1925 – Scopes Trial begins In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called “Monkey Trial”. John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher, accused of teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state law.

audio • this week’s On the Media from NPR has a piece on the history of the Freedom of Information Act.

birthday boy • 1871 – Marcel Proust, French writer (d. 1922) a recipe for Madeleines.

audio • from NPR reviews of The Poe Shadow, by Matthew Pearl, and Louis Bayard’s The Pale Blue Eye which both prove that Edgar Allen Poe isn’t really dead.

birthday girls
• 1923 – Jean Kerr, American author (d. 2003) – Please don’t eat the daisies.
• 1931 – Alice Munro, Canadian writer

sounds reasonable • A woman moving from Butte, Montana to Portland, Oregon, would rather give 35-thousand books to a charity, than transport them.

something new • a review of Jason Roberts’ book “A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler”

banktoaster • Pigpog a blog for unleashing creativity, has a field guide to mechanical pencils as well as one on pens. The things you find while looking for other things.