August 12

Today I decided to Wikipedia my birthday, August 12, and found out all sorts of things:

• It is the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.
• It is known as the Glorious Twelfth in the UK because it marks the beginning of the grouse season, the UN recognizes it as International Youth Day, and in Thailand, it's the Queen's birthday/Mother's Day.
  
• Joe 4, the first Soviet thermonuclear weapon, was test detonated on that day.
  
• I share a birthday with the city of Chicago, Ford's Model T, the IBM personal computer, Cecil B. DeMille, Samuel Fuller, the inventors of The Guinness Book of Records (they were twins), William Goldman, Buck Owens, George Hamilton, Bruce Greenwood, Sir Mix-a-lot, Michael Ian Black, Melissa Gayheart, Richard Reid (the "Shoebomber"), Casey Affleck, and self-gunshot victim Plaxico.
• Died on my birthday were Cleopatra (do they really have records that accurate?), Louis the Younger, William Blake, Joseph Kennedy (elder brother of Jack and Bobby), Sir Ian Fleming, Henry Fonda (1982, my birth year), Basquiat, John Cage, Mark Gruenwald, Merv Griffin, Loretta Young, and Mike Wieringo.

Try it for yourself. See what you find.