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The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, June 28, 2024

Posted on June 28, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of philosopher and writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau, born on this day in Geneva (1712). In 1749, the Academy of Dijon sponsored an essay contest, and the question was: “Has the revival of the arts and sciences done more to corrupt or to purify morals?” Rousseau was delighted by the question, and he said that his head was so full of ideas he was unable to breathe.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, June 27, 2024

Posted on June 27, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of author and educator Helen Keller, born in Tuscumbia, Alabama (1880). She lost her sight and her hearing due to scarlet fever or meningitis when she was 20 months old. After she recovered, she was not only blind and deaf, she’d also become extremely angry. She flew into tantrums at the slightest provocation, kicking, screaming, and biting her family members.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, June 26, 2024

Posted on June 26, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of novelist Pearl S. Buck, born in Hillsboro, West Virginia (1892). Her parents were Presbyterian missionaries in China, and Buck was born while they were on vacation in the United States. When she was three months old, they took her back to China. She learned to speak Chinese before she learned to speak English. She and her brother explored the streets and markets of Zhenjiang, watching puppet shows and sampling food.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Posted on June 25, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of novelist George Orwell, born Eric Blair in Motihari, India, in 1903. He won a scholarship to Eton and didn’t fit in because he was poor. Instead of going to a university, he escaped England to join the Imperial Police in Burma, but he quit after five years because, he said, “I could not go on any longer serving an imperialism which I had come to regard as very largely a racket.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, June 24, 2024

Posted on June 24, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of essayist and short-story writer Ambrose Bierce, born near Horse Cave Creek, Ohio (1842). He became the second person in his county to volunteer for the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War. He wrote bleak short stories about the Civil War, his most famous is “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” about a spy condemned to die by hanging, only to escape when the rope snaps.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, June 23, 2024

Posted on June 23, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1868 that the typewriter was patented, by Christopher Sholes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1873, he sold the patent to the Remington Arms Co., a famous gun maker, for $12,000. There had been typewriters before, but they weren’t very practical — it took longer to type a letter than to write it by hand. The first commercial typewriter based on Sholes’ design went on the market in 1874.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, June 22, 2024

Posted on June 22, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of poet and essayist Anne (Morrow) Lindbergh, born in Englewood, New Jersey (1906). In 1927, she met Charles Lindbergh, and they liked each other so much that he took her flying with him. She wrote in her diary: “Clouds and stars and birds — I must have been walking with my head down looking at puddles for twenty years.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, June 21, 2024

Posted on June 21, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of American critic and novelist Mary McCarthy, born in Seattle, Washington (1912). Both of her parents died from the flu epidemic in 1918, when she was six years old. She and her three younger brothers were sent to Minneapolis to live with “a severe great-aunt and her sadistic husband.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, June 20, 2024

Posted on June 20, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

Eighteen-year-old Alexandrina Victoria became Queen of England on this date in 1837. “Drina,” as she was known to her family, had a fairly quiet childhood. She kept a diary, so we know a lot about her private life. She was a lively and sometimes mischievous child, and she was well educated, but her mother was overprotective and kept her isolated at Kensington Palace in London.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, June 19, 2024

Posted on June 19, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of mathematician, physicist, and theologian Blaise Pascal, born in Clermont-Ferrand, France (1623). A child prodigy, by the time he was 19 he had already perfected the first mechanical calculator for sale to the public. In the field of physics, he discovered that air has weight, and he conducted experiments to prove that vacuums could exist, which led him to formulate the hydraulic principle that “pressure exerted on a fluid in a closed vessel is transmitted unchanged throughout the fluid.”

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