The Petition of Compromise was submitted to Spain - striking a blow for independence, and the American Birth Control League was incorporated by Margaret Sanger. The birthday club includes Algernon Charles Swinburne, Barbara Holland, and Pharrell Williams - with a reading from Swinburne's "The Garden of Proserpine."

NATO forms and the birthday club includes Muddy Waters and Maya Angelou - with a reading from Angelou's poem "Still, I Rise."

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his last speech, the Panama Papers are published, and it is Washington Irving's birthday. This episode includes a reading from Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

The birthday club includes Giacomo Cassanova, Hans Christian Andersen, Emile Zola, and Camille Paglia - with a reading from Cassanova's memoir "The Story of My Life."

T. S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" and why he called April "the cruelest month," we look at the origins of April Fool's Day, and it is Milan Kundera's birthday - with a reading from his classic "The Unbearable Lightness of Being."

The U.S. Motion Picture Production Code goes into effect, the Civilian Conservation Corps is established, and the birthday club includes Johann Sebastian Bach, John Fowles, Judith Rossner, and Marge Piercy - with a reading from Fowles' "The Magus."

The US buys Alaska, one of the world's most all-encompassing drug treaties is signed, and the birthday club includes Anna Sewell, Carl Lutz, Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin, Shahla Sherkat, Marie-Christine Koundja, and Tobias Hill - with a reading from Sewell's "Black Beauty."

Canada is created, the US 23rd Amendment is ratified, and the birthday club includes Sheila Kitzinger, Eric Idle, Alec Wilkinson, Jo Ann Mapson, and Evelyn C. White - with a reading from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."

The birthday club includes Maxim Gorky, Nelson Algren, Iris Chang, and Jennifer Weiner - with a reading from Algren's "Chicago: City of the Make."

Congress overcomes a Presidential veto to pass the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the birthday club includes Jane Colden, Charles Mackay, Jelena Dimitrijević, and Louis Simpson - with a reading from Mackay's "No Enemies."