Minna Canth, Philip Roth, and Clara Breed were born on this day - with a reading from Breed's article "Americans with the Wrong Ancestors."

Wilfred Owens, Fred Shuttlesworth, John Updike, Unita Blackwell, and Frances Cress Welsing - with a reading of Owens' "Anthem for Doomed Youth."

It is the birthday of Bayard Rustin and Nat King Cole - with a reading from Frances Hodgson Burnett's "The Enchanted Garden."

The birthday club includes Ethel Anderson, Eric P. Kelly, Ursula Goodenough, and Jorge Ramos - with a reading from Kelly's "The Christmas Nightingale."

It is the Ides of March, the US President says, "We Shall Overcome," and the birthday club includes "Lightnin'" Hopkins, Kate Bornstein, and Ben Okri - with a reading from Alexandre Dumas' "The Man in the Iron Mask."

The U.S. creates its first national wildlife refuge and the birthday club includes Arthur O'Shaughnessy, Albert Einstein, Billy Crystal, and Jerry Greenfield - with a reading from O'Shaughnessy's "Ode."

The U.S. passes the law that confirmed freedom to any enslaved person who escaped the South, and the birthday club includes Janet Flanner, L. Ron Hubbard, Edward O'Hare, and Al Jaffee - with a reading from Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland."

The birthday club includes Jack Kerouac, Harry Harrison, Virginia Hamilton, James Taylor, and Dave Eggers - with a reading from Willa Cather's "The Song of the Lark."

"Rigoletto" premiers, and it is the birthday of Wanda Gag, Ralph Abernathy, and Douglas Adams - with a reading from Edith Wharton's "The Age of Innocence."

"Treatise on Tolerance," the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and Hallie Quinn Brown and Lillian Wald were born on this day, with a reading from Voltaire's "Treatise."