It's common usage to say I share a birthday with Pablo Casals, Mary Tyler Moore and Ted Danson, but technically, all we share is the anniversary of our births. We were all born on the same date in different years.
Likely the most famous pair of folks who were born on the exact same day are Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, who drew their respective first breaths exactly 200 years ago today, February 12, 1809. I saw a recent magazine cover that had the title "Lincoln vs. Darwin", but that's just stupid. It isn't a contest and I don't care who could whup. I'm not in the third grade anymore, and I am proud to say that even my emotional age is beyond the third grade, though not by much. Both these men have legacies of which they can be proud, and I am happy to honor their memories on this bicentennial.
As for another pair of celebrated people who were born on the same day, this duo might be the second most famous. I don't know when this picture was taken, but it was before they decided to have a contest to see who could look most like a heroin addict. In today's world, they might even be more famous than Abe and Chuck to the general public, but the odds are low that some blogger will be noting their 200th birthday in 2186.In any case, it's Lincoln and Darwin's special shared day, and this post is in honor of them.
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