The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Today is the first day of spring, or the vernal equinox, when the earth’s axis is aligned with the center of the sun. The word equinox comes from Latin: aequus means equal, level, or calm; nox means night, or darkness. The equinox, in spring or fall, is a time when the day and night are as close to equal as they ever are, and when the hours of night are exactly equal for people living equidistant from the equator either north or south.

It’s the birthday of the Roman poet Ovid (books by this author), born Publius Ovidius Naso in what is now Sulmo, Italy (43 B.C.). He became a famous, beloved poet in Rome, privy to the inner circles of the court. He published erotic poems, including his Ars Amatoria (2 A.D.), which instructed people on the arts of seduction and lovemaking. And he wrote Metamorphoses (8 A.D.), for which he is best remembered today. It traces Greek and Roman mythology through the lens of humans’ metamorphoses into other objects — plants, stones, stars, and animals.

But then suddenly, in 8 A.D., he was exiled, and even today nobody knows why. In his writings, he talks about Emperor Augustus’ anger toward him, and he alludes to having seen something he shouldn’t have seen, but nothing more specific. Whatever the reason, Ovid was sent to Tomi, in what is now Romania, and he was isolated and lonely, longing for his beloved Rome. But even after Augustus died, the next emperor, Tiberius, did not allow Ovid back, and he died in Tomi after about 10 years in exile.

It’s the birthday of playwright Henrik Ibsen (books by this author), born in Skien, Norway (1828). At the age of 15, he dropped out of school to apprentice with an apothecary. He earned room and board but nothing else. At the age of 18, he fathered a son with a servant, but he never met the boy. A couple of years later Ibsen wrote a letter to the town judge, who was deciding how much child support Ibsen would pay over the next 15 years; he wrote: “I am now in my twentieth year; I own absolutely nothing, except some shabby clothes, shoes and linen.”

He published a couple of plays that were widely ignored. He considered attending university, but he didn’t pass his entrance exams. He got a job as a theater director in Bergen, and continued to write and publish plays without success. He moved to Christiania (now Oslo) as the artistic director of another theater, got married, and had a son. The Ibsens were very poor. They moved frequently, their apartments becoming cheaper and shabbier as the years went on. Ibsen was regularly sued for debt — 10 times in the year 1861 alone. In 1862, the theater closed and he lost his job. His drinking grew worse. The next year, a friend and rival playwright was awarded a stipend for life from the Norwegian parliament, but they turned down Ibsen’s application. Instead, they gave him partial funding for a travel grant. His friends and supporters scraped together enough money to fund the rest — one man remembered that arts patrons were asked to donate so that “the drunken poet Henrik Ibsen” could travel to Europe. In 1864, the Ibsens left for Italy, and he didn’t return to Norway for 27 years.

In a beautiful country village near Rome, Ibsen went to work. He conjured up memories of Norway and wrote a tragic play about a priest struggling with fundamental moral and theological issues, a long play in verse intended to be read, not staged. That play, Brand (1865), made him famous, and he followed it up with the even more successful Peer Gynt (1867). His other works include A Doll’s House (1879), An Enemy of the People (1882), The Wild Duck (1884), and Hedda Gabler (1890).

It was on this day in 1854 that the Republican Party was founded. The name “Republican” was first used many years before by Thomas Jefferson’s political party, the Democratic Republican Party. That name was shortened to the Democratic Party, which is what we call it today. The present-day Republican Party was formed by opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and by members of other parties, like the Democratic and Whig parties, who disagreed with their parties’ positions on slavery. By 1855, the Republican Party was thriving in the North, while it had almost no following in the South. The Republican Party’s first successful candidate for president of the United States was Abraham Lincoln, who was elected in 1860.

It’s the birthday of psychologist B.F. (Burrhus Frederic) Skinner, born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania (1904). He was the leading exponent of the school of psychology known as behaviorism, which explains the behavior of humans and animals in terms of their psychological responses to external stimuli. He coined the term operant conditioning to describe the phenomenon of learning as a result of an organism responding to its environment. He did extensive research with animals, notably rats and pigeons, and invented the famous Skinner box, in which a rat learns to press a lever in order to obtain food.

And it’s the birthday of beloved children’s television host Fred Rogers, born in 1928 in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

In 1962, Rogers earned a divinity degree from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and he was ordained by the Presbyterian Church. Rogers continued his work in television, appearing on camera for the first time in 1963 on his new show, Misterogers, which was aired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This show would evolve into Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which was seen nationally for the first time in 1968.

The show, which began with Rogers singing “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” and changing into sneakers and a cardigan, would go on to become the longest-running show on PBS. The program featured themes like feeling good about yourself, getting along with others, and handling fears. Rogers wrote more than 200 songs for the show. The last episode was taped in December 2000.