"When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious." –Edna O'Brien

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It's the birthday of Shirley Jackson (1916-1965), author of "The Haunting of Hill House" and the short story "The Lottery."

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It's the birthday of music critic Lester Bangs (1948-1982), who wrote, "The ultimate sin of any performer is contempt for the audience."

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It's the birthday of painter Edvard Munch, who said, "My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness. Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder."

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It's the birthday of two writers who were lifelong friends: Jim Harrison (1937-2016) and Thomas McGuane (b. 1939).

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It's the birthday of English mathematician and inventor Ada Augusta Byron (AKA Ada Lovelace, born 1815), the first-ever computer programmer.

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It's the birthday of Grace Hopper (1906-1992), who helped invent the modern computer and who helped design and promote a new computer language called COBOL.

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It’s the birthday of English physician Doris Bell Collier (1897), who also wrote mystery novels, short stories, and radio plays under the pseudonym Josephine Bell.

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On this day 60 years ago, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was created, declaring over 8 million acres to be federally protected from things like oil drilling.

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The Washington Monument was finally completed on this date in 1884, thirty-six years after construction began.

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