Instructions: Go to Wikipedia and look up your birthday (excluding the year). List four neat facts, three births and two deaths in your journal, includingthe year.

October 18th appears to be national possession day, as that was the day the United States took possession of Alaska (1867) and Puerto Rico (1898), and musician Paul Kantner took possession of marijuana in Hawaiʻi (1969), who was only following in the footsteps of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who one year earlier discovered marijuana in their flat (1968).

Happy birthday to:
Chuck Berry (1926)
Terry McMillan (1951)
Wynton Marsalis (1961)

Sorry to see you go:
Charles Babbage (mathematican Dec 26, 1791 -- Oct 18, 1871)
Thomas Edison (inventor Feb 11, 1847 -- Oct 18, 1931)

I was watching the old MGM short "Red Hot Riding Hood" on the Turner network that shows cartoons 24 hours a day^*, and they ran this interesting factoid: the Hays Board rejected the original ending where the lustful wolf is forced into a shotgun marriage to the grandma of Red. The acceptable replacement ending? The wolf shoots himself in the head.

Illuminating, don't you think?

^*No, this network would not be the Cartoon Network. Cartoon Network doesn't show cartoons 24 hours a day. (Despite making an claim earlier to do so until the "end of time".)