Poem: "Hotel Nights with My Mother," by Linda McCarriston, from Eva-Mary (Tri-Quarterly Books, Northwestern University Press).
It's the birthday of novelist and travel writer PAUL THEROUX, born in Medford, Massachusetts (1941). The third of seven children, Paul and his two older brothers wrote competing family newspapers. His book, The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia (1975), was a rarity for the American market: a travel book that became a best- seller. It was followed by The Old Patagonian Express (1979), recounting a cross-cultural odyssey—again, mostly by train—from the northeastern United States down through Mexico and Central America to the tip of Argentina. Paul Theroux wrote, " Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation—and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind."
It's the birthday of historian DAVID HALBERSTAM, born in New York City (1934). He's the author of The Best and the Brightest (1972), about America's involvement in the Viet Nam War, and The Powers That Be (1979) about the American media. His most recent book is Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made (1999).
On this day in 1912, the ocean liner TITANIC left Southampton on its maiden voyage, bound for New York. Five days later the "unsinkable" luxury ship struck an iceberg and sank, with a loss of more than 1500 of the 2,224 passengers and crew members aboard.
It's the birthday of journalist, playwright and politician CLARE BOOTH LUCE, born in New York City (1903). She joined the staff of Vanity Fair, and became a popular playwright.
It's the birthday of labor reformer FRANCES PERKINS, born in Boston (1880). She was Franklin Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor for the entire 13 years of his administration.
It's the birthday of JOSEPH PULITZER, who was born in Mako, Hungary (1847). He came to America when he was 18, and within ten years he had such command of English that he was a noted speechmaker across the Midwest. He bought the St. Louis Dispatch, and later the New York World. His will left Columbia University $2,000,000 to found a school of journalism, and to start the Pulitzer Prizes.
Broadcast Date: TUESDAY: April 11, 2000
Poem: "Symphony in Yellow," by Oscar Wilde.
On this day in 1865, 2 days after General Robert E. Lee had surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House, in Virginia, PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN GAVE A SPEECH ABOUT REBUILDING THE SOUTH and moving the nation forward. Lincoln's second term of office had just begun, but this was to be the last speech he would give in public: just three days later he was assassinated while attending a play at Ford's theater, in Washington.
It's the birthday of DEAN ACHESON, born in Middletown, Connecticut (1893). His father was the Episcopalian bishop of Connecticut. He was Harry S. Truman's Secretary of State, an architect of N.A.T.O. and a supporter of the Marshall Plan for European Recovery. He said, "The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull. This is not always easy."
It's the birthday of novelist and essayist GLENWAY WESCOTT, born in Kewaskum, Wisconsin (1901). He traveled with his friend Monroe Wheeler from New Mexico to England to Germany to Paris, and published a famous collection of stories called Good-by to Wisconsin (1928).
It's the birthday of LEO ROSTEN, born in Lodz, Poland (1908). He came to America as a small boy, first to Chicago, and then to New York City. He's best known for his book, The Joys of Yiddish (1968), a comic dictionary of Yiddish words and their many nuances. In the book, Rosten lists 29 meanings for the word "oy." In fact, he says, "Oy is not a word; it is a vocabulary. It is a lament, a protest, a cry of dismay, a reflex of delight. But however sighed cried, howled, or moaned, Oy! Is the most expressive and ubiquitous exclamation in Yiddish."
In 1947 on this day, JACKIE ROBINSON BECAME THE FIRST BLACK MAN TO PLAY IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL, playing first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers in an exhibition game against the New York Yankees. There had been much resistance to his joining the squad from within the team itself. Dixie Walker, the team's most popular player, started a petition protesting Robinson's inclusion. But Pee Wee Reese, from Kentucky, refused to sign, and the movement faded away.
In 1961 on this date, folksinger BOB DYLAN, just shy of his 20th birthday, made his first live appearance in New York City, at Gerde's Folk City Club on West 3rd Street in Greenwich Village.
Broadcast Date: WEDNESDAY: April 12, 2000
Poem: "Meditation 8" by Philip Pain (?-1666).
On this day in 1961, Russian cosmonaut YURI GAGARIN BECAME THE FIRST HUMAN SPACE TRAVELER when he rode the Soviet spacecraft "Vostok" once around the Earth and landed safely on Soviet territory. He reached an apogee of 187 miles above the Earth.
On this day in 1955, the announcement was made that SALK VACCINE AGAINST POLIO actually worked, and the process of vaccination began.
It's the birthday of writer SCOTT TUROW, born in Chicago (1949). His parents wanted him to be a doctor, but he went to Law School instead. While a prosecutor for the United States Attorney's General Office in Chicago, during his train commute to and from work, he wrote the novel Presumed Innocent, which was a huge success. He followed it with The Burden of Proof (1990), and, most recently, Personal Injuries (1999).
It's the birthday of singer EMMYLOU HARRIS, born in Birmingham, Alabama (1949), who started out as a folksinger in New York City, in 1967).
On this day in 1945, PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT DIED in Warm Springs, Georgia, killed by a stroke at 63, just 4 weeks before the war ended in Europe (May 7). At his inaugural 3 months earlier—the start of his fourth term in office—his haggard appearance had shocked onlookers. While an artist sketched his portrait and his cousin crocheted nearby, Roosevelt pressed one hand to his forehead, said, "I have a terrific headache," and then lost consciousness.
It's the birthday of jazz pianist HERBIE HANCOCK, born in Chicago (1940). An album he released when he was 21 included his tune "Watermelon Man."
It's the birthday of prolific playwright SIR ALAN AYCKBOURN, born in London (1939), author of over 50 plays. His first London success, Relatively Speaking, was produced in 1967. His play Intimate Exchanges (1985) has 2 first acts, 4 second acts, 8 third acts, and 16 fourth acts; each episode concludes with a choice.
It's the birthday of playwright JACK GELBER, born in Chicago (1932), whose play, The Connection (1959) was a sensation Off-Broadway.
On this day in 1914, George Bernard Shaw's play PYGMALION OPENED IN LONDON. Eliza Doolittle was played by Mrs. Patrick Campbell; Sir Herbert Tree played Professor Higgins.
Broadcast Date: THURSDAY: April 13, 2000
Poem: "Digging," by Seamus Heaney from Selected Poems 1966-1987 (Noonday Press, Farrar, Strauss, Giroux).
THE MESSIAH by George Frederic Handel, one of the most popular oratorios of all time, was first performed on this date in 1742, in Dublin.
It's the birthday of game inventor ALFRED MOSHER BUTTS, born in Poughkeepsie, New York (1899). Out of work during the Depression, he made up a word-game based on crosswords, and called it SCRABBLE.
It's the birthday of playwright and novelist SAMUEL (Barclay) BECKETT, born in Foxrock, a suburb of Dublin (1906). He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. In spite of his celebrity, he continued to live simply, in a working-class neighborhood of Montparnasse, in an apartment overlooking the exercise yard of the Sante Prison. His plays include Waiting For Godot (1952), Endgame (1957), and Krapp's Last Tape (1959); his novels include Molloy (1951), Malone Dies (1951), and The Unnamable (1953).
It's the birthday of writer EUDORA WELTY (1909). Studying Latin in High School, she said, let her "see the achieved sentence finally standing there as real, intact, and built to stay as the Mississippi State Capitol at the top of my street, where I could walk through it on my way to school and hear underfoot the echo of its marble floor, and over me the bell of the rotunda." Her best-known stories are "Why I live at the P.O.," and "Death of a Traveling Salesman." Her novels include Delta Wedding (1946), and The Optimist's Daughter (1972Pulitzer Prize).
It's the birthday of poet SEAMUS HEANEY, born to a Catholic family in Castledawn, county Derry, Northern Ireland (1939). His time is split three ways: between Dublin; Boston, where he teaches at Harvard; and Cambridge, where he is Chair of Poetry at Oxford. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995.
Broadcast Date: FRIDAY: April 14, 2000
Poem: "Two Daffodils," by Robert Herrick (1591-1674).
On this day in 1828, lexicographer NOAH WEBSTER RECEIVED THE COPYRIGHT FOR HIS AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, a monumental volume containing over 70,000 words. For more than 35 years, alone, and by hand, Webster labored over the first truly American dictionary. It featured American usages—of spelling, punctuation, and pronunciation—which were rapidly growing apart from those of England and the British Empire.
On this date in 1865, at 10:30 p.m., PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS SHOT in the back of the head as he sat in a box at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. He was watching a Good Friday performance of Our American Cousin, by Tom Taylor, starring actress Laura Keene. Ninety minutes into the play, John Wilkes Booth, a deranged actor, fired a .44 single shot derringer at the president. Lincoln was carried to a boarding house across the street and laid on a bed. He died there at 7:21 the next morning, having never regained consciousness.
On this date in 1912, shortly before midnight, THE TITANIC STRUCK AN ICEBERG IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC, 400 miles south of Newfoundland, while on it's maiden voyage form Southampton to New York. The liner Californian, less than 20 miles away, could have saved most of the passengers had its radio operator been on duty to hear the Titanic's distress calls. The ship stayed afloat for about 2 hours before breaking in two and sinking into the ocean. About 1,500 of the 2,224 people on board lost their lives.
It's the birthday of photographer ROBERT DOISNEAU, born in Gentilly, a suburb of Paris (1912). He's known for his black and white photographs of ordinary people caught in the act of doing ordinary things. His most famous photograph is a 1950 shot of a young couple kissing on a crowded sidewalk in front of the Paris Hotel de Ville, or City Hall.
It's the birthday of historian ARNOLD TOYNBEE, born in London (1889). He's known for his twelve-volume collection, A Study of History (1934-1961).
It's the birthday of "Smart Set" novelist JAMES BRANCH CABELL, born in Richmond, Virginia (1879). His novel Jurgen (1919) caused a stir with its sexual frankness.
Broadcast Date: SATURDAY: April 15, 2000
Poem: "The Praise of Dancing," by Sir John Davies (1569-1626).
It's the birthday of pioneering obstetrician WALTER CHANNING, born in Newport, Rhode Island (1786). In 1847 he became the first to use an anesthetic during childbirth.
It's the birthday of novelist HENRY JAMES (Jr.), born in New York City (1843). He moved to England, where he wrote about Americans abroad. James was a master of the "psychological novel;" one of his guiding principles was that nothing should enter a story unless it was seen or felt by one of the characters. His novels include Daisy Miller (1879), Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Wings of a Dove (1902), and The Golden Bowl (1904).
It's the birthday of THOMAS HART BENTON, born in Neosho, Missouri (1899), famous for his murals.
It's the birthday of "Empress of the Blues" BESSIE SMITH, born in Chattanooga, Tennessee (1898). She made her first Columbia recording when she was 24. In all, she recorded over 150 blues numbers, backed by such great jazzmen as Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, and Benny Goodman.
It's the birthday of food writer WAVERLY ROOT, born in Providence, Rhode Island (1903), who wrote The Food of France (1958).
It's the birthday of the "godmother of Italian cooking in America," MARCELLA HAZAN, born in Cesenatico, a seaside town in the Italian province of Emilia-Romagna (1924). When she married and moved to America at the age of 31, she had never cooked; but she learned, and went on to teach others at her School of Classic Italian Cooking. She has published five cookbooks during the past 27 years.
Broadcast Date: SUNDAY: April 16, 2000
Poem: "Grasshoppers," by Linda McCarriston, from Talking Soft Dutch (Texas Tech Press).
Today is Palm Sunday in the Christian world, commemorating Christ's last entry into Jerusalem, along a path covered with palm fronds—a traditional symbol of victory—strewn before him by his devotees. Palm Sunday is the 6th and final Sunday in Lent.
It's the birthday of aviator WILBUR WRIGHT, the older of the two Wright brothers, born near Millville, Indiana (1867). For ten years, the brothers designed, built, and sold bicycles. But they were interested in the idea of designing a plane, too. In 1901, they built their first wind tunnel to test wing designs and cambers. They designed their own 12-horse power engine, and made their own propeller. On December 17, 1903, at Kill Devil Hills, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the brothers took turns flying their biplane. Wilbur, in the last of that day's flights, stayed in the air 59 seconds and traveled 852 feet at a speed of just under 10 miles an hour.
It's the birthday of CHARLIE CHAPLIN, born in South London (1889). His stage career began at age 5 when his actress mother's singing voice cracked to a whisper, and the stage manager led Charlie out to sing in her place.
It's the birthday of playwright JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE, born in Rathfarnham, near Dublin (1909). His Playboy of the Western World caused riots when it was first produced at Dublin's Abbey Theater in 1907; it was condemned by nationalists as being a travesty of western Irish life. Synge said in response, "We shall have to establish a society for the Preservation of Irish Humor."
It's the birthday of dancer and choreographer MERCE CUNNINGHAM, born in Centralia, Washington (1919). Martha Graham saw him dance in college, admired the lightness and quickness of his movement, and invited him to join her troupe in New York, where he became a soloist.
It's the birthday of abstract expressionist sculptor JOHN CHAMBERLAIN, born in Rochester, Indiana (1927). When he arrived in New York City in 1956, he couldn't afford expensive materials "Then a couple of months later it occurred to me that there were all of those junkyards out there, and it was fantastic—just free material." The next year he made his sculpture Shortstop from two car fenders entwined by a twisted rod.
