Today, September 5th is the 75th birthday anniversary of Freddie Mercury and I dedicate this post to the man and legend behind Freddie Mercury.

Photo of Freddie Mercury, with members of the band Queen and the late Diego Maradona. (Source:Unknown)

10) An asteroid 17473 now carries the name FreddieMercury. The asteroid was discovered in 1991, the year Freddie passed away and in 2006 was given his name in commemoration for what could  have been his 70th birthday.

9) Freddie was such a cat lover that he is claimed to have had up to 10 at one point. Moreover he wrote a song dedicated to his favorite cat Delilah and in the movie Queen, you could see him asking his then girlfriend Jane Austen to ¨speak to his cats¨ while on tour.

8) Freddie Mercury followed the religion of his family Zoroastrian. Though he was not actively practising this religion in the later part of his life, his funeral ceremony observed this religion´s rituals.

7) Born in Africa. Precisely Zanzibar, Freddie Mercury´s family travelled a lot between Zanzibar and India.

6)More on his early years, his birth name was Farrokh Bulsara. After this he used a few more stage names before settling on Freddie Mercury.

5) Avid stamp collector. Freddie Mercury had an impressive stamp collection from his travels all the back back from Zanzibar to his days as a famous musician.

4) Early job as baggage handler at London´s Heathrow airport. No one could imagine his meteoric rise to stages worldwide from a relatively discrete job as a baggage handler.

3) Theme song for 1991 Barcelona Olympics. Freddie Mercury admired the late Spanish opera singer Montserrat Caballé that they collaborated. Their most recognized song is Barcelona and was sung at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, unfortunately a year after Freddie Mercury died. Therefore, Montserrat Caballé performed the song only with Freddie´s vocals accompanying her.

2)  Several songs with Michael Jackson. Mercury recorded a couple of songs with Michael Jackson namely ¨There must be more to life than this¨, ¨State of shock¨and ¨Victory¨. Though not completely finished some were used on his 1985 solo album ¨Mr Bad Guy¨.

1) Shy personality: A stark contrast to his stage persona, those closest to him say Freddie was really shy. One of the reason he was timid was his teeth which at the same time did not want to get fixed because he believed they would affect his music.

Article source: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/22465/facts-about-freddie-mercury