Fyodor Dostoevsky is sentenced to death, and the birthday club includes Chinua Achebe and Andrea Barrett - with a reading from "Letters of a Woman Homesteader," by Elinore Pruitt Stewart.

Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins his March to the Sea - with a reading from the poem that named this campaign against the Confederate State of Georgia.

"Moby-Dick" is published in the U.S., Nellie Bly begins her attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days, Ruby Bridges desegregates her Louisiana elementary school, and happy birthday to Frederick Turner Jackson - with a reading from Jackson's "The Frontier in American History."

Walt Disney releases "Fantasia," SCOTUS rules against segregation of Alabama's public buses, reporter Seymour Hersh breaks the story on the My Lai Massacre, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated, and it is the birthday of Robert Louis Stevenson - with a reading from his "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

Pudge Heffelfinger, the World Wide Web is formally proposed, and happy birthday to Richelle Mead and Sarah Harmer - with a reading from "The Devil's Dictionary," by Ambrose Bierce.

The Mayflower Compact is signed, so is the armistice that ended World War I, the U.S. Tomb of the Unknowns is dedicated, and the birthday club includes Fyodor Dostoevsky, Kurt Vonnegut, and Mary Gaitskill - with a reading from Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment."

The Cult of Reason, a top-secret coded message is sent across the Atlantic to alert Ottawa and Washington, D.C. that World War I would end the next day, direct dialing begins in the U.S., the first episode of "Sesame Street," and happy birthday to Neil Gaiman - with a reading from "The Wizard of Oz," by L. Frank Baum.

Kristallnacht, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the birthday club includes Maud Howe Elliott, Mary Travers, Ti-Grace Atkinson, and Allison Wolfe - with a reading from "Frankenstein," by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, Black and white union members in New Orleans strike together, FDR presents the Civil Works Administration, and it's quite the birthday club with Sarah Fielding, Bram Stoker, Margaret Mitchell, and Kazuo Ishiguro - with a reading from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

The London Gazette, Lord Dunmore's Offer of Emancipation, abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy is murdered by a mob bent on destroying his printing press, the women of Colorado get the right to vote, Jeanette Rankin becomes the first woman elected to Congress, and happy birthday to Albert Camus and Joni Mitchell - with a reading from "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes," by Arthur Conan Doyle.