The Story of Writing

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 Vietna…

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,…

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 rea…

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 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 yea…

"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 "G…

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 Alexandr…

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-N…

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. J…

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 …

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 Cha…

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…

"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 …

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 re…

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

The Julian calendar starts being replaced by the Gregorian calendar, and birthday celebrations for P. G. Wodehouse, Mario Puzo, Italo Calvino, and Eugene Patterson - with a reading from "My Many Jeev…

George Eastman patents his paper roll photographic film, Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier, Martin Luther King, Jr., Aung San Suu Kyi, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin are awarded N…