FDR delivers his "Four Freedoms" speech, and happy birthday to Charles Sumner and Alan Watts - and a reading from Watts.

Ford switches to an eight-hour workday with a pay bump to $5 a day, "Waiting for Godot" premieres, and the birthday club includes Umberto Eco and Hayao Miyazaki - and a reading from "Their Eyes Were Watching God," by Zora Neale Hurston.

Solomon Northup regains his freedom, happy birthday to Doris Kearns Goodwin - and a reading from "A Tale of Two Cities," by Charles Dickens.

Quite the birthday club: J. R. R. Tolkien, Anna Stevenson, and Stephen Stills - and a reading from "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," by Agatha Christie.

The Palmer Raids sweep the U.S., happy birthday to environmentalist Robert Marshall - and a reading from the U.S. Wilderness Act of 1964.

The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves goes into effect in the U.S., the Emancipation Proclamation also goes into effect, and the birthday club includes Maria Edgeworth, E. M. Forster, and J. D. Salinger - and a reading from Edgeworth's "Castle Rackrent."

Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000-year lease to brew stout beer, Thomas Edison unveils his incandescent light, President Truman proclaims the end of combat in World War II, and the birthday club includes Simon Wiesenthal and John Denver, - and a reading from "The Liberty Of Man, Woman And Child," by Robert Ingersoll.

The birthday club includes Rudyard Kipling, Bo Diddley, Patti Smith, and Douglas Coupland - and a reading from "Sense & Sensibility," by Jane Austen.

Vaclav Havel is elected President of Czechoslovakia, the language Akkala Sami goes extinct, and the birthday club includes Rick Danko, Marianne Faithfull, and Paula Poundstone - and a reading from "Around the World in 80 Days," by Jules Verne.

Discovery of X-ray radiation, the U.S. Endangered Species Act, and happy birthdays to Catharine Maria Sedgwick and Charlie Pierce - and a reading from "The Importance of Being Earnest," by Oscar Wilde.