The Calendar of Literary Facts contains more than 6,500 events in literary history.

Margaret Walker publishes For My People

Joao Cabral de Melo Neto publishes Pedra do sono

Upton Sinclair publishes Dragon’s Teeth

Josephine Hart is born

Albert Camus publishes L’Etranger (The Stranger)

Earle Birney publishes David and Other Poems

William Rose Benét receives the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for The Dust Which Is God

Thornton Wilder publishes The Skin of Our Teeth

Robert Frost publishes A Witness Tree

In deciding the case of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, the U.S. Supreme Court declares that obscenity, libel, and “fighting words” are forms of speech unprotected by the First Amendment

First electronic computer is developed in the U.S.

The “Manhattan Project,” a top-secret atomic-research project, begins

Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution,” the mass-extermination of European Jews, begins

Scientist Enrico Fermi oversees the first controlled nuclear reaction

C. S. Lewis publishes The Screwtape Letters

Ellen Glasgow receives the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for In This Our Life

MacKinlay Kantor publishes Angleworms on Toast

Pat Mora is born

Explore: Legal Alien, Pat Mora

William Alexander Percy dies

Susan Hill is born

Explore: Susan Hill

Haki R. Madhubuti is born

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John Saul is born

John Irving is born

Explore: The Cider House Rules, John Irving

Erica Jong is born

Explore: Fanny, Fear of Flying, Erica Jong

Samuel R. Delany is born

Explore: Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany, Babel-17

L. M. Montgomery dies

Explore: Anne of Green Gables

Ariel Dorfman is born

Explore: Death and the Maiden, Ariel Dorfman

Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner is published

Explore: Go Down, Moses, William Faulkner

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is established in Chicago

Patsauq Markoosie is born

Henry Taylor is born

Explore: Henry Taylor

Michel Tremblay is born

Explore: Michel Tremblay

Roberto Arlt dies

Jack Miles is born

Explore: Jack Miles

Isabel Allende is born

Explore: House of the Spirits, And of Clay Are We Created, Isabel Allende

Garrison Keillor is born

Explore: Lake Wobegon Days, Garrison Keillor

Joseph Bruchac III is born

Michael Crichton is born

Explore: Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Michael Crichton

Martin Cruz Smith is born

Explore: Gorky Park, Red Square, Martin Cruz Smith

Sharon Olds is born

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Marilyn Hacker is born

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Peter Handke is born

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Dave Smith is born

Explore: Dave Smith

Matt Cohen is born

Explore: Matt Cohen