J.R.R. Tolkien’s character Bilbo Baggins celebrates his birthday on 22 September.
Bilbo’s birthday is stated in The Hobbit and is also important at the opening of The Lord of the Rings. In the fictional calendar of the Shire, Bilbo was born on 22 September in the year 2890 of the Third Age. His nephew and heir, Frodo Baggins, shares the same birthday.
The date matters because Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday party begins The Fellowship of the Ring. During the celebration, Bilbo gives a farewell speech, uses the One Ring to disappear, and leaves the Shire.
Readers sometimes confuse Bilbo’s birthday with Tolkien’s own birthday, which was 3 January. The shared 22 September birthday of Bilbo and Frodo is a detail of the fictional story, not a biographical fact about Tolkien.