A precursor of this effect can be found in “The Mysteries of the Zodiac” in August Roterberg's New Era Card Tricks, 1897, p. 116, in which playing cards are associated with birthdays.

Max Maven has constructed this further history: First came Roy Walker's “The Weather Test” in Magic Wand, Vol. 21 No. 136, Dec. 1932, p. 189, which was a pseudo-memory test in which the performer demonstrated that he had total recall of the weather entries for every date in a “weather diary.” This inspired Tom Sellers to create a variation in which card hands were listed for each day in a diary, published in Magic Wand, Vol. 24 No. 166, June 1935, p. 67. Then followed Arthur F. G. Carter's “Diary of a Yogi” in Magic Wand, Vol. 42 No. 238, June 1953, p. 59, in which a freely named card matched the one entered on a spectator's birthday in a datebook. Nearly two decades later, Ted Danson contributed “It's a Date” to New Pentagram, Vol. 2 No. 1, Mar. 1970, p. 1. This became known and was marketed as “Danson's Diary.” From that point, many other approaches have been published or marketed by Elmsley, Cassidy, Duffie, Cornelius, Paul Green, etc.

(For a history of this effect, see also The Collected Works of Alex Elmsley, Volume II, 1994, p. 433.)

• Category in Denis Behr's "Conjuring Archive"