The Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1851 that the first edition of The New York Times was published. Its original name was The New-York Daily Times, and each copy cost one cent.

Today is the birthday of Ken Kesey (1935), author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

It's the birthday of Curious George creator H. A. Rey, who escaped Paris on a pair of bicycles with wife and collaborator Margret Rey just before the Nazi invasion in June 1940.

It was on this day in 1835 that the passengers and crew of the HMS Beagle, including 26-year-old Charles Darwin, reached the Galapagos Islands.

George Frideric Handel completed the Messiah oratorio on this date in 1741. It was originally written for the Easter season, but became a Christmastime favorite.

On this date in 1848, railroad worker Phineas Gage survived having an iron rod driven through his skull. His friends noticed dramatic changes in his personality, and Gage became a famous patient in neuroscience.

It's the birthday of publisher Alfred A. Knopf, born in New York City in 1892. He started his own publishing house when he was 23 years old.

The Hope Diamond was stolen on this date in 1792 during the French Revolution. Rumored to be cursed, it now lives in the National Museum of Natural History in the United States.

It's the birthday of poet Mary Oliver, who said of her career in art: "I was very careful never to take an interesting job...if you have an interesting job you get interested in it."

It was on this day in 1830 that the first American aeronaut, a man named Charles Durant, completed his first balloon flight. The flight took about three hours, and he landed in a farm field, surprising a New Jersey farmer by the name of Johnson.

It was on this day in 1504 that Michelangelo unveiled his sculpture David. Two other sculptors had tried and failed to finish the sculpture before the 26-year-old Michelangelo accepted the commission.

It was on this day that the poet Guillaume Apollinaire was wrongfully thrown into jail in Paris on charges of stealing the Mona Lisa, which had gone missing from the Louvre two and a half weeks earlier.

It's the birthday of Alice Sebold, author of the best-selling novel The Lovely Bones.

It was on this day in 1957 that Jack Kerouac published On the Road, which told the story of Kerouac's & his friend Neal Cassady's hitchhiking adventures from 10 years before.

Twenty years ago on this day, Google was incorporated as a company. In June of 2006, just under eight years after that, "Google" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb.