Word: birthdays
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...well worn Obama-Lincoln comparisons one more similarity: an apparent aversion to big birthday parties. The 16th President never celebrated his birthday in the White House, according to Lincoln biographer Emanuel Hertz. Obama, likewise, is ringing in his 48th on Aug. 4 with a decided lack of pomp. He dined, hooped and - ahem - bowled with friends at Camp David over the weekend, but he's spending the big day itself on the job, having lunch with Senate Democrats to discuss his Administration's accomplishments and goals. (No word on whether there will be cake.) Sure, it sounds like a snooze...
...most famous presidential birthday bash is undoubtedly JFK's 45th in 1962, featuring Marilyn Monroe's sultry serenade, "Happy birthday, Mr. President." The event fueled speculation that the Chief Executive and the Playboy centerfold were having an affair. It also was reportedly the model for the 50th birthday party of another philandering President, Bill Clinton - a Radio City Music Hall gala that raised $10 million for the Democratic Party in 1996. "For obvious reasons, White House officials said, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton had something a little different in mind," the Baltimore Sun reported at the time...
...birthday's not a birthday without a cake, of course, and Bubba's that year was so huge that he needed daughter Chelsea's help to blow out the candles. His was far from the biggest, however. At one of the 6,000 parties thrown in honor of Franklin Roosevelt's birthday in 1934, 52 young girls - one for each year of the President's life - paraded through New York City's Waldorf-Astoria hotel wearing frothy white satin-and-chiffon gowns topped with hats shaped like triple-tiered birthday cakes. Each carried in her right hand a long pink...
...Jimmy Carter went for flavor, not volume, on his 53rd birthday in 1977: his single cake was pistachio, reportedly his favorite. Ronald Reagan's 1981 surprise party, by contrast, featured veal, lobster, dancing - and a dozen cakes. Two years later, at the end of a televised press conference, his wife Nancy Reagan produced a small, one-candle cake for the President and another for reporters. "You understand we won't sell out for a piece of cake," quipped Sam Donaldson, then at ABC. "Oh, you've sold out for less than that," replied the President. (See TIME's politics blog...
...admission minimal. In a 2003 documentary, Jackson's ex-wife said, "My kids don't call me Mom, because I don't want them to. They're Michael's children." Filmmaker Bryan Michael Stoller, a friend of Jackson's, recalls visiting Neverland during a Prince Michael birthday celebration. "Michael came in with three boxes, and the first thing he said to Prince was, 'These are from Debbie for your birthday.' It was not like, 'These are from your mother,' " Stoller told TIME. "And of course she wasn't there. This would be a time, if she was any part...