---
title: Born
date: 1974-03-09
week: 0
location: St. Mary's Hospital
geo: [38.63295, -90.31108]
type: life
---

A bunch of Northern Europeans migrated to North America and started breeding with each other. After a few generations, in St. Louis, Missouri, this led to me.[^genealogy] This made me one of 3,862,334,063 on Earth[^population], including the 3 members of Skylab 4 that had recently returned. At the time, the Earth's atmosphere consisted of 331.48 ppm CO<sub>2</sub>.

[^genealogy]: I collect family tree records on [WikiTree](https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gerwitz-222).

[^population]: According to [The Guardian's calculations](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/interactive/2011/oct/24/how-big-worlds-population-born).

Biologically, I came from a template effectively identical to the 103 billion[^prior] Homo Sapientes before me. Nonetheless, the cultural context of that time and place made me a unique specimen, and certainly my arrival would have been bigger news were it not overshadowed by the surrender of Hirō Onoda.

[^prior]: 102,962,553,124 humans came before me, according to [Population Reference Bureau](https://www.prb.org/howmanypeoplehaveeverlivedonearth/).
