Shit that happened on my birthday.

Happy Birthday to me...Twenty-three years ago, I was born on an island that sits on top of a volcano. Here's other shit that happened on this day:

• In the year 410, the Visigoths ended their sack of Rome after three days.
• In the year 1776, Americans under General George Washington were defeated by British forces led by General William Howe at the Battle of Long Island in Brooklyn.
• In the year 1813, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte defeated a very large force of Austrians, Russians, and Prussians at the Battle of Dresden.
• In the year 1859, petroleum was discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania. This was the world's first successful oil well. Ugh.
• In the year 1896, the world's shortest war, the Anglo-Zanzibar War, was fought between Great Britain and Zanzibar between nine o' clock and nine-forty-five. We could take a page out of their book.
  
• In the year 1916, Romania declared war against Austria-Hungary, entering World War I as one of the Allied nations.
• In the year 1928, sixty nations signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, outlawing war. Hm.
• In the year 2003, Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years.

Lyndon B Johnson and Mother Theresa share my birthday.