On this day in 1809 Abraham Lincoln was born to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, two uneducated farmers, in Kentucky and Charles Darwin was born to wealthy society doctor and financier Robert Darwin, and Susannah Darwin (née Wedgwood) in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England.

I believe the first time I read this fact was in Hitchens's bestseller God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Adam Gopnik recently had a book come out on Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life.

To honor this happy coincidence I'm having a super blogfest.