Interesting Facts

4th November 1783 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Symphony No. 36 was performed for the first time in Linz, Austria. 1839 – The Newport Rising took place, which is the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority on mainland Britain. 1847 – Sir James Young Simpson, a British physician, discovered the anaesthetic properties of chloroform. 1918 – Wilfred Owen, English soldier and poet died, 6 days before the end of the war. 1922 – British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men found the entrance to Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. 1952 – The United States government established the National Security Agency, or NSA. 1999 - Wallace and Gromit's animated adventure A Grand Day Out was first shown. 2008 – Barack Obama became the first man of African-American descent to be elected President of the United States.

23rd April 1564 - The Bard, William Shakespeare, is said to have been born on the 23rd of April. So, if he were still alive, he would be well over 400 years old today. Of course no one really knows the exact date of his birth because these things weren't so well regulated back then, but this date has been chosen for him, and it's the thought that counts.  Happy Birthday Will! We do know that he was baptised on April 26th, and that he died on April 23rd 1616. 

21st April Queen Elizabeth turns 90. This is her "real" birthday. She was born at 2.40am on 21 April 1926 at 17 Bruton Street in Mayfair, London.   Happy Birthday

31st July Harry Potter's birthday Purely coincidentally JK Rowling's birthday too. Oh, and Harry is 35!  

100-year-old Margaret Jacobs has celebrated her birthday on the wrong day for almost a century. (The mistake only came to light when the centenarian received a telegram for her hundredth birthday from the Queen. Mrs Jacobs, from Treuddyn, Flintshire, had been celebrating every April 24th, but her birth certificate says she was actually born four days later on April 28th. Mrs Jacobs' daughter, Olivia Santos, said: "We think when my grandfather went to register my mother's birth, and they put on the date of registration." So, really she's been celebrating the right day, and the Queen got it wrong.)

14th May 2014 is Donate a Day's Wages to Charity Day (no use me doing that then - one day I'll be able to pay myself). It's also Mark Zuckerberg's 30th birthday, but his salary is only $1.60 per year. It's also Chicken Dance day. You can decide which, if any to celebrate.  

4th February Facebook is 10 years old. (It's now worth an estimated £80 billion.  Happy birthday Facebook.)

According to a study published in the journal Psychological Science, singing Happy Birthday before having a slice of cake makes it taste better. (The study shows that performing rituals before eating food can make it taste better. It works by creating what the psychologists call an 'intrinsic interest' in the food, which draws you into the experience of eating and boosts any positive feelings towards it. I wonder if it would work on a plate of spinach?)

Happy 65th birthday to the NHS (the National Health Service).

It's Mark Zuckerberg's birthday today, he was born on May 14, 1984, but that's not what's interesting. (He is now 29 years old, and that means that on average, he's managed to earn around £820,000 a day during his lifetime. Funnily though, there's no Google Doodle to mark this occasion. Well, never mind, happy birthday anyway Mr Zuckerberg.  I hope someone bakes you a cake.)

According to research led by the University of Zurich's Dr Vladeta Ajdacic-Gross, you are 14% more likely to die on your birthday than on any other day of the year. (The research analysed data from 2.5 million deaths in Switzerland between 1969 and 2008, and it doesn't seem to matter what age you are, or what sex. The researchers put it nicely, "birthdays… appear to end up in a lethal way more frequently than expected ." Chillingly Professor David Spiegelhalter, a statistician from Cambridge University, says " It's purely a birthday effect." So, if it's your birthday today... Be careful out there.)