The Fifth of January

Upon the purchase of my wonderful new Where's Wally calendar, I decided that I would write up the birthdays of all my favourite authors.  You see, I want to be able to use the birthdays as fuel for blog posts and even challenges, perhaps something along the lines of, "favourite quote, book etcetera from that author and I'll post you a copy of such-and-such book", or something like that.  My mum keeps saying that it's about time I did something a bit different like that. 

Anyhow, while I was filtering through my newly revised catalogue of the "dates of birth and death or major authors and publications between 1500 and 2000",  rediscovered, with equal shock and consternation, that my sister shares a birthday with J. R. R. Tolkien!  And both celebrate their birthday a mere two days before mine!  Which in turn leads me to be utterly horrified that I missed sharing a birthday with one of the greatest authors who ever lived by two days. 

Well, instead, to brighten my spirits, I thought it would be both amusing and pretty cool to look at what did take place on my birthday...:

First of all, people I share a birthday with:

• 5th Jan, 1956, Dianne Keaton, American actress who I love from Woody Allen classics

• 5th Jan, 1829, Sir Roger Tichborne, missing U.K. heir who was the subject of the longest criminal trial in British history

• 5th Jan, 1908, George Dolenz, Italian actor in the Count of Monte Cristo

• 5th Jan, 1926, William De Witt Snodgrass, American poet

• 5th Jan, 1923, Robert L Bernstein, Random House publisher

• 5th Jan, 1834, William John Wills, English explorer of Australia and member of Burke and Wills expedition

• 5th Jan, 1914, George Reeves, American actor famous for his role as Superman

   

 And then events:

• 5th Jan, 1950, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” hits #1 on the Billboard Pop Chart

• 5th Jan, 1981, the murderer known as the 'Yorkshire Ripper' is arrested

• 5th Jan, 1982, tragic landslide near San Francisco kills 33 people

So I suppose in that case, I'm quite well off anyway, then.