What Happened On The Day You Were Born?

There is no subject closer to anyone’s heart with precious few exceptions than ‘them self’.  Even people professing to do the most altruistic charity work, may be found to be undertaking this for some form of self satisfaction, albeit undoubtedly producing much in the way of a beneficial outcome in the process.  In short most people will have an intrinsic and deep interest and curiosity in what happened on the day they were born, but can have precious little knowledge of these events.  If a question is posed to most individuals 'What Happened On The Day You Were Born?" it is a fair bet the response will not extend much past "Well I Was Born Of Course?".  True, but there was also a myriad of news events happening at that moment, fashions and music in vogue, sporting events and a whole world that was the effective and unique stage of an individual's entry to the world.

The famous Homer Simpson in an episode of the television cartoon show ‘The Simpsons’ was visiting a newspaper office with his son Bart.  He came across a computer with the caption ‘Find Out What Happened When You Were Born’ – Homer being Homer, duly complied and came up with the Newspaper headline for the day ‘Horrendously Ugly Baby Born!’    Nevertheless this fictional anecdote illustrates a truism that people with a few (debatable) exceptions are thoroughly interested in the events that occurred when they were born.
 
To delve into ones past often arises out of a natural curiosity to establish one’s roots.  A likely first port of call is to look up old family photographs, and depending on the photographic interest in family members a wealth of material can be provided to supplement childhood memories – maybe your father or other close relative/friend took a photograph on the day you were born, or shortly thereafter.  It is sad to think that for future generations many childhood photographs may be untaken due to the irrational pressures of ‘political correctness’.
   
Family anecdotes may provide additional information, but unless you happened to be born on a particularly newsworthy day, these recollections may not reap much pertinent to the actual day you were born.  This is where further research comes in, and a variety of straightforward avenues are available.  
There are a number of products that cover Family Tree, Name Origin, and even Coat of Arms.  However by their nature these products whilst providing interesting background and ‘pre-history’, primarily cover the period leading up to birth.
  
Turning to the significant birth date itself, many people are not even aware of the day of week they were born on.   This can be very simply resolved, To find out the day of the week born can be accomplished by calling up a computer calendar such as Microsoft Outlook and backtracking; or to make things even quicker a number of calculators are available online, a simple one to use can be found at eParenting’s website:  http://www.eparenting.co.uk/funstuff/whatday.shtml

To find out the actual news event that occurred on a date of birth there are some useful research tools.  The ‘20th Century Day By Day’ CD-ROM by Dorling Kindersley is an excellent reference and still available at Amazon or similar, albeit only useful for twentieth century births.  Online the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) site offers an 'On This Day' search facility:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday , simply type in the required date of birth to be provided with a news resume for the day as well as key events for the birth day and month for other newsworthy years.
 
There exists a wealth of information linked to an individual’s birth date, name, or both.  For those of an astrological persuasion there are discoveries to be made regarding Star Sign and Chinese Year sign.  Furthermore most people have their own special combination of name meaning, birth stone, flower, colour, and even planet allocated to their birth heritage!  Searches can also be extended to find out the most popular song, film, craze, sporting events, and cost of living by various searches around at the time of birth. 
 
Of course all this would take significant time and research.  A simpler global solution and great starting point are various computerised ‘The Day You Were Born’ certificate products. Examples containing up to 59 chunks of information linked to name and date of birth can be found at http://www.dayborn.com. This type of product makes a great gift idea or keepsake and can contains in one chart much of the aforementioned information plus much more.
 
With the ever increasing interest in people tracing their ancestry through family tree research, there needs to be a starting point, and where better to start than researching yourself!  After all if one doesn’t know them self first, is there much point in knowing others?

By: John Henry BA BSc

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John D Henry BA BSc runs Datalite UK Ltd, supplying a range of personalised gifts for you from the Dayborn website. Want some great gift ideas for all occasions (including birthday & weddings)? View the popular website, available at: => w