26 June 2007

Fun facts

In the past few days, I've seen this on Melanie's, Scarlett's, and Kim's blogs, with some variations. Since I love this kind of thing, I'm going to play along.

Here is the basic gist of it: go to Wikipedia, type in your birth date, not including the year, and then name three births on that day in history, three deaths, and three other interesting facts.

I share a birthday with these people:

1879 - Albert Einstein (he died the year before I was born - perhaps I am his replacement?? ... except I am extremely math/science impaired ...)
1887 - Sylvia Beach (who in 1922, published Ulysses when James Joyce was otherwise unable to get it published in English-speaking countries)
1912 - Les Brown (anyone else remember "Les Brown and His Band of Renown"? God, I'm old ...)

These people died on my birthday:

968 - Mathilda of Ringelheim (a German queen. Who doesn't miss her, you know?)
1883 - Karl Marx (I don't think Groucho or Harpo had been born yet ...)
1976 - Busby Berkeley (I love those movies!)

I have chosen these three as the interesting events:

1794 - Eli Whitney is granted a patent for the cotton gin.
1942 - John Bumstead and Orvan Hess become the first in the world to treat a patient, Anne Miller, with penicillin.
1964 - A jury in Dallas, Texas, finds Jack Ruby guilty of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy.

And, I'm adding that these special observances occur(red) on my birthday:

Equirria - horse races in honor of Mars were held in the Roman Empire.
Worldwide Pi Day (I was pretty excited about this, until I realized it was "pi" not "pie.")
Feast Day of St. Mathilda (of Ringelheim!!!)

I also poked around, and looked to see what happened on The Tim's birthday, and was highly amused. I'll have to share those with you another time.

I'm not going to "tag" anyone to do this after me, but if you enjoy "This Day in History" kind of stuff, feel free to see what comes up!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You so know I was all over this (October 10th):

1) My fave event was this: 1582 - Due to the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.

2) OMG! I share a birthday with Bai Ling! BAI LING! I thought David Lee Roth was cool but--BAI LING!

3) I've known forever that I kilt Yul Brynner.

4) I love that I occasionally get Columbus Day as my personal holiday but am much amused that it is also World Mental Health Day. Everyone take a day off in my honor. You deserve it!

Anonymous said...

BAI LING!

teabird said...

Sylvia Beach! Way cool.

Romi said...

I love these! Very very cool. :)

Anonymous said...

I know Les Brown and his Band of Renown but who doesn't? C'mon. (No, we had a huge jazz festival thing in my teens and I either met a ton of people or was introduced to their music.)

So Karl is the oldest Marx Brother? lol.

I can see where you would be the perfect replacement for Einstein, in all opposing ways...

the wicked witch of the east said...

the bai-ling thing is killer...but sharing a birthday w/ policewoman rocks harder...take that einstein...