Lord Byron's Birthday
Next: January 22, 2027
She walks in beauty, like the night.
The story
Where it comes from
George Gordon, Lord Byron, was born in London on 22 January 1788, and this Story marks his birthday. In 1809 he set off on a grand tour of the Mediterranean and began, in Greece, the long poem that made his name. When the first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage were published in March 1812, he 'woke to find himself famous'. Its restless, brooding hero gave literature a new type, the 'Byronic hero', and Byron became one of the first great literary celebrities of Europe.
How it's celebrated
There is no organised observance, but his birthday is a good excuse to read a poem aloud. 'She Walks in Beauty' (1814) is short enough to copy into a card, and the comic epic Don Juan is still funny two centuries on. Readers who love science can raise a glass to his daughter too: Ada Lovelace, the mathematician celebrated as the first computer programmer.
Did you know
- As a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, he kept a pet bear.
- In 1810 he swam the Hellespont, the strait now called the Dardanelles, in imitation of the mythical lover Leander.
- He became a national hero in Greece, and 145 years after his death a memorial to him was placed on the floor of Westminster Abbey.
Coming up next
- Hideki Yukawa's Birthday · January 23, 2027
- International Day of Education · January 24, 2027
- Burns Night · January 25, 2027
- Republic Day (India) · January 26, 2027
- International Customs Day · January 26, 2027
- Mozart's Birthday · January 27, 2027