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Writer's Almanac

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The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, December 29, 2020

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Today is the anniversary of the massacre at Wounded Knee, in South Dakota, 1890. The medicine man Black Elk said, “A people’s dream died there.”

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The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, December 28, 2020

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, December 28, 2020

It was on this day in 1895 that Auguste and Louis Lumière had the first commercial movie screening at the Grand Café in Paris. The film was 46 seconds long.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, December 27, 2020

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, December 27, 2020

On this day in 1978, the country of Spain became a democracy after 40 years of fascist dictatorship. Headlines that day read, “Good morning, democracy.”

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The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, December 26, 2020

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, December 26, 2020

Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie” premiered at the Civic Theatre in Chicago on this date in 1944.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, December 25, 2020

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, December 25, 2020

It was Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” that revived Christmas after the Puritans had stamped out the old medieval Christmas in England.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, December 24, 2020

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, December 24, 2020

On Christmas Eve of 1940, Jean-Paul Sartre’s first play was performed, in a German POW camp where he himself was a prisoner.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, December 23, 2020

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, December 23, 2020

It’s the birthday of Robert Bly (Madison, MN, 1926), who for decades exchanged letters twice a week with his friend, fellow poet Donald Hall.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, December 22, 2020

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, December 22, 2020

It’s the birthday of the poet and translator Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982), who mentored the Beat poets but became disillusioned as they turned into “hipsters.”

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The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, December 21, 2020

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, December 21, 2020

400 years ago today the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, not in Virginia as intended, but in the lands of the Wampanoag people.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, December 20, 2020

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, December 20, 2020

It’s the 66th birthday of Mexican-American writer Sandra Cisneros (Chicago, 1954), best known for “The House on Mango Street” (1984).

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