Pong premiers and the birthday club includes Louisa May Alcott, C. S. Lewis, and Madeleine L'Engle - with a reading from Alcott's classic "Little Women."

Steam-powered printing presses start rolling and the birthday club includes Berry Gordy and Rita Mae Brown - with a reading from "The Country of Pointed Firs," by Sarah Orne Jewett.

Statistics get their champion, Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" premiers, and the birthday club includes Charles A. Beard and Gail Sheehy - with a reading from Alexandre Dumas' "The Count of Monte Christo."

The U.S. gives Japan "the Hull note" and the birthday club includes Sarah Moore Grimke and Charles M. Schultz - with a reading from Grimke's book, "Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women."

Einstein presents his equations on general relativity, the "Hollywood 10" are blacklisted, the Reagan Administration is found guilty of selling weapons to Iran to fund Nicaraguan death squads, and it's the birthday of Helen Hooven Santmyer - with a reading from her bestseller "And Ladies of the Club."

Anna Sewell publishes "Black Beauty" and the birthday club includes Frances Hodgson Burnett and Arundhati Roy - with a reading from Hodgson Burnett's "The Secret Garden."

John Milton publishes the pamphlet now regarded as the cornerstone of freedom of the press, the U.S. President prohibits doctors from prescribing beer, the first episode of "Dr. Who" premiers, and the birthday club includes Theodore Dwight Weld and P. K. Page - with a reading from Elizabeth von Arnim's "The Enchanted April."

The birthday club includes George Eliot, Hoagy Carmichael, Rodney Dangerfield, and Terry Gilliam - with a reading from Eliot's "Mill on the Floss."

Ole Romer determines the speed of light, Thomas Edison unveils his phonograph, Albert Einstein publishes his mass-energy equivalence, women get the right to join Parliament (but not to vote), and the birthday club includes Voltaire and Elizabeth George Speare - with a reading from Voltaire's "Candide."

The second Treaty of Paris is signed, a whale destroys the ship "The Essex" inspiring the book "Moby-Dick," the UN adopts The Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the Velvet Revolution intensifies in Prague, and it is the birthday of Selma Lagerlof - with a reading from her novel "Gosta Berling's Saga."