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The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, December 28, 2024

Posted on December 28, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1895 that Auguste and Louis Lumière opened the first movie theater at the Grand Café in Paris. Other inventors, including Thomas Edison, were working on various moving picture devices at the time. But most of those other devices could only be viewed by one person at a time. The Lumières were the first to project moving pictures on a screen, so that they could be viewed by a large audience.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, December 27, 2024

Posted on December 27, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

Radio City Music Hall opened on this date in 1932. John D. Rockefeller Jr. had originally planned to build a new Metropolitan Opera House on some land he owned in Midtown Manhattan, but the stock market crash of 1929 put an end to that plan. He decided to build a block of buildings anyway, which he called “Rockefeller Center.” The cornerstone of the center was a vast Art Deco theater that offered lavish entertainment at reasonable prices.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, December 26, 2024

Posted on December 26, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

Today is also the first day of Kwanzaa (Swahili for “first fruits”), a seven-day African-American holiday created in the 1960s as a harvest festival — a time to re-establish links to the community and to an African past.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, December 25, 2024

Posted on December 25, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

Today is Christmas Day, and we’re celebrating with quotes and literature about the holiday.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, December 24, 2024

Posted on December 24, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

On this day in 1936, novelist George Orwell was on his way to Spain to join the cause of the Spanish Civil War. He wrote: “I had intended going to Spain to gather materials for newspaper articles, etc., and had also some vague idea of fighting if it seemed worthwhile, but was doubtful about this owing to my poor health and comparatively small military experience.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, December 23, 2024

Posted on December 23, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It is the birthday of one of the great champions of poetry, Harriet Monroe, founder of Poetry magazine, born in Chicago (1860). She said, “The people must grant a hearing to the best poets they have, else they will never have better.” In 2002, Ruth Lilly, the pharmaceutical heiress, gave Poetry magazine a gift of stock worth more than $100 million.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, December 22, 2024

Posted on December 22, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

The Lincoln Tunnel opened to traffic on this date in 1937, connecting midtown Manhattan with Weehawken, New Jersey. The New Deal’s Public Works Administration funded the $85 million project. First proposed in 1930, construction of the tunnel took three and a half years. It was originally to be named the Midtown Vehicular Tunnel, but people thought it should have a more grandiose name, like the George Washington Bridge. They named it after the 16th president instead.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, December 21, 2024

Posted on December 21, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

On this day in 1620, the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock on the shores of Massachusetts. The Mayflower carried enough furniture for 19 cottages, as well as pigs, goats, guns, journals and Bibles. Native American tribes had already skirmished with the Pilgrims as they explored the banks of Cape Cod. William Bradford, who became the governor of Plymouth Plantation, wrote that they reached the new continent and found nothing but “a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, December 20, 2024

Posted on December 20, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne, the lifelong muse of poet W.B. Yeats, born in Surrey, England (1865). She and Yeats first met when they were both 25 years old. He fell in love with her immediately and remained in love for the rest of his life.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, December 19, 2024

Posted on December 19, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1843 that Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol. A year earlier, he had read a disturbing news story about child labor in England, and so he had visited Cornwall to see for himself the horrible conditions of child workers in the mines there. Then he visited free schools for poor children. By the time he was through, he was so angry that he decided to write a book exposing the terrible situation of children in poverty, and publish it at his own expense. That was A Christmas Carol in Prose, now called just A Christmas Carol.

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