Calendars in North Korea still don't mark Kim Jong-un's birthday
Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung's birthdays are both national holidays.
He might be the latest in a line of supreme god-like rulers over the closed state but does no-one come to Kim Jong-un's birthday party? A report from Japan has said that calendars in the hermit kingdom do not mark the leader's birthday in any way.
While the birthdays of his father, Kim Jong-il, and grandfather, Kim Il-sung, are still celebrated nationwide, the younger Kim has yet to enjoy that perk of his family's brutal dictatorship. According to the BBC, the only moment close to the country even acknowledging Kim's birthday was when Dennis Rodman sang him Happy Birthday.
That was reportedly relayed to North Koreans only as Rodman singing the leader "a special song". Kim's birthday is thought to be 8 January - but that, and much of his early life, reminds a mystery.
According to one high-level defector, Kim was a "hidden boy" as a child whose own grandfather was unaware of his existence. Former North Korean ambassador to the UK, Thae Yong-ho, was speaking to lawmakers at the US Capitol when he made the claims.
Thae said that many North Koreans had no idea about much of Kim's life and had instead were fed a diet of myths by the regime. Thae urged the US to do more to disseminate information into North Korea.
One thing that is known about Kim's early life, that he attended an elite private school in Switzerland, is not well-known within the country, Thae said.
With the slow infiltration of outside culture beginning to further permeate North Korea, Thae claimed that it was becoming "increasingly possible to think about civilian uprising in North Korea".
