Eighty years ago this week, within 48 hours, two geniuses came into the world.  Whether it was a divine gesture or mere happenstance, these two men would become musicians while they were still children, join rock and roll bands by the time they were teenagers, and before they reached age 20 they would change the world.

James Paul McCartney was born on June 18, 1942 in Liverpool, England, to Jim and Mary McCartney.  Jim was a cotton merchant and sometime Big Band musician; Mary was a nurse and midwife. McCartney’s elementary school was overcrowded. He was given the opportunity to test out of that school and attend the Liverpool Institute, which would be a bus ride to a different area of town.  Paul got in. It was on that bus where he met George Harrison, and the two became friends.