1. February 6th is Bob's birthday and is also Bob Marley Day in Canada.
2. Bob grew up poor. He always went to bed hungry and walked around town barefoot.
3. But that didn't stop Bob from playing football, making music and being awesome in general.
4. He’s been quoted as saying, “Football is freedom, a whole universe. Me love it because you have to be skillful to play it.”
Trevor Wyatt, the UK distributor for Island Records, was one of the only people who knew how good Marley was at the sport: “Trying to get the ball off him… was just hopeless. Because Bob was the person he was, the ball always came to him. He was the midfield general, if you like, and they called him Skipper. They were so good, it was like playing Brazil.”
5. At 21, Bob lived in Delaware for seven months where he worked the night shift at a Chrysler plant.
6. He was in a serious romantic relationship with Miss World 1976.
7. There are a lot of songs credited to Marley online... but they're not actually sung by him.
Like "Red, Red Wine" by UB40.
View this video on YouTube
And "Smoke Two Joints" by The Toyes.
View this video on YouTube
And "Sweat" by Inner Circle.
View this video on YouTube
And "Don't Worry Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin.
View this video on YouTube
8. His electric act was so good that it got him fired from a Sly and the Family Stone tour.
10. His nickname was "white boy."
Bob’s father Norval Sinclair Marley was a white British naval captain, while Bob’s mom, was a young Jamaican girl named Cedella. Bob was rejected by most people in his neighborhood for his mixed race, but it helped him develop the philosophy, "I'm not on the white man's side, or the black man's side. I'm on God's side."
11. Marley, his wife, and his manager were all shot by an unidentified gunman inside Marley's home.
12. But that didn't stop Marley from getting back on stage.
13. His recording label Tuff Gong is still going strong.
14. His album Legend has remained on the Billboard charts for the second longest-charting of all time.
15. The royalties from "No Woman No Cry" are sent directly to a soup kitchen in Jamaica.
16. His songs are an inspiration for musical theatre.
And it seems pretty awesome.
17. His charities are still giving back.
18. His last words to his son Ziggy were, "Money can't buy life."
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Bob met Tosh in Delaware, but he actually met him before moving. Additionally, Cedilla Marley did not write the play "Bob Marley's Three Little Birds." The play is Michael J. Bobbitt and Nick Olcott's adaptation of Cedella's book of the same name.