I was born on August 31, 1972

1972 was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. According to measurements of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest ever year, as two leap seconds were added during this year, an event which has not since been repeated. (I knew I was very special for a reason)

On August 31, at the Summer Olympics in Munich, American sprinters Eddie Hart, Reynaud Robinson and Robert Taylor were scheduled to run in the quarterfinals of the 100 meter dash, which their coach, Stan Wright, said would take place at 7:00 pm. Shortly before 4:15, the three men were watching a television feed to ABC Sports, and realized that the quarterfinal heats were taking place at that moment. Hart and Robinson arrived too late, and Taylor arrived in time to run his heat without preparation. Coach Wright took the blame for the mixup, which happened when he relied on a 1971 schedule. (Ironic that this happened in the longest year ever...Where are the important time-management skills, coach!! LOL)

To add to the grief, still in Munich and in front of 65,000 people, West Germany beat the United States, 7-0. The referee was Marco Antonio Dorantes from Mexico (That should put a few of you off tacos for a while!!!)

But Bobby Fisher came to the rescue by becoming Chess World Champion after he defeated the soviet Spassky. Hurray!!!!

On a more serious note, on this day, U.S. weekly casualty figures of five dead and three wounded are the lowest recorded since record keeping began in January 1965. These numbers reflected the fact that there were less than 40,000 American troops left in South Vietnam by this time and very few of these were involved in actual combat.

Also, making the front page of the main Spanish newspaper, Romana Bañuelos, who worked as a Treasurer under Nixon's Administration between 1971-74, talks about the end of marginalization toward 'chicanos' at an event taking place in Houston,Texas (Check out her inspirational story)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romana_Acosta_Ba%C3%B1uelos
http://hemeroteca.abc.es/nav/Navigate.exe/hemeroteca/madrid/abc/1972/08/31/001.html

And finally, a one minute long video on what was going on the day I was born

http://www.getback.com/video/august-31-1972/3037442

P.S: I share my birthday, amongst others, with Chris Tucker, Richard Gere, Van Morrison and fellow twitterer Queen Rania of Jordan, who was probably still having trouble with potty training, at the tender age of two, the day I was born.