The Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded, and the the birthday club includes Samuel Beckett, Eudora Welty, Seamus Heaney, and Christopher Hitchens - with a reading from Beckett's "Waiting for Godot."

Jonas Salk's polio vaccine is found to be "safe and effective," and the birthday club includes Beverly Cleary, Tom Clancy, and Amy Ray - with a reading from Baruch Spinoza's "Ethics."

U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, and the birthday club includes Ellen Goodman, Hattie Gossett, and Marta Breen - with a reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese."

F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" is published, Alcoholics Anonymous, or the “Big Book” is published, and the Good Friday Agreement is signed. Happy birthdays to David Halberstam and Anne Lamott - and a reading from "The Great Gatsby."

Lee surrenders to Grant, and the birthday club includes Charles Baudelaire, Paule Marshall, and Sam Harris - with a reading from Virginia Woolf's "The Waves."

Franklin D. Roosevelt freezes wages and prices across the U.S., techies gather to create a new computer programming language and fortunately Grace Hopper was there. Today's reading is from Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations."

The Teapot Dome scandal erupts, it's National Beer Day in the U.S., and this is the Internet's symbolic birthday. The birthday club includes Victoria Ocampo, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and Billie Holiday - with a reading from Agatha Christie's "Sparkling Cyanide."

The birthday club includes Leonara Carrington, Ram Dash, Merle Haggard, and Homero Aridjis - with a reading from Carrington.

The Petition of Compromise, the American Birth Control League, and the birthday club includes Algernon Charles Swinburne, Barbara Holland, and Pharrell Williams - with a reading from Swinburne's "The Garden of Proserpine."

NATO is created and the birthday club includes Muddy Waters and Maya Angelou - with a reading from Angelou's "Letter to My Daughter."