The U.S. Social Security program is established and the birthday club includes Ernest Thompson Seton, Ernest Thayer, David Crosby, Steve Martin, Danielle Steele, and Gary Larson - with a reading from Martin's "Grandmother's Song" - from his album "Let's Get Small."

French King Louis XVI is arrested for treason, it is "Barbed Wire Sunday," and it is the birthday of suffragist, abolitionist, and public speaker Lucy Stone - with a reading from her response to her mother who thought a woman working outside the home was scandalous.

Isaac Singer gets a patent for his sewing machine, Sue Hendrickson finds the best T. rex skeleton ever discovered, and the birthday club includes Mary Roberts Rinehart, Radclyffe Hall, Erwin Schrodinger, and William Goldman - with a reading from Rinehart's book "Writing is Work."

Actress Hedy Lamarr gets a patent for tech used today, and the birthday club includes Angus Wilson and Alex Haley - with a reading from Haley's "Roots: the Saga of an American Family."

The birthday club includes Era Bell Thompson, Clarence Fender, Dolores Alexander, Suzanne Collins, and Rachel Simmons. This episode includes a reading from Thompson's "American Daughter."

Henry David Thoreau publishes his book "Walden," Smokey Bear is introduced to the world, and the U.S. drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. This episode includes a reading from Thoreau's "Walden."

General Robert E. Lee tries to resign from the Confederate army, the Allied Powers agree to parameters of the Nuremberg Trials, and, on her birthday, a look at the writing of Sara Teasdale - with a reading of her poem "Buried Love."

U.S. Pres. George Washington quashes the Whiskey Rebellion, Thor Heyerdahl's hand-made raft arrives in the South Pacific Islands, and Frances Kelsey refuses to greenlight the use of thalidomide. The birthday club includes Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Ralph Bunche - with a reading from Flynn's "Sabotage."

The U.S. drops the first atomic bomb used in a military attack, U.S. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law, and "www" appears for the first time. The birthday club includes Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Susie King Taylor - with a reading from John Hersey's "Hiroshima."

Freedom of the press becomes a big deal in the American colonies, and the Union levies its first income tax, and the birthday club includes Guy de Maupassant, Mary Ritter Beard, and Wendell Berry - with a reading from Maupassant's "Bel Ami."