Ida B. Wells publishes "Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All its Phases," and happy birthday to Hillary Clinton and Marisha Pessl - with a reading from "Great Expectations," written by Charles Dickens.

The (actual) charge of the light brigade, the Zinoviev letter, and birthday cake for Carolyn Sherwin Bailey, Anne Tyler, and Zadie Smith - with a reading from "The Count of Monte Cristo," by Alexandre Dumas.

The first transcontinental telegraph line goes operational, Annie Taylor goes over Niagara Falls, and the women of Iceland go on strike, and happy birthday to Sarah Josepha Hale and Alexandra David-Neel - with a reading from "At the Back of the North Wind," by George MacDonald.

The first National Women's Rights Convention, and happy birthday to Ellie Greenwich and Michael Crichton - with a reading from Crichton's "The Lost World."

The Cuban Missile Crisis, Jean-Paul Sartre declines the Nobel Prize in Literature, red dyes get banned, and happy birthday to Doris Lessing, Timothy Leary, and Julie Dash - with a reading from "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Thomas Edison submits his patent application for the incandescent light bulb, Ernest Hemingway publishes "For Whom the Bell Tolls," 50,000 people march in Washington, D.C. to protest the U.S. war in Vietnam, and happy birthday to Ursula Le Guin and Carrie Fisher - with a reading from Fisher's "Postcards from the Edge."

Ratification of the Louisiana Purchase, setting the U.S.-Canada border, the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, and happy birthdays to Isabelle de Charrière and Nellie McClung - with a reading from "Sowing Seeds in Danny," by Nellie McClung.

The British surrender at Yorktown, "Black Monday," and birthdays of Miguel Angel Asturias, Walter Munk, John le Carre, Philip Pullman, and Tracy Chevalier - with a reading from "My Antonia," by Willa Cather.

"Moby Dick" is published in London, Phillis Wheatley is freed, and birthdays of Isabel Briggs Meyers, Martha Burk, Ntozake Shange, Wendy Wasserstein, and Terry McMillan - with a reading from "To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth," written by Phillis Wheatley.

Marconi begins the first commercial, transatlantic wireless service. Quite the birthday club: Elinor Glyn, Jerry Siegel, Arthur Miller, George Mackay Brown, Ariel Levy, and Randall Munroe - with a reading from "A Time to Keep," by George Mackay Brown.

This is a fun one, mostly about the Cardiff Giant.