Culture Episodes

Send us Fan Mail There’s a cake on the table, tiny flames flicker in the dark, everyone sings the same melody, and then you’re told to do something oddly specific: make a secret wish and blow the fire out. We all accept it as “normal” which is exactly why we wanted to pull the whole birthday ritual apart and ask the deceptively simple question behind it: why do humans celebrate the day we were born? We trace the history of birthdays through the unglamorous essentials that make them possible ...