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The birthday speech is a combination of a speech to inform and a story or narrative. Your assignment is to prepare a classroom presentation that focuses on four (4) newsworthy events that happened either on the day or during the week (seven (7) days) immediately before or immediately following the day you were born (a total of 14 days to consider). (See actual assignment for more detail)
These resources will be helpful in identifying the most significant events of the time.
Reference Books
| *American Decades | Reference E 169.12 .A419 | |
| *Chronology of the United States | Reference E 174.5 .C63 1997 | |
| *Day by Day: The Eighties | Reference D 427 .D3x | |
| *Day by Day: The Nineties | Reference D856 .A93 | |
| *Facts on File | Reference D 410 .F3 |
Magazines and Newspapers
Browse through the headlines or featured articles in any of the nation's "news" sources. Many of the older issues are on microfilm. Note the dates the Library has available. Some titles to consider are:
| *Time | 1923 to present | |
| *Newsweek | 1933 to present | |
| *US News and World Report | 1948 to present | |
| *Nation | 1929 to present | |
| *National Review | 1956 to present | |
| *People (Weekly) | 1978 to present | |
| *Business Week | 1950 to present | |
| *Economist | 1953 to present | |
| *Sports Illustrated | 1954 to present | |
| *Chicago Tribune | 1972 to present | |
| *Christian Science Monitor | 1983 to present | |
| *New York Times | 1851 to present | |
| *Wall Street Journal | 1974 to present |
You may also look at some of the on-line covers and table of contents of the major news sources. DON'T ask to see the articles though, you will be asked to pay a fee and you can find the same articles in the Library's databases listed below. Time is one of the major news magazines online that is set up for browsing, just click on Past Covers. Remember that the date on most weekly news magazines, such as Time, is usually the date is is pulled off the store shelves. For example on May 15th the issue dated May 22nd is distributed.
You may also use some of the databases listed below to locate events, but it is easier to distinguish the more important events using the print resources
If you browsed through sources to find your events you will have already discovered some articles on your topics. You probably want to find more from different sources so that you can see different viewpoints. If your event was really historically significant you may want later articles that include more long-term evaluation of the event. You can usually use the Library's databases for this type of search, but remember
General Databases
| *Academic OneFile | 1980 to present | |
| *Academic Search Premier | ???? to present |
Newspaper Databases
Note, most of the full text newspapers are national news.
| *Chicago Tribune & Chicago Tribune Historical | 1847 to present | |
| *Christian Science Monitor | 1988 to present | |
| *New York Times & New York Times Historical | 1851 to present | |
| * Wall Street Journal | 1984 to present | |
| *Washington Post | 1989 to present |
5 September 2008
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