It would destroy my sense of Hawking's rationally to imagine him using a month-day-year date ordering. ;o)

He would use year, month, day of course. The only format that makes sense. Shortened to month, day.

And Albert Einstein died at the age of 76 as well. What a coincidence.

hmm... too many 'coincidences' for people who know how to fiddle with time

Stephen Hawking was born 8 January 1942, exactly 300 years after the death of Galileo.