same university. Other popular
routes include through work,
through friends and online.
All these could make you
more likely to marry someone
with the same birthday. For
example, being born in
September increases your chance
of getting into Oxbridge by 12
per cent. This effect is probably
down to the UK school year
starting on 1 September. So
September babies may end up in
particular universities,
professions and social circles, and
thus be more likely to marry
each other.
What about sharing the birth
year as well? At school and
university, you tend to mix with
people your own age. One year
is the most common age gap in a
marriage, two years is the
average, but nearly 1 in 10 UK
marriages are between people
born in the same year. So around
3,000 of the birthday-sharing
couples should have the same
number of candles on their cake.
Things were different for the
Huntrodds. September wasn’t
necessarily the most popular
birth month in 1600. Mary had
no chance of going to university,
nor did Francis. So your odds of
marrying someone with the
same birthday are probably
higher than the Huntrodds’ –
especially if your birthday is on
19 September.birthdays fall in September. So a
person born in September has a
bigger pool of potential
birthday-sharing spouses. We’ve
also assumed that your birthdayhas no effect on who you’re
likely to marry. But is that right?
Facebook’s data suggests that 28
per cent of married graduates
married somebody from the31,750
COUPLES
could share the same birthday in the UK
On 5 December 1664 a ship with 82 on
board sank in the Menai Strait. One man
survived: Hugh Williams. On 5 December 1785
another ship sank in the Menai Strait, with a man
named Hugh Williams as the sole survivor. In
1820, yet another ship sank there on 5
December. Of the 25 passengers the only
survivor was... Hugh Williams.STRANGE COINCIDENCES YOU WON’T BELIEVE HAPPENED
The American Civil War began in 1861 near
the house of Virginian farmer Wilmer McLean.
Confederate General Beauregard took over McLean’s
house, which was bombarded by the Union army.
McLean moved his family away to Appomattox County,
where in 1865 the last battle of the Civil War was fought,
and the surrender was signed in McLean’s new house.Issue 452 of popular comic The Beano
went on sale in Britain on 12 March- It featured a new character, Dennis the
Menace, and his dog Gnasher. Hours later,
across the Atlantic, thousands of readers
opened their newspapers to see a new
syndicated comic
strip featuring
a character
called Dennis the
Menace and his
dog, Ruff. The two
strips were drawn
by different artists,
each unaware of
the other’s work.
2
(^13)
The chances of a
Huntrodds marriage
If one spouse has a 1 in 365.25
chance (including leap years) of
sharing the other’s birthday, and
there are around 11.6 million
married couples in the UK, we’d
expect there to be 31,750 married
couples who share a birthday.
But we’ve assumed so far that
birthdays are evenly spread
throughout the year. They’re
not. September is the most likely
month of birth. A recent
Harvard study found that 21 of
the 30 most common US
Called Hugh Williams? The Menai Strait is
the least worst place to suffer a shipwreck...
The McLean house where the
Confederates’ surrender was signed
PHOTO: fthinkstock, alamy x2, press association, us library of congress, corbis
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