Pick your cause for celebration — interesting list of birthday people for January 19:
- James Watt, improver or inventor of the steam engine, depending on your text, 1736
James Watt, back then – Image via Wikipedia
- Robert E. Lee, distinguished son of Virginia and former university president, in 1807
- Edgar Allan Poe, poet, born 1809 (just a few days before Lincoln and Darwin, both born that year on February 12)
- Robert McNeil, the journalist and co-inventor of the PBS Newshour, 1931
- Janis Joplin, Texas legend, 1943
Janis Joplin, member of the “Dead at 27 Club” – Image via Wikipedia
- Dolly Parton, part of Trio, 1946 (same year as Linda Rondstadt, if I recall correctly)
Dolly Parton, a while ago – Image via Wikipedia
Seems odd to me to think of Dolly Parton as younger than Janis Joplin, or the same age as Linda Ronstadt. But Parton was a star by the age of 14.
Irritates me still that Baltimore hasn’t figured out a good way to fund the Edgar Allan Poe House there (National Park Service maintains Poe’s Philadelphia home). Enough funding came in to keep the Baltimore house open on weekends, in 2014. In a city with an NFL team named after his most famous poem, could they just pass a hat at a couple of games, asking each fan to throw in $1.00? Or pass the hat in the Ravens locker room?
Who else did we miss on birthday wishes today?
Dolly Parton’s friends and Trio fellows, Linda Rondstadt and Emmy Lou Harris, in a celebratory mood – Image by armadilo60 via Flickr
Yes, this is mostly an encore post. Fighting ignorance requires patience.
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Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Others noted some of the festivity:
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Happy birthday to all!
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