The birthday club includes Lord Byron and August Strindberg - with a reading from Strindberg's "The Road to Damascus."

America's first novel is published and the birthday club includes Noe Ito and Elaine Showalter - with a reading from Mark Twain's "Roughing It."

The birthday club includes Huddie Ledbetter, Nancy Kress,

and Fareed Zakaria - with a reading from Kress' "Crossfire."

The ACLU is formed and the birthday club includes Edgar Allan Poe and Patricia Highsmith - with a reading from Poe's classic "The Cask of Amontillado."

It is the birthday of A. A. Milne - with a reading from one of his best known works, "The House at Pooh Corner."

On Anne Bronte's birthday, a look at her writing and the tension it caused her sister Charlotte - with a reading from Anne's "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall."

Miguel Cervantes' "Don Quixote" is published, Thomas Jefferson's "Statute for Religious Freedom" is adopted, the Chapultepec Peace Accords are signed - ending the civil war in El Salvador, and it is the birthday of Susan Sontag - with a reading from Cervantes' "Don Quixote."

The King of France commissions the founding of New France - now Canada and the birthday club includes Moliere, Richard Martin, and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. - with two readings from King's writing.

The U.S. and UK sign the Treaty of Paris - ending the Revolutionary War and it is the birthday of Emily Hahn and Maureen Dowd - with a reading from Hahn's "Seductio ad Absurdum: The Principles and Practices of Seduction."

Emile Zola publishes "J'Accuse!" amid the Dreyfus Affair and it is the birthday of Shonda Rimes - with a reading from Zola's "J'Accuse!"