Date of Birth Meme from arosoff

Go to wikipedia and put in your birth date. Don't put in the year. Post in your LJ with three neat facts, two births, and two deaths!

So, on December 22 in history....

Facts:

1964 - First SR-71 (Blackbird) flight
1965 - In the United Kingdom, a 70mph speed limit is applied to all rural roads including motorways for the first time. Previously, there had been no speed limit.
1989 - After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu takes over as president of Romania, ending Nicolae Ceauşescu's Communist dictatorship. (There is a particularly good painting in the Tate Britain "commemorating" this event.)

Births:

(Yes, I'm only supposed to do two... but seeing as two of them are twins, I think I can get away with three!)

1888 - J. Arthur Rank, American producer (d. 1972)
1949 - Maurice Gibb, English musician (The Bee Gees) (d. 2003)
1949 - Robin Gibb, English musician (The Bee Gees)

Deaths:

(It was so difficult to pick two out all of those presented... some very fine people to pick from!)

1989 - Samuel Beckett, Irish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)
2002 - Joe Strummer, British musician (The Clash) (b. 1952)

Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Stop with the drilling already! At this rate, I'll be happy to get out
of here and spend the afternoon in Barking....