Handel completes his masterpiece "Messiah" and the birthday club includes William H. Armstrong and Kate Millett - with a reading of Kate LaDew's poem "I taste the soap in the cup of tea you pour for me."

Henry Hudson reaches the river that would be named after him, "Je me souviens," Francis Scott Key watches the British attack Baltimore, and it's the birthday of Mildred D. Taylor - with a reading from Key's "Defense of Fort M'Henry."

Elizabeth Barrett marries Robert Browning, Pres. John F. Kennedy delivers his speech "We choose to go to the moon," and the birthday club includes H. L. Mencken, Nellie Wong, and Michael Ondaatje - with a reading from Mencken's diary.

Charles Lindbergh voices his anti-Semitism to a national audience and the birthday club includes O. Henry and D. H. Lawrence - with a reading from Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover."

John Smith is elected council president of Jamestown Colony, Elias Howe gets the patent for a sewing machine, and the birthday club includes Hanna Webster Foster, Mary Oliver, and Stephen Jay Gould - with a reading from Gould's "Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History."

The Compromise of 1850, "debugging," and the birthday club includes Leo Tolstoy, Kimberly Willis Holt, and Adam Sandler - with a reading from Holt's "When Zachary Beaver Came to Town."

Michelangelo's "David" is unveiled, the Pledge of Allegiance, and Ford pardons Nixon - with a reading from Nella Larsen's "Quicksand."

Union General William T. Sherman orders the people of Atlanta to evacuate the city and the birthday club includes C. J. Dennis, Elinor Wylie, Edith Sitwell, Dorothy Marie Donnelly, and Sonny Rollins - with a reading from Sherman's memoirs.

Pilgrims and Puritans start settling in America, women's suffrage begins 50 years before the 19th Amendment is ratified, and the birthday club includes Isabella Leonarda, Jane Addams, and Robert Pirsig - with a reading from Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

The UK declares war on China in order to secure the opium trade, Pres. Teddy Roosevelt mediates the end of the Russo-Japanese war, U.S. officials arrest "Tokyo Rose," and it's Jonathan Kozol's birthday - with a reading from his book "Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools."