Wiki-Love

I've been tagged! Christie nominated me to continue with the Wikipedia love (one of my favorite internet things by the way - it's like a regular encyclopedia except on crack, what with all the linkage glory and whatnot) So, here goes. Prepare yourself for some serious dorking out.

1. Go to Wikipedia and enter your birthday without the year:

March 3

2. List three events that occurred that day:

1791 - The United States Mint is created by the U.S. Congress. Interesting, because, of course, money, and, also, because I am currently listening to John Adams, by David McCullough, on CD while I drive each day, and he was the Vice-President at the time, under George Washington.

1918 - Germany, Austria and Russia sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ending Russia's involvement in World War I, and leading to the independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. They all lost the independence again in the Second World War(go figure)(Polish invasion of 1939, the Baltic States' annexation in 1940 to the USSR) but are now again independent states.

1938 - Oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia. Greeeat.

And some bonuses ('cause I couldn't stop at just three...I'm a nerd.)

1820 - The U.S. Congress passes the Missouri Compromise.

1845 - Florida is admitted as the 27th U.S. state.

1861 - Alexander II of Russia signs the Emancipation Manifesto, freeing serfs.

1873 - Censorship: The U.S. Congress enacts the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail.

1877 - Rutherford B. Hayes is privately inaugurated as the 19th President of the United States (his public inauguration coming on March 5).

1904 - Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany becomes the first person to make a sound recording of a political document, using Thomas Edison's cylinder.

1915 - NACA, the predecessor of NASA founded.

1923 - TIME magazine is published for the first time.

1931 - The United States officially adopts "The Star-Spangled Banner" as its national anthem.

1933 - Mount Rushmore National Memorial is dedicated.


3. List two important birthdays:

1847 - Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish inventor (d. 1922) - The telephone!

1918 - Arthur Kornberg, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine - This man won the Nobel Prize for "his discovery of 'the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)'" and his research interests were studying the nucleic acids which control heredity in animals, plants, bacteria and viruses. What's not to love?

4. List one death:

1703 - Robert Hooke, English scientist (b. 1635) And this man (on another I'm Especially A Biology Nerd note) coined the biological term "cell" "because his observations of plant cells reminded him of monks' cells which were called 'cellula.' He is often credited with the discovery of the cell, and although his microscope was very basic, research by British scientist Brian J. Ford has now shown that Hooke could have observed cork cells with it." He also, interestingly, had a great deal to do with the design of Bethlem Royal Hospital (also known as "Bedlam" (which is the other meaning of that word are derived).

5. List one holiday or observance:

Bulgaria - Liberation Day.


And that's that. I hope everyone learned something today. I'm going to lunch...