Tolkien was born in South Africa, in Bloemfontein, in 1892.
As a child he was bitten there by a large baboon spider, though he did not remember it; the family left for England when he was about three.
More amazing facts
- 1889 The Eiffel Tower opened in spring 1889, and in June van Gogh painted The Starry Night at the Saint-Rémy asylum.
- 1889 Nintendo is as old as the Eiffel Tower: it was founded in Kyoto on 23 September 1889 to make hanafuda playing cards, the same year the tower opened.
- 1891 Tchaikovsky helped open Carnegie Hall.
- 1893 · 1918 Women in New Zealand have voted in parliamentary elections since 1893, a quarter of a century before those in Britain, Germany or Russia.
- 1893 · 1914 Gandhi spent 21 years in South Africa, from 1893 to 1914.
- 1893 Under US law the tomato is a vegetable.