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The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, May 22, 2025

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, May 22, 2025

It is the birthday of the first openly gay man elected to public office. Harvey Milk was born in Woodmere, New York (1930). He was the younger of two boys and was teased as a child for his big ears and big nose. He played football in high school, studied math in college, and wrote for the college newspaper.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, May 21, 2025

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, May 21, 2025

On this day in 1881, Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross. When Clara was only 10, her brother David fell off the roof of the family barn. At first, he seemed fine, but the next day he developed a headache and fever. The doctor diagnosed “too much blood” and prescribed the application of leeches to help draw out the extra blood.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, May 20, 2025

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, May 20, 2025

On this day in 1946, English-born poet W.H. Auden became a U.S. citizen. Auden began writing poetry in high school, studied at Oxford, and made friends with other writers, including Cecil Day-Lewis and Christopher Isherwood. He published Poems (1930), a collection of poetry that brought him renown as a writer.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, May 19, 2025

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, May 19, 2025

It’s the birthday of playwright Lorraine Hansberry, born in Chicago (1930), the youngest of four children. Her father was a prominent real estate broker, and active in the fight against segregation. When Hansberry was eight, her parents bought a house in a white neighborhood. The house came with a restrictive covenant, which stipulated that it couldn’t be sold to a black person, so Hansberry’s father arranged for a white co-worker to buy it for him.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, May 18, 2025

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, May 18, 2025

It’s the birthday of film producer, director, and three-time Academy Award winner Frank Capra, born in Bisacquino, Sicily (1897). He moved with his family to Los Angeles when he was a young boy, and he worked odd jobs until he finally landed work at Columbia studios.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, May 17, 2025

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, May 17, 2025

The Supreme Court ruled that school segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendment on this date in 1954. An eight-year-old girl named Linda Brown in Topeka, Kansas, had to travel 21 blocks every day to an all-black elementary school, even though she lived just seven blocks from another elementary school for white children.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, May 16, 2025

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, May 16, 2025

It is the birthday of writer and broadcaster Louis “Studs” Terkel, born in the Bronx, New York (1912). His family moved to Chicago when Terkel was 10 years old and his parents ran rooming houses. Terkel remembers all different kinds of people moving through the rooming houses — dissidents, labor organizers, religions fanatics — and that that exposure helped build his knowledge of the outside world.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, May 15, 2025

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, May 15, 2025

Today is the birthday of Lyman Frank Baum, born in Chittenango, New York (1856). He moved to Aberdeen, South Dakota, when he was 32, and opened up a general store called “Baum’s Bazaar.” He was popular with the neighborhood kids, telling them stories, all the while chomping on a cigar. He was also generous with his credit and the store went bankrupt. So he got a job as an editor for the local newspaper.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, May 14, 2025

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, May 14, 2025

It was on this day in 1796 that a British physician named Edward Jenner administered a vaccine to prevent smallpox; it was considered the first successful vaccination. Smallpox was a terrible disease, with a high mortality rate — between 20% and 60%, and much higher for children.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, May 13, 2025

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, May 13, 2025

It was on this day in 1940 that Winston Churchill gave his first speech as prime minister to the House of Commons. Three days earlier, he had taken over the job from Neville Chamberlain, who resigned. Chamberlain was a controversial leader — he had signed the Munich Agreement in September of 1938, ceding a region of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, a decision that Churchill highly criticized at the time.

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