Just so you know, my
birthday was last Tuesday. But I'm celebrating it tonight, because
it's my damn birthday and I can do it when I want.
I was going to blog about
birthday facts, but then I realized there aren't that many birthday
facts. I was about to collapse in a heap of despair, when I realized
there's something else commonly associated with birthdays – or at
least, commonly associated with mine:
Booze.
 |
| Yeah, baby. ~ P.L. Armstrong |
So this is going to be the
birthday booze-up edition of Fun Friday Facts. Brace yourselves.
1) Which came first, the
birthday party or the booze-up? Well, it looks like the booze-up did.
Historians trace the production of the first alcoholic beverages back to 10,000 BC. That's the Stone Age, you guys.
What was that first
alcoholic beverage, you ask? Why, none other than beer.
 |
| Yummy, yummy beer. |
Wine didn't come along until
four to five thousand years later, which is why it is inherently not
as good.
2) Birthday parties, on the
other hand, probably didn't appear until between 800 and 600 BC, in
ancient Greece. I say probably, because there appears to have been
some scholarly debate on the subject.
 |
| Scholars are a lively bunch. |
Many historians credit the Greeks with the invention of birthday cakes and candles. They placed
their illuminated cakes in the temple of Artemis, with the idea that
the smoke and flame of the candles would carry their wishes up to
her.
Others believe that the
tradition originated in Germany in the Middle Ages, as a way of
pleasing children.
 |
| There are worse reasons ~ Joonasi |
3) The American Temperance
Movement, a social movement that sought to eliminate alcohol from
society altogether, began in Litchfield, Connecticut in 1789. The
movement eventually led to Prohibition, the 1919 Constitutional
Amendment that forbid the production, sale, transporit, import or
export of alcohol in the United States. This bullsh*t lasted until
1933, when a combination of bootlegging-related gang violence and
falling tax revenues convinced the government that banning booze was
a baaaaad idea. Also, it was the Great Depression, and we desperately
needed a drink.
4) It's widely believed that,
among pre-Christian pagan cultures, people were considered especially
vulnerable to magical incantations and general supernatural
shenanigans on their birthdays. Friends and relatives therefore began
the tradition of visiting the birthday boy or girl and loudly wishing
them happiness and luck, as a means of deflecting any black magic
that may have been chucked their way.
 |
| Otherwise, this might happen. |
5) Okay, I told you fact number
three so I could tell you this one: The National Temperance Society
and Publishing House was founded in New York in 1865. Between 1865
and 1925 the organization published more than one billion pages of
teetotalers' literature. Its three monthly periodicals reached a
combined circulation of about 600,000. The Society also produced more
than 2,000 books and leaflets, because they had a lot to say about
the evils of drink.
Today, the structure in
which the National Temperance Society and Publishing House was
located has been converted into a bar.
 |
| Take that, Prohibition! ~ xlibber |
