Happy Birthday: William Dampier (1651 – March 1715) was an English explorer, pirate, privateer and naturalist who became the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today Australia, and the first person to circumnavigate the world three times. He has also been described as Australia's first natural historian, as well as one of the most important British explorers of the period between the 16th-century explorer Sir Francis Drake and the 18th-century explorer James Cook; he "bridged those two eras" with a mix of piratical derring-do of the former and scientific inquiry of the latter.

Dampier's expeditions were among the first to identify and name a number of plants, animals, foods and cooking techniques for a European audience, being among the first English writers to use words such as avocado, barbecue and chopsticks. In describing the preparation of avocados, he was the first European to describe the making of guacamole, named the breadfruit plant, and made frequent documentation of the taste of numerous foods foreign to the European palate at the time, such as flamingo and manatee.

After impressing the Admiralty with his book A New Voyage Round the World, Dampier was given command of a Royal Navy ship and made important discoveries in western Australia, before being court-martialed for cruelty. On a later voyage he rescued Alexander Selkirk, a former crewmate who may have inspired Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Others influenced by Dampier include George Anson, James Cook, Horatio Nelson, Charles Darwin, and Alfred Russel Wallace.

Jonathan Swift mentions Dampier in his Gulliver's Travels as a mariner comparable to Lemuel Gulliver, and the novel itself occasionally parodies Dampier's travel books as well as other tales of exploration.

He is cited over 80 times in the Oxford English Dictionary, notably on words such as "barbecue", "avocado", "chopsticks", and "subspecies". That is not to say he coined the words, but his use of them in his writings is the first known example in English.

He recorded the first English language recipes for guacamole and mango chutney.

[Side Note: He was baptised on 5 September, but his precise date of birth is not recorded]