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The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, October 8, 2023

Posted on October 8, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

On this day in 1971, John Lennon released his second solo album, Imagine. The title track was the best-selling song of his solo career and was included on BMI’s list of the top 100 most-performed songs of the 20th century. Lennon said that he and Yoko Ono received a prayer book, which inspired him to write the song. He said: “The concept of positive prayer … If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion — not without religion but without this my-God-is-bigger-than-your-God thing — then it can be true.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, October 7, 2023

Posted on October 7, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the religious leader Desmond Tutu, born in Klerksdorp, South Africa, (1931). He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his role in the opposition to apartheid in South Africa. In 1986, he was elected the first black archbishop of Cape Town, the head of South Africa’s 1,600,000-member Anglican Church. And in 1995, South African President Nelson Mandela appointed him head of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, which investigated apartheid-era human rights abuses.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, October 6, 2023

Posted on October 6, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of soprano Jenny Lind, born in Stockholm, Sweden (1820). She is considered to be one of the most gifted sopranos ever. In 1840, she was appointed member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and official singer of the Swedish Court. She was known also as a great philanthropist. Hans Christian Andersen fell in love with her, but she did not return his love. Among other stories, he wrote “The Nightingale” (1843) as a tribute to Jenny Lind. He said, “[S]he can never be mine … though her voice stays with me, forever, in my story.” Lind would later be known as “The Swedish Nightingale.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, October 5, 2023

Posted on October 5, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of scientist Robert Hutchings Goddard, born in Worcester, Massachusetts (1882), who is known as the “Father of the Space Age.” From childhood, Goddard had been fascinated by space travel, finding inspiration in part from H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds. He began studying physics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and as a student he decided that the most effective propellant would be a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. In 1926, he discovered an even more effective liquid fuel combination: gasoline and liquid oxygen. He launched the world’s first liquid-propelled rocket, a small device that went up 41 feet and landed 184 feet away.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Posted on October 4, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of one of the most popular novelists of all time, Jackie Collins, born in London (1937). Her first major American best-seller was Hollywood Wives (1983), which remained on the New York Times best-seller list for 28 weeks, and ultimately sold 15 million copies. Known as the “Queen of Steam,” Jackie Collins went on to average about a novel a year over two decades before her death of breast cancer in 2015.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Posted on October 3, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of Harvey Kurtzman (1924), cartoonist and creator of MAD Magazine. Born in Brooklyn, Kurtzman started drawing comics at a young age and sent, in his words, “very bad” drawings to Walt Disney hoping to get hired. He had a eureka moment when he discovered college humor magazines and realized he wanted to write in that style.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, October 2, 2023

Posted on October 2, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, best known as Mahatma Gandhi, a religious and political leader born in western India in 1869. When Gandhi was 13 years old, he married Kasturbai Makanji, a girl of a similar age, according to his father’s arrangement. During their turbulent marriage, the couple sought to end British colonial rule in India and raised four sons. Gandhi’s early life did not suggest a sensational future. He grew up a mediocre student without strong faith, a timid child afraid of the dark, ghosts, thieves, and snakes.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, October 1, 2023

Posted on October 1, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of British actor and singer Julie Andrews, born in a suburb of London (1935). Her parents first noticed her unusual voice when she was singing “Strawberry Fair” with a group of children and her voice floated over the others, since she was singing in a higher octave than the rest. She started taking voice lessons with a retired opera singer when her doctor discovered she had a “nearly adult larynx.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, September 30, 2023

Posted on September 30, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of Elie Wiesel, the Romanian-American writer and Holocaust survivor most well known for his memoir Night. Wiesel was sent to Auschwitz with his family when he was 15, where his mother and sister were murdered. He and his father were then sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, and his father died before the Allies liberated the camp in 1945. After he was freed, Wiesel was sent to France to live in a rehabilitation center for child refugees and went on to study literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, September 29, 2023

Posted on September 29, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of “the kindly gentleman in the white hat”: Gene Autry (1907), the original cowboy superstar of cinema. Autry gained fame in the 1930s and ’40s for a series of films in which he played a red-blooded cowboy hero of the American West, with his horse, Champion, and his sidekick, Smiley Burnett, always in tow. Autry was also a prolific singer and sang some of the most famous Christmas songs in history, like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” which is now the third-best-selling single of all time.

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