My husband so enjoyed my Wikipedia Meme about the day I was born that he looked up his own info and boy were there some neat things that happened on his birthday (November 21)! I was so impressed, I decided to repost the whole meme using all three of our family birthdays, so we can always have these great little tidbits at our disposal – might make for some interesting home made birthday cards! (i.e. “Happy Birthday Husband – and also, Happy World Television Day!”)

So let’s see what great things happened on each of our respective days of birth, shall we? This time I’m not going to limit by number, simply show the most interesting things from each date:

dh (November 21)

Famous Events

• 164 BC – Judas Maccabaeus, son of Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, restores the Temple in Jerusalem. Events commemorated each year by the festival of Hanukkah.
• 1272 – Following Henry III of England‘s death on November 16, his son Prince Edward becomes King of England.
• Plymouth Colony settlers sign the Mayflower Compact (November 11, O.S.).
• 1783 – In Paris, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, Marquis d’Arlandes, make the first untethered hot air balloon flight.
• 1877 – Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound.
• 1905 – Albert Einstein‘s paper, “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?”, is published in the journal “Annalen der Physik”. This paper reveals the relationship between energy and mass. This leads to the mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc².
• 1995 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 5,000 (5,023.55) for the first time.

Famous Births

• 1694 – Voltaire, French philosopher (d. 1778)
• 1744 – Abigail Adams, first lady of the second president of the u.s (d. 1818)
• 1854 – Pope Benedict XV (d. 1922)
• 1924 – Christopher Tolkien, British author
• 1945 – Goldie Hawn, American actress
• 1952 – Lorna Luft, American actress and singer, daughter of Judy Garland
• 1965 – Björk, Icelandic singer
• 1985 – My Husband

Holidays & Observances

• R.C. Saints – Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
• Bangladesh – Armed Forces Day in Bangladesh
• World Television Day
• World Hello Day
• Brazil – Our Lady of Apresentação (Nossa Senhora da Apresentação) Day, City of Natal only

MLM (April 7)

Famous Events

• 1348 – Charles University is founded in Prague.
• 1795 – France adopts the metre as the basic measure of length.
• 1805 – First public performance of Beethoven’s Third Symphony (Eroica).
• 1927 – First distance public television broadcast (from Washington, DC to New York City, displaying the image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover).
• 1940 – Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.
• 1948 – The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations.
• 1969 – The Internet‘s symbolic birth date: publication of RFC 1.
• 2001 – Mars Odyssey is launched.

Famous Births

• 1652 – Pope Clement XII (d. 1740)
• 1770 – William Wordsworth, English poet (d. 1850)
• 1859 – Walter Camp, sports authority known as the “Father of American Football” (d. 1925)
• 1860 – Will Keith Kellogg, American cereal manufacturer (d. 1951)
• 1915 – Billie Holiday, American singer (d. 1959)
• 1933 – Wayne Rogers, American actor
• 1939 – Francis Ford Coppola, American film director
• 1954 – Jackie Chan, Chinese actor, action choreographer, film director, producer, martial artist, comedian, screenwriter, singer and stunt performer.
• 1964 – Russell Crowe, New Zealand actor
• 1965 – Bill Bellamy, American actor and comedian
• 2006 – My Little Monkey (MLM)

Holidays and Observances

• World Health Day – Celebrated by the 191 member countries of the World Health Organization
• Mozambique – Women’s Day.
• The feast of Annunciation is celebrated by the Western Orthodox Church.
• Saint John Baptist de La Salle (d. 1719)

ME (December 24)

Famous Events

• 563 – The Byzantine church Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is dedicated for the second time after being destroyed by earthquakes.
• 1294 – Pope Boniface VIII is elected Pope, replacing St. Celestine V, who had abdicated.
• 1777 – Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, is discovered by James Cook.
• 1865 – Several U.S. Civil War Confederate veterans form the Ku Klux Klan.
• 1906 – Radio: Reginald Fessenden transmits the first radio broadcast; consisting of a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech.
• 1914 – World War I: The “Christmas truce” begins.
• 1968 – Apollo Program: The crew of Apollo 8 enters into orbit around the Moon, becoming the first humans to do so. They performed 10 lunar orbits and broadcast live TV pictures that became the famous Christmas Eve Broadcast, one of the most watched programs in history.

Famous Births

• 1166 – King John of England (d. 1216)
• 1880 – Johnny Gruelle, American cartoonist, children’s book writer and creator of Raggedy Ann (d. 1939)
• 1907 – I. F. Stone, American journalist (d. 1989)
• 1910 – Max Miedinger, typeface designer, famous for creating Helvetica in 1957. (d. 1980)
• 1922 – Ava Gardner, American actress (d. 1990)
• 1923 – George Patton IV, American general (d. 2004)
• 1927 – Mary Higgins Clark, American author
• 1973 – Stephenie Meyer, Author
• 1974 – Ryan Seacrest, American television host

Holidays and Observances

• Christmas Eve
• Calendar of saints: Feast of Saint Adela and Saint Irmina.
• It is the day when food is traditionally set out for Santa Claus and his reindeer in some parts of the world.
• In Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic, among others, this is the day that presents are exchanged and opened. In some of these countries, presents are delivered to children by Santa Claus, personified by an adult dressed up as Santa who comes knocking on the door.
• The Declaration of Christmas Peace takes place in the Old Great Square of Turku, Finland‘s official Christmas City, according to old traditions dating back to the Middle Ages.
• Grand High Climax, a major holiday in the Satanic religion, is celebrated at nightfall.