September 13: Super Mario, Moon Punching & Niall Horan

Some days coast by unnoticed. September 13 is not one of them. This is a date that put a mustachioed plumber on our TVs, hurled a spacecraft at the Moon, and gave the internet a virtual pandemic to study. Buckle up.

One Small Step, One Big Dent

In 1959, the Soviet spacecraft Luna 2 struck the Moon, becoming the first spacecraft to reach another celestial body. Note the word "struck." There was no gentle landing, no polite knock. Humanity's first move in the space race was essentially throwing something at the Moon really, really hard. Honestly? Respectable.

Then in 1985, Super Mario Bros. was released in Japan for the Nintendo Entertainment System, going on to become one of the most influential and best-selling video games in history. An entire generation learned that mushrooms make you bigger and that turtles are, apparently, the enemy. Priceless life lessons all around.

When the Game Got Sick (Literally)

In 2005, a software bug caused a simulated pandemic in the online video game World of Warcraft — and it got so wildly out of hand that actual epidemiologists used it to study how human interaction influences disease outbreaks. Turns out gamers panic-fleeing a fictional plague behave a lot like real people. Who could've possibly guessed that a virtual crisis would teach us about ourselves? Groundbreaking stuff, gentlemen.

Happy Birthday to the Boy Band Royalty

September 13 is a big one for music fans. Niall Horan, Irish singer of One Direction fame, was born in 1993 — the same year Nirvana released their third and final studio album, In Utero, which went on to sell more than 15 million copies. So on one day the universe delivered both grunge history and a future stadium-filling heartthrob. Balance.

Also celebrating today: actress Lili Reinhart (born 1996), who you know from squinting dramatically in Riverdale, and cyclist Sepp Kuss (born 1994), who climbs mountains for fun while the rest of us climb stairs and need a lie-down.

A Holiday Just for the People Fixing Your Wi-Fi

In Russia, September 13 (during a non-leap year) is Day of the Programmer — a tribute to the caffeinated wizards who make everything on your screen work and then get blamed when it doesn't. If you know one, thank them today. Preferably with snacks and total silence.

From Moon-smacking to mushroom-munching, September 13 has quietly been one of history's overachievers. Go celebrate accordingly — maybe with a game controller in hand.