fun with wikipedia.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes, guys! My friends took me to Graze, Ramona's restaurant, and we looooved it. I noticed a birthday meme going around--coincidence? I think not--at Pomo Golightly, January One, and Saving Nine, among others. The idea is to search for your birthdate, sans year, at Wikipedia and see what you come up with, then list three events, three births, and three deaths. (I'm not always really strict about following meme rules, so if I list more than three, just chalk it up to my being a supercool lawbreakin' badass and not to my inability to count.)

Events
1742 - George Frideric Handel's oratorio Messiah makes its world-premiere in Dublin, Ireland.

1861 - American Civil War: Fort Sumter surrenders to rebel forces.

1970 - An oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 explodes, putting the crew into deadly peril. The explosion occurred on April 14th in several time zones.

Births
1519 - Catherine de Medici, wife of Henry II of France%

1743 - Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States (d. 1826) [The weird thing about this is, my parents (who have the same birthday) were born on Lincoln's birthday, my older sister was born on Patrick Henry's birthday, and my younger sister missed Washington's birthday by one day.]

1866 - Butch Cassidy, American outlaw (d. 1908)

1946 - Al Green, American singer and pastor

1949 - Christopher Hitchens, English-born journalist, critic, and author

Deaths--not a lot of people were listed as dying on my birthday, and very few that I'd actually heard of, so I picked the ones with the coolest names. Imagine if they all got group-married and hyphenated!

814 - Krum, khan of Bulgaria

1941 - Annie Jump Cannon, American astronomer (b. 1863)

1997 - Dorothy Frooks, American author, publisher, military figure, and actress (b. 1896)

2002 - Desmond Titterington, Northern Irish racecar driver (b. 1928)

"Hello, I'm Mrs. Jump Cannon-Krum-Frooks-Titterington. Call me Annie."