Get ready to feel woefully inadequate.

Having trouble making resolutions for the new year? Use this list to motivate yourself. Or not.

• Age 00. Christian Friedrich Heinecken could speak German (at 8 weeks). Mary Stuart was crowned Queen of Scots (10 months).

• Age 01. Christian Friedrich Heinecken had read the Pentateuch. (Seriously. This kid will get his own post in the next few days.)

• Age 02. 5-time gold medalist speed skater Bonnie Blair began to skate.

• Age 03. Einstein spoke his first words. Jodie Foster began acting professionally. Christian Friedrich Heinecken could read German, French, and Latin, and was studying history and geography. Tennessee Williams told his first scary story. Mozart could play the harpsichord. 

• Age 04. Dorothy Straight became the youngest published author ever. Tori Amos was accepted into the prestigious Peabody Academy of Music in Baltimore.

• Age 05. Shirley Temple received an Honorary Oscar. Mozart was composing minuets. 

• Age 06. Drew Barrymore was a veteran actress. 

• Age 07. Jackie Coogan co-starred with Charlie Chaplin in "The Kid" and became the youngest person ever to make a million dollars.

• Age 08. 3-time gold medalist (track & field) Wilma Rudolph learned to walk. (She had had polio as a baby.) Chopin gave his first piano concert.

• Age 09. Daisy Ashford published her first novel. Shirley Temple was a millionaire. Mozart composed his first symphony. Admiral David "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" Farragut enlisted in the Navy.

• Age 10. Tatum O'Neal was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Stevie Wonder was signed by Motown Records.

• Age 11. Victoria Van Meter flew across the US.

• Age 12. Thomas Chatterton fooled critics and academics by writing "the Rowley poems," that were attributed to medieval authors.

• Age 13. Mario Andretti began racing. Renoir got a job painting dishes at a porcelain factory.

• Age 14. HG Wells dropped out of school.

• Age 15. Susan B Anthony became a teacher. Isaac Asimov entered Columbia. Louis Braille invented the alphabet for the blind that bears his name. 

• Age 16. Casanova was expelled from seminary. Tracy Austin won the US Open. Joan of Arc saved France.

• Age 17. Mum-zi, a Nigerian girl, became a grandmother. Yes, you read that correctly. Pele won the World Cup for Brazil. George Washington was surveying Virginia wilderness.

• Age 18. Franz Schubert had written over 200 songs. David Stuart began deciphering Mayan glyphs. John E Payton became Justice of the Peace in Collin Co., Texas. 

• Age 19. Gore Vidal finished his first novel. Abner Doubleday invented baseball.

• Age 20. Bill Gates founded Microsoft. Mary Shelley published "Frankenstein." Jane Austen published "Pride and Prejudice." Alexander the Great becomes king of Macedonia.

• Age 21. John Dillinger committed his first robbery. Stephen Foster wrote "O! Susanna!" Steve Jobs founded Apple. 

• Age 22. Darwin got a job as a ship's naturalist for a voyage to the Galapagos. Caresse Crosby patented the first bra. Samuel Colt invented the six-shooter.

• Age 23. TS Eliot wrote "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock." Keats wrote "Ode on a Grecian Urn." Capote published "Other Voices, Other Rooms." Orson Welles terrified the nation with his "War of the Worlds" broadcast. 

• Age 24. Nellie Bly traveled solo around the world in under 80 days. Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered pulsars.

• Age 25. Orson Welles wrote, directed, and starred in "Citizen Kane." Charlie Chaplin had made 35 films. Lindburgh flew solo across the Atlantic. Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile.

I hope you found that interesting. Now go do something productive. You'll never get anywhere if you just sit here reading my blog.

Goodnight and good luck,

Callie