March 4

This Day in History

Also on This Day

Lead Story
FDR inaugurated, 1933
American Revolution
American forces occupy Dorchester Heights, 1776
Automotive
Scottish racing legend Jim Clark born, 1936
Civil War
Lincoln sworn in for first presidential term, 1861
Cold War
Dulles asks for action against communism, 1954
Crime
The head of Murder, Inc. is executed, 1944
Martha Stewart is released from prison, 2005
Disaster
DC-7 crashes in Cameroon swamp, 1962
General Interest
Government under the U.S. Constitution begins, 1789
Hollywood
John Candy dies, 1995
Literary
Ernest Hemingway finishes The Old Man and the Sea, 1952
Kite Runner author Khaled Hosseini is born, 1965
Music
John Lennon sparks his first major controversy, 1966
Old West
Founder of Chisholm Trail dies, 1868
Presidential
Jackson holds "open house" at the White House, 1829
Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis marry, 1952
Sports
Knute Rockne born, 1888
Vietnam War
Task Force sends memo to the president, 1968
World War I
Woodrow Wilson's first inaugural address, 1913
World War II
Britain launches Operation Claymore, 1941
Eighth Air Force bombs Berlin, 1944

Literary

Mar 4, 1965:

Kite Runner author Khaled Hosseini is born

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On this day in 1965, Khaled Hosseini, author of the best-selling novel “The Kite Runner,” is born in Kabul, Afghanistan. Hosseini’s semiautobiographical book was credited with helping to educate Western readers about Afghanistan, a country many of them knew little about.

As a child, Hosseini, the oldest of five siblings, lived in Afghanistan and Tehran, Iran, before moving with his family to Paris, France, in 1976 when his diplomat father was posted there by the Afghan Foreign Ministry. In 1980, the family, unable to return to their homeland, which had been invaded by the Soviet Union in 1979, was granted political asylum in America. They settled in San Jose, California, where Hosseini learned English at high school. In 1988, he graduated from Santa Clara University with a biology degree, and went on to earn a medical degree from the University of California-San Diego in 1993.

In the spring of 2001, while practicing internal medicine in California, Hosseini began writing “The Kite Runner,” the coming-of-age story of two Afghan boys in Kabul, one from a privileged background and the other a servant’s son. The novel is set against several decades of Afghan history, including the fall of the monarchy in 1973, the Soviet invasion and the rise of the Taliban regime in the 1990s, which was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion following the September, 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on United States. 

Hosseini, who had no formal training as an author, has credited his native country’s strong tradition of oral storytelling as an influence on his writing style. “The Kite Runner” was published in 2003, and eventually became an international best-seller. The novel has been translated into more than 40 languages, and a big-screen adaptation was released in 2007. That same year, Hosseini published his second novel, “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” which also became a best-seller.

With the success of his writing career, Hosseini, who gave up practicing medicine in 2004, established a foundation to provide humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people.

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This Week in History, Mar 4 - Mar 10

Mar 04, 1952
Ernest Hemingway finishes The Old Man and the Sea
Mar 04, 1965
Kite Runner author Khaled Hosseini is born
Mar 05, 1839
Charlotte Bronte declines marriage
Mar 06, 1928
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is born
Mar 07, 1923
"Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" is published
Mar 08, 1935
Thomas Wolfe's second novel, Of Time and the River, is published
Mar 09, 1913
Virginia Woolf delivers her first novel, The Voyage Out
Mar 10, 1926
First Book-of-the-Month Club selection is published

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