History of My Birthday According to the Vast Knowledge of Wikipedia

Luisa tagged me to play this little historical game...and I couldn't resist. A, I love trivia. Especially historical trivia. Especially historical trivia about my very own birthday. And B, I was having a case of writer's block. So the tag was pure serendipity!

1. Go to Wikipedia and enter your birthday without the year:

August 4

2. List three events that occurred that day:

a)1821 - Atkinson and Alexander publish the Saturday Evening Post for the first time as a weekly newspaper.
b) 1944 - "A tip from a Dutch informer leads the Gestapo to a sealed-off area in an Amsterdam warehouse where they find Anne Frank and her family. Her diary was scattered all over the floor and eventually published by her father to become her well- known diary." When I discovered that this was the date of Anne's capture, after reading the diary when I was about nine years old, I felt like my birth date was forever besmirched. That diary made the Holocaust so real - here was this girl, just like me, scribbling in her diary...and she was killed because of hate. It's incomprehensible.
c)1971 - The US launches first satellite into lunar orbit from a manned spacecraft. Ah. Space travel. Did anyone else have to describe what the year 2000 would be like while in elementary school? I'm pretty sure I included easy access to the moon in that description...


3. List two important birthdays:

1792- Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet...what a life. If you've never read all of the rather (semi-sordid) dramatic adventures of Shelley's life, you're missing out.
1900-Elizabeth_Bowes-Lyon, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Today was my first time hearing this - during the second world war, "her seemingly indomitable spirit provided moral support to the British public, so much so that, in recognition of her role as a propaganda tool, Adolf Hitler described her as "the most dangerous woman in Europe." Wow.

4. List one death:

1741 - Andrew Hamilton, American lawyer. I love this quote from his defense of the press, saying that it holds "a liberty both of exposing and opposing tyrannical power by speaking and writing truth."

5. List one holiday or observance:

In El Salvador, it's Transfiguration Bank Holiday. I couldn't figure out what Transfiguration Bank Holiday actually is, but it sounds interesting. Or at least like people might get a day off out of school for it...


Now I'm tagging...Carrie and Betsy - please come out to play!