1939: Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt informing him that construction of a nuclear weapon would soon be possible based on scientists' research in nuclear chain reactions from enriched uranium. (Source: FDR Presidential Library and Museum)

1924: Novelist, essayist, and playwright James Baldwin was born in New York City. The eldest of nine children, Baldwin grew up in poverty-stricken Harlem, where his stepfather was a preacher. Between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, Baldwin himself preached at a small revivalist church, the Fireside Pentecostal. His first and most critically acclaimed novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), was inspired by his experiences there. Baldwin was heavily influenced by his Harlem middle school-French teacher, famed poet Countee Cullen. (Source: Library of Congress)