MONDAY, 8 OCTOBER 2001
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Poem: "Open-Hearted," by Anne Higgins from At the Year's Elbow (Edwin Mellen Press).

Open-Hearted

A nest of tubes,
a cradle of monitors,
someone in there
whose breastbone has been pulled open
like French Doors,
and whose heart, almost broken,
has been handled,
and laid bare,
in front of strangers.

Heart laid bare,
the weakest walls exposed
and shored up,
clogged arteries
discovered and cleared.
Heart handled,
put back
for its red roots
to settle.

The days after,
each beat wonders
will I live?
Every breath hurts.
The months after, each beat waits
for the seals to set,
for the scar,
like a mummy's mouth,
silent ceiling over the
hidden stitches,
to pale a little,
to flatten and soften its grimace
a little.
The years after,
street clothes hide it,
hide the question
will I walk?
Will this heart sustain me
in the sprints of joy,
the sweats of panic?

The psalm says
Open hearted,
the good person gives to the poor.
We stand,
survivors of less visible repairs,
looking in at the nest of tubes,
following the arpeggio of beats
on the monitor.

Today is Columbus Day, which celebrates the discovery of the New World. Christopher Columbus was searching for a direct route to India and Asia when he set off from Italy in August of 1492. When he finally saw land in October of that year, he thought he had found an island off India, and he called the natives Indians. He christened this island San Salvador, and claimed it for Spain. He then sailed on to Cuba, which he thought was Japan. He never realized he had discovered the New World.

It's the birthday of children's author R(obert) L(awrence) Stine, born in Columbus, Ohio (1943), who is the best-selling children's author in history with over ninety million books sold. His series Fear Street proved to be immensely popular—but not as popular as his next series. Written for eight- to eleven-year-olds, the Goosebumps series of book was launched in 1992. R.L. Stein, who said, "It thrills me that I finally found something to get boys to read, after 25 years of trying. That's what I want on my tombstone: 'He got boys to read.' "

It's the birthday of novelist Meyer Levin, born in Chicago, Illinois (1905), whose literary life was punctuated by a series of tumultuous events. In 1924, he visited Palestine for the first time, and in 1931 he published his novel, Yehuda, which was the first fictional treatment of life on a communal farm, or kibbutz. He published several more books about Jewish life. Levin's wife introduced him to Anne Frank's diary, and, working with Otto Frank, Levin arranged for it to be published in America. In 1956, he wrote Compulsion, the story of the Leopold-Loeb murder case.

It's the birthday of printmaker and playwright Alfred Jarry, born in Laval, France (1873). Jarry basically invented the theater of the absurd with his play, Ubu Roi.

It's the birthday of inventor James Frank Duryea, born in Philadelphia (1869), who, with his brother Charles, invented the first automobile that was actually built and operated in the United States in 1893.

In 1871 on this day, the Great Fire of Chicago was started. Legend has it that it was started by a cow owned by a Mrs. O'Leary, who ran a dairy business from the barn outside of her home. Her neighbor, Daniel Sullivan, was the first to see and report the fire. Later, he became the probable suspect. Conditions were perfect for a fire. It had been a very dry summer, and on the previous day, four city blocks had burned. In just over an hour on October 8, the west side of the city was in ashes. The fire jumped the Chicago River and pushed toward the center of the city. More than 500 buildings were on fire at once. The fire burned until the morning of October 10, when a steady rain began to fall. More than 300 people had died and 100,000 were left homeless.

TUESDAY, 9 OCTOBER 2001
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Poem: "Memory," by Hayden Carruth from Doctor Jazz (Copper Canyon Press).

Memory

A woman I used to know well died
    A week ago. Not to be mysterious:
She and I were married. I'm told
    She fell down dead on a street in
Lower Manhattan, and I suppose
    She suffered a stroke or a heart attack.
The last time I saw her was in the spring
    Of 1955, meaning forty-four
Years ago, and now when I try
    To imagine her death I see in my
Mind a good-looking, twenty-nine-
    Year-old woman sprawled on the pavement.
It does no good to go and examine
    My own ravaged face in the bathroom
Mirror; I cannot transpose my ravage-
    Ment to her. She is fixed in my mind
As she was. Brown hair, brown eyes,
    Slender and sexy, coming home
From her job as an editor in a huge
    Building in midtown. Forty-four
Years is longer than I thought. My dear,
    How could you have let this happen to you?

It's the birthday of singer and songwriter John Lennon, born in Liverpool, England (1940). In 1956, Lennon was attending Liverpool Art College when a friend played him a recording of Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel. That same year he started his own band, the Quarrymen, with three of his friends. One of those friends introduced Lennon to Paul McCartney in 1957. By 1960 the band had become The Beatles. They played at various clubs in England and Germany, and often played at London's Cavern Club, where they were discovered by their soon-to-be manager Brian Epstein. The group was signed to EMI records in 1962.

It's the birthday of actor and filmmaker Jacques Tati, born in Le Pecq, France (1907), whose work has been compared to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. In 1931, he started making short films, including Oscar, Tennis Champion. His comedies included sight gags and physical action, and very little dialogue. In 1953, Tati introduced his signature character, Mr. Hulot, an earnest yet bumbling man who wore a crushed hat and raincoat, and trousers that were just a bit too short. In 1954, he produced Mr. Hulot's Holiday, which brought Tati international fame. In 1958, he produced Mon Oncle, which contrasted Hulot's life in a Paris suburb and that of his sister who lived in a modern, mechanized home.

It's the birthday of historian and journalist Bruce Catton, born in Petosky, Michigan (1899). In 1951, he published the first volume of a trilogy on the Army of the Potomac. Mr. Lincoln's Army was rejected by several publishers who said that Civil War books didn't sell. Only about 2,000 copies of Catton's book were sold. Still, a second volume, Glory Road, was published in 1952, and the third, A Stillness at Appomatox, came out in 1953.

It's the birthday of educator Francis Wayland Parker, born in Bedford, New Hampshire (1837). After serving as a lieutenant colonel in the Civil War, Parker served as head of a school in Dayton, Ohio. In 1872, he traveled to Germany to study new methods of education being developed there. He returned to the United States and became superintendent of schools in Quincy, Massachusetts, where he originated what came to be called the Quincy movement. It was Parker's idea to replace the rigid formalism of American education by using normal experiences to teach subjects. Students learned geography by going on field trips, and learned arithmetic by manipulating objects rather than dealing with abstractions.

In 1701 on this day, the Yale University was founded. The colonial legislature of Connecticut chartered the Collegiate School, originally based in the house of its first rector in Killingworth, Connecticut. In 1716, the school moved to New Haven, and took the name Yale College to honor its early benefactor, Elihu Yale. The first doctoral degrees earned in the United States were awarded by the graduate school of arts and sciences in 1861.

In 1002 on this day, Viking Leif Eríksson landed in what is now North America. As a young man, he followed the custom of his time and made a trip to Norway. There, he met the king and was converted to Christianity. On his way back to Greenland, he was driven off course and found land on which there were fields of naturally growing wheat and grapevines. He named the country Wineland. Soon after his return to Greenland, he led an expedition to explore the lands he had discovered. Archeologists theorize that he then discovered Baffin Island and Labrador, and that Wineland was in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in what is now New Brunswick.

WEDNESDAY, 10 OCTOBER 2001
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Poem: simply labeled, "9," by Galway Kinnell from A New Selected Poems: Galway Kinnell (Houghton Mifflin).

9

When one has lived a long time alone,
and the hermit thrush calls and there is an answer,
and the bullfrog head half out of water utters
the cantillations he sang in his first spring,
and the snake lowers himself over the threshold
and creeps away among the stones, one sees
they all live to mate with their kind, and one knows,
after a long time of solitude, after the many steps taken
away from one's kind, toward these other kingdoms,
the hard prayer inside one's own singing
is to come back, if one can, to one's own,
a world almost lost, in the exile that deepens,
when one has lived a long time alone.

It's the birthday of playwright Harold Pinter, born in London, England (1930). In 1957, a friend asked Pinter to write a play for the Drama Department at Bristol University. In four days, he wrote a one-act play called The Room. That play, and his next one, The Dumb Waiter (1957) are characteristic of all his plays—commonplace situations that are invested with menace and mystery. In 1958, Pinter's first full-length play, The Birthday Party, was produced. Pinter will not say what his works are about. "Once," he said, "many years ago ... someone asked me what my work was 'about.' I replied with no thought at all and merely to frustrate this line of iniquity: 'the weasel under the cocktail cabinet.' That was a great mistake. Over the years I have seen that remark quoted in a number of learned columns. It has now seemingly acquired profound significance, and is seen to be a highly relevant and meaningful observation about my own work. But for me the remark meant precisely nothing."

It's the birthday of jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina (1917), who began playing in bands when he was 13 years old. By the 1930s, Monk had moved to Harlem, and had a steady job at Minton's Playhouse, where such then unknown musicians as Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie came to jam. Out of this group came a new kind of jazz, called bebop.

It's the birthday of novelist and short story writer R.K.(Rasipuram Krishnaswami) Narayan, born in Madras, India (1906), who was one of the first Indians writing in English to achieve international acclaim. Narayan's first book was Swami and Friends (1935), which, like many of this other books, is set in a fictional town of Malgudi. Narayan wrote hundreds of short stories, and more than 30 novels, including The English Teacher (1945), Waiting for the Mahatma (1955), The Guide (1958), and The Vendor of Sweets (1967). He died at the age of 94 in May of 2001.

It's the birthday of opera composer Giuseppe Verdi, born in Rancola, Italy (1813). A musical prodigy, he became a church organist at the age of seven. Verdi became extremely popular, commanding higher fees than any other composers of his time. Within the next 10 years, Verdi produced three masterpieces: Rigoletto (1851), Il Trovatore (1853), and La Traviata (1853).

It's the birthday of physicist and chemist Henry Cavendish, born in Nice, France (1731). Although he studied at Cambridge, he never got his degree. Instead, he went to work assisting his father, a scientist in his own right. At the age of 40, Cavendish inherited a fortune, although it did little to change his lifestyle. He spent most of his money on scientific apparatus and books. His experiments and discoveries were quite diverse. In 1784, he discovered that water is not an element, but a compound. He also discovered nitric acid. He conducted early experiments in electrical currents, and also discovered the properties of hydrogen.

In 1935 on this day, Porgy and Bess opened in New York. In 1926, George Gershwin read the book Porgy by DuBose Heyward, about the black inhabitants of Catfish Row, a slum neighborhood in Charleston, South Carolina.

In 1886 this day, the tuxedo jacket made its debut in the United States. The tail-less dress coat, first introduced in England, was worn for the first time in America at the Tuxedo Club in New York. Most of the guests at the club were shocked by its informality, but the tuxedo jacket eventually became more popular than the tailcoat, and remains so today.

In 1845 on this day, the United States Naval Academy opened in Annapolis, Maryland. The Naval school was established with a class of 50 midshipmen and seven professors.

THURSDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2001
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Poem: "Airing Linen," by Henry Taylor from The Flying Change (Louisiana State University Press), and "Jump Cabling," by Linda Pastan from Light Tear (Dits Press - Cleveland Western Reserve).

Airing Linen

Wash and dry,
sort and fold:
you and I
are growing old.

Jump Cabling

When our cars                touched,
When you lifted the hood        of mine
To see the intimate workings        underneath,
When we were bound            together
By a pulse of pure            energy,
When my car like the            princess
In the tale woke with a         start,
I thought why not ride the rest of the way together?

It's the birthday of novelist and screenwriter Elmore Leonard, born in New Orleans, Louisiana (1925). In 1949, he went to work as an advertising copywriter, a job he hated. He would write fiction in the mornings before work, or, as he said, "Sometimes I would write a little fiction at work, too. I would write in my desk drawer and close the drawer if somebody came in." In 1951, he published his first short story—a western, and in 1953, his first novel, The Bounty Hunters. Over the next 10 years he published more than 30 short stories and five novels, including Escape from Five Shadows (1956), and Hombre (1961). In 1961, Hombre was chosen one of the best westerns of all time by the Western Writers of America, and Leonard finally decided he could give up advertising and write full time. Shortly thereafter, two things made Leonard decide to switch genres. First, the market for westerns was drying up. Second, he was asked to write a day-in-the-life feature on Detroit policemen for a local paper. So he wrote his first crime novel, The Big Bounce, which was rejected by 84 publishers before coming out in 1969. Since then, almost all his books—including Fifty-Two Pickup (1974), Stick (1983), Glitz (1985), Get Shorty (1990), Rum Punch (1992), Maximum Bob (1991), Out of Sight (1996), and Be Cool (1999)—have been critically acclaimed best sellers. Critics have compared his lean writing style to people like Ernest Hemmingway and John Steinbeck. Leonard has said that he intentionally avoids style, stating, "When I go back and edit and something sounds like writing, I rewrite it. I rewrite constantly, four pages in the basket for every one that survives."

Elmore Leonard's Rules on Writing:
Rule #10:
" ... Think of what you skip reading in a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking a shot at the weather, or has gone into a character's head, and the reader either knows what the guy's thinking or doesn't care ... "

It's the birthday of choreographer Jerome Robbins, born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz, in New York City, New York (1918), who was one of the few modern choreographers to have conquered both classical ballet and the Broadway stage. In 1940, he joined the Ballet Theatre, which is where he staged his first ballet, Fancy Free, in 1944. This was later turned into the musical On the Town, which was both a Broadway show and a 1949 film starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. He was not the first choreographer to work on Broadway, but he was the first to direct as well as choreograph. His hits included West Side Story, Gypsy, and Fiddler on the Roof.

It's the birthday of novelist, poet and journalist François Mauriac, born in Bordeaux, France (1885). Although he is not well known in America, Mauriac has been called one of the "most important and prolific French authors of [the twentieth] century." A Roman Catholic who incorporated his religious beliefs into his fiction, he was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1952.

It's the birthday of physicist and psychologist Lewis Fry Richardson, born in Northumberland, England (1881), who was the first to apply mathematical techniques to predict the weather accurately. During WWI, Richardson served as a driver for the Friends' Ambulance Unit in France. During the intervals between transporting wounded soldiers from the front, he manually computed the changes in pressure and wind at two points. From this information he wrote his 1922 book, Weather Prediction by Numerical Process. The problem with his theories was that it took him about three months to predict the weather for the next 24 hours. His system did not become practical until the advent of electronic computers after World War Two.

FRIDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2001
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Poem: "The Fantastic Names of Jazz," by Hayden Carruth from Doctor Jazz (Copper Canyon Press).

The Fantastic Names of Jazz

Zoot Sims, Joshua Redman,
Billie Holiday, Pete Fountain,
Fate Marable, Ivie Anderson,
Meade Lux Lewis, Mezz Mezzrow,
Manzie Johnson, Marcus Roberts,
Omer Simeon, Miff Mole, Sister
Rosetta Tharpe, Freddie Slack,
Thelonious Monk, Charlie Teagarden,
Max Roach, Paul Celestin, Muggsy
Spanier, Boomie Richman, Panama
Francis, Abdullah Ibrahim, Piano
Red, Champion Jack Dupree,
Cow Cow Davenport, Shirley Horn,
Cedar Walton, Sweets Edison,
Jaki Byard, John Heard, Joy Harjo,
Pinetop Smith, Tricky Sam
Nanton, Major Holley, Stuff Smith,
Bix Beiderbecke, Bunny Berigan,
Mr. Cleanhead Vinson, Ruby Braff,
Cootie Williams, Cab Calloway,
Lockjaw Davis, Chippie Hill,
And of course Jelly Roll Morton.

It's the birthday of novelist and children's writer Ann Petry, born in Old Saybrook, Connecticut (1908), who was the first African-American woman to write a book that sold more than a million copies. She grew up middle class in a predominantly white neighborhood, where her father was a pharmacist. She too became a pharmacist, after graduating from the Connecticut College of Pharmacy in 1931 with a Ph.D. She worked in her father's store for seven years, until she met and married writer George D. Petry. The couple moved to Harlem, where she got a job as an advertising copywriter for The Amsterdam News. In 1943, she was paid $20 for a short story, On Saturday, the Sirens at Noon, published in the magazine The Crisis. That story came to the attention of an editor at Houghton-Mifflin, who gave Petry $2,500 and a contract for a novel. The result was The Street (1946), the story of Lutie Johnson and her attempts to shield herself and her young son from the world outside their tiny Harlem apartment. The book was an immediate success, and sold more than one million copies.

It's the birthday of poet and educator Paul Engle, born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1908). One of the first students to receive an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa was Paul Engle, who offered as his dissertation a collection of poems called Worn Earth, which had won the Yale Younger Poets prize. He is best known for his influence on academic writing programs as Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Iowa from 1941 to 1965, and as founder and director of the Iowa Writer's Workshop from 1966 to 1991.

It's the birthday of composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, born in Down Ampney, England (1872), who is considered the most outstanding composer of his generation in England. He created a revival in the art of the English folk song, of which he was a passionate collector and arranger. Some of his major works include Fantasia for Double Stringed Orchestra on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910), A London Symphony (1914), and the Sixth Symphony (1947). He also wrote several operas, including Sir John in Love (1929), based on Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor, in which he incorporated the traditional folk song, Greensleeves.

It's the birthday of inventor Elmer Sperry, born in Cortland, New York (1860). His most famous invention was the gyro-compass, which revolutionized marine navigation. His gyroscopic auto-pilot became known as a 'Metal Mike,' the mechanical helmsman. Sperry, who founded the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the American Electrochemical Society, also invented a high-intensity searchlight and a new system of street lighting, and many other electrical devices.

It's the birthday of novelist George Washington Cable, born in New Orleans, Louisiana (1844), who has been called the first modern southern writer. His first works of fiction, including Old Creole Days (1879) and The Grandissimes (1880), contained overtones of moral condemnation. They also contained detailed descriptions of the colorful New Orleans life, and the Creole dialect. During his life, Cable published 14 novels and collections of short stories. But critics found his later works overly sentimental and melodramatic, lacking the passion and focus of his earlier stories.

SATURDAY, 13 OCTOBER 2001
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Poem: "Memory Man," by Gavin Ewart from Selected Poems: 1933-1988 (New Directions).

Memory Man

I'm sitting drinking Guinness
in memory of you,
on the wall is written Finis
and although the love was true—
if I were more romantic I would say sublime—
it was not a love that lasted until closing time.

The glasses are being polished
as they shout 'Last orders, please!'
and illusions are demolished
with the same fantastic ease
as the ease with which Joe closes his democratic bar—
if I think of you now, it's 'you were' and not 'you are'.

Each man that loves a woman
must be prepared for this
for a sexual love is human
and betrayal by a kiss
is a commonplace and not just in the holy Book
and it all begins when your eyes take that first long look.

You must have the boldness
to overcome the moods,
the sulking and the coldness,
your love must feed on foods
which wouldn't keep alive a common tabby cat;
no one can have this without an awful lot of that.

So it's sadly time to drink up
and let them stack the chairs—
he's a wise man who can think up
a remedy that bears
much resemblance to an answer (Venus is a jerk?);
for that holiday is over—from now on it's back to work.

It's the birthday of singer and songwriter Paul Simon, born in Newark, New Jersey (1941). He grew up in Queens, New York, and attended Forest Hills High School where he met fellow musician Art Garfunkel. In 1957, the duo, performing under the name "Tom and Jerry," had their first big hit: Hey Schoolgirl. It sold 100,000 copies and got them an appearance on American Bandstand. For the first of many times, the two then went their separate ways—Simon to law school and Garfunkel to study architecture. In 1964, the pair briefly reunited and recorded an acoustic album called Wednesday Morning, 3 a.m., which did not do very well. They split up once again. However, one year later, without the duo's knowledge, Columbia Records added a folk-rock background to their song Sounds of Silence, and it became a No. 1 hit.

It's the birthday of comedian Lenny Bruce, born in Mineola, New York (1925), whose real name was Leonard Alfred Schneider, and who became one of the most controversial entertainers of the 1950s and '60s. He first appeared as a nightclub performer in Baltimore and in Brooklyn, New York. He gained national attention from a spot on the "Arthur Godfrey Show." But his humor sparked controversy wherever he performed. His act was largely improvised, and he included such taboo subjects as religion, sex, and politics. In 1961, Bruce was imprisoned on obscenity charges, and in 1963 he was refused permission to enter Britain, was banned from performing in Australia, and was arrested and found guilty of illegal possession of drugs. In 1964, Bruce was once again arrested after a performance in a New York nightclub. Nevertheless, two criminal court judges found that Bruce's performances were "patently offensive to the average person in the community, as judged by present-day standards." Nightclub owners, afraid of trouble with the law, stopped hiring him, and his career collapsed.

It's the birthday of novelist and screenwriter Ernest Kellogg Gann, born in Lincoln, Nebraska (1910). Gann served in the Army Air Force, Air Transport Command, from 1942 to 1946, and received the Distinguished Flying Award. When he began writing fiction, in 1944, he wrote about flying. Five of his novels about flying were made into films, including Island in the Sky (1944), Fiddler's Green (1950, filmed as The Raging Tide in 1951), Soldier of Fortune (1954), and Twilight for the Gods (1958).

It's the birthday of jazz pianist Art(hur) Tatum, born in Toledo, Ohio (1910).

It's the birthday of novelist and short-story writer Conrad Richter, born in Pine Grove, Pennsylvania (1890). The Sea of Grass (1937) was his first novel. It was followed by a trilogy called The Awakening Land, which consisted of The Trees (1940), The Fields (1946), and The Town (1950). The last volume won the Pulitzer Prize in 1951. One of Richter's best-known works is 1953's The Light in the Forest.

In 1843 on this day, the Jewish organization B'nai B'rith was founded in New York when 12 German-Jewish immigrants met on the Lower East Side to help others like themselves. They pooled their ideas and their funds and founded what would become one of the most enduring service organizations in the United States. The name B'nai B'rith means "Children of the Covenant."

SUNDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2001
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Poem: "13," by E. E. Cummings from 100 Selected Poems (Grove Weidenfeld).

13

who knows if the moon's
a balloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky—filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should

get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited,where

always
    it's
        Spring) and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves

It's the birthday of poet, essayist and feminist Katha Pollitt, born in New York City, New York (1949). Her verse was collected in a book called Antarctic Traveler in 1982, and it won the National Book Critics' Circle Award for best poetry. Since 1982, she has been affiliated with the liberal magazine The Nation, first as its literary editor, then as a contributing editor, and finally as associate editor.

It's the birthday of poet E(dward) E(stlin) Cummings, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1894), who became one of the most popular and most frequently anthologized poets of the 20th century. His poetry was known not only for its biting sarcasm and satire, but also for its experimentation with form, punctuation, spelling, and syntax. Cummings was a painter as well as a poet, and he included elements of visual arts in his writing. He said, "To be nobody but myself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting."

It's the birthday of short story writer Katherine Mansfield, born in Wellington, New Zealand, (1888), whose given name was Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp. A provocative figure in literature and in life, her motto in life was "risk, risk everything," and she once said, "I believe the greatest failing of all is to be frightened." At the age of 19, she left New Zealand to establish herself as a writer in England. While still in school, she had love affairs with both men and women, but fell in love with musician Garnet Trowell. While pregnant with his child, she married George Bowden, but left him on their wedding night and returned to Trowell. Her first book was a collection of stories called In a German Pension (1919). Shortly after its publication, Mansfield met John Middleton Murry, then editor of an obscure literary magazine, Rhythm. Mansfield at first became his assistant, then his lover, and the two were married after her divorce from Bowden was finalized. In 1915, Mansfield was visited in London by her brother Leslie. One month later he was killed in an accident. This devastated her, and she said she felt that "... nothing can ever be the same [again]." His death also influenced her to write about their childhood in New Zealand. This resulted in a 1918 story called "Prelude," which was eventually printed in the 1920 collection Bliss, and Other Stories. The autobiographical story changed the notion of what a story could be. It was essentially without plot; it simply set out to show the thoughts and feelings of a New Zealand family as they move from the town to the country. In 1922, Mansfield published her third collection, The Garden Party, and Other Stories, for which she is most famous. Mansfield died in 1923 from tuberculosis.

It's the birthday of religious advocate and Quaker William Penn, born in London, England, (1644). Brought up a Protestant, Penn became interested in Quakers in 1656, at the age of 12. Quakers emphasize a direct relationship with God, and believe that it is the individual's conscience, not the Bible, that is the ultimate authority on morals. In 1681, Penn convinced King Charles II to grant him a charter to establish an American colony, which became Pennsylvania. In 1682, he wrote the First Frame of Government, which anticipated the ideas in the Declaration of Independence. The document provided for secure private property, free enterprise, a free press, trial by jury, and religious tolerance.

In 1066 on this day, William the Conqueror defeated the English at the Battle of Hastings. In September of 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, left France with 600 ships and up to 10,000 men. He disembarked at Pevensy in Sussex, and moved along the coast to Hastings. Meanwhile, in the north of England, Harold II was fighting off his brother and an army of Vikings. When he heard of William's invasion, he hurried his bedraggled army south, to a ridge about 10 miles northeast of Hastings. William sent his army to attack, archers in front, infantrymen behind, and knights in the rear. Although the Normans suffered many early casualties, they feigned retreat twice, luring the Englishmen from their positions. They then turned and annihilated them. When Harold was killed, the leaderless army fought on for a while, then scattered. The victorious Normans moved on to London, where William I was crowned king on December 25.

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