30 Years Of Laughs & Lasagna

Jim Davis was born on July 28, 1945, in Marion, Indiana, and was promptly dropped on his head–which could explain his lifelong desire to be a cartoonist. He later attended Ball State University in Muncie, where he distinguished himself by earning one of the lowest cumulative grade-point averages in the history of the university. (Incidentally, a fellow classmate named David Letterman earned the other.) The Garfield strip was born on June 19, 1978, syndicated in 41 U.S. newspapers. Today it’s recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s most widely syndicated comic strip, appearing in 2,570 newspapers and read by some 263 million readers in 111 countries around the globe.