Birthday Song

In the days leading up to my birthday, I was thinking about John Paul Stevens and his recent news that he is retiring from the supreme court. That may not matter as much to others, but you see, Justice Stevens and I have something in common. We share the same date of birth.

That got me thinking about others born on my birthday:
There were many, and had different paths and different routes, some were kings, composers, politicians, actors, sport stars....
571 - Muhammad, (traditional date) Prophet and founder of Islam
1494 - Johannes Agricola, German Protestant reformer
1718 - David Brainerd
1889 - Adolf Hitler
1920 - John Paul Stevens, as I mentioned, retiring from Supreme Court - 2nd oldest Supreme Court Justice
1972 - Carmen Electra
1936 - Pat Roberts

But I wasn't just thinking about people born on my birthday, for many also died on the day that I was born:
1314 - Pope Clement V, Bertrand Got, pope (1305-14) move papacy to Avignon, dies
1759 - George Friedrich Handel, buried in Westminster Abbey (died 6 days before)
1769 - Pontiac, indian chief of the Ottawa, murdered
1812 - George Clinton, 4th U.S. Vice President, dies at 73 1st Vice President to die in office
1906 - Australian wombat; oldest known marsupial, dies in London Zoo at 26
1947 - Christian X, king of Denmark (1912-47), dies at 76
1999 - Cassie Bernall, Rachel Joy Scott, many others, Columbine High School massacre
2010 - Today, it is estimated that over 100 thousand children will be denied the opportunity of having a birthday. 3,700 of those in the United States alone.

But not only have their been births and deaths - there have been many notable events on my birthday as well:
295 - 8th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
1770 - Captain Cook arrives in New South Wales
1775 - British begin siege of Boston (Revolutionary War)
1792 - France declares war on Austria, the beginning of French Revolutionary Wars.
1777 - New York adopts new constitution as an independent state
1799 - Napoleon issues a decree calling for establishing Jerusalem for Jews
1853 - Harriet Tubman starts Underground Railroad
1861 - Colonel Robert E. Lee resigns from Union army
1879 - 1st mobile home (horse drawn) used in a journey from London and Cyprus
1902 - Marie and Pierre Curie isolate radioactive element radium
1904 - Louisiana Purchase Exposition opens in St. Louis (1904 World's Fair)
1910 - Halley's Comet passes 29th recorded perihelion at 87.9 million km
1916 - German-British sea battle off Belgian coast
1918 - Manfred von Richthofen, The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th + 80th victims marking his final victories before his death the following day.
1920 - Tornadoes kill 219 in Alabama and Mississippi
1920 - 7th modern Olympic games opens in Antwerp Belgium
1936 - Jews repel an Arab attack in Petach Tikvah Palestine
1941 - 100 German bombers attack Athens
1944 - NFL legalizes coaching from bench
1945 - Soviet troops enter Berlin
1947 - Frederik IX becomes king of Denmark
1961 - Failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of US-backed troops against Cuba.
1963 - All Africa Conferences of Churches opens in Kampala Uganda
1967 - U.S. planes bomb Haiphong for 1st time during Vietnam War
1970 - Bruno Kreisky becomes 1st socialist chancellor of Austria
1971 - U.S. Supreme Court upholds use of busing to achieve racial desegregation
1972 - Apollo 16 landed on the moon commanded by John Young.
1976 - George Harrison sings lumberjack song with Monty Python
1978 - Korean Airlines flight 902 shot down by Soviets in Russian airspace
1983 - President Reagan signs a $165B bail out for Social Security
1986 - U.S. performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1986 - Michael Jordan sets all-time record for points in NBA playoff game with 63 against Boston Celtics
1988 - Baltimore Orioles set worst record to start a season 0-14 (will go 0-21)
1992 - Madonna signs $60-million deal with Time Warner
1993 - Uranus passes Neptune (once every 171 years)
1994 - Serbian army bombs hospital in Goradze Bosnia, 47 killed
1996 - Chicago Bulls win record 72 games in a season
1999 - Columbine High School massacre
2007 - Johnson Space Center Shooting


Sources:
http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_20
http://www.brainyhistory.com/daysbirth/birth_april_20.html


All of these wonderings led to the Birthday Song:

Birthday Song

Everybody's singing that “Happy Birthday” song.
One day in the year that nothing can go wrong.
Everybody knows you so you need not sing along.
It's the time of year when you feel like you be-long.

Chorus:
Happy Birth-day, It's a great day.
Happy Birth-day, In a new way.
Happy Birth-day!

But not everybody's birthday is a time that they rejoice.
They feel they've been shortchanged in their life's grand invoice.
They look back at all the years wasted by their choice.
And we hear the lingering sorrow wafting in their voice.

But God can make a birthday something greater than the past.
A day of new beginnings; horizons that are vast.
As we pummel through the years moving very fast.
God can turn your day of birth into a life that will last!

So don't look back on your birth day and wish that you had died.
Don't accept a life that takes you on a constant downhill slide.
Look to Christ who will redeem from without and from inside.
Make your Birthday a reminder of your God in whom you abide.

© Daniel Lorimer
April 20, 2010