Eight billion people inhabit the earth. A billion of those (give or take) woke up this morning with the Super Bowl on their mind. That’s the bad news. The good news is: seven billion didn’t.
Furthermore, three people (give or take) woke up this morning with Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln on their mind. I’m one of those. No offense, but I’m pretty sure you’re not.
Today is the birthday of Darwin and Lincoln. Birthday twins. Both born in 1809. Both “saints” in my book.
Darwin was born in a manor in Shrewsbury, England. Lincoln in a cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky. One is known for evolution; the other for emancipation.
It doesn’t matter where you start, it matters where you finish.
That Darwin and Lincoln share a birth date is, of course, coincidental, as is the shared death dates of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson—July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which both had signed. Adams died in Quincy, Massachusetts. Jefferson in Charlottesville, Virginia. That’s certainly an odd coincidence, but I’m not interested in death day twins.
I looked up “famous birthday twins.”
Angelina Jolie & Russell Brand, June 4, 1975. Pol Pot & Malcolm X, May 19, 1925. Michael Jordan & Larry the Cable Guy, February 17, 1963. Marilyn Monroe & Andy Griffith, June 1, 1926. Lenny Bruce & Margaret Thatcher, October 13, 1925. Newt Gingrich & Barry Manilow, June 17, 1943. Van Morrison & Itzhak Perlman, August 31, 1945. Rudy Giuliani & Gladys Knight, May 28, 1944. And that’s just a sampling from a long list.
I figured I must have a famous birthday twin.
I searched July 5, 1947, to see who my famous birthday twin might be. I scrolled down. July 2 Larry David. July 3 Dave Barry. (So far so good.) July 4 Morganna Roberts, baseball’s “kissing bandit.” (Not so good). July 5. Blank. (What?!) July 6 Lance Clemons, baseball player. It seemed every July 1947 date had a famous name but one: July 5.
Okay, so I don’t have a famous birthday twin. But I will tell you that Shohei “the Next Babe Ruth” Ohtani was born on July 5th. And, as it turns out, we’re a lot alike. Famous ballplayers.
I was selected to the Youngstown Little League All-Star team when I was 12. Ohtani’s an All-Star, too. In the big leagues, of course. But let’s not quibble.
It matters where you finish.
* * *
PS. Due to a technical glitch some of you did not receive last week’s post: THE LOVE QUESTION. If you’d like to read it, click here.
Thanks. I searched my birthday twins and there are four. Four of whom I have never heard. I’m grateful that I am not yet finished!
I searched my birthday twins and found one of my favorite country music artist, Donna Fargo. And she sings one of my favorite country songs, Stick and Stone. Thanks for bringing up this subject. I would never had thought to do this. I did think of this one time when I worked at a company where we recorded birthdates. I searched the birthdate data base, and out of all the thousands of names, there was only two that shared the same birthdate with me.
I must have been one of those other two people beside yourself, who knew Lincoln and Darwin were birthday twins. On the 200th anniversary of their births, I mentioned this fact to a class or two of high school seniors who could have cared less. (Here we go again with deficits in historical grounding.) I’m a Lincoln fan from way back and Darwin just makes good common sense. (Observation, my dear Watson, leads to great discoveries!) I’m currently reading Jon Meacham’s, “And There Was Light”. This study puts Lincoln’s political acumen under a microscope. We get to see how Lincoln evolved–there’s that pesky word again–in his thinking on emancipation and how he masterfully juggled the slippery slope of numerous political minefields that naturally accompany any civil war. Coincidence of birth? Yes. When it comes to evolution and emancipation, both are still in motion… Big wheel keeps on turning.
Thanks for alerting us to the search for birthday twins, and the associations that might imply. With that in mind, I discovered I share an April 22nd birthday with Vladimir Lenin, Machine Gun Kelly, and Robert Oppenheimer. Since they are all associated with things that go bang of various kinds and magnitude, I wondered what the implication might be for me. Then I remembered, I shot and killed a caterpillar with my Red Rider BB gun when I was twelve. Hopefully that doesn’t put me in the league with Machine Gun Kelly—but will I go down in history as BB Gun Dave?
Love my birthday twin. Everyone helps us celebrate on 02 Mar. Thank you, Dr. Seuss for such a lovely day every year! A day set aside for reading–such bliss.
As befits an Aries my birthday twins (not year) are all over the map including Lucretia Borgia, Clarence Darrow and a fun assortment of writers, musicians and sports persons. My birthday twin including year is Rick Moranis, actor and secondly, a character in a book who is an alter ego for the author, himself. interesting exercise on Google.