Birthday Biographies
January 1 - Betsy Ross 
... was born on January 1 in 1736 in Philadelphia.
Her parents named her Elizabeth Griscom but called her Betsy
for short. She was a talented seamstress and when she grew
up, she became an apprentice to an upholsterer where she
learned to make all kinds of things out of cloth. She fell
in love with another apprentice upholsterer who worked in
the same shop. His name was John Ross. She married him and
they set up their own sewing and upholstery business. When
he died in an accidental explosion of gunpowder, she carried
on the business alone. She sewed many flags for the state of
Pennsylvania and the Navy. Betsy Ross was friends with
George Washington because they attended the same church.
According to legend, when George Washington asked her to sew
the country's flag, the sketch that he showed her had a flag
with a 6-ponted stars. Betsy convinced him that 5-pointed
stars were better because she was able to fold a piece of
cloth in a way that resulted in a perfect 5-point star with
a single snip of the scissors. Betsy died on January 30,
1836, at the age of 84. Old Glory is one of the most
complicated flags in the world, requiring 64 pieces of
fabric to make. It's also changed designs more than any
other flag in the world.
January 2 - Isac Asimov 
... was born on this day in 1920 in Russia. His
family moved to New York when he was a toddler. Although he
had a degree in biochemistry and was a professor for a time,
his true impact on the world came through his writing. He
was an exceptionally prolific author and editor, signing his
name to hundreds of literary works in both science and
science fiction. Not surprisingly, in the army he got the
worst score in his company on the physical conditioning
tests, and the highest score in his company on the
intelligence tests. Ironically, the author who avidly wrote
about spaceships and other planets had a fear of flying.
Only twice in his life did he actually board a plane, both
while serving in the armed forces during World War II. The
author who wrote extensively about robotics didn't learn to
drive a car until 1950, and he never learned to ride a bike.
He once said of his education, "I received the
fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not
enough. My REAL education, the superstructure, the details,
the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For
an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy
books, the library was the open door to wonder and
achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I
had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of
it." Asimov died in 1992.
January 3 - Victor Borge 
... was born Borge Rosenbaum on January 3, 1909 in
Copenhagen, Denmark. His father was a musician and Victor
followed in his footsteps, starting out as a classical
pianist but finding he also had a gift for humor. By the
1930s he was one of Denmark’s most popular performers. He
fled from Denmark during the Nazi occupation of World War II
and came to New York, where he learned to speak English by
going to the movies. The gimmick that launched Borge to fame
almost immediately in the U.S. involved him reading
perfectly normal sentences— while making different sounds
for each and every punctuation mark. In 1941 he performed
his gig to warm up the radio audience for the Bing Crosby
show, and ended up being a regular on the show for the next
56 weeks. The following year he was proclaimed “the best
new radio performer of the year” and later had his own
radio show on NBC. His wacky brand of musical quirks and
oddities propelled him to great heights in radio,
television, and theater. He made a habit of falling off
piano stools, getting tangled up in the sheet music, and
completely missing the piano keyboard with his hands. He
played elaborate renditions of “Happy Birthday” in the
style of Mozart, Brahms, Wagner, and Beethoven with great
wit. His show “Comedy in Music” ran for 849 performances
on Broadway, setting a record for a one-man show. He died in
his sleep in December of 2000. c. 2005 www.TriviaQueen.com
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