How many days and weeks until April 2nd?

Argentine forces landed on the Falkland Islands before dawn on April 2nd 1982. The garrison amounted to sixty-eight Royal Marines, an unusually large number only because the annual handover was in progress and two detachments were on the islands at once. Warned the previous day that an invasion was coming, the Governor, Rex Hunt, is recorded as saying: ‘Sounds like the buggers mean it.’ The Marines fought a short action around Government House before Hunt ordered a surrender to spare the civilian population. The British task force sailed from Portsmouth three days later.

On April 2nd 1801 Nelson, second in command at Copenhagen, was signalled by Sir Hyde Parker to break off the action. He raised his telescope to his blind eye and said that he really did not see the signal. The battle continued and the Danish line was broken.

Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey had its premiere in Washington on the evening of April 2nd 1968. The first-night audience was baffled, a good many of them walked out, and Kubrick cut nineteen minutes before the general release. It is now routinely voted one of the finest films ever made.

International Children’s Book Day is kept on April 2nd because Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish author of fairy tales such as The Little Mermaid, was born on it, in 1805. Marvin Gaye, the soul singer behind What’s Going On, was born in 1939, Emmylou Harris, the country and folk singer, in 1947 and the sprinter Linford Christie, an Olympic champion, in 1960.

Born on April 2nd: star sign, birthstone and birth flower

Hans Christian Andersen and Marvin Gaye — both named above — share this star sign with everyone else born in the same window.

None of this is settled fact in the way the history above is — zodiac dates, birthstones and birth flowers are conventions rather than laws, and different sources hedge them slightly differently. The birthstone is the most standardised of the three (set by the trade in 1912 and revised since); the birth flower is the least, resting on Victorian tradition rather than any governing body.

Gift ideas for a April 2nd birthday

A small, themed starting point rather than a shopping list — diamond for the stone, Aries for the sign, and the sky itself on the day.

Personalised birth flower & birthstone disc

Engraved with a name, the April birthstone and the daisy — both in one pendant, in a gift box.

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Aries constellation necklace

Stainless steel, sign selectable at checkout — choose Aries for a April 2nd birthday.

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Personalised star map print

The actual night sky over a chosen place on April 2nd, whichever year — a print rather than jewellery.

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