The Lighthouse Channel Archive

March 30 was the 200th birthday of Robert Bunsen, the famous chemist who invented the Bunsen burner. Remember? In your high school chemistry class?

Perhaps William Shakespeare's most famous sonnet. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate."


Writer Nelson Algren was born March 28, 1909. He wss the author of The Man With the Golden Arm, winner of the 1950 National Book Award. Actor Willem Dafoe reads from Algren's "The Lightless Room", an 1939 story published for the first time in Entrapment and Other Writings from Seven Stories Press.


Poet Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874 in San Francisco, but spent formative years in New England, to which he returned throughout his life. This two-minute clip of Frost talking to students is part of a 40-minute video produced by WGBH Educational Foundation.

Here is an article we published last year about Robert Frost's first book.


Georgia writer Flannery O'Connor was born on March 25, 1925. This is a lecture given by Professor Amy Hungerford at Yale University. It is a little long but fascinating if you are interested in O'Connor.


The process for printing a book has changed quite a bit since this film was made.