Happy Birthday to Me! · 6:50am Jul 19th, 2015
Some people regret or fear the progress of time. Generally speaking I'm not a fan of it myself, especially given the lack of being able to go back. There's a certain day that's an exception to that, though, and that day would be July 19th - today! I am now 28!
Some important, or just interesting, events from history, with commentary:
1702 – Great Northern War: A numerically superior Polish-Saxon army of Augustus II the Strong, operating from an advantageous defensive position, is defeated by a Swedish army half its size under the command of King Charles XII in the Battle of Klissow. The Swedes were totally hitting way above their weight class for awhile there; they were very nearly a Great Power.
1821 – Coronation of George IV of the United Kingdom. Not the best King of England - actually pretty bad. But still! Kingship!
1870 – Franco-Prussian War: France declares war on Prussia. Assuming that I haven't changed history in Vicky 2 again.
1963 – Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 meters (347,800 feet) on X-15 Flight 90. Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualifies as a human spaceflight under international convention. Whee!
1981 – In a private meeting with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, French Prime Minister François Mitterrand reveals the existence of the Farewell Dossier, a collection of documents showing that the Soviets had been stealing American technological research and development. Good job, France. Almost makes you forget the whole "withdrew from NATO" thing.
Other People's Birthdays:
1814 – Samuel Colt, American businessman, founded the Colt's Manufacturing Company (d. 1862) Bang!
1869 – Xenophon Stratigos, Greek general (d. 1927) I actually know nothing about this guy, but he has an awesome name.
1947 – Brian May, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer HELLS YEAH I share a birthday with the guitarist for Queen!
1956 – K.A. Applegate, American author In truth, Animorphs had more influence on me as a writer than just about any other source, so this is pretty awesome to know.
July 19th is also the first day of the Roman holiday of Lucaria. The deity for whom it was celebrated is unknown and possibly deliberately anonymous, though it may connect to Neptune, who was originally a god of fresh water and only became associated with salt water (the sea) when the Romans started worshipping Greece-sempai.
Yay! Happy birthday!
Happy birthday!
Me too actually, if more so in that those were the first books I can ever actually remember enjoying. I could read through three of them in a day. At my peek I was even dreaming in written text. Not dreaming about reading, but rather my dreams were wholly composed of text and nothing else...
If not for Animorphs I might never have gained any appreciation for reading, and so by extension would likely never have taking to writing fanfiction as hobby.
Guess that gives me double the reason to celebrate this day when two of the authors that have most influenced me were born!
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday.
Congrats on surviving another year upon this world. Keep up the good work.
Happy Birthday!
Whoooo, happy birthday!
I've fanboy-squeed about Animorphs on your blog before, but I will note that Randall Munroe, author of xkcd, occasionally drops hints that he was a fan, and you can't be in much better company than that. ^^
Animorphs was so good. Loved those books when I was a kid.
Happy birthday
Well, happy birthday indeed!
Many happy returns!
Hope your party made Pinkie proud.
Happy Birthday to you
I hope that this new year of your life will be better then the last and that your writing skills will get even better for everybody injoyment
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday!
I, too, enjoyed Animorphs as a kid. Me and my mom used to obsessively dig through goodwill bins trying to find all of them. I'll never really forgive them for that last book, though.
Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday!
Happy b-day!
(Yes, the Swedes were hitting above their weight in an *astounding* way for a while, but I think after they started reading their own press releases is when the downhill slide started.)
Happy Birthday!
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Man, Animorphs was an awesome series. Lots of fond memories from that series growing up. It is very cool that RDD shares a birthday with KA.
Happy birthday, whippersnapper. :p
Happy birthday!
Almost belated birthday greetings!
(It's not yet 24 hours from the posting of this.
)