September 12 Birthday
In September 1940, four teenagers chasing a dog stumbled into a cave near Montignac, France, and discovered the Lascaux cave paintings. The paintings are over 17,000 years old — among the oldest art ever found. They depict horses, bulls, deer, and a single human figure. The cave was opened to the public in 1948, but the visitors' breath introduced mold that damaged the paintings. The cave was closed in 1963. A replica, Lascaux II, opened in 1983. The original cave has not been seen by the public in sixty years. Jesse Owens, born this day in 1913, won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, refuting Hitler's theory of Aryan supremacy. Owens was the son of a sharecropper and the grandson of an enslaved person. He set three world records and tied a fourth in forty-five minutes at the 1935 Big Ten track meet — the "greatest forty-five minutes in sports history." After the Olympics, Owens returned to segregation. He raced horses for money. He said, "I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President either.". People born on September 12 fall under the zodiac sign of Virgo. The birthstone is Sapphire and the birth flower is Aster. Historical events on September 12 include 1953: John F. Kennedy marries Jacqueline Bouvier in Newport, Rhode Island, 1940: Lascaux cave paintings discovered by teenagers in France, 1609: Henry Hudson begins exploring the river later named for him. Famous people born on September 12 include Jesse Owens (1913), George Jones (1931), Barry White (1944).