June 18 – Clark Kent's Birthday

Posted on June 18, 2017

Clark Kent, above, might celebrate his birthday on a
different date than Superman, below.

Even though they're the same guy!

 

If you're a fictional character, should you even HAVE a birthday?

When we talk about some fictional characters' birthdays, like Mickey Mouse's birthday, we really mean the release date of their first movie or book or comic strip what have you.

But sometimes a fictional character has such an extensive backstory, the writer / creator of that character has even invented that character's birthday.

In the case of Superman, there are at least four birthdates!

According to Action Comics #149, in 1950, Superman, also known as Kal-El, was born on Krypton sometime in October, but later comics of the 1960s through 1980s gave Superman a rarer birthdate: February 29.

Clark Kent - the human that Kal-El pretends to be - supposedly celebrates his birthday today (June 18), but that is really the anniversary of the Kent family finding him. But one comic, 2009's Superman: Secret Origin #1, depicts Kent celebrating his birthday on December 1, for some unknown-to-me reason.

Kal-El (aka Clark Kent AND aka Superman)
when he was first found.

Actually, according to the DC Multiverse Historian, there are even more possible Superman / Clark Kent birthdays bandied about! 

But let's skip away from fiction to real people, and talk about real birthdays!

Did you know...?

Many people from war-torn areas don't actually know the date of their birth. For example, a LOT of Syrians are recorded as being born on January 1, but the fact is that those who don't know their actual birthdate are assigned January 1 birthdays in the year they were born (or the best estimate of the year they were born). 

Some people, including observant Jehovah's Witnesses, don't celebrate birthdays for religious reasons. Some other people, including some Muslims, have no birthday celebration traditions in their culture and are reluctant to adopt Western traditions. Still others just don't have extra money for throwing parties, buying gifts, or even making a cake.

Although almost all of the peoples in the world have much more contact with one other these days than they used to, and to some extent popular traditions have spread far and wide, in some Asian and African nations celebrations of individual birthdays are uncommon.

In Vietnam and Korea, actual anniversaries of births are not acknoledged much. Instead, part of the New Year's tradition is adding one more year to everyone's age. In a way, it's like everyone in the entire nation having the same birthday!

Check out more birthday traditions here.

 

Also on this date:

Evacuation Day in Egypt  

Anniversary of Susan B. Anthony being fined for daring to vote

International Sushi Day

Anniversary of the possible sighting of the creation of a lunar crater

Beatle Paul McCartney's birthday

Anniversary of the discovery of the “missing” neutrinos

National Day for Seychelles

Father's Day in the U.S.A.

 

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

• June holidays

• June birthdays

• Historical anniversaries in June

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

• July holidays
• July birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in July
  
  
  
  

June 27, 2012 - “Happy Birthday to You” Day

Once upon a time (in 1893), a pair of sisters wrote a simple song for their nursery school and kindergarten students. Mildred J. Hill wrote a simple tune, and Patty Smith Hill wrote some equal simple, repetitive words:

Good morning to you,

Good morning to you,

Good morning, dear children,

Good morning to all.

The two sang the catchy song with their young students, but they also published it in a songbook for children.

The song caught on. (That's the thing about catchy songs, isn't it? They catch on!)

In many classes, the young students sang the song to the teacher, so the words were changed a little – “good morning to all” became another repetition of “good morning to you,” and “dear teacher” was sung in place of “dear children.”

And somebody, somewhere, changed the song again to be a birthday song. Perhaps you have heard it somewhere?

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear so-and-so [insert name here],

Happy birthday to you.

Well, this latest version really caught on! It is by far the most well-known song in the English-speaking world—maybe the entire world!—and it's been used in millions of music boxes, watches, musical greeting cards, and other for-profit products. It's been sung on TV and on Broadway and in movies, in space and underwater living spaces, in homes and schools, businesses and hospitals.

(By the way, many people think that students who sang the Good Morning song spontaneously changed the lyrics at birthday parties. Which would mean that the most widely known song in the world was “written” by a bunch of five- and six-year-old kids whose names we do not know!)

Okay, here's the weird part...this super-simple, almost ubiquitous (heard everywhere) song—this song that was written in the 1800s, maybe by a bunch of kids—is still protected by copyright!

Wh-wh-what???

My sources are unclear about who filed copyright on “Happy Birthday to You,” when, on whose behalf. Some sources say that another Hill sister sued and received copyright protection for Patty and Mildred Hill, and that the Hill Foundation collects royalties even to this day, but another source says that the publisher of the Hill's original “Good Morning” song filed for copyright on the birthday version.

Whatever the case, it seems that some of the profit-making enterprises that use the popular birthday song do pay royalties—adding up to perhaps two million dollars worth of royalties per year! It's totally fine to sing the song in private, with small groups at birthday parties, for example, but it is technically a violation to sing it in profit-making venues with a lot of people. This is why a lot of restaurants use original songs or other birthday songs—they want to avoid any copyright lawsuits! Many movies and television shows show people singing just a few notes (apparently this is “fair use” and doesn't cost anything), but those who show people singing the entire song have to pay $10,000 for the privilege! Yikes!

By the way, copyright laws differ from nation to nation. The song will become “public domain” (free for anyone to use, even for-profit or large groups) in Europe in 2016, and it will move to public domain status in the U.S. in 2030. And, here's one more fact to confuse you: some lawyers think that the song is already in public domain, right now, because the actual “authors” of the song (who, remember, might be a bunch of kids) weren't the ones who filed for copyright.

Also on this date:

Blind-and-deaf author and lecturer Helen Keller's birthday 

Djibouti's Independence Day