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[Teo]

Many happy returns of the day.

What does the above sentence mean?
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[asterix]

It is a wish expressed on birthdays.
It means that you hope that the person to whom you say it will have many more happy days like this one.
So - he will live a long time and be happy.

[CP]

I've heard the expression many times but never really knew what it meant, except maybe much happiness on one's birthday. The online etymology source www.etymonline.com gives this report:

c.1366, "to come back," from O.Fr. retorner "turn back, return," from re- "back" + torner "to turn" (see turn). Transitive sense is attested from c.1420. The noun is first attested c.1390, "act of coming back;" in the tennis sense, it is from 1886. Meaning "official report of election results" is attested from 1459. Meaning "a yield, a profit" is recorded from 1626. Many happy returns of the day was used by Addison, 1716.

As an "act of coming back," it would have the meaning given by Asterix. As a "a yield, a profit," it would mean something like, "I hope you get a lot of something [happiness, good wishes, gifts] from this day."
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[CP]

A little Googling led me to the collected works of the Right Honorable Joseph Addison. In Freeholder No. 46, he starts out with an epigram in Latin, followed by the opening sentence:

"The usual salutation to a man upon his birth-day among the ancient Romans was, Multos et faelices; in which they wished him many happy returns of it."

Multos et faelices translates as "many [things] and happy [things]."

EDIT: I correct myself. "Many things and happy things" would be Multa et faelica. I think the missing word here is annos, years, which would match multos et faelices in gender, number, and case. "[I wish you] many [years] and happy [years]."
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You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb