October 28th is the birthday

… of Charlie Daniels. The devil in Georgia is 70.

… of Bill Gates. The former resident of Albuquerque is 51 today.

… of Julia Roberts. The Oscar-winning (Erin Brockovich) actress is 39. Ms. Roberts was also nominated for best actress for Pretty Woman and best supporting actress for Steel Magnolias.

… of Joaquin Phoenix. He’s already been nominated for a best supporting actor (“Gladiator”) and a leading actor (“Walk the Line”) Oscar and he’s just 32.

It’s also the birthday of Dr. Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine. He was born in 1914 and died in 1995. The following is from The Writer’s Almanac in 2004:

In the 1950s, Salk turned his attention to the polio virus. The disease affected children and many of those infected became paralyzed or died. There had been larger and larger outbreaks of polio in the United States since the late 19th century. By 1952, more than 58,000 cases were reported and more than 3,000 children had died of the disease.

It was the height of the baby boom, there were more children in the United States than ever before, and parents were terrified. The outbreaks occurred in the summer, and parents kept their children home from swimming pools out of fear they would be infected.

Salk’s groundbreaking discovery was that a vaccine could be developed from a dead virus. Scientists were skeptical at the time, but Salk believed so strongly that it would work that he first tested the vaccine on himself, his family and the staff of his laboratory to prove it was safe.

When the vaccine was finally released to the public in 1955, polio infection rates were reduced to less than 100 cases a year, and Salk was declared a national hero.