Happy birthday, Chuck Norris! The action icon and internet legend is celebrating his 80th birthday today and the internet, rightfully so, took time to celebrate the occasion. The star of Walker Texas Ranger has had a career spanning more than 40 years, not to mention all of the truly incredible jokes centered around his legend that have sprung up during that time.

Chuck Norris, born Carlos Ray Norris, was born in 1940. Long before his career as an action star, Norris was a member of the military, serving in the Air Force. It was during his time there that he earned the nickname "Chuck." Norris began studying martial arts during his time in active service. Once leaving the military, he started teaching karate. Rather amazingly, Norris was the first westerner in history to hold the rank of 8th-degree black belt in taekwondo.

It was in 1972 that Chuck Norris got his big break, starring alongside Bruce Lee in The Way of the Dragon. That opened the door for his Hollywood career which was, to say the least, prolific. Norris became a regular in the Cannon Films stable and starred in a number of action flicks such as Good Guys Wear Black, The Octagon, Silent Rage, Missing In Action and Invasion U.S.A., amongst many others, throughout the 80s. Another action star, Danny Trejo, took to Twitter to wish Norris a happy birthday, in an appropriate fashion.

"You can't take a photo of Chuck Norris because the only photo that'll come out is of his shoe just before he roundhouse kicks you in the face... but I'm Machete. Happy Birthday Chuck!"

The tweet gets to the heart of something rather interesting that happened to the actor later in his career. In the 2000s, when the internet was still finding its identity, people began making Chuck Norris jokes that playfully exaggerated his legendary status. Many of these jokes were documented in a series of books by author Ian Spector including The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 Facts About the World's Greatest Human, Chuck Norris vs. Mr. T, Chuck Norris Cannot Be Stopped and Chuck Norris: Longer and Harder. Many of the social media tributes took the form of loving Chuck Norris jokes such as these.

In the 90s, Chuck Norris found new life on the small screen in Walker Texas Ranger. The hit show ran for a total of eight seasons and ran for 200 episodes. A reboot starring Jared Padalecki is currently in the works. More recently, Chuck Norris appeared alongside some of his fellow action stars in The Expendables 2. Norris was also immortalized with one of the most memorable comedic cameos of all time in 2004's Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. Be sure to check out some of the tributes we collected from Twitter below.