Fun Birthday Facts

Many cultures have one or more coming of age birthdays:

•  Jewish boys become bar mitzvah on their 13th birthday.
• Jewish girls become bat mitzvah on their 12th birthday, or sometimes on their 13th birthday in Reform and Conservative Judaism.
•  In Hispanic-American countries the quinceañera celebration traditionally marks a girl's 15th birthday.
• In India, the 12th or 13th birthday is replaced with a grand "thread ceremony." The child takes a blessed thread and wears it, symbolizing his coming of age. This ceremony is more common amongst boys in the Hindu Brahmin culture.
• In the Philippines, girls on their 18th birthday or boys on their 21st birthday celebrate a debut.
• A person's Golden or Grand Birthday, also referred to as their "Lucky Birthday", "Champagne Birthday" or "Star Birthday", occurs when they turn the age of their birth day (e.g., when someone born on the 25th of the month turns 25).

Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday

• It's been mathematically proven that if there are 23 people in a room, there's a 50% chance that two of them will share a birthday (it was on wikipedia so it must be true! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_paradox).
• The first birthday card originated in England in 1850
• One widespread birthday custom is delivering some form of physical torment to the person whose birthday it is, in order to drive away evil and to attract good luck, e.g. beating, punching, ear pulling or "bumping". The latter is where the friends and family of the person whose birthday it is takes them by the arms and legs, and lifts them up and down as many times as they are old.

Did you know that more people are born on the 5th of October than any other date? You guessed it - that makes the most common night of conception New Years Eve!!!

However, in total more people are born in August than any other month.

If you are born on the 22nd May then you have the least amount of people sharing your birthday than any other date.

Before the invention of the calendar, only kings celebrated their birthdays as no records were kept on common people!

The first children's birthday parties occurred in Germany and were called Kinderfests. It was thought that having birthday parties and giving gifts would bring cheer and ward off evil spirits.

The traditional party song "Happy Birthday to You" was written as a classroom greeting in 1893 by two Louisville teachers. It was first copyrighted in 1935 after a lawsuit and in 1988, Birch Tree Group Ltd. sold the rights of the song to Warner Communications.

Balloons were invented in 1824. Latex balloons are biodegradable and come from rubber trees. Latex harvesting does not hurt the tree and they can produce latex for up to 40 years!