Good morning! Some artists become so famous and their work so well known that it gets hard to still imagine them as real people. Like, with birthdays and everything. Nevertheless, today is Michelangelo’s birthday.  His full name was Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, and he was born in the Republic of Florence in 1475, in… Continue reading

Dora Marsden was born March 5, 1882 in Yorkshire, England. Her family was relatively poor, and her father and eldest brother emigrated to the US in 1890 to seek better economic fortunes. But Marsden and her mother stayed in England. She was able to attend school, mostly thanks to an 1870 English law that provided… Continue reading

If you’re anywhere near Catalonia, in Spain, you might think about stopping by today to wish Maria Branyas a happy birthday. She’s 117 today. Really. She’s the oldest person in the world.  Although she’s Spanish, she was born in San Francisco, California in — get this — 1907! Her family had moved there from Catalonia… Continue reading

Sometimes, for some people, real life is pretty much like a movie. Sergei Likolayevich Kourdakov, who was born March 1, 1951, is one of those people. He was born in the Soviet Union, in the Novosibirsk Oblast. It’s in southwest Siberia. His father had been an eminent officer in the Soviet Army, and a strong… Continue reading

Today is a leap day, which means there’s a smaller population to choose from in selecting a birthday honoree. Nevertheless, many people have been born on February 29, including Seymour Papert, in 1928 in South Africa. Papert provided a whole generation of kids with a fun and interesting introduction to computing: the Logo language.  Papert… Continue reading

There’s a new movie out about the scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Although he doesn’t appear in the film, which is full of eminent scientists of the time, one of Oppenheimer’s close friends (for a while) was Linus Pauling, who was born February 28, 1901. Pauling has a ton of accomplishments and accolades, and possibly the… Continue reading

Today is the birthday of…I’m not making this up…Nasty Suicide. Nasty is a Finnish musician who was one of the cofounders of Hanoi Rocks, in 1979. That band broke up in 1985, and Suicide formed The Suicide Twins with Andy McCoy, and at the same time founded The Cherry Bombz.  You may be surprised to… Continue reading

William Shakespeare wasn’t the only well known and influential dramatist in Elizabethan England. There was also Christopher (Kit) Marlowe, who was baptized February 26, 1564 in Canterbury, England. Marlowe and Shakespeare were baptized the same year, and it’s assumed that they were born shortly before being baptized, since that was the custom at the time.… Continue reading

It’s not unusual for authors to use a pen name, particularly if they’re known for one genre and want to publish work in a different genre. But Mary Francis Shura, who was born February 23, 1923, may own the world’s record. She was born in Kansas and attended Maryville State College, and wrote over 50… Continue reading