Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you. Bill Bryson

The author of A Short History of Nearly Everything was born on this day in 1951.

From Wikipedia:

William McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, (born December 8, 1951) is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of Britain for most of his adult life before returning to the US in 1995. In 2003 Bryson moved back to Britain, living in the old rectory of Wramplingham, Norfolk, and was appointed Chancellor of Durham University.

Bryson shot to prominence in the United Kingdom with the publication of Notes From A Small Island (1995), an exploration of Britain, for which he made an accompanying television series. He received widespread recognition again with the publication of A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003), which popularised scientific questions for a general audience.

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