Poem: "Her Door," by Mary Leader, from Red Signature (Graywolf Press, 1997).
It's the birthday in Philadelphia, 1893, of DAVID BURPEE, founder of the W. Atlee Burpee Company, the world's largest mail-order seed company.
It was on this day in 1793 that GEORGE WASHINGTON approved plans for new public buildings and roads in the new American capital city.
It's the birthday of the British poet ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, born in London 1837. At Oxford in the 1850s he was part of the circle of writers and artists known as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, including William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, and Dante Gabriel Rosetti. He was known in his day for writing shocking hedonistic poetry celebrating the pleasures of the flesh, including his collection Poems and Ballads (1866).
It's the wedding anniversary of Indian princess, POCAHONTAS, and the English tobacco grower, JOHN ROLFE, wed in 1614 near Jamestown, Virginia. Pocahontas was about 19 years old and already had been serving for several years as a go-between for the Indians in the James River area, and the new white settlers. Rolfe was 29 and had come from England four years earlier and made a name for himself developing the strain of tobacco that became Virginia's staple crop.
Broadcast Date: TUESDAY, 6 April 1999
Poem: "Mary," by G. E. Patterson, from Tug
(Graywolf Press).
It was on this day five years ago that the GENOCIDE IN RWANDA began a 100-day campaign in which 800,000 to one million people were murdered by Hutu extremists, mostly by machete in churches and villages and on the run, and prompting an exodus of over 1.5 million refugees. Rwanda had been in a civil war since 1990 and a peace accord had been signed in 1993, but the killing was sparked on this day when a plane carrying the Rwandan president crashed. Hutu government officials blamed the incident on their Tutsi opponents and used public radio to urge the killing of Tutsis.
The composer and conductor ANDRÉ PREVIN was born on this day in 1929, in Berlin. His family came to Los Angeles where he got his music education on the job, arranging and playing studio piano for MGM while still a teenager. He started writing film scores, (Gigi, Porgy and Bess, Irma La Douce, and My Fair Lady) and playing classical as well as jazz concerts.
It's the birthday of geneticist JAMES DEWEY WATSON, in Chicago, 1928, the man who helped discover the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, and that it is the base of heredity. He and Francis Crick won the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology.
It was on this day in 1909 that Americans Robert Peary and Matthew Henson became the first men to reach the NORTH POLE. Peary was a surveyor before joining the Navy, and had gotten interested in the Arctic after reading about the exploration of Greenland. He and Henson made their first voyage together in 1886, into Greenland's interior. For the next two decades they made five trips across Greenland, each time further north, then began trying to reach the Pole. In March 1909, Peary and Henson set out with four Eskimo guides whose survival techniques are credited with getting the expedition safely to the Pole on April 6.
It's the birthday in Woodington, Ohio, 1892, of LOWELL THOMAS, the radio broadcaster who for nearly fifty years signed on every night at 6:45 with "Good evening, everybody," then read America the news and signed off at 7:00 with, "So long until tomorrow." In the years before television, his was probably the most recognized voice in America.
It's the birthday in 1866, San Francisco, of journalist JOSEPH LINCOLN STEFFENS, a journalist for whom President Teddy Roosevelt coined the term "muckraker." In the 1890s Steffens moved east and went to work for New York City newspapers, then became editor of McClure's Magazine and began a series of articles on how politicians were being bought out by businessmen. He earned a national following when he published the collected articles as the book The Shame of the Cities.
Broadcast Date: WEDNESDAY: April 7, 1999
Poem: "For Free," by Joni Mitchell, from The Complete Poems and Lyrics (Crown Publishers, 1997).
It's the birthday of one of the first Romantic poets, WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, born in Cumberland, in the Lake District of northwestern England, 1770. In his early 20s Wordsworth took long hiking trips through England, France, and Germany, having failed at college and not knowing what he was going to do with his life. Then he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was a few years younger than him. The two began writing poetry together. Their 1798 collection, Lyrical Ballads, launched the Romantic movement in English literature.
It's the birthday of the author and clergyman, WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, born this day in Newport, Rhode Island, 1780. He was a preacher in Boston, and started off as a Congregationalist. He made friends with Emerson and Thoreau and his preaching began to strike many in Boston as too liberal to be called Christian. In 1815, another Boston clergyman attacked his views as "Unitarian," a label Channing reluctantly accepted. In 1820 he formed a conference of liberal Congregational ministers, and five years later reorganized it as the American Unitarian Association.
It's the birthday in 1897, New York City, of the father of the gossip column, WALTER WINCHELL. He started off in vaudeville when he was 13 years old, then began writing about the stars and backstage brawls for New York newspapers. When his column, "On Broadway" became nationally syndicated, he started covering political figures as well, and went on the air in 1932. On Sunday nights about 20 million Americans tuned in for Winchell's news, gossip, and rash advice about the stock market — all delivered in a breathless style with a telegraph ticking in the background between stories.
It's the birthday in singer BILLIE HOLIDAY. She was born Eleanora Fagan in Baltimore, 1915.
Broadcast Date: THURSDAY: April 8, 1999
Poem: "Looking at Aging Faces," by Robert Bly, from Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems (Harper Flamingo, 1999).
Buddhists observe today as the birthday of the BUDDHA, the most important holiday in their calendar. He was born around the year 563 B.C. and lived until 483. B.C. He was given the name Siddartha at birth and is thought to have lived in India. Buddha means "the enlightened one" in Sanskrit.
It's the birthday in Annapolis, Maryland, 1955, of novelist BARBARA KINGSOLVER. The family moved to rural eastern Kentucky when she was a girl, and she wrote about it in her first novel, the 1988 The Bean Trees. Kingsolver says that "Kentucky has, in common with the rest of the South, a captivation with language, that use of story in everyday life. You don't just say someone's 'ugly,' you say she's 'ugly as a mud-stick fence.' I grew up hearing that poetry that I didn't even recognize as poetry. I thought it was just the way you talked to people." Her other books include Pigs in Heaven, Animal Dreams, and her most recent The Poisonwood Bible.
It was on this day in 1935 that Congress approved the WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION, that over the next 12 years would create nearly eight million jobs for Depression-era America. The WPA was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a way for workers to preserve their skills and self-respect after getting laid off. Under the WPA, thousands of public buildings and facilities were constructed, and smaller programs like the Federal Theater Project, Federal Art Project, and Federal Writers' Project helped artists keep going.
It's the birthday in Harlem, 1920, of jazz singer CARMEN MCRAE, who got her start at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, winning an amateur talent contest in the late 1930s. She could play the piano, she could sing, and she could write; Billie Holiday had a hit with McRae's song "Dream of Life," in 1939. She worked for the government in Washington during the war, finally returning to New York where she began substituting for other singers in bands led by Benny Carter, Count Basie and Earl Hines, then setting out on her own.
The SEVENTEENTH AMENDMENT to the constitution was ratified on this day in 1913, changing the way the country elects senators. Since the beginning, senators had been named by their respective state legislatures. But the amendment declared that senators were to be elected by popular vote.
It's the birthday of lyricist EDGAR "YIP" HARBURG, in New York, 1898. He was the owner of an electrical appliance company that went belly-up during the Great Depression, then he started writing lyrics for Broadway. From personal experience, he wrote the hit "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?," then went on to win an Academy Award for "Over the Rainbow" from the Wizard of Oz.
Broadcast Date: FRIDAY: April 9, 1999
Poem: "To Be of Use," by Marge Piercy, from The Art of Blessing the Day: Poems with Jewish Theme (Alfred A. Knopf, 1999).
Today is the day when school children across the country compete in state-level GEOGRAPHY BEES. A winner will be chosen from each state and they will go to the national competition next month.
It's the birthday of computer pioneer J. PRESPER ECKERT, in Philadelphia, 1919. In February 1946, at the University of Philadelphia, he demonstrated for the first time a machine called the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer — nicknamed ENIAC — and the computer era was underway.
It's J. WILLIAM FULBRIGHT's birthday, born in Sumner, Missouri, 1905, but who served for 30 years as U.S. senator from Arkansas. He was a Rhodes scholar and a lawyer, and came to the House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1942, and the Senate in 1945. Right after WWII, as a way to improve relationships with old enemies, he sponsored the Fulbright Act, which allocated money for international student and teacher exchanges.
The CIVIL WAR ENDED on this day in 1865 at 1:30 in the afternoon when General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, rode to the house of Wilmer McLean at the village of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, and met General Ulysses S. Grant, commander-in-chief of the Union Army.
The FIRST PUBLIC LIBRARY was established on this day in 1833. The people of Peterborough, New Hampshire decided to set aside a portion of the state bank tax to use for the purchase of books. Over the next couple decades small libraries that lent books out for free starting popping up in little towns across New England.
It was on this day in 1770 that Captain James Cook landed at BOTANY BAY, just south of Sydney, Australia — the second European to set foot on the continent after the Dutch briefly made landfall 130 years earlier. Botany Bay is a small inlet, not quite five miles wide. It was named by Joseph Banks, the botanist with Cook's expedition, and named Botany Bay because of the huge variety of flowering plants there.
Broadcast Date: SATURDAY: April 10, 1999
Poems: "Advice," by Rodney Jones, from Elegy for the Southern Drawl (Houghton Mifflin).
It was on this day in 1947 that 28-year-old JACKIE ROBINSON broke the color barrier in baseball's major leagues as he took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He'd been playing with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro National League, but in 1946 Branch Rickey signed him to the Dodgers' farm team in the International League. Robinson then came to Brooklyn and the majors; in his first season he hit .297, scored 125 runs, led the league with 29 stolen bases, and was named Rookie of the Year.
It was on this day in 1912 that the TITANIC set off on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, carrying 2,200 people. A journey that was supposed to take about a week, but which ended off Newfoundland on the night of April 14-15.
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI by O. Henry was published on this date in 1906. It's a Christmas story, but came out in April anyway as part of a collection called The Four Million.
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS was formed on this day in 1866. Henry Bergh, a diplomat under President Lincoln, founded it in New York, modeling it after a British organization. Bergh said his mission was to "provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States." The following year, the ASPCA began operating the first ambulance for horses.
It's the birthday in 1827, Brookville, Indiana, of LEW WALLACE, who was a Civil War general, lawyer, and diplomat but is best remembered for the novel he wrote in 1880, Ben Hur, which was a big hit in Wallace's day.
WILLIAM BOOTH, the evangelist who founded the Salvation Army, was born this day in Nottingham, England, 1829. He grew up in dirt-poor conditions, but joined the Methodist church and began preaching on his own while still in his teens. His wife, Catherine, was also a preacher who worked the slums of east London; he joined her and created the Salvation Army in 1865 that soon sprouted branches across the country.
Broadcast Date: SUNDAY: April 11, 1999
Poems: "The Shadow-Line," by William Logan, from Vain Empires (Penguin).
Israel began its trial of ADOLF EICHMANN on this day in 1961, the man accused of carrying out Hitler's so-called "final solution," or the killing of millions of Jews in camps like Auschwitz. American soldiers had grabbed and jailed Eichmann at the end of WWII, but he escaped. After dodging in and out of the Middle East for years, Eichmann finally settled in Argentina in 1958. He was arrested by Israeli agents in May, 1960, smuggled out of Argentina to Israel. The trial began in Jerusalem on April 11 and lasted until mid-December, when Eichmann was sentenced to be hanged.
It was on this day in 1951 that PRESIDENT TRUMAN FIRED GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR as head of United Nations forces in Korea. When the Korean War began in 1950, MacArthur was placed at the head of the U.N.'s army, and told only to contain the conflict and not let it spread to China and turn into World War III. MacArthur started writing letters to American leaders: he wanted to expand the war, take it to China and use nuclear weapons, and Truman fired him for insubordination.
WWII German bombers began their blitz of COVENTRY, ENGLAND on this day in 1941 — a center for Britain's rayon manufacture, electronics and ordnance. Fifty thousand houses and dozens of businesses were flattened, and about the only things left standing in Coventry were the old medieval spires of St. Michael's Cathedral and Grey Friars' Church.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, THE GREAT GATSBY, was published on this day in 1925; the story set in West Egg, New York about Jay Gatsby and his lost love, Daisy Buchanan, narrated by Nick Carroway. Fitzgerald wrote it during the previous fall and winter when he was living in France, and Scribners brought it out with an initial print run of 21,000 copies, then ran another 3,000 copies a few months later. It had a mixed reception at the time, but earlier this year readers of the Library Journal ranked The Great Gatsby in the top 15 novels of the century.
Abraham Lincoln gave his LAST PUBLIC SPEECH on this date in 1865 in Washington. The Civil War had ended two days earlier and his first priority was bringing the Confederate states back into the Union. He hoped that the new state governments would find ways for whites and blacks to work together — for instance he wanted blacks to be given the immediate right to vote. Three days later Lincoln was assassinated.
