The Story of Writing

The birthday club includes George Eliot, Hoagy Carmichael, Rodney Dangerfield, and Terry Gilliam - with a reading from "The Mill on the Floss," by George Eliot.

Measuring the speed of light, introducing the phonograph, mass-energy equivalence, allowing women to serve in the UK Parliament, and happy birthday to Voltaire and Elizabeth George Speare - with a re…

European powers sign the second Treaty of Paris, a whale attacks and destroys the Nantucket whaling ship The Essex, the UN adopts the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the Velvet Revolution int…

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address.

The U.S. time zones are adopted, Britain's Black Friday saw violence against women demonstrating for their right to vote, South Africa ends minority rule of White people, and the birthday club includ…

President Nixon says, "I am not a crook," the first case of COVID-19 is traced back to an open-air food market in Wuhan, the birthday club includes Peter Cook and Rebecca Walker - with a reading from…

Fyodor Dostoevsky is sentenced to death, and the birthday club includes Chinua Achebe and Andrea Barrett - with a reading from "Letters of a Woman Homesteader," by Elinore Pruitt Stewart.

Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins his March to the Sea - with a reading from the poem that named this campaign against the Confederate State of Georgia.

"Moby-Dick" is published in the U.S., Nellie Bly begins her attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days, Ruby Bridges desegregates her Louisiana elementary school, and happy birthday to F…

Walt Disney releases "Fantasia," SCOTUS rules against segregation of Alabama's public buses, reporter Seymour Hersh breaks the story on the My Lai Massacre, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated…

Pudge Heffelfinger, the World Wide Web is formally proposed, and happy birthday to Richelle Mead and Sarah Harmer - with a reading from "The Devil's Dictionary," by Ambrose Bierce.

The Cult of Reason, a top-secret coded message is sent across the Atlantic to alert Ottawa and Washington, D.C. that World War I would end the next day, direct dialing begins in the U.S., the first e…

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 Wollston…

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 …

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…

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 automobi…

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…