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The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, July 3, 2025

Posted on July 3, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of Franz Kafka, born in Prague (1883). He was unhappy for most of his life: terrified of his tyrannical father, plagued by a whole host of psychosomatic illnesses, and tormented by guilt and anxiety. He described himself as “peevish, miserable, silent, discontented, and sickly.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, July 2, 2025

Posted on July 2, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

On this day in 1698, British engineer Thomas Savery patented the first steam engine. He wanted to find a way to pump water out of coal mines, and eventually he built a machine that was filled with water itself. When steam was introduced under pressure, the water level rose and created a vacuum that drew more water up through a valve below.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Posted on July 1, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of French novelist George Sand, born Lucile Aurore Dupin in Paris (1804). She was raised by her grandmother at the family’s estate in rural Berry in central France, and was sent to an English convent in Paris to be educated. Although she started out as a troublemaker, Aurore underwent a spiritual conversion and decided to become a nun.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, June 30, 2025

Posted on June 30, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1936 that Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone With the Wind was published. Mitchell was from a prominent Atlanta family — she was a fourth-generation Atlantan on her father’s side, and came from a big Irish Catholic family on her mother’s side. She grew up hearing grandiose stories of the Civil War. She was 10 years old before she found out — from some black farm workers — that the South had actually lost the war.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, June 29, 2025

Posted on June 29, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1776 that the first mass was conducted for settlers at the Misión San Francisco de Asís, in the place that became the city of San Francisco. The colonists had arrived at their new home two days earlier, after a journey of many months. Spain was the major colonial power in the western half of the Americas.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, June 28, 2025

Posted on June 28, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this date in 1928 that Louis Armstrong and his band, the Hot Five, recorded “West End Blues.” Armstrong was 26 years old at the time, and living in Chicago, where he’d been for six years. He’d moved there from New Orleans as part of Joe “King” Oliver’s band; Oliver had been a friend and mentor to the young singer and trumpeter since Armstrong was a teenager. They parted ways in 1925.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, June 27, 2025

Posted on June 27, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

On this day in 1844, Joseph Smith Jr., founder of the Latter-day Saints movement, was killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois. Born in Sharon, Vermont, in 1805, Smith reported he had been visited by an angel named Moroni in 1823. Moroni directed him to a buried cache of gold plates on which were written the history of the Israelites. He retrieved these and translated them with the help of two seer stones that were with them, and so wrote the Book of Mormon, on which he based a new sect of Christianity.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, June 26, 2025

Posted on June 26, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of writer Pearl S. Buck, born in Hillsboro, West Virginia (1892). Her parents were Christian missionaries, and she was raised in China from the age of three months. She said: “I spoke Chinese first, and more easily. […] I did not consider myself a white person in those days.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Posted on June 25, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

The Korean War began on this date in 1950, when North Korean soldiers invaded South Korea. The Korean peninsula had become a Japanese colony in 1910, but with Japan’s surrender to the Allies in 1945, all the Japanese territories landed in the laps of the Soviet Union and the United States.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Posted on June 24, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of novelist Anita Desai, born in Mussoorie, India (1937). Her mother was German and her father was Bengali. She said, “I am sure this is what makes my writing whatever it is; I see India through the eyes of my mother, as an outsider, but my feelings are my father’s, of someone born here.”

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