July 11

This Day in History

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Lead Story
Burr slays Hamilton in duel, 1804
American Revolution
British evacuate Savannah, Georgia, 1782
Automotive
President Woodrow Wilson signs Federal Aid Road Act, 1916
Civil War
Union notches a victory at the Battle of Rich Mountain, 1861
Cold War
Soviets agree to hand over power in West Berlin, 1945
Crime
Barefoot Bandit is captured in the Bahamas, 2010
Disaster
Gas fire incinerates crowded campsite, 1978
General Interest
First Quaker colonists land at Boston, 1656
Skylab crashes to Earth, 1979
U.S. establishes diplomatic relations with Vietnam, 1995
Hollywood
Hollywood Bowl opens, 1922
Literary
"Charlotte's Web" author E.B. White born, 1899
Music
The Hollwood Argyles' "Alley Oop" leads a novelty-song outbreak, 1960
Old West
Tall Bull dies, 1869
Presidential
John Quincy Adams is born, 1767
Sports
Babe Ruth makes MLB debut, 1914
Vietnam War
Public opinion approves bombing of North Vietnam, 1966
Senators debate U.S. policy in Vietnam, 1967
Thieu challenges NLF to participate in free elections, 1969
World War I
German command makes final plans for renewed offensive on the Western Front, 1918
World War II
Hitler is paid a visit by his would-be assassin, 1944

Literary

Jul 11, 1899:

"Charlotte's Web" author E.B. White born

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On this day in 1899, E.B. White, the author of the popular children’s novels “Charlotte’s Web,” “Stuart Little” and “The Trumpet of the Swan,” is born in Mount Vernon, New York. White, a longtime contributor to The New Yorker magazine who was known for his graceful, witty prose, also updated and expanded “The Elements of Style,” an English usage guide that remains a standard text for many high school and college students.

Elwyn Brooks White was the son of a piano manufacturer and the youngest of six children. He attended Cornell University, where he edited the school newspaper and was dubbed Andy, a nickname given to students with the last name White, after Andrew D. White, the university’s first president. After graduating from Cornell in 1921, White worked as a newspaper reporter and a production assistant and copywriter for an advertising agency. In 1927, he joined the staff of The New Yorker, which had been founded two years earlier. White, along with his friend and fellow writer James Thurber, is credited with playing a central role in shaping the magazine’s tone and direction. For over 50 years, White contributed essays, poems and other pieces to the publication.

In the 1930s, White and his wife, Katherine Sergeant Angell, a writer and editor whom he met at The New Yorker, moved to a farm in Maine. In 1945, he published his first children’s novel, “Stuart Little,” about a mouse born into a human family. The book was followed in 1952 by “Charlotte’s Web,” about a pig on a farm who is saved from being slaughtered with the help of a spider named Charlotte. The story was inspired by life on White’s own farm. His third children’s book, “The Trumpet of the Swan,” about a swan born without a voice, was published in 1970. All three works were critical and commercial successes, selling millions of copies. The books have also been made into films.

In 1959, White reworked “The Elements of Style,” a handbook that was first published privately in 1918 by his former Cornell professor William Strunk. The book, which White went on to update several times for new editions, contains such practical advice as: ''Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary part.''

White received numerous awards during his career, including an honorary Pulitzer Prize in 1978 for the body of his work. He died at age 86 on October 1, 1985, at his home in North Brooklin, Maine, after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. At a memorial service, New Yorker writer Roger Angell said of his famously shy stepfather: “If E.B. White could be here today, he wouldn’t be here.”

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This Week in History, Jul 11 - Jul 17

Jul 11, 1899
"Charlotte's Web" author E.B. White born
Jul 12, 1389
Geoffrey Chaucer is named chief clerk by Richard II
Jul 13, 1798
Wordsworth visits Tintern Abbey
Jul 14, 1811
Byron returns to England after a two-year trip
Jul 15, 1919
Iris Murdoch is born
Jul 16, 1951
Catcher in the Rye is published
Jul 17, 1889
Erle Stanley Gardner is born

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