« I'm famous. | Main | Just playing around. »
August 06, 2006
Happy birthday to me!
I’ve reached the wondrously round number 30. Or, as I’ve only just now found out, exactly twice the age of the world wide web; Tim Berners-Lee first published the code of his now-ubiquitious invention on August 6, 1991. Despite its unrepentant nerdery, I’m quite pleased to share my birthday with something besides the US bombing of Hiroshima. History being very crowded, here are some other things that happened on this day:
- 1806: the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire with the abdication of Francis II.
- 1825: Bolivia gains independence from Spain after a 16-year war.
- 1914: Serbia declares war on Germany, and Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia, completing in a few days the diplomatic groundwork for the four-year tragedy of the First World War.
- 1962: Jamaica gains formal independence from Britain.
And other birthdays:
- 1809: Alfred Lord Tennyson, who wrote several poems.
- 1881: Alexander Fleming, who later discovered penicillin.
- 1906: Dutch Schultz, who became an infamous gangster and bootlegger.
- 1928: Andy Warhol, who painted some pictures, took some photographs, and made some films.
Posted by matt at August 6, 2006 11:33 AM