​If you're wondering why the trees seem to wave in celebration today and the skies shine with joy, it's because January 8th marks the birthday of the newest dear leader, Kim Jong-un. According to the Telegraph, the exact date of his birth was unknown and had to be discovered through "testimonies from Kenji Fujimoto, a Japanese chef who worked for the Kim family, North Korean defectors and Kim's childhood friends at the Liebefeld school in Bern, Switzerland, where he briefly studied as a teenager." Also, no one is sure if he is 28, 29, or 30 years old. An easy way to find out: Ask dear leader, as he is never wrong.

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​Things you may not have known: There is a Corduroy Appreciation Club. It was founded by a man named Miles Rohan, with the purpose of (obviously) appreciating corduroy, an underappreciated fabric, to be true. (Our last discussion of the material involved spurious claims and took place in a college dorm, in fact.) The Corduroy Appreciation Club finds itself approaching a very important date, as they write on their website, "The Most Important Date In History: 111111" -- also known as, "The date which most closely resembles Corduroy, EVER."

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Look: No turkey neck!

​Happy birthday to our very own Lady Liberty, whose 125 years of standing alone in New York Harbor we mark this very Friday. If you'll recall, the French gave us the statue to pay tribute to American liberty back on October 28, 1886. Now they've ruled against kids eating ketchup in their schools, so you see how far we've come. (Freedom fries!). In any case, the Statue is officially in her elder years, and though people are all going to say how good she looks for how old she is, and, sure, she does, given that she's a statue, we're going to take this moment to ask people to instead focus on her as a symbol of hope, promise, and how America once actually welcomed immigrants (or at least, pretended to symbolically) instead of blatantly trying to keep them out with giant fences.

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via BBaunach

​According to the hilarious (or icky) headline writers at Reuters, the "crowded, stretched world" is awaiting its 7 billionth baby as we speak. (As luck would have it, we weren't all raptured out on Friday.) The U.N. says this new member of society will be born on October 31, which also happens to be Halloween, which...should we be concerned? Some say yes, that Baby 7 Billion foreshadows tough times ahead, and should draw our attention to plans of how our giant population will share food, water, and other necessary resources; others think it will be damn cute, and anyway, everybody loves babies! Still others fear the baby may have pumpkin qualities.

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via Wikipedia

​On October 24th, 1931, you were dedicated as the "Hudson River Bridge." Soon after, you were renamed, and now everyone calls you George. As the world's busiest bridge, we know you have a lot on your plate today. We just want to quickly say, "Happy Birthday," and let you know how appreciated you are. (And, because it's your birthday, we won't bring up the fact that half of you lives in Jersey).

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​Staten Island is 350 years old, and today marks a special anniversary celebration for the borough that we sometimes tend to forget about (some of us, just some of us), or possibly mock (some of us!). So, today, be nice to Staten Island! Tell it how pretty it looks! Give it a big hug, or a cupcake, or both! The Empire State Building will be all dressed up in orange, white, and blue lights in honor of the event. Mayor Bloomberg will pay a visit to the esplanade near the Richmond County Ballpark at St. George tonight, with a representative from the Embassy of the Netherlands expected to attend. There will be a cake, in Staten Island colors. Someone will surely drink a beer on the ferry. Good times!

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​Today, the NFL does something most of its players never will: reach the ripe old age of 91. On August 20, 1920, the American Professional Football Conference was founded in Canton, Ohio in a seven-league merger. The name was quickly changed to the National Football League, the first example of the league's impeccable marketing savvy. The helmets were leather and the players weighed about as much as an Olsen twin, but the roots of the most popular sport in America were there. Baseball may have the better history and basketball may possess the superior athletes, but neither can make 20 million Americans care about a game between teams from Jacksonville and Buffalo like football can.

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​• Happy birthday to George W. Bush, who is 65 today. So is Sylvester Stallone. And it's Nancy Reagan's 90th! Have some cake, guys. [FOX]

• Manhattan prosecutors will meet with Dominique Strauss-Kahn's lawyers today to talk about whether the case against him can be dismissed or resolved in a plea deal. [NYT]

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​On June 17, 1885, the Statue of Liberty arrived in the New York Harbor. It was a gift from the people of France, designed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. Because she is 151-feet tall, Lady Liberty was shipped to the United States in more than 200 pieces. Assembly was completed on October 18, 1886 at a dedication by President Grover Cleveland. When Ellis Island opened in 1892, the statue became a symbol of hope for many newly arrived immigrants. Below the fold, we've put together some suggestions for how to celebrate this historic day.

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​The New York Public Library is now 100 years old. It looks so good! The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42nd and Fifth Avenue -- you know, the main building, with the lions -- opened exactly 100 years ago today for borrowing. It's gone from having 1 million items to 65 million "and counting." There's a party today to celebrate at the Belmont Library and Enrico Fermi Cultural Center at East 186th Street, or you could just swing by and say hey to the lions (their names, given by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in the 1930s, are Patience and Fortitude) at the main branch. The library is actually closed to the public today. Get your cocktail party banter about the NYPL here (books were originally delivered by horse-drawn carts! Jack Kerouac's crutches are in the collections!), and check out photos here.