From yesterday's Writer's Almanac: It's the birthday of poet Ernest Thayer, born in Lawrence, Massachusetts (1863). He went to Harvard, where he studied philosophy with William James and wrote for the Harvard Lampoon. After graduation, his fellow Lampoon writer William Randolph Hearst convinced Thayer to come to San Francisco, because his father, George Hearst, had bought the San Francisco Examiner and almost... Continue Reading →