The Story of Writing

The Flushing Remonstrance, Charles Darwin sets sail on the ship HMS Beagle, and the musical play "Show Boat" premiers on Broadway. Happy birthdays to Cokie Roberts and Sarah Vowell - with a reading f…

Kwanzaa is celebrated for the first time, the Supreme Soviet votes to dissolve itself and the Soviet Union, and happy birthdays to Mary Somerville, Henry Miller, and David Sedaris - with a reading fr…

Happy birthdays to Sir Isaac Newton and Carlos Castaneda - with a reading from The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

A reading of “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” written by Clement Clarke Moore.

Jane Austen publishes "Emma," gender equality takes a step forward in the UK, and the birthday club includes Norman Maclean and Jorma Kaukonen - with a reading from Maclean's "A River Runs through It…

Beethoven gives the performance of his career, Mao sends China's urban teenagers to be educated by rural poverty, and Doctors Without Borders is founded - with a reading from Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Cri…

Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House" premiers, the crossword first appears, and happy birthdays to Maria Cadilla and Frank Zappa - with a reading from Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People."

South Carolina is the first to secede from the Union, Captain America appears for the first time, and the film "It's a Wonderful Life" premiers - with a reading from Eugene Debs' statement to the cou…

Thomas Paine publishes his first pamphlet "The American Crisis" in support of independence for colonists. Happy birthdays to Carter Woodson and Edith Piaf - with a reading from Woodson's "The Mis-Edu…

"The Nutcracker" premiers in Russia and happy birthdays to Saki and Joel Hirschhorn - with a reading from Saki's "The Chronicles of Clovis."

"Vogue" publishes its first issue and happy birthdays to Ford Madox Ford and William Safire - with a reading from Ford's "The Good Soldier."

Happy birthday to Jane Austen - with a reading from her masterpiece "Pride and Prejudice."

Italo Marchiony gets the patent for an ice cream cone maker, the film "Gone With the Wind" premiers, and psychiatrists declare that homosexuality is not a disorder, and the Downing Street Declaration…

The first trans-Pacific cables were run from California to Hawaii and UNESCO adopts the Convention against Discrimination in Education. Happy birthdays to Anne Conway and Shirley Jackson - with a rea…

I can't tell you how many times I've answered calls and people asked if I was real or a machine. So, I just wanted to clarify that I'm real. Really.

The atrocities of Nanjing begin and the birthday club includes Jean Gerson and Taylor Swift - with a reading from Jane Austen's "Persuasion."

The Paris Agreement on climate change and happy birthday to Gustave Flaubert - with a reading from his "Madame Bovary."

Germany and Italy declare war on the U.S., and happy birthdays to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Jim Harrison - with a reading from Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago."

Encyclopedia Brittanica publishes its first edition and the birthday club includes William Lloyd Garrison, Emily Dickinson, and Melvil Dewey - with a reading of Dickinson's '"Hope" is the thing with …

Genocide is named a crime by the U.N. and happy birthday to Dalton Trumbo - with a reading from Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice."