The Guinness World Record for surviving the longest fall in a plunging elevator was set on July 28, 1945, when Betty Lou Oliver’s elevator dropped 75 stories in the Empire State Building. Oliver broker her pelvis, back, and neck, but she recovered.  She also recovered from severe burns — but she’d been burned before the… Continue reading

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine that today is your 80th birthday. You were born in 1945, in England, and one of your favorite things to do was sing. when you were a boy, about 7 years old, you had a good friend who liked singing too, and you were both in the… Continue reading

July 25 If you have an electric or hybrid car, use a smartphone, take your laptop to a cafe to work, or just generally enjoy not worrying that much about dying batteries any more, you have John Goodenough to think. He was born July 25, 1922, and he invented the lithium-ion battery that’s used in… Continue reading

Twenty-five dollars per month. That was all. It wasn’t an inconsequential sum; that provided a measure of reassurance. But now it was 1895, which made him 33 years old, and he was sure his friends would say to him “Bill! Bill Porter! You’re a family man now, and you’ve just moved to Houston. Will $25… Continue reading

Madame X was born today, in 1889. Madame X was born in Illinois, in the US, and her childhood home was donated by her father to the Westerville Public Library, and is now the location of a museum and history center. But not a museum about Madame X.  Madame X was a brilliant student, and… Continue reading

If you think you might like a comic with characters named for “a 16th-century theologian who believed in predestination” and “a 17th-century philosopher with a dim view of human nature,” let me direct you to Calvin and Hobbes, which was drawn during the 1980s and 1990s by Bill Watterson, who was born July 5, 1958.… Continue reading

In the spirit of diversity, we’re eschewing any suggestion of speciesism and celebrating today’s birthday of Cookie, a cockatoo who lived in the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago in the US. Cookie was born June 30, 1933, and lived for…wait for it…82 years. Cookie was a “Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo,” also known as Leadbeater’s Cockatoo. The birds… Continue reading

Instead of featuring a particular birthday person today, I have a very unusual set of coincidences to report. I get birthday information from Wikipedia, which has a page for every day of the year listing events, births, deaths, and holidays around the world. Because there have been a lot of years for people to be… Continue reading

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Citizen of Geneva, was born 311 years ago today. When he was born, Geneva was a city-state, and his middle-class family had voting rights there. He was always proud of that, and signed his books with the “Citizen of Geneva” comment for his entire life. He never lived to see the Republic of… Continue reading

Helen Keller was born 143 years ago today in Alabama in the US. She’s known because of her writing, speaking, and advocacy for women’s rights (including the right to vote) labor rights, peace, and for disabled people — of whom she was one; she lost her sight and hearing when she was 19 months old.… Continue reading