Writer's Almanac Archives - Page 11 of 285 - Garrison Keillor

Albums APHC Clips Audio Events Prairie Home Archives Songs Writer's Almanac

Writer's Almanac

To subscribe to the Writer’s Almanac Anniversary Episode email, which includes the unedited text and audio from one daily anniversary episode selected from the archive, click here >>>

To browse archived episodes of The Writer’s Almanac from before 2017, click here >>>

• • • • •

To support The Writer’s Almanac Anniversary Episodes newsletter, please consider “buying” a donation here >>>

You can also buy a paid subscription to the Anniversary Episode newsletter here >>>

Checks may be made out to Prairie Home Productions, LLC and mailed to:

Prairie Home Productions
P.O. Box 2090
Minneapolis, MN 55402

(Note: donations to LLCs are not tax-deductible)

• • • • •

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, November 27, 2025

Posted on November 27, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

Today is Thanksgiving Day. When we talk about the first Thanksgiving, we’re referring to an event that happened in 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. But there were actually Thanksgiving ceremonies in the United States much earlier — in 1565, 600 Spanish settlers arrived in what is now St. Augustine, Florida, and had a Mass of Thanksgiving to celebrate their safe arrival, and followed it up with a feast. Other Thanksgiving celebrations occurred in El Paso, Texas, and in the Virginia Colony.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, November 26, 2025

Posted on November 26, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1942 that President Roosevelt announced that the United States would begin a national gas rationing campaign on December 1st. All Americans had to display a sticker in their car window saying what category of gas ration they had.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, November 25, 2025

Posted on November 25, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Leonard Woolf, born in London in 1880. He was the husband of Virginia Woolf, and also a writer himself. He wrote many novels, and a five-part memoir: Sowing (1960), Growing (1961), Beginning Again (1964), Downhill All the Way (1967), and The Journey Not the Arrival Matters (1969).

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, November 24, 2025

Posted on November 24, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the Indian novelist Arundhati Roy, born on this day in Shillong, Meghalaya, in 1961. Her dad was a tea planter and her mom was a women’s rights activist. She left home at 16 and lived in a squatter’s camp in New Delhi, and then she went to school to be an architect, but she didn’t like it. She worked as a government researcher, an actress, and an aerobics instructor.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, November 23, 2025

Posted on November 23, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1889 that the Jukebox made its debut at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. It was called a “nickel-in-the-slot player” and was built by the Pacific Phonograph Co. Later that year, jukeboxes were installed in other places around the city and on ferries that traveled back and forth across the bay between San Francisco and Oakland.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, November 22, 2025

Posted on November 22, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the woman who served as the model for Picasso’s Weeping Woman portraits, Dora Maar, born in Tours, France (1907). She was born Théodora Markovitch, and an artist in her own right, known for her surreal photographs of the reproductive parts of flowers.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, November 21, 2025

Posted on November 21, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of British diplomat, journalist, and diary-keeper Harold George Nicolson, born in Teheran, Iran (1886). His father was a British ambassador, so Harold had a privileged and cosmopolitan childhood. He went to college at Oxford and graduated near the bottom of his class. But he passed the exam, and got a job in the Foreign Office.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, November 20, 2025

Posted on November 20, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of astronomer Edwin Hubble, born in Marshfield, Missouri (1889). He majored in math and astronomy in college, then went to law school and started practicing as an attorney. He got bored after just a couple of years and went to get a Ph.D. in astronomy, where he focused his research on nebulae — distant objects in the sky that couldn’t be categorized as stars.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Posted on November 19, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1863 that Abraham Lincoln got up in front of about 15,000 people and delivered the Gettysburg Address, which begins, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, November 18, 2025

Posted on November 18, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Mickey Mouse, as officially celebrated by Walt Disney. Mickey Mouse was actually “born” about six months before his official birthday, debuting in a cartoon where he played pilot Charles Lindbergh, but the cartoon failed to pick up a distributor.

Load next posts