History of Today 17 August: Important Events, Births and Deaths

Welcome to History of Today 17 August. On this page, you can read important historical events, famous births, notable deaths and general knowledge facts related to 17 August. This information is useful for UPSC, SSC, Banking, Railway, State PSC and other competitive exams.

Last updated on 17 August 2026, 01:01 AM

Important Events on 17 August in History

17 Aug 2019: A bomb explodes at a wedding in Kabul killing 63 people and leaving 182 injured. Read more
17 Aug 2017: Barcelona attacks: A van is driven into pedestrians in La Rambla, killing 14 and injuring at least 100. Read more
17 Aug 2015: A bomb explodes near the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, Thailand, killing at least 19 people and injuring 123 others. Read more
17 Aug 2009: An accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam in Khakassia, Russia, kills 75 and shuts down the hydroelectric power station, leading to widespread power failure in the local area. Read more
17 Aug 2008: American swimmer Michael Phelps becomes the first person to win eight gold medals at one Olympic Games. Read more
17 Aug 2005: The first forced evacuation of settlers, as part of Israeli disengagement from Gaza, starts. Read more
17 Aug 2005: Over 500 bombs are set off by terrorists at 300 locations in 63 out of the 64 districts of Bangladesh. Read more
17 Aug 2004: The National Assembly of Serbia unanimously adopts new state symbols for Serbia: Bože pravde becomes the new anthem and the coat of arms is adopted for the whole country. Read more
17 Aug 1999: The 7.6 Mw İzmit earthquake shakes northwestern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), leaving 17,118–17,127 dead and 43,953–50,000 injured. Read more
17 Aug 1998: Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky; later that same day he admits before the nation that he "misled people" about the relationship. Read more
17 Aug 1991: Strathfield massacre: In Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, taxi driver Wade Frankum shoots and kills seven people and injures six others before turning the gun on himself. Read more
17 Aug 1988: President of Pakistan Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel are killed in a plane crash. Read more
17 Aug 1985: The 1985–86 Hormel strike begins in Austin, Minnesota. Read more
17 Aug 1978: Double Eagle II becomes first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it lands in Miserey, France near Paris, 137 hours after leaving Presque Isle, Maine. Read more
17 Aug 1977: The Soviet icebreaker Arktika becomes the first surface ship to reach the North Pole. Read more
17 Aug 1976: A magnitude 7.9 earthquake hits off the coast of Mindanao, Philippines, triggering a destructive tsunami, killing between 5,000 and 8,000 people and leaving more than 90,000 homeless. Read more
17 Aug 1970: Soviet Union Venera program: Venera 7 launched. It will become the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet (Venus). Read more
17 Aug 1969: Category 5 Hurricane Camille hits the U.S. Gulf Coast, killing 256 and causing $1.42 billion in damage. Read more
17 Aug 1962: Peter Fechter is shot and bleeds to death while trying to cross the new Berlin Wall. Read more
17 Aug 1960: Aeroflot Flight 036 crashes in Soviet Ukraine, killing 34. Read more
17 Aug 1959: Quake Lake is formed by the magnitude 7.2 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake near Hebgen Lake in Montana. Read more
17 Aug 1958: Pioneer 0, America's first attempt at lunar orbit, is launched using the first Thor-Able rocket and fails. Notable as one of the first attempted launches beyond Earth orbit by any country. Read more
17 Aug 1955: Hurricane Diane made landfall near Wilmington, North Carolina, and it went on to cause major floods and kill more than 184 people. Read more
17 Aug 1953: First meeting of Narcotics Anonymous takes place, in Southern California. Read more
17 Aug 1950: Korean War: Forty-two American prisoners of war were massacred by the Korean People's Army on a hill above Waegwan, South Korea. Read more
17 Aug 1949: The 6.7 Ms Karlıova earthquake shakes eastern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), leaving 320–450 dead. Read more
17 Aug 1949: Matsukawa derailment: Unknown saboteurs cause a passenger train to derail and overturn in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, killing three crew members and igniting a political firestorm between the Japanese Communist Party and the government of Occupied Japan that will eventually lead to the Japanese Red Purge. Read more
17 Aug 1947: The Radcliffe Line, the border between the Dominions of India and Pakistan, is revealed. Read more
17 Aug 1945: Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaim the independence of Indonesia, igniting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch Empire. Read more
17 Aug 1945: The novella Animal Farm by George Orwell is first published. Read more
17 Aug 1945: Evacuation of Manchukuo: At Talitzou by the Sino-Korean border, Puyi, then the Kangde Emperor of Manchukuo, formally renounces the imperial throne, dissolves the state, and cedes its territory to the Republic of China. Read more
17 Aug 1943: World War II: The U.S. Eighth Air Force suffers the loss of 60 bombers on the Schweinfurt–Regensburg mission. Read more
17 Aug 1943: World War II: The U.S. Seventh Army under General George S. Patton arrives in Messina, Italy, followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily. Read more
17 Aug 1943: World War II: First Québec Conference of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and William Lyon Mackenzie King begins. Read more
17 Aug 1943: World War II: The Royal Air Force begins Operation Hydra, the first air raid of the Operation Crossbow strategic bombing campaign against Germany's V-weapon program. Read more
17 Aug 1942: World War II: U.S. Marines raid the Japanese-held Pacific island of Makin. Read more
17 Aug 1918: Bolshevik revolutionary leader Moisei Uritsky is assassinated. Read more
17 Aug 1916: World War I: Romania signs a secret treaty with the Entente Powers. According to the treaty, Romania agreed to join the war on the Allied side. Read more
17 Aug 1915: Jewish American Leo Frank is lynched in Marietta, Georgia, USA after his death sentence is commuted by Governor John Slaton. Read more
17 Aug 1915: A Category 4 hurricane hits Galveston, Texas with winds at 135 miles per hour (217 km/h). Read more
17 Aug 1914: World War I: Battle of Stallupönen: The German army of General Hermann von François defeats the Russian force commanded by Paul von Rennenkampf near modern-day Nesterov, Russia. Read more
17 Aug 1907: Pike Place Market, one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers' markets in the U.S. and a popular tourist attraction, opens in Seattle, Washington. Read more
17 Aug 1896: Bridget Driscoll became the first recorded case of a pedestrian killed in a collision with a motor car in the United Kingdom. Read more
17 Aug 1883: The first public performance of the Dominican Republic's national anthem, Himno Nacional. Read more
17 Aug 1876: Richard Wagner's Götterdämmerung, the last opera in his Ring cycle, premieres at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. Read more
17 Aug 1866: The Grand Duchy of Baden announces its withdrawal from the German Confederation and signs a treaty of peace and alliance with Prussia. Read more
17 Aug 1864: American Civil War: Battle of Gainesville: Confederate forces defeat Union troops near Gainesville, Florida. Read more
17 Aug 1863: American Civil War: In Charleston, South Carolina, Union batteries and ships bombard Confederate-held Fort Sumter. Read more
17 Aug 1862: American Indian Wars: The Dakota War of 1862 begins in Minnesota as Dakota warriors attack white settlements along the Minnesota River. Read more
17 Aug 1862: American Civil War: Major General J. E. B. Stuart is assigned command of all the cavalry of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Read more
17 Aug 1836: British parliament accepts registration of births, marriages and deaths. Read more
17 Aug 1827: Dutch King William I and Pope Leo XII sign concord. Read more
17 Aug 1808: The Finnish War: The Battle of Alavus is fought. Read more
17 Aug 1807: Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York, on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world. Read more

Famous Births on 17 August

17 Aug 2003: Nastasja Schunk, German tennis player Nastasja Mariana Schunk is a German tennis player. Read more
17 Aug 2003: The Kid Laroi, Australian rapper and songwriter Charlton Kenneth Jeffrey Howard, known professionally as the Kid Laroi, is an Australian singer, rapper, and songwriter. He was signed with American rapper Lil Bibby's Grade A Productions, in a joint venture with Columbia Records, in 2019. He is best known for his 2021 single "Stay", which peaked atop the charts in numerous countries including his native Australia, as well as the Canadian Hot 100 and Billboard Hot 100. Read more
17 Aug 2000: Lil Pump, American rapper and songwriter Gazzy Fabio Garcia, known professionally as Lil Pump, is an American rapper. He rose to prominence as part of the SoundCloud rap scene in the late 2010s, gaining distinction for his minimalist music and rambunctious public persona. Born and raised in Miami, Florida, he gained mainstream attention following the release of his 2017 single "Gucci Gang", which peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and preceded his self-titled debut studio album, released by Warner Records in October of that year. Read more
17 Aug 1998: Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Japanese baseball player Yoshinobu Yamamoto is a Japanese professional baseball pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball (MLB). He has previously played in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) for the Orix Buffaloes, where he became one of the most decorated pitchers in league history. Read more
17 Aug 1996: Jake Virtanen, Canadian ice hockey player Jacob Virtanen is a Finnish-Canadian professional ice hockey player who currently plays for HK Dukla Michalovce of the Slovak Extraliga. Virtanen was drafted by the Vancouver Canucks sixth overall in the 2014 NHL entry draft and played for the NHL team from 2015 to 2021. Read more
17 Aug 1995: Gracie Gold, American figure skater Grace Elizabeth Gold is an American figure skater. She is a 2014 Olympic bronze medalist in the team event, a six-time Grand Prix medalist, and a two-time U.S. national champion. She placed 4th at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. At the junior level, Gold is the 2012 World Junior silver medalist, the 2011 JGP Estonia champion, and the 2012 U.S. junior national champion. Read more
17 Aug 1995: Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, New Zealand rugby league player Dallin Watene-Zelezniak is a New Zealand professional rugby league footballer who plays as a winger or fullback for the New Zealand Warriors in the National Rugby League (NRL) and New Zealand at international level. Read more
17 Aug 1994: Phoebe Bridgers, American singer/songwriter Phoebe Lucille Bridgers is an American singer-songwriter and record producer. Her indie folk music typically centers on acoustic guitar and electronic production, with melancholic lyrical themes. She has won four Grammy Awards on 11 nominations. Read more
17 Aug 1994: Jack Conklin, American football player Jonathan Jackson Conklin is an American professional football offensive tackle. He played college football for the Michigan State Spartans and was selected by the Tennessee Titans eighth overall in the 2016 NFL draft. Conklin has been named a first-team All-Pro twice. Read more
17 Aug 1994: Taissa Farmiga, American actress Taissa Farmiga is an American actress. Her numerous appearances in horror films have established her as a scream queen, alongside her older sister Vera Farmiga. Read more
17 Aug 1993: Ederson Moraes, Brazilian footballer Ederson Santana de Moraes, simply known as Ederson, is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Süper Lig club Fenerbahçe and the Brazil national team. Read more
17 Aug 1993: Sarah Sjöström, Swedish swimmer Sarah Fredrika Sjöström is a Swedish competitive swimmer specialising in the sprint freestyle and butterfly events. She is one of the most decorated swimmers of all time. Read more
17 Aug 1993: Xie Zhenye, Chinese athlete Xie Zhenye is a Chinese sprinter. He is the current Asian record holder of the 200 metres with a time of 19.88 seconds. In 2018, Xie ran a personal best of 9.97 seconds in the 100 metres, making him the second Chinese sprinter to record a time below the 10-second barrier, after his compatriot Su Bingtian. Xie represented China at the 2012 Summer Olympics, 2016 Summer Olympics and 2020 Summer Olympics where he became the first Chinese athlete to have ever qualified for a semi-final of men's 200 metres at any Summer Olympic Games. In 2023, in the absence of his injured compatriot Su Bingtian, Xie became the 2022 Asian Games champion in the 100 metres event, with a time of 9.97 seconds. Read more
17 Aug 1992: Saraya Bevis, English wrestler Saraya-Jade Bevis is an English professional wrestler and actress. As of April 2026, she is signed to WWE, where she performs under the ring name Paige. She is also known for her tenure in All Elite Wrestling (AEW) from 2022 to 2025, where she performed under her real name. Read more
17 Aug 1992: Alex Elisala, New Zealand-Australian rugby player (died 2013) Alex Elisala was a Samoa international rugby league footballer who was contracted to the North Queensland Cowboys at the time of his death. He primarily played as a hooker. Read more
17 Aug 1992: Chanel Mata'utia, Australian rugby league player Chanel Mata'utia-Leifi ( MAH-tə-oo-TEE-ə is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer. He plays for the Cessnock Goannas in the Newcastle Rugby League. He previously played for the Newcastle Knights in the National Rugby League as a winger. Read more
17 Aug 1992: Maru Teferi, Israeli marathon runner Maru Abinet Teferi, also known as Teferi Marhu, is an Israeli marathon and half marathon runner, and an Olympian. He won a silver medal in men's marathon at the 2023 World Athletics Championships, a silver medal in marathon at the 2022 European Athletics Championships, a gold medal in the 2022 European Marathon Cup, and the gold medal at the 2022 Fukuoka Marathon. He represented Israel at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the men's marathon, and again represented Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics in the 2020 Olympic Marathon. He has set Israeli records in both the marathon and half marathon. Teferi represented Israel at the 2024 Paris Olympics in the Men's marathon, and came in 26th. Read more
17 Aug 1991: Austin Butler, American actor Austin Robert Butler is an American actor. Known for his performances on stage and screen, he has received a British Academy Film Award and Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, two Critics' Choice Awards, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2023. Read more
17 Aug 1990: Rachel Hurd-Wood, English actress Rachel Hurd-Wood is an English actress. She is known for her performances in the fantasy adventure film Peter Pan (2003), the supernatural horror film An American Haunting (2005), the thriller film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), the dark fantasy horror film Dorian Gray (2009), the action-adventure war film Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010) and the BBC Three television series Clique (2017–18). Read more
17 Aug 1989: Lil B, American rapper Brandon Christopher McCartney, known professionally as Lil B and Lil B the BasedGod, is an American rapper and record producer. He began his career as a member of the Berkeley, California-based hip hop group the Pack in 2005, who signed with Too Short's Up All Nite Records, an imprint of Jive Records the following year. The group became best known for their hit song "Vans", their sole entry on the Billboard Hot 100, later releasing two studio albums before disbanding in 2010. Read more
17 Aug 1989: Rachel Corsie, Scottish footballer Rachel Louise Corsie is a Scottish former professional footballer who played as a defender. Read more
17 Aug 1988: Brady Corbet, American actor and director Brady James Monson Corbet is an American filmmaker and former actor. He had roles in films such as Thirteen (2003), Mysterious Skin (2004), Funny Games (2007), Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011), Melancholia (2011), and Clouds of Sils Maria (2014), as well as the series 24 (2006) and Olive Kitteridge (2014). Read more
17 Aug 1988: Jihadi John, Kuwaiti-British member of ISIS (died 2015) Mohammed Emwazi, commonly referred to as Jihadi John, was a British militant of Kuwaiti origin seen in several videos produced by the Islamist extremist group Islamic State (IS) showing the beheadings of a number of captives in 2014 and 2015. A group of his hostages nicknamed him "John" since he was part of a four-person terrorist cell with English accents whom they called 'The Beatles'; the press later began calling him "Jihadi John". Read more
17 Aug 1988: Joyner Lucas, American rapper Gary Maurice "Joyner" Lucas Jr. is an American rapper. Lucas first gained exposure online with his 2015 single "Ross Capicchioni". After three self-released projects, he signed with Atlantic Records to release his fourth mixtape and major label debut, 508-507-2209 (2017). That same year, his political single, "I'm Not Racist", quickly went viral, received gold certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and was nominated Best Music Video at the 61st Grammy Awards. His remixes of then-popular SoundCloud rap songs, such as Lil Pump's "Gucci Gang", have also gained recognition. Read more
17 Aug 1988: Natalie Sandtorv, Norwegian singer-songwriter Natalie Sandtorv is a Norwegian jazz musician married July 29, 2016, to drummer Ole Mofjell, residing in Copenhagen, Denmark. Read more
17 Aug 1988: Erika Toda, Japanese actress Erika Toda is a Japanese actress. Read more
17 Aug 1986: Rudy Gay, American basketball player Rudy Carlton Gay Jr. is an American former professional basketball player. A forward, he played college basketball for the UConn Huskies before being selected eighth overall in the 2006 NBA draft by the Houston Rockets, but was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies days later. He was named to the 2007 All-Rookie First Team. Read more
17 Aug 1986: Tyrus Thomas, American basketball player Tyrus Wayne Thomas is an American former professional basketball player. He played college basketball for Louisiana State University (LSU) before being drafted fourth overall by the Portland Trail Blazers in the 2006 NBA draft. He was then traded to the Chicago Bulls where he went on to play three and a half seasons when in February 2010, he was traded to the Charlotte Bobcats. He spent a total of eight seasons in the NBA before retiring in 2016. Read more
17 Aug 1985: Yū Aoi, Japanese actress and model Yu Aoi is a Japanese actress and model. She made her film debut as Shiori Tsuda in Shunji Iwai's 2001 film All About Lily Chou-Chou. She subsequently portrayed Tetsuko Arisugawa in Hana and Alice (2004), also directed by Iwai, Kimiko Tanigawa in the hula dancing film Hula Girls and Hagumi Hanamoto in the 2006 live-action adaptation of the Honey and Clover manga series. Read more
17 Aug 1984: Dee Brown, American basketball player Daniel "Dee" Brown is an American former professional basketball player and current college coach. Brown played at the University of Illinois from 2002 to 2006, receiving numerous awards and accolades, including the 2005 Sporting News National Player of the Year. Brown was selected in the second round of the 2006 NBA draft by the Utah Jazz. Brown played for several international basketball teams from 2007 to 2015. Read more
17 Aug 1984: Oksana Domnina, Russian ice dancer Oksana Alexandrovna Domnina is a Russian former competitive ice dancer. She and partner Maxim Shabalin are the 2010 Olympic bronze medalists, the 2009 World Champions, the 2008 & 2010 European Champions, the 2007 Grand Prix Final champions, and three-time Russian national champions. Read more
17 Aug 1984: Liam Heath, British sprint canoeist Liam Heath is a British sprint canoeist. He is the most successful British canoeist at the Olympics with a total of four medals; he won a gold medal in the individual 200m kayak sprint event at the 2016 Summer Olympics and a bronze in the 2020 Olympics, as well as a silver in the men's double with Jon Schofield in 2016. and a bronze at the 2012 London Olympics in the K-2 200 with Schofield. Read more
17 Aug 1984: Garrett Wolfe, American football player Garrett Wolfe is an American former professional football player who was a running back in the National Football League (NFL). He was selected by the Chicago Bears in the third round of the 2007 NFL draft. He played his college football for the Northern Illinois Huskies. Read more
17 Aug 1983: Dustin Pedroia, American baseball player Dustin Luis Pedroia is an American former professional baseball second baseman who played his entire Major League Baseball (MLB) career for the Boston Red Sox, from 2006 to 2019. He was a four-time All-Star, and won the American League (AL) Rookie of the Year Award in 2007 and the AL Most Valuable Player and Silver Slugger Award in 2008. He has also received four Gold Glove Awards and was named AL Defensive Player of the Year in 2013. Read more
17 Aug 1982: Phil Jagielka, English footballer Philip Nikodem Jagielka is an English former professional footballer who played as a centre-back. He is primarily known for his lengthy tenures at Sheffield United and Everton. Read more
17 Aug 1982: Cheerleader Melissa, American wrestler and manager Melissa Anderson is an American professional wrestler, better known by her ring name Cheerleader Melissa. She is best known for her work in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, where she worked as Alissa Flash and Raisha Saeed. She is currently performing on the independent circuit for promotions such as Shimmer Women Athletes, where she is a former two-time Shimmer Champion. In 2013, Anderson was ranked number 1 in Pro Wrestling Illustrated's annual Top 50 Females list; the first Independent women's wrestler to top the list. Read more
17 Aug 1982: Mark Salling, American actor and musician (died 2018) Mark Wayne Salling was an American actor and musician known for his role as Noah "Puck" Puckerman on the television series Glee. Read more
17 Aug 1980: Keith Dabengwa, Zimbabwean cricketer Keith Mbusi Dabengwa is a Zimbabwean cricketer. He was appointed head coach of the Denmark national cricket team in October 2021. Read more
17 Aug 1980: Daniel Güiza, Spanish footballer Daniel González Güiza is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a striker for Primera Andaluza club Jerez Industrial. Read more
17 Aug 1980: Jan Kromkamp, Dutch footballer Jan Kromkamp is a Dutch former professional footballer who played as a right-back. He manages CSV Apeldoorn. Read more
17 Aug 1980: Lene Marlin, Norwegian singer-songwriter Lene Marlin Pedersen is a Norwegian musician, singer and songwriter. Read more
17 Aug 1979: Antwaan Randle El, American football player and journalist Antwaan Randle El is an American professional football coach and former player who currently serves as the wide receivers coach and assistant head coach for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football as a quarterback for the Indiana Hoosiers, earning first-team All-American honors in 2001. He also played basketball and baseball for the Hoosiers. He was selected by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the second round of the 2002 NFL draft. Playing with the Steelers for four seasons as a wide receiver and return specialist, he was active in all 64 regular season games with 23 starts. He was also instrumental in a number of trick plays, including throwing a touchdown pass as a wide receiver for the Steelers in Super Bowl XL. Read more
17 Aug 1979: Nicole Sunitsch, Austrian politician Nicole Sunitsch is an Austrian politician of the Freedom Party serving as a member of the National Council since 2024. She has been a city councillor of Sankt Michael in Obersteiermark since 2020. Read more
17 Aug 1977: Nathan Deakes, Australian race walker Nathan Deakes is an Australian former race walker. Deakes trained with the Australian Institute of Sport under Ronald Weigel and Craig Hilliard. Read more
17 Aug 1977: William Gallas, French footballer William Eric Gallas is a French football coach and former professional footballer who played as a defender. He played most of his footballing career in France and England before finishing his career in Australia with A-League club Perth Glory. Gallas is currently a youth team coach at Hungarian club Zalaegerszegi TE. Read more
17 Aug 1977: Thierry Henry, French footballer Thierry Daniel Henry, popularly known as Titi, is a French professional football manager, pundit, and former player. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in Premier League history, he was known for his speed, technical ability, composure, finesse shots and tactical intelligence. Read more
17 Aug 1977: Mike Lewis, Welsh guitarist Michael Richard Lewis is a Welsh musician. He is best known as the former rhythm guitarist for the alternative rock band Lostprophets. Read more
17 Aug 1977: Tarja Turunen, Finnish singer-songwriter and producer Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen-Cabuli, known professionally as Tarja Turunen or simply Tarja, is a Finnish heavy metal singer best known as the former lead vocalist of the symphonic metal band Nightwish. Read more
17 Aug 1976: Eric Boulton, Canadian ice hockey player Eric Boulton is a Canadian former professional ice hockey left winger. Boulton was drafted 234th overall in the ninth round of the 1994 draft by the New York Rangers. While he never played for the Rangers, he played for the Buffalo Sabres, Atlanta Thrashers, New Jersey Devils and New York Islanders between 2000 and 2016. Boulton was best known for his role as an enforcer. Read more
17 Aug 1976: Geertjan Lassche, Dutch journalist and director Geertjan Lassche is a Dutch reporter and documentary film maker. Read more
17 Aug 1976: Serhiy Zakarlyuka, Ukrainian footballer and manager (died 2014) Serhiy Volodymyrovych Zakarlyuka was a Ukrainian footballer and football manager. Read more
17 Aug 1974: Giuliana Rancic, Italian-American journalist and television personality Giuliana Rancic is an American entertainment reporter and television personality. She is a former co-anchor of E! News and resides in Chicago and Los Angeles. Read more
17 Aug 1974: Johannes Maria Staud, Austrian composer Johannes Maria Staud is an Austrian composer. His works have been performed internationally by major orchestras, ensembles, and soloists, and he has received several composition prizes. Read more
17 Aug 1972: Habibul Bashar, Bangladeshi cricketer Qazi Habibul Bashar is a Bangladeshi cricket administrator and former cricketer who played as a right-handed batter for the Bangladesh national team from 1995 to 2008. He has served as the team's chief selector since March 2026. By the time of his retirement, he held several national batting records in both Test and One Day International (ODI) formats. He served as the captain of the national team from 2004 to 2007. Read more
17 Aug 1971: Uhm Jung-hwa, South Korean singer and actress Uhm Jung-hwa is a South Korean singer, actress and dancer. Uhm is considered to be one of the most influential women in the Korean entertainment industry, finding success in both music and film. Her legacy and career reinventions have given her the nickname of "Korean Madonna". Read more
17 Aug 1971: Jorge Posada, Puerto Rican-American baseball player Jorge Rafael Posada Villeta is a Puerto Rican former professional baseball catcher who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees. Posada recorded a .273 batting average, 275 home runs, and 1,065 runs batted in (RBIs) during his career. A switch hitter, Posada was a five-time All-Star, won five Silver Slugger Awards, and was on the roster for four World Series championship teams. Read more
17 Aug 1971: Shaun Rehn, Australian footballer and coach Shaun Jason Rehn is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Adelaide Football Club and the Hawthorn Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Read more
17 Aug 1970: Jim Courier, American tennis player and sportscaster James Spencer Courier is an American former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 58 weeks, including as the year-end No. 1 in 1992. Courier won 23 ATP Tour-level singles titles, including four majors – two at the French Open and two at the Australian Open – and was the youngest man in the Open Era to reach the final of all four singles majors, after reaching the final of the 1993 Wimbledon Championships aged 22 years, 319 days, a record that stood until Carlos Alcaraz achieved the same feat aged 22 years, 266 days at the 2026 Australian Open. He also won five Masters titles and was part of the victorious United States Davis Cup teams in 1992 and 1995. Read more
17 Aug 1970: Andrus Kivirähk, Estonian author Andrus Kivirähk is an Estonian author, playwright, screenwriter, and satirist. He writes across genres for both adults and children, including satirical columns and screenplays. Many of his stories have been adapted into films. A number of his works have also been translated into multiple languages. Kivirähk has received awards in children's literature in Estonia and internationally. He often mixes elements of dark humor, Estonian folklore, fantasy, and social commentary in his writing. Read more
17 Aug 1970: Øyvind Leonhardsen, Norwegian footballer and coach Øyvind Leonhardsen is a Norwegian former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. He retired after the 2007 season, ending a career with nine years in English football at clubs Wimbledon, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, and Aston Villa, and in Norway he played for Molde, Rosenborg, Lyn, and Strømsgodset. Between 1990 and 2003 he made 86 appearances for the Norway national team scoring 19 goals. Read more
17 Aug 1969: Christian Laettner, American basketball player and coach Christian Donald Laettner is an American former professional basketball player. His college career for the Duke Blue Devils is widely regarded as one of the best in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) history. He was the star player on back-to-back Duke National Championship teams of 1991 and 1992, and the NCAA player of the year in his senior year. He is famous for his game-winning shot against Kentucky in the 1992 tournament and being polarizing amongst basketball fans. Read more
17 Aug 1969: Kelvin Mercer, American rapper, songwriter and producer Kelvin Mercer, also known by his stage name Posdnuos, Plug 1 and occasionally Pos, is an American rapper and record producer from East Massapequa, New York, best known for his work as one third of the hip-hop trio De La Soul. Through his work with the group, Mercer is considered to be one of the most consistent and underrated MCs of all time. Beginning with the highly acclaimed 3 Feet High and Rising in 1989, Mercer has gone on to release nine albums with De La Soul. Read more
17 Aug 1969: Donnie Wahlberg, American singer-songwriter, actor and producer Donald Edmond Wahlberg Jr. is an American singer, actor, and producer. He is a founding member of the boy band New Kids on the Block. He has starred in the TV drama series Blue Bloods and Boston Blue as NYPD and later Boston Police Department Detective Danny Reagan and has had roles in the Saw films, Zookeeper (2011), Dreamcatcher (2003), The Sixth Sense (1999), Righteous Kill (2008), and Ransom (1996), as well as the role of Carwood Lipton in the World War II miniseries Band of Brothers. Read more
17 Aug 1968: Andriy Kuzmenko, Ukrainian singer-songwriter (died 2015) Andriy Viktorovych "Kuzma" Kuzmenko was a Ukrainian singer, poet, writer, TV presenter, producer and actor. He was best known as the lead singer of the Ukrainian rock band Skryabin, founded in 1989. Read more
17 Aug 1968: Ed McCaffrey, American football player and sportscaster Edward Thomas McCaffrey is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver for 13 seasons in the National Football League (NFL) for the New York Giants, San Francisco 49ers, and Denver Broncos. He played college football for the Stanford Cardinal, where he earned first-team All-America honors in 1990. Read more
17 Aug 1968: Helen McCrory, English actress (died 2021) Helen Elizabeth McCrory was an English actress. After studying at the Drama Centre London, she made her professional stage debut in The Importance of Being Earnest in 1990. Other theatre roles include playing Lady Macbeth in Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe, Olivia in Twelfth Night, Rosalind in As You Like It in the West End for which she received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination, and Medea in the eponymous play at the Royal National Theatre. Read more
17 Aug 1967: David Conrad, American actor David Conrad is an American actor. From 2005 to 2010, he starred in the television series Ghost Whisperer alongside Jennifer Love Hewitt. He's still active from time to time. Read more
17 Aug 1967: Michael Preetz, German footballer and manager Michael Preetz is a German former professional footballer who played as a forward. He spent his whole career in Germany, playing for Fortuna Düsseldorf, 1. FC Saarbrücken, MSV Duisburg and SG Wattenscheid 09, but he is mostly remembered for his seven-year spell at Hertha BSC where he ended his career. After retiring from active play, he stayed with the club, going directly into management. Read more
17 Aug 1966: Jüri Luik, Estonian politician and diplomat, 18th Estonian Minister of Defense Jüri Luik is an Estonian diplomat and politician. He has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Defence, and he has acted as Estonia's ambassador to Benelux, NATO, North America, and Russia. Read more
17 Aug 1966: Rodney Mullen, American skateboarder and stuntman John Rodney Mullen is an American professional skateboarder who practices freestyle skateboarding and street skateboarding. He is considered one of the most influential skateboarders of all time. Mullen is credited for inventing numerous tricks, including the flatground ollie, kickflip, heelflip, impossible, and 360-kickflip. As a result, he has been called the "godfather of modern street skating". Read more
17 Aug 1966: Don Sweeney, Canadian ice hockey player and manager Donald Clarke Sweeney is a Canadian former ice hockey defenceman who played over 1,100 games in the National Hockey League (NHL), mostly with the Boston Bruins. He ranks among the top ten in many Bruins team statistics, including fourth overall in total games played. After retiring from hockey following the 2003–04 season, he worked briefly as a broadcaster before rejoining the Bruins as a team executive in 2006. His name is engraved on the Stanley Cup from the Bruins' 2011 championship, when he was Assistant General Manager. Read more
17 Aug 1965: Steve Gorman, American drummer Steve Gorman is an American musician and radio host. He is best known as the former drummer of the American rock and roll band The Black Crowes. He spent time as the drummer for British rock band Stereophonics. He also hosted his own radio show Steve Gorman Sports! on Fox Sports Radio. He is now the host of Steve Gorman Rocks! on Westwood One radio station affiliates and the morning-show co-host at KQRS-FM in Minneapolis. He also co-hosts on 101.5 WQUT in Tennessee. Read more
17 Aug 1965: Dottie Pepper, American golfer Dottie Pepper is an American professional golfer and television golf broadcaster. From 1988 to 1995 she competed as Dottie Mochrie, which was her married name before a divorce. She won two major championships and 17 LPGA Tour events in all. Read more
17 Aug 1964: Colin James, Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Colin James is a Canadian blues rock singer and songwriter. James has been very successful in Canada, having attained seven Gold-certified albums in Canada during his career, including four Platinum albums and two Double Platinum albums. Read more
17 Aug 1964: Maria McKee, American singer-songwriter Maria Luisa McKee is an American singer-songwriter. She is best known for her work with Lone Justice, her 1990 song "Show Me Heaven", and her song "If Love Is a Red Dress " from the soundtrack of the film Pulp Fiction. Read more
17 Aug 1964: Dave Penney, English footballer and manager David Mark Penney is an English football manager and former player. Born in Wakefield, West Riding of Yorkshire, Penney entered professional football at the relatively late age of 21. He had been working as a bricklayer and playing for nothing at Pontefract Collieries for five years before he was spotted by Derby County scout Ron Jukes, who recommended him to manager Arthur Cox. He was offered a contract at the then Third Division club and they climbed two divisions before he left for Oxford United for £175,000. He then went on to Wales, where he played for Swansea City and Cardiff City, latterly signing for Doncaster Rovers in 1998. He played as a midfielder. Read more
17 Aug 1963: Jon Gruden, American football player, coach, and sportscaster Jon David Gruden is an American former football coach and media personality, currently employed by Barstool Sports. Read more
17 Aug 1963: Jackie Walorski, American politician (died 2022) Jacqueline Renae Walorski was an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Indiana's 2nd congressional district from 2013 until her death in 2022. She was a member of the Republican Party. Walorski served in the Indiana House of Representatives, representing Indiana's 21st district, from 2005 to 2010. In 2010, she won the Republican nomination for Indiana's 2nd congressional district, but narrowly lost the general election to Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly. Walorski won the seat in 2012 after Donnelly vacated it to run for the U.S. Senate, and was reelected four times. Read more
17 Aug 1962: Gilby Clarke, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Gilbert J. Clarke is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is known for having a three-year tenure as the rhythm guitarist of Guns N' Roses, replacing Izzy Stradlin in 1991 during the Use Your Illusion Tour, and also featured on "The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993). Following this, Clarke went on to forge a solo career and also played guitar with Slash's Snakepit, Kat Men, Heart, Nancy Sinatra, Kathy Valentine, MC5 and forming his own group Rock Star Supernova with members of Metallica and Mötley Crüe. Read more
17 Aug 1962: Dan Dakich, American basketball player, coach, and sportscaster Daniel John Dakich is an American basketball sportscaster. He is a former player, assistant coach, interim head coach for the Indiana University Hoosiers, former head coach at Bowling Green State University and a member of the Indiana Basketball Hall Of Fame. He currently is the host of Don't @ Me on Fox Sports OutKick. Read more
17 Aug 1960: Stephan Eicher, Swiss singer-songwriter Stephan Eicher is a Swiss singer. He sings in a variety of languages, including French, German, English, Italian, Swiss German and Romansh, sometimes using different languages in the same song. Read more
17 Aug 1960: Sean Penn, American actor, director, and political activist Sean Justin Penn is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his intense leading man roles in film. His accolades include three Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a British Academy Film Award, and nominations for an Emmy Award and a Grammy Award. He received the Honorary César in 2015 and the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award in 2022. Read more
17 Aug 1959: Jonathan Franzen, American novelist and essayist Jonathan Earl Franzen is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel The Corrections drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, earned a James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His novel Freedom (2010) garnered similar praise and led to an appearance on the cover of Time magazine alongside the headline "Great American Novelist". Franzen's latest novel Crossroads was published in 2021, and is the first in a projected trilogy. Read more
17 Aug 1959: Jacek Kazimierski, Polish footballer Jacek Kazimierski is a Polish former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Read more
17 Aug 1959: Eric Schlosser, American journalist and author Eric Matthew Schlosser is an American journalist and food writer. He is known for his books Fast Food Nation (2001), Reefer Madness (2003), and Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety (2013). Read more
17 Aug 1959: David Koresh, American cult leader (died 1993) David Koresh was an American cult leader and preacher who played a central role in the Waco siege of 1993. As the head of the Branch Davidians, a religious sect, Koresh claimed to be its final prophet. His apocalyptic Biblical teachings, including interpretations of the Book of Revelation and the Seven Seals, attracted various followers. Read more
17 Aug 1958: Belinda Carlisle, American singer-songwriter Belinda Jo Carlisle is an American singer and songwriter. She gained fame as the lead vocalist of the Go-Go's, and she went on to have a prolific career as a solo artist. Read more
17 Aug 1958: Fred Goodwin, Scottish banker and accountant Frederick Anderson Goodwin FRSE FCIBS is a Scottish chartered accountant and former banker who was chief executive officer (CEO) of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) between 2001 and 2009. Read more
17 Aug 1958: Maurizio Sandro Sala, Brazilian race car driver Maurizio Sandro Sala is a Brazilian former racing driver. He drove in multiple classes of racing in a career lasting from 1978 to 2004. Read more
17 Aug 1957: Ken Kwapis, American director and screenwriter Kenneth William Kwapis is an American film and television director, screenwriter, and author. He specialized in single-camera sitcoms in the 1990s and 2000s and has directed feature films such as Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird (1985), The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005), and He's Just Not That into You (2009). Read more
17 Aug 1957: Laurence Overmire, American poet, author, and actor Laurence Overmire is an American poet, author, actor, educator, genealogist, peace activist, civil rights, human rights, and animal rights advocate and environmentalist. Read more
17 Aug 1957: Robin Cousins, British competitive figure skater Robin John Cousins is a British former competitive figure skater who was BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1980. He was the 1980 Olympic champion, the 1980 European champion, a three-time World medalist (1978–1980) and four-time British national champion (1977–1980), winning all of these titles during his amateur career. He followed this with a successful career as a professional figure skater and later starred in ice shows as well as producing several of his own. He is able to spin in either direction, both clockwise and anti-clockwise, which is an unusual skill for a figure skater. Read more
17 Aug 1956: Gail Berman, American businessman, co-founded BermanBraun Gail Berman is an American producer and television executive. She is co-owner and founding partner of The Jackal Group, a production entity formed in partnership with Fox Networks Group. The Jackal Group develops and produces scripted, unscripted, and 'factual' entertainment programming for FNG's channels, including Fox Broadcasting Company, FX/FXX, the National Geographic Channels, and Fox International Channels. The partnership also provides for opportunities in digital and film, as well as for non-21st Century Fox distribution entities. Read more
17 Aug 1956: Álvaro Pino, Spanish cyclist Álvaro Pino Couñago is a former professional road racing cyclist from Galicia who raced between 1981 through 1991 and is most famous for winning the overall title at the 1986 Vuelta a España over favorites Robert Millar from Great Britain, Laurent Fignon from France and Sean Kelly from Ireland. The following year, Pino captured the 1987 Volta a Catalunya and at the 1988 Vuelta, Pino won two stages and the King of the Mountains jersey. In all, he won five stages over his career at the Vuelta a España. Read more
17 Aug 1955: Colin Moulding, English singer-songwriter and bassist Colin Ivor Moulding is an English bassist, singer, and songwriter who was one of the core members of the rock band XTC. Moulding wrote three of their earliest charting UK singles: "Life Begins at the Hop" (1979), "Making Plans for Nigel" (1979) and "Generals and Majors" (1980). Read more
17 Aug 1954: Eric Johnson, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Eric Johnson is an American guitarist, vocalist and composer. His 1990 album Ah Via Musicom was certified platinum by the RIAA, and the single "Cliffs of Dover" won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Read more
17 Aug 1954: Andrés Pastrana Arango, Colombian lawyer and politician, 38th President of Colombia Andrés Pastrana Arango is a Colombian politician who was President of Colombia from 1998 to 2002, following in the footsteps of his father, Misael Pastrana Borrero, who was president from 1970 to 1974. Read more
17 Aug 1953: Mick Malthouse, Australian footballer and coach Michael Raymond Malthouse is a former Australian rules footballer and coach, who played for the St Kilda Football Club and Richmond Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Read more
17 Aug 1953: Herta Müller, Romanian-German poet and author, Nobel Prize laureate Herta Müller is a Romanian-German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was born in Nițchidorf, Timiș County in Romania; her native languages are German and Romanian. Since the early 1990s, she has been internationally established, and her works have been translated into more than twenty languages. Read more
17 Aug 1953: Korrie Layun Rampan, Indonesian author, poet, and critic (died 2015) Korrie Layun Rampan was an Indonesian novelist, short story writer, poet, literary critic, journalist, and politician. Read more
17 Aug 1953: Kevin Rowland, English singer-songwriter and guitarist Kevin Rowland is a British singer and musician best known as the frontman for the pop band Dexys Midnight Runners. The band had several hits in the early 1980s, the most notable being "Geno" and "Come On Eileen", both of which reached number one on the UK Singles Chart. Read more
17 Aug 1952: Aleksandr Maksimenkov, Russian footballer and coach (died 2012) Aleksandr Ivanovich Maksimenkov was a Soviet and Russian football player and coach. Read more
17 Aug 1952: Nelson Piquet, Brazilian race car driver and businessman Nelson Piquet Souto Maior is a Brazilian former racing driver and businessman, who competed in Formula One from 1978 to 1991. Piquet won three Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles, which he won in 1981, 1983, and 1987, and won 23 Grands Prix across 14 seasons. Read more
17 Aug 1952: Mario Theissen, German engineer and businessman Mario Albert Theissen is the former BMW Motorsport Director and was team principal of BMW Sauber, the company's Formula One team from 2005 until 2009, when BMW sold the team back to Peter Sauber. Read more
17 Aug 1952: Guillermo Vilas, Argentinian tennis player Guillermo Vilas is an Argentine former professional tennis player. He was the world No. 1 of the ITF Grand Prix seasons in 1974, 1975 and 1977. He won 62 singles titles and 16 doubles titles during his career, including four Grand Slam singles titles and the 1974 Tour Finals. World Tennis, among other rankings and publications, rated him as world No. 1 in 1977. In the computerized ATP rankings, he peaked at No. 2 in April 1975, a position he held for a total of 83 weeks, although some have argued that Vilas should have been ranked No. 1 for at least 10 weeks, particularly in 1977 when he won two majors. Representing his country, he and José Luis Clerc led Argentina to win their first ATP World Team Cup in 1980, and reached the Davis Cup finals in 1981. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1991, two years after his first retirement. Read more
17 Aug 1951: Richard Hunt, American Muppet performer (died 1992) Richard Hunt was an American actor and puppeteer, best known as a Muppet performer on Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, and other projects for The Jim Henson Company. His roles on The Muppet Show included Scooter, Statler, Janice, Beaker, and Sweetums and characters on Sesame Street included Gladys the Cow, Don Music, Forgetful Jones and the right head of the Two-Headed Monster. Read more
17 Aug 1951: Robert Joy, Canadian actor Robert Joy is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his role as medical examiner Sid Hammerback on the police procedural series CSI: NY, and his appearances in the films Atlantic City (1980), Ragtime (1981), Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Land of the Dead (2005), and The Hills Have Eyes (2006). He is a two-time Genie Award nominee for Best Supporting Actor; for Atlantic City and Whole New Thing. Read more
17 Aug 1950: Geraint Jarman, Welsh musician, poet and television producer (died 2025) Geraint Jarman was a Welsh musician, poet and television producer whose career dates back to the early years of Welsh popular music. He recorded many albums as a solo artist and with his band Geraint Jarman a'r Cynganeddwyr. Read more
17 Aug 1949: Norm Coleman, American lawyer and politician, 52nd Mayor of St. Paul Norman Bertram Coleman Jr. is an American politician, attorney, and lobbyist. From 2003 to 2009, he served as a United States senator for Minnesota. From 1994 to 2002, he was mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota. First elected as a member of the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Coleman became a Republican in 1996. Elected to the Senate in 2002, he was narrowly defeated in his 2008 reelection bid. To date, he is the last Republican to have represented Minnesota in the U.S. Senate. Read more
17 Aug 1949: Sue Draheim, American fiddler and composer (died 2013) Sue Draheim was an American fiddler, boasting a more than forty year musical career in the US and the UK. Growing up in North Oakland, Draheim began her first private violin lessons at age eleven, having started public school violin instruction at age eight while attending North Oakland's Peralta Elementary School. She also attended Claremont Jr. High, and graduated from Oakland Technical High School in 1967. Read more
17 Aug 1949: Julian Fellowes, English actor, director, screenwriter, and politician Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford, known professionally as Julian Fellowes, is an English actor, novelist, writer, producer, film director, and Conservative peer. He has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award and two Emmy Awards as well as nominations for four BAFTA Awards, a Golden Globe Award, two Olivier Awards, and a Tony Award. Read more
17 Aug 1949: Sib Hashian, American rock drummer (died 2017) John Thomas "Sib" Hashian was an American drummer, best known as an original member of the rock band Boston. Read more
17 Aug 1948: Alexander Ivashkin, Russian-English cellist and conductor (died 2014) Alexander Vasilievich Ivashkin, was a Russian cellist, writer, academic and conductor. He was a professor of music and the Chair of Performance Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London since 1999, the director of the Centre for Russian Music, and the curator of the Alfred Schnittke Archive. In 1996, he published the first English-language biography of the composer Alfred Schnittke. Read more
17 Aug 1947: Mohamed Abdelaziz, Sahrawi politician, President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (died 2016) Mohamed Abdelaziz ben Khalili ben Mohamed al-Bachir Er-Rguibi was the 3rd Secretary General of the Polisario Front, from 1976, and the President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic from 1982, until his death in 2016. Read more
17 Aug 1947: Gary Talley, American guitarist, singer-songwriter, and author Gary Talley is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter and author. He began his career as lead guitarist for the Grammy-nominated group The Box Tops who were famous for hits like "The Letter", and "Cry Like a Baby". Read more
17 Aug 1946: Hugh Baiocchi, South African golfer Hugh John Baiocchi is a South African professional golfer who has won more than 20 professional tournaments around the world. Read more
17 Aug 1946: Martha Coolidge, American director, producer, and screenwriter Martha Coolidge is an American film director and former President of the Directors Guild of America. She has directed such films as Valley Girl, Real Genius and Rambling Rose. Read more
17 Aug 1946: Patrick Manning, Trinidadian-Tobagonian politician, 4th Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago (died 2016) Patrick Augustus Mervyn Manning was a Trinidadian politician who served as the fourth prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago twice from 1991 to 1995, and again from 2001 to 2010. A geologist by training, Manning served as Member of Parliament for the San Fernando East constituency from 1971 until 2015 when he was replaced by Randall Mitchell, but with the seat in 2020 being won by his son Brian Manning. Patrick Manning was the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives. He was the Leader of the Opposition from 1986 to 1990 and again from 1995 to 2001. Read more
17 Aug 1945: Rachel Pollack, American author, poet, and educator (died 2023) Rachel Grace Pollack was an American science fiction author, comic book writer, and expert on divinatory tarot. Read more
17 Aug 1944: Larry Ellison, American businessman, co-founded the Oracle Corporation Lawrence Joseph Ellison is an American businessman. He co-founded the software company Oracle Corporation, and was its CEO from 1977 to 2014. He now serves as its CTO and executive chairman. According to Forbes, as of early 2026, Ellison's estimated net worth is $201–203 billion, making him the world's sixth-richest person. Read more
17 Aug 1944: Jean-Bernard Pommier, French pianist and conductor (died 2026) Jean-Bernard Pommier was a French pianist, conductor and academic teacher who made an international career. He was known for playing music by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. As a conductor, he led the Northern Sinfonia, the Orchestra Filarmonica di Torino and Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra. From 2006 to 2008, he directed the Festival de Menton. He taught as professor at the École Normale de Musique de Paris from 2018. Read more
17 Aug 1943: Edward Cowie, English composer, painter, and author Edward Cowie is an Australian composer, author, natural scientist, and painter. Read more
17 Aug 1943: Robert De Niro, American actor, entrepreneur, director, and producer Robert Anthony De Niro is an American actor and producer. Widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors of his generation, he has received various accolades, including two Academy Awards and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for eight BAFTA Awards and four Emmy Awards. He was honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2003, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2009, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2011, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2019, and the Honorary Palme d'Or in 2025. Read more
17 Aug 1943: John Humphrys, Welsh journalist and author Desmond John Humphrys is a Welsh broadcaster. From 1981 to 1987 he was the main presenter of the Nine O'Clock News, the flagship BBC News television programme, and from 1987 until 2019 he presented on the BBC Radio 4 breakfast programme Today. He was the host of the BBC Two television quiz show Mastermind from 2003 to 2021, for a total of 735 episodes. Humphrys now presents a regular Sunday afternoon show on Classic FM, where he also sometimes fills in on the weekday More Music Breakfast show. Read more
17 Aug 1943: Dave "Snaker" Ray, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2002) Dave "Snaker" Ray was an American blues singer and guitarist from St. Paul, Minnesota, and was associated with Spider John Koerner and Tony "Little Sun" Glover in the early Sixties folk revival. Together, the three released albums under the name Koerner, Ray & Glover. They gained notice with their album Blues, Rags and Hollers, originally released by Audiophile in 1963 and re-released by Elektra Records later that year. Read more
17 Aug 1942: Shane Porteous, Australian actor, animator, and screenwriter John Shane Porteous is an Australian actor, screenwriter, animation layout artist and animation voice artist. As a screenwriter, he is sometimes credited as John Hanlon. Read more
17 Aug 1941: Lothar Bisky, German businessman and politician (died 2013) Lothar Bisky was a German politician. He was the chairman of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor of East Germany's Socialist Unity Party (SED). In June 2007, he became co-chairman of The Left party, formed by a merger of the PDS and the much smaller Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative. From 2007 until 2010, he was the President of the Party of the European Left. Also, he was the Publisher of the socialist newspaper Neues Deutschland. Read more
17 Aug 1941: Jean Pierre Lefebvre, Canadian director and screenwriter Jean Pierre Lefebvre is a Canadian filmmaker. He is widely admired as "the godfather of independent Canadian cinema," particularly among young, independent filmmakers. Read more
17 Aug 1941: Boog Powell, American baseball player John Wesley "Boog" Powell is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman and left fielder from 1961 through 1977, most prominently as a member of the Baltimore Orioles dynasty that won four American League pennants and two World Series championships between 1966 and 1971. The four-time All-Star led the American League in 1964 with a .606 slugging percentage and won the American League Most Valuable Player Award in 1970. He also played for the Cleveland Indians and the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 1979, Powell was inducted into the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame. Read more
17 Aug 1940: Eduardo Mignogna, Argentinian director and screenwriter (died 2006) Eduardo Mignogna was an Argentine film director and screenwriter. Read more
17 Aug 1940: Barry Sheerman, English academic and politician Barry John Sheerman is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Huddersfield, previously Huddersfield East, for 45 years from 1979 to 2024. A member of the Labour and Co-operative parties, he is one of the longest serving MPs in recent history. Read more
17 Aug 1939: Luther Allison, American blues guitarist and singer (died 1997) Luther Sylvester Allison was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was born in Widener, Arkansas, although some accounts suggest his actual place of birth was Mayflower, Arkansas. Allison was interested in music as a child and during the late 1940s he toured in a family gospel group called The Southern Travellers. He moved with his family to Chicago in 1951 and attended Farragut High School where he was classmates with Muddy Waters' son. He taught himself guitar and began listening to blues extensively. Three years later he dropped out of school and began hanging around outside blues nightclubs with the hopes of being invited to perform. Allison played with the bands of Howlin' Wolf and Freddie King, taking over King's band when King toured nationally. He worked with Jimmy Dawkins, Magic Sam and Otis Rush, and also backed James Cotton. Chicago Reader has called him "the Jimi Hendrix of blues guitar". Read more
17 Aug 1938: Theodoros Pangalos, Greek lawyer and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of Greece (died 2023) Theodoros Pangalos was a Greek politician and leading member of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK). He served as the deputy prime minister of Greece, responsible for the coordination of the Government Council for Foreign Affairs and Defense (KYSEA) and the new Economic & Social Policy Committee from 2009 to 2012. Read more
17 Aug 1936: Seamus Mallon, Irish educator and politician, Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland (died 2020) Seamus Frederick Mallon was an Irish politician who served as deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2001 and Deputy Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) from 1979 to 2001. He also sat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1986 to 2005. Read more
17 Aug 1936: Margaret Heafield Hamilton, American computer scientist, systems engineer, and business owner Margaret Elaine Hamilton is an American computer scientist. She directed the Software Engineering Division at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, where she led the development of the on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo Guidance Computer for the Apollo program. She later founded two software companies, Higher Order Software in 1976 and Hamilton Technologies in 1986, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Read more
17 Aug 1934: João Donato, Brazilian pianist and composer (died 2023) João Donato de Oliveira Neto was a Brazilian jazz and bossa nova pianist as well as a trombonist from Rio Branco. He first worked with Altamiro Carrilho and went on to perform with Antonio Carlos Jobim and Astrud Gilberto. Because of the area he grew up in Brasil he was able to hear Cuban music on the radio. This influence would manifest itself in many of his compositions, piano, and trombone playing. Donato's most well-known compositions include: "Amazonas", "Lugar Comum", "Simples Carinho", "Até Quem Sabe" and "Nasci Para Bailar". Read more
17 Aug 1934: Ron Henry, English footballer (died 2014) Ronald Patrick Henry was a footballer who played for Tottenham Hotspur, and won one cap for England. His grandson, Ronnie, is also a professional footballer. Read more
17 Aug 1933: Mark Dinning, American pop singer (died 1986) Max Edward "Mark" Dinning was an American pop music singer. Read more
17 Aug 1932: V. S. Naipaul, Trinidadian-English novelist and essayist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2018) Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was a Trinidad and Tobago-born British writer renowned for his works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienation in the wider world, and his vigilant chronicles of life and travels. He wrote in prose that was widely admired, but his views sometimes aroused controversy. He published more than thirty books over fifty years. Read more
17 Aug 1932: Duke Pearson, American pianist and composer (died 1980) Columbus Calvin "Duke" Pearson Jr. was an American jazz pianist and composer. Allmusic describes him as having a "big part in shaping the Blue Note label's hard bop direction in the 1960s as a record producer." Read more
17 Aug 1932: Jean-Jacques Sempé, French cartoonist (died 2022) Jean-Jacques Sempé, usually known as Sempé, was a French cartoonist. He is known for the series of children's books he created with René Goscinny, Le Petit Nicolas, and also for his poster-like illustrations, usually drawn from a distant or high viewpoint depicting detailed countrysides or cities. For decades, he created covers for The New Yorker. Read more
17 Aug 1931: Tony Wrigley, English historian, demographer, and academic (died 2022) Sir Edward Anthony Wrigley was a British historical demographer. Wrigley and Peter Laslett co-founded the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure in 1964. Read more
17 Aug 1930: Harve Bennett, American screenwriter and producer (died 2015) Harve Bennett was an American television and film producer and screenwriter. Read more
17 Aug 1930: Ted Hughes, English poet and playwright (died 1998) Edward James Hughes was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and held the office until his death. In 2008, The Times ranked Hughes fourth on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Read more
17 Aug 1929: Francis Gary Powers, American captain and pilot (died 1977) Francis Gary Powers was an American pilot who served as a United States Air Force officer and a CIA employee. Powers is best known for his involvement in the 1960 U-2 incident, when he was shot down while flying a secret CIA spying mission over the Soviet Union. Powers survived, but was captured and sentenced to 10 years in a Soviet prison for espionage. He served 21 months of his sentence before being released in a prisoner swap in 1962. Read more
17 Aug 1928: T. J. Anderson, American composer, conductor, and educator Thomas Jefferson "T.J." Anderson, Jr. is an American composer, conductor, orchestrator and educator. Read more
17 Aug 1928: Willem Duys, Dutch tennis player, sportscaster, and producer (died 2011) Willem Duys was a Dutch radio and television presenter, commentator, tennis player and music producer. Read more
17 Aug 1927: Sam Butera, American saxophonist and bandleader (died 2009) Sam Butera was an American tenor saxophonist and singer best noted for his collaborations with Louis Prima and Keely Smith. Butera is frequently regarded as a crossover artist who performed with equal ease in both R&B and the post-big band pop style of jazz that permeated the early Vegas nightclub scene. Read more
17 Aug 1927: F. Ray Keyser Jr., American lawyer and politician, Governor of Vermont (died 2015) Frank Ray Keyser Jr. was an American lawyer and politician from Vermont. He served as Speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives from 1959 to 1961, and the 72nd governor of Vermont from 1961 to 1963. Read more
17 Aug 1926: Valerie Eliot, English businesswoman (died 2012) Esmé Valerie Eliot was the second wife and later widow of the Nobel Prize-winning poet T. S. Eliot. She was a major shareholder in the publishing firm of Faber and Faber Limited and the editor and annotator of a number of books dealing with her late husband's writings. Read more
17 Aug 1926: Jiang Zemin, Chinese engineer and politician, former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (paramount leader) and President of China (died 2022) Jiang Zemin was a Chinese politician who served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the fourth paramount leader of China from 1989 to 2002, as the chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2004, and as the president of China from 1993 to 2003. He was the core leader of the third generation of Chinese leadership, one of four core leaders alongside Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Xi Jinping. Read more
17 Aug 1924: Evan S. Connell, American novelist, poet, and short story writer (died 2013) Evan Shelby Connell Jr. was a U.S. novelist, short-story writer, essayist and author of epic historical works. He published under the name Evan S. Connell Jr. Read more
17 Aug 1923: Carlos Cruz-Diez, Venezuelan artist (died 2019) Carlos Cruz-Diez was a Franco-Venezuelan artist recognized within the kinetic art movement. He lived and worked in Paris from 1960 until his death. Cruz-Diez proposed conceiving color as an autonomous reality that develops in time and space, without the aid of form or the need for a support. His work encompasses eight investigations: Additive Color, Physichromie, Chromatic Induction, Chromointerférence, Transchromie, Chromosaturation, Chromoscope, and Color in Space. Read more
17 Aug 1923: Larry Rivers, American painter and sculptor (died 2002) Larry Rivers was an American painter, musician, filmmaker, and occasional actor. Considered by many scholars to be the "Godfather" and "Grandfather" of Pop art, he was one of the first artists to merge non-objective, non-narrative art with narrative and objective abstraction. He was also a lover of the American poet Frank O’Hara, despite accounts falsely reducing their relationship to a platonic, professional relationship. Read more
17 Aug 1922: Roy Tattersall, English cricketer (died 2011) Roy Tattersall was an English cricketer who played for Lancashire and played sixteen Tests for England as a specialist off spin bowler. He was born at Tonge Moor, Bolton, Lancashire, England. Read more
17 Aug 1921: Geoffrey Elton, German-English historian and academic (died 1994) Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton was a German-born British political and constitutional historian, specialising in the Tudor period. He taught at Clare College, Cambridge, and was the Regius Professor of Modern History there from 1983 to 1988. Read more
17 Aug 1920: Maureen O'Hara, Irish-American actress and singer (died 2015) Maureen O'Hara was an Irish and American actress and singer who became successful in Hollywood from the 1940s through to the 1960s. She was a natural redhead who was known for playing passionate but sensible heroines, often in Westerns and adventure films. She worked with director John Ford and long-time friend John Wayne on numerous projects. Read more
17 Aug 1920: Lida Moser, American photographer and author (died 2014) Lida Moser was an American photographer and author, with a career that spanned more than six decades, before retiring in her 90s. She was known for her photojournalism and street photography as a member of both the Photo League and the New York School. Her portfolio includes black and white commercial, portrait, landscape, experimental, abstract, and documentary photography, with her work continuing to have an impact. Read more
17 Aug 1919: Georgia Gibbs, American singer (died 2006) Georgia Gibbs was an American popular singer and vocal entertainer rooted in jazz. Already singing publicly in her early teens, Gibbs achieved acclaim and notoriety in the mid-1950s copying songs originating with the black rhythm and blues community and later became a featured vocalist for many radio and television variety and comedy programs. Her key attribute was tremendous versatility and an uncommon stylistic range from melancholy ballad to uptempo swinging jazz and rock and roll. Read more
17 Aug 1918: Evelyn Ankers, British-American actress (died 1985) Evelyn Felisa Ankers was a British-American actress who often played variations on the role of the cultured young leading lady in many American horror films during the 1940s, most notably The Wolf Man (1941) opposite Lon Chaney Jr., a frequent screen partner. Read more
17 Aug 1918: Ike Quebec, American saxophonist and pianist (died 1963) Ike Abrams Quebec was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. He began his career in the big band era of the 1940s, then fell from prominence for a time until launching a comeback in the years before his death. Read more
17 Aug 1918: Michael John Wise, English geographer and academic (died 2015) Michael John Wise CBE, MC was a British academic who served as a professor of geography at the University of London. Read more
17 Aug 1916: Moses Majekodunmi, Nigerian physician and politician (died 2012) Chief Moses Adekoyejo Majekodunmi was a Nigerian gynaecologist and obstetrician. He was Minister of Health in the Nigerian First Republic. Read more
17 Aug 1914: Bill Downs, American journalist (died 1978) William Randall Downs, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He worked for CBS News from 1942 to 1962 and for ABC News beginning in 1963. He was one of the original members of the team of war correspondents known as the Murrow Boys. Read more
17 Aug 1914: Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr., American lawyer and politician (died 1988) Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. was an American lawyer, politician, and businessman. He served as a United States congressman from New York from 1949 to 1955 and in 1963 was appointed United States Under Secretary of Commerce by President John F. Kennedy. Roosevelt was appointed as the first chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 1965 to 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Roosevelt also ran for governor of New York twice. Just after World War II, he served on Harry S. Truman's President's Committee on Civil Rights. Roosevelt was a son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and served as an officer in the United States Navy during World War II. Read more
17 Aug 1913: Mark Felt, American lawyer and agent, 2nd Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (died 2008) William Mark Felt Sr. was an American law enforcement officer who worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1942 to 1973 and was the informant known as "Deep Throat" in the Watergate scandal. Read more
17 Aug 1913: Oscar Alfredo Gálvez, Argentinian race car driver (died 1989) Oscar Alfredo Gálvez was an Argentine racing driver, known best for participating – and for scoring two championship points – in the Formula One World Championship Grand Prix on 18 January 1953. Read more
17 Aug 1913: Rudy York, American baseball player and manager (died 1970) Preston Rudolph York was an American professional baseball player, coach, scout, and manager. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher and a first baseman between 1934 and 1948, most notably as a member of the Detroit Tigers. He also played for the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox and Philadelphia Athletics. Read more
17 Aug 1911: Mikhail Botvinnik, Russian chess player and engineer (died 1995) Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster who held five world titles in three different reigns. The sixth World Chess Champion, he also worked as an electrical engineer and computer scientist and was a pioneer in computer chess, the last of which he was awarded an honorary mathematics degree for. Read more
17 Aug 1911: Martin Sandberger, German colonel and lawyer (died 2010) Karl Martin Sandberger was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era and a convicted Holocaust perpetrator. He was the commander of Sonderkommando 1a of Einsatzgruppe A, as well as of the Sicherheitspolizei and SD at the time of Nazi German occupation of Estonia during World War II. Sandberger perpetrated mass murder of the Jews in German-occupied Latvia and Estonia. As the Gestapo chief in Verona, he was also responsible for the arrest of Jews in Italy, and their deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp. Sandberger was the second-highest official of the Einsatzgruppe A to be tried and convicted. He was also the last-surviving defendant from the Nuremberg Military Tribunals. Read more
17 Aug 1909: Larry Clinton, American trumpet player and bandleader (died 1985) Larry Clinton was an American musician, best known as a trumpeter who became a prominent American bandleader and arranger. Read more
17 Aug 1909: Wilf Copping, English footballer (died 1980) Wilfred Copping was an English football player who played for Leeds United, Arsenal and the England national team. Read more
17 Aug 1904: Mary Cain, American journalist and politician (died 1984) Mary Dawson Cain was an American newspaper editor, political activist, and gubernatorial candidate in Mississippi. A Democrat, she advocated for conservative causes and is particularly remembered for her campaigns against the Social Security tax. She ran for Governor of Mississippi in 1951 and 1955, the first woman to do so. Read more
17 Aug 1904: Leopold Nowak, Austrian composer and musicologist (died 1991) Leopold Nowak was an Austrian musicologist chiefly known for editing the works of Anton Bruckner for the International Bruckner Society. He reconstructed the original form of some of those works, most of which had been revised and edited many times. Read more
17 Aug 1900: Vivienne de Watteville, British travel writer and adventurer (died 1957) Vivienne Florence Beatrice de Watteville was a British travel writer and adventurer, author of two books based on her experiences in East Africa in the 1920s, Out in the Blue (1927) and Speak to the Earth (1935). She is best remembered for taking charge of and continuing an expedition in the Congo and Uganda at the age of 24, when her father was killed by a lion. Read more
17 Aug 1900: Pauline A. Young, American teacher, historian, aviator and activist (died 1991) Pauline Alice Young was an African-American teacher, librarian, historian, lecturer, community activist, humanitarian, and individualist. Read more
17 Aug 1899: Janet Lewis, American poet and novelist (died 1998) Janet Loxley Lewis was an American novelist, poet, and librettist. She was considered one of the finest American literary figures of the 20th century. Read more
17 Aug 1896: Leslie Groves, American general and engineer, head of the Manhattan Project (died 1970) Leslie Richard Groves Jr. was a United States Army Corps of Engineers officer who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project, the top secret research program that developed the atomic bomb during World War II, leading to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Read more
17 Aug 1896: Tõnis Kint, Estonian lieutenant and politician, Prime Minister of Estonia in exile (died 1991) Tõnis Kint was an Estonian politician. He served as "Acting Prime Minister of Estonian Exile Government" from 22 August 1960 to 1 January 1962 and again from 29 March 1963 to 23 December 1970 and as "Prime Minister in duties of the President" from 23 December 1970 to 1 March 1990. Read more
17 Aug 1896: Oliver Waterman Larkin, American historian and author (died 1970) Oliver Waterman Larkin was an American art historian and educator. He won the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for History for his book Art and Life in America. Read more
17 Aug 1894: William Rootes, 1st Baron Rootes, English businessman, founded Rootes Group (died 1964) William Edward Rootes, 1st Baron Rootes GBE was a British motor manufacturer. He opened his first car sales agency in 1913, leading to the global Rootes Group. During the Second World War he supervised the volume manufacture of aircraft and engines, as well as the supply of military motor vehicles and armoured fighting vehicles. He was knighted in 1942 for these services and for organising the reconstruction of bomb-damaged Coventry after its saturation bombing by the Luftwaffe on 14–15 November 1940. In the 1950s, he became a leader of Britain's export drive, and chaired a committee to found the University of Warwick with a vision of academic links with industry. Read more
17 Aug 1893: John Brahm, German-American director and production manager (died 1982) John Brahm was a German film and television director. His films include The Undying Monster (1942), The Lodger (1944), Hangover Square (1945), The Locket (1946), The Brasher Doubloon (1947), and the 3D horror film The Mad Magician (1954). Read more
17 Aug 1893: Mae West, American stage and film actress (died 1980) Mary Jane "Mae" West was an American actress, singer, comedian, screenwriter, and playwright whose career spanned more than seven decades. Recognized as a prominent sex symbol of her time, she was known for portraying sexually confident characters and for her use of double entendres, often delivering her lines in a distinctive contralto voice. West began performing in vaudeville and on stage in New York City before moving on to film in Los Angeles. Read more
17 Aug 1890: Stefan Bastyr, Polish soldier and pilot (died 1920) Stefan Bastyr was a Polish aviator and military pilot, one of the pioneers of the Polish aviation. He is credited with the first military flight in the history of the Polish Air Force on 5 November 1918, almost a week before Poland officially regained her independence, at the opening stages of the Polish-Ukrainian War. Read more
17 Aug 1890: Harry Hopkins, American politician and diplomat, 8th United States Secretary of Commerce (died 1946) Harold Lloyd Hopkins was an American statesman, public administrator, and presidential advisor. A trusted deputy to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hopkins directed New Deal relief programs before serving as the eighth United States secretary of commerce from 1938 to 1940 and as Roosevelt's chief foreign policy advisor and liaison to Allied leaders during World War II. Read more
17 Aug 1889: Lalla Carlsen, Norwegian singer and actress (died 1967) Lalla Carlsen was a Norwegian singer and actress. She was a very popular singer in Norway. Read more
17 Aug 1888: Monty Woolley, American actor, raconteur, and pundit (died 1963) Edgar Montillion "Monty" Woolley was an American film and theater actor. At the age of 50, he achieved a measure of stardom for his role in the 1939 stage play The Man Who Came to Dinner and its 1942 film adaptation. His distinctive white beard was his trademark and he was affectionately known as "The Beard." Read more
17 Aug 1888: Pieter van der Hoog, Dutch bacteriologist, dermatologist, and Islamicist (died 1957) Pieter Henricus van der Hoog, also known after converting to Islam as Mohammed Abdul-Ali, was a Dutch bacteriologist, dermatologist, and Islamicist. Born in The Hague, Van der Hoog was pressured by his father to enter the Dutch military, for which he served as a doctor. During his time with the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army in the Dutch East Indies from 1913 through 1921, he practised in several areas but was censured and arrested. Returning to the Netherlands, he earned a doctoral degree from the University of Leiden in 1922. After some time practising medicine in the Netherlands, in 1926 he was sent to Curaçao; he was ultimately blacklisted by the Ministry of the Colonies for his continued attacks on the Governor of the Netherlands Antilles. Read more
17 Aug 1887: Charles I of Austria (died 1922) Charles I and IV was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the ruler of the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from November 1916 until the monarchy was abolished in November 1918. He was the last of the monarchs belonging to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine to rule over Austria-Hungary. The son of Archduke Otto of Austria and Princess Maria Josepha of Saxony, Charles became heir presumptive of Emperor Franz Joseph when his uncle Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in 1914. In 1911, he married Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma. Read more
17 Aug 1887: Marcus Garvey, Jamaican journalist and activist, founded Black Star Line (died 1940) Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. was a Jamaican political activist. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, through which he declared himself Provisional President of Africa. Ideologically a black nationalist and Pan-Africanist, Garvey's ideas are known as Garveyism. Read more
17 Aug 1885: Ernest Dezentjé, Dutch-Indonesian painter (died 1972) Ernest Regnard Leonce Dezentjé was a Dutch-Indonesian painter. Dezentjé worked for the office of the auditor general until the 1910s, when he took up painting and began learning from established artists such as Leo Eland and Gerard Pieter Adolfs. Dezentjé joined the Kuntskring and was exhibiting by the 1920s, gaining popularity for his depiction of Mount Gede. By 1940 he had held several solo exhibitions and was acknowledged as one of the most important artists of the Dutch East Indies. He remained active through the 1970s, establishing a close friendship with President Sukarno and taking several apprentices. Read more
17 Aug 1880: Percy Sherwell, South African cricketer and tennis player (died 1948) Percy William Sherwell was a South African cricketer who played in 13 Tests for South Africa as captain, wicketkeeper and batsman from 1906 to 1911. Read more
17 Aug 1878: Reggie Duff, Australian cricketer (died 1911) Reginald Alexander Duff was an Australian cricketer who played in 22 Tests between 1902 and 1905. Read more
17 Aug 1877: Ralph McKittrick, American golfer and tennis player (died 1923) Ralph McKittrick was an American golfer and tennis player who competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics. Read more
17 Aug 1873: John A. Sampson, American gynecologist and academic (died 1946) John Albertson Sampson was a gynecologist who studied endometriosis. Read more
17 Aug 1866: Mahbub Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VI, Indian 6th Nizam of Hyderabad (died 1911) Asaf Jah VI, also known as Sir Mir Mahboob Ali Khan Siddiqi, was the sixth Nizam of Hyderabad. He ruled Hyderabad State, one of the princely states of India, between 1869 and 1911. Read more
17 Aug 1865: Julia Marlowe, English-American actress (died 1950) Julia Marlowe was an English-born American actress, known for her interpretations of William Shakespeare's plays. Read more
17 Aug 1863: Gene Stratton-Porter, American author and photographer (died 1924) Gene Stratton-Porter, born Geneva Grace Stratton, was an American writer, nature photographer, and naturalist from Wabash County, Indiana. In 1917 Stratton-Porter urged legislative support for the conservation of Limberlost Swamp and other wetlands in Indiana. She was also a silent film-era producer who founded her own production company, Gene Stratton Porter Productions, in 1924. Read more
17 Aug 1849: William Kidston, Scottish-Australian politician, 17th Premier of Queensland (died 1919) William Kidston was an Australian bookseller, politician and Premier of Queensland, from January 1906 to November 1907 and again from February 1908 to February 1911. Read more
17 Aug 1845: Henry Cadwalader Chapman, American physician and naturalist (died 1909) Dr. Henry Cadwalader Chapman was an American physician and naturalist. Read more
17 Aug 1840: Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, English poet and activist (died 1922) Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, sometimes spelt Wilfred, was an English poet and writer. He and his wife Lady Anne Blunt travelled in the Middle East and were instrumental in preserving the Arabian horse bloodlines through their farm, the Crabbet Arabian Stud. Read more
17 Aug 1828: Jules Bernard Luys, French neurologist and physician (died 1897) Jules Bernard Luys was a French neurologist known for significant contributions to nineteenth-century neuroanatomy and neuropsychiatry. He produced influential works on the structure and function of the central nervous system and published the first photographic atlas of the human brain. Read more
17 Aug 1801: Fredrika Bremer, Swedish writer and feminist (died 1865) Fredrika Bremer was a Finnish-born Swedish writer and reformer. Her Sketches of Everyday Life were wildly popular in Britain and the United States during the 1840s and 1850s and she is regarded as the Swedish Jane Austen, bringing the realist novel to prominence in Swedish literature. Read more

Notable Deaths on 17 August

17 Aug 2025: Terence Stamp, English actor (born 1938) Terence Henry Stamp was an English actor. His filmography included a mix of cult and mainstream performances, particularly sophisticated villain roles. He received various accolades including a Golden Globe Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award and two BAFTA Awards. He was named by Empire as one of the 100 Sexiest Film Stars of All Time in 1995. Read more
17 Aug 2024: Virginia Ogilvy, Countess of Airlie, British countess (born 1933) Virginia Fortune Ogilvy, Countess of Airlie, was a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth II. She was born in London to an American family, and grew up in the United States before returning to the United Kingdom. In 1973, she became the first American to be a lady-in-waiting. Read more
17 Aug 2024: Silvio Santos, Brazilian media mogul and television host (born 1930) Senor Abravanel, known professionally as Silvio Santos, was a Brazilian television presenter and business magnate. Widely regarded as the greatest personality in Brazilian television, he was the founder of the television network Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão (SBT) and the conglomerate Grupo Silvio Santos, which holds interests in media and real estate among other assets. Throughout his life, he was also involved in other areas such as music and politics. His net worth was estimated at $1.3 billion in 2013, making him the only Brazilian celebrity on Forbes' billionaires list. Read more
17 Aug 2016: Arthur Hiller, Canadian actor, director, and producer (born 1923) Arthur Hiller, was a Canadian film and television director. He directed over 33 feature films during a 50-year career. He began his career directing television in Canada and later in the U.S. By the late 1950s, he was directing films, most often comedies, but also dramas and romantic subjects, such as in Love Story (1970), which was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including for Best Director. Read more
17 Aug 2015: Yvonne Craig, American ballet dancer and actress (born 1937) Yvonne Joyce Craig was an American actress best known for her role as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl in the 1960s television series Batman. Other notable roles in her career include Dorothy Johnson in the 1963 movie It Happened at the World's Fair, Azalea Tatum in the 1964 movie Kissin' Cousins, and the green-skinned Orion Marta in the Star Trek episode "Whom Gods Destroy" (1969). The Huffington Post called her "a pioneer of female superheroes" for television. Craig was a philanthropist and "an advocate for workers unions, free mammograms, and equal pay for women". Read more
17 Aug 2015: Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder, German businessman (born 1933) Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder, often called "MV", was the Vice President of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). Prior to his UEFA career, Mayer-Vorfelder was a politician of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, and served in the state cabinet of Baden-Württemberg from 1976 to 1998. He was later president of German soccer club VfB Stuttgart, and the German Football Association. Read more
17 Aug 2015: László Paskai, Hungarian cardinal (born 1927) László Paskai, O.F.M. was a Hungarian cardinal of the Catholic Church, He served as the archbishop of Esztergom from 1987 to 2002. Read more
17 Aug 2014: Børre Knudsen, Norwegian minister and activist (born 1937) Børre Arnold Knudsen (1937–2014) was a Norwegian Lutheran priest noted for his anti-abortion activism. Together with Ludvig Nessa, he staged protests at abortion clinics starting in the late 1980s, and he spent time in jail for refusing to pay fines received for his protests. Read more
17 Aug 2014: Wolfgang Leonhard, German historian and author (born 1921) Wolfgang Leonhard was a German political author and historian of the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic and Communism. A German Communist whose family had fled Hitler's Germany and who was educated in the Soviet Union, after World War II Leonhard became one of the founders and leaders of the German Democratic Republic until he became disillusioned and fled in 1949, first defecting to Yugoslavia and then moving to West Germany in 1950 and later to the United Kingdom. In 1956 he moved to the United States, where he was a popular and influential professor at Yale University from 1966 to 1987, teaching the history of communism and the Soviet Union, topics about which he wrote several books. After the Cold War ended, he returned to Germany. Read more
17 Aug 2014: Sophie Masloff, American civil servant and politician, 56th Mayor of Pittsburgh (born 1917) Sophie Masloff was an American politician. A long-time member of the Democratic Party and civil servant, she was elected to the Pittsburgh City Council and later served as the mayor of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 1994. She was the first and to date only woman and the first Jew to hold that office. Read more
17 Aug 2014: Miodrag Pavlović, Serbian poet and critic (born 1928) Miodrag Pavlović was a Serbian poet, physician writer, critic and academic. Pavlović was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Read more
17 Aug 2014: Pierre Vassiliu, French singer-songwriter (born 1937) Pierre Vassiliu was a French singer, songwriter and actor. Read more
17 Aug 2013: Odilia Dank, American educator and politician (born 1938) Odilia Mary Russo Dank was an American educator and politician from Oklahoma City who served as a Republican member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, from District 85. Dank was elected in 1994 and served until she was term limited in 2006. Read more
17 Aug 2013: Jack Harshman, American baseball player (born 1927) John Elvin Harshman was an American Major League Baseball pitcher with the New York Giants, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, and Cleveland Indians between 1948 and 1960. He batted and threw left-handed. Read more
17 Aug 2013: John Hollander, American poet and critic (born 1929) John Hollander was an American poet and literary critic. At the time of his death, he was Sterling Professor Emeritus of English at Yale University, having previously taught at Connecticut College, Hunter College, and CUNY Graduate Center. He was a 1990 MacArthur Fellow and poet laureate of Connecticut 2007–2009. Read more
17 Aug 2013: David Landes, Jewish-American historian and economist (born 1924) David Saul Landes was a professor of economics and of history at Harvard University. He is the author of Bankers and Pashas, Revolution in Time, The Unbound Prometheus, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, and Dynasties. Such works have received both praise for detailed retelling of economic history, as well as scorn on charges of Eurocentrism, a charge he openly embraced, arguing that an explanation for an economic miracle that happened originally only in Europe must, by necessity, be a Eurocentric analysis. Read more
17 Aug 2013: Frank Martínez, American painter (born 1924) Francisco Alonzo "Frank" Martínez was an American artist. He painted murals of his Mexican American heritage. Read more
17 Aug 2013: Gus Winckel, Dutch lieutenant and pilot (born 1912) Willem Frederick August "Gus" Winckel was a Dutch military officer and pilot who flew for the Royal Netherlands East Indies Air Force (ML-KNIL) in World War II. During the attack on Broome, Western Australia, on 3 March 1942, Winckel managed to land his plane full of refugees safely on the Broome airstrip just before the Japanese attack. He then dismounted the plane's machine gun and shot down one of the Japanese fighters, the only Allied "kill" during the attack. Read more
17 Aug 2012: Aase Bjerkholt, Norwegian politician, Minister of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion (born 1915) Aase Ingerid Nathalie Bjerkholt was a Norwegian politician for the Labour Party. She was born in Oslo. Read more
17 Aug 2012: Victor Poor, American engineer, developed the Datapoint 2200 (born 1933) Victor "Vic" Poor was an American engineer and computer pioneer. At Computer Terminal Corporation, he co-created the architecture that was ultimately implemented in the first successful computer microprocessor, the Intel 8008. Subsequently, Computer Terminal Corporation created the first personal computer, the Datapoint 2200 programmable terminal. Read more
17 Aug 2012: Patrick Ricard, French businessman (born 1945) Patrick Ricard was a French entrepreneur and chairman and CEO of the liquor and wine group Pernod Ricard. Read more
17 Aug 2012: John Lynch-Staunton, Canadian lawyer and politician (born 1930) John George Lynch-Staunton was a Canadian senator, who served as interim leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, from December 2003 to March 2004. He represented the Senate division of Grandville, Quebec. Lynch-Staunton was the first Senator to lead a federal political party since Arthur Meighen from 1941 to 1942. Read more
17 Aug 2010: Francesco Cossiga, Italian lawyer and politician, 8th President of Italy (born 1928) Francesco Maurizio Cossiga was an Italian politician who served as the president of Italy from 1985 to 1992. A member of Christian Democracy, he was Prime Minister of Italy from 1979 to 1980. Cossiga is widely considered one of the most prominent and influential politicians of the First Italian Republic. Read more
17 Aug 2008: Franco Sensi, Italian businessman and politician (born 1926) Francesco Sensi, Cavaliere del lavoro was an Italian oil tycoon. He was born in Rome, where he lived throughout his entire life, though he also served time as mayor of Visso, the city where his family came from. He had been for fifteen years, until his death, chairman of Roma, the major football club of Rome. He took control of the club in May 1993, both with Pietro Mezzaroma, and he then became the chairman on 8 November 1993. Read more
17 Aug 2007: Bill Deedes, English journalist and politician (born 1913) William Francis Deedes, Baron Deedes, was a British Conservative politician, army officer and journalist. He was the first person in Britain to have been both a member of the Cabinet and the editor of a major daily newspaper, The Daily Telegraph. Read more
17 Aug 2007: Eddie Griffin, American basketball player (born 1982) Eddie Jamaal Griffin was an American professional basketball player from Philadelphia. He last played for the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves, who waived him on March 13, 2007. Months later, he was killed in a car crash. Read more
17 Aug 2006: Shamsur Rahman, Bangladeshi poet and journalist (born 1929) Shamsur Rahman was a Bangladeshi poet, columnist and journalist. A prolific writer, Rahman produced more than sixty books of poetry collection and is considered a key figure in Bengali literature from the latter half of the 20th century. He was regarded as the unofficial poet laureate of Bangladesh. Major themes in his poetry and writings include liberal humanism, human relations, romanticised rebellion of youth, the emergence of and consequent events in Bangladesh, and opposition to religious fundamentalism. Read more
17 Aug 2005: John N. Bahcall, American astrophysicist and academic (born 1934) John Norris Bahcall was an American astrophysicist and the Richard Black Professor for Astrophysics at the Institute for Advanced Study. He was known for a wide range of contributions to solar, galactic and extragalactic astrophysics, including the solar neutrino problem, the development of the Hubble Space Telescope, and his leadership and development of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Read more
17 Aug 2004: Thea Astley, Australian author and educator (born 1925) Thea Beatrice May Astley was an Australian novelist and short story writer. She was a prolific writer who was published for over 40 years from 1958. At the time of her death, she had won more Miles Franklin Awards, Australia's major literary award, than any other writer. As well as being a writer, she taught at all levels of education – primary, secondary and tertiary. Read more
17 Aug 2000: Jack Walker, English businessman (born 1929) Jack Walker was a British industrialist and businessman. Walker built his fortune in the steel industry, amassing a personal fortune of £600 million. He then went on to become the owner and benefactor of Blackburn Rovers, who won the 1994–95 FA Premier League under his ownership. Read more
17 Aug 1998: Władysław Komar, Polish shot putter and actor (born 1940) Władysław Stefan Komar was a Lithuanian-born Polish shot putter, actor and cabaretist. Competing in three Summer Olympics between 1964 and 1972, he won the gold medal at the Munich Games in 1972 with a throw of 21.18 metres. His nickname was "King Kong" Komar as attributed to a Sports Illustrated article. Read more
17 Aug 1998: Tadeusz Ślusarski, Polish pole vaulter (born 1950) Tadeusz Ślusarski was a Polish Olympic gold medalist in pole vault at the 1976 Summer Olympics, as well as a silver medalist at the 1980 Summer Olympics. Read more
17 Aug 1995: Howard E. Koch, American playwright and screenwriter (born 1902) Howard E. Koch was an American playwright and screenwriter who was blacklisted by the Hollywood film studio bosses in the 1950s. Read more
17 Aug 1995: Ted Whitten, Australian footballer and coach (born 1933) Edward James Whitten Sr. OAM was an Australian rules footballer who played for the Footscray Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Read more
17 Aug 1994: Luigi Chinetti, Italian-American race car driver and businessman (born 1901) Luigi Chinetti was an Italian-born racecar driver, who emigrated to the United States during World War II. He drove in 12 consecutive 24 Hours of Le Mans races, taking three outright wins there and taking two more at the Spa 24 Hours race. Chinetti owned the North American Racing Team, which successfully ran privateer Ferraris in sports car and Formula One races. For many years he was the exclusive American importer of Ferrari automobiles to the United States. Read more
17 Aug 1994: Jack Morrison, Australian rugby league player (born 1905) Jack Morrison (1905−1994) was an Australian rugby league footballer who played in the 1930s for South Sydney and Canterbury-Bankstown. Morrison was a foundation player for Canterbury-Bankstown and the club's first captain. Read more
17 Aug 1994: Jack Sharkey, American boxer and referee (born 1902) Jack Sharkey was a Lithuanian-American boxer who held the NYSAC, NBA, and The Ring heavyweight titles from 1932 to 1933. Read more
17 Aug 1993: Feng Kang, Chinese mathematician and academic (born 1920) Feng Kang was a Chinese mathematician. He was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980. After his death, the Chinese Academy of Sciences established the Feng Kang Prize in 1994 to reward young Chinese researchers who made outstanding contributions to computational mathematics. Read more
17 Aug 1990: Pearl Bailey, American actress and singer (born 1918) Pearl Mae Bailey was an American actress, singer, comedian and author. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman in 1946. She received a Special Tony Award for the title role in the all-Black production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968. In 1986, she won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance as a fairy godmother in the ABC Afterschool Special Cindy Eller: A Modern Fairy Tale. Her rendition of "Takes Two to Tango" hit the top ten in 1952. Read more
17 Aug 1988: Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistani general and politician, 6th President of Pakistan (born 1924) Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq was a Pakistani general who ruled Pakistan from his coup in 1977 until his death in an airplane crash in 1988. He served as the chief martial law administrator from 1977 to 1985, and as the president of Pakistan from 1978 until his death. Zia was also the chief of the army staff of the Pakistan Army from 1976. He remains Pakistan's longest-serving de-facto ruler to date, and his political ideology is known as Ziaism. Read more
17 Aug 1988: Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr., American lawyer and politician (born 1914) Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. was an American lawyer, politician, and businessman. He served as a United States congressman from New York from 1949 to 1955 and in 1963 was appointed United States Under Secretary of Commerce by President John F. Kennedy. Roosevelt was appointed as the first chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 1965 to 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Roosevelt also ran for governor of New York twice. Just after World War II, he served on Harry S. Truman's President's Committee on Civil Rights. Roosevelt was a son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and served as an officer in the United States Navy during World War II. Read more
17 Aug 1988: Victoria Shaw, Australian actress (born 1935) Victoria Shaw was an Australian film and television actress. Read more
17 Aug 1987: Gary Chester, Italian drummer and educator (born 1924) Gary Chester was an American studio drummer, author, and teacher. Beginning in the 1960s, he played on hundreds of records for bands such as the Coasters, the Monkees and the Lovin' Spoonful. Read more
17 Aug 1987: Rudolf Hess, German soldier and politician, convicted Nuremberg war criminal (born 1894) Rudolf Walter Richard Hess was a German politician, convicted war criminal, and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Germany. Appointed Deputy to the Führer in 1933, Hess held that position until 1941, when he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate the United Kingdom's exit from the Second World War. He was taken prisoner and eventually convicted of crimes against peace. He was still serving his life sentence and 93 years old at the time of his suicide in 1987. Read more
17 Aug 1987: Shaike Ophir, Israeli actor and screenwriter (born 1929) Shaike Ophir was an Israeli actor, comedian, playwright, screenwriter, director, and the country's first mime. Read more
17 Aug 1983: Ira Gershwin, American songwriter (born 1896) Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable English-language songs of the 20th century. With George, he wrote more than a dozen Broadway shows, featuring songs such as "I Got Rhythm", "Embraceable You", "The Man I Love", and "Someone to Watch Over Me". He was also responsible, along with DuBose Heyward, for the libretto to George's opera Porgy and Bess. Read more
17 Aug 1979: John C. Allen, American roller coaster designer (born 1907) John C. Allen was a roller coaster designer who was responsible for the revival of wooden roller coasters which began in the 1960s. He attended Drexel University. He started working for the Philadelphia Toboggan Company in 1934 as a coaster operator and rose to become president of the company by 1954. He designed more than 25 coasters and made significant contributions to roller coaster technology. He once said, "You don't need a degree in engineering to design roller coasters, you need a degree in psychology." Read more
17 Aug 1979: Vivian Vance, American actress and singer (born 1909) Vivian Vance was an American actress best known for playing landlady Ethel Mertz on the sitcom I Love Lucy (1951–1957), for which she won the 1953 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress, among other accolades. She also starred alongside Lucille Ball in The Lucy Show from 1962 until she left the series at the end of its third season in 1965. In 1991, she posthumously received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She is most commonly identified as Lucille Ball’s longtime comedic foil from 1951 until her death in 1979. Read more
17 Aug 1977: Delmer Daves, American screenwriter, director and producer (born 1904) Delmer Lawrence Daves was an American screenwriter, film director and film producer. He worked in many genres, including film noir and warfare, but he is best known for his Western movies, especially Broken Arrow (1950), The Last Wagon (1956), 3:10 to Yuma (1957) and The Hanging Tree (1959). He was required to work exclusively on studio-based films after heart trouble in 1959, one of which, A Summer Place (1959), was a huge commercial success. Read more
17 Aug 1973: Conrad Aiken, American novelist, short story writer, critic, and poet (born 1889) Conrad Potter Aiken was an American writer and poet, honored with a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, and was United States Poet Laureate from 1950 to 1952. His published works include poetry, short stories, novels, literary criticism, a play, and an autobiography. Read more
17 Aug 1973: Jean Barraqué, French pianist and composer (born 1928) Jean-Henri-Alphonse Barraqué was a French composer and music writer. His relatively small œuvre is known for its serialism. Read more
17 Aug 1973: Paul Williams, American singer and choreographer (born 1939) Paul Williams was an American baritone singer. He was noted for being one of the founding members and the original lead singer of the Motown group the Temptations. Personal problems and failing health forced Williams to retire in 1971 and, aged 34, he was found dead two years later as the result of an apparent suicide. Read more
17 Aug 1971: Maedayama Eigorō, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 39th Yokozuna (born 1914) Maedayama Eigorō was a Japanese professional sumo wrestler from Ehime Prefecture. He was the sport's 39th yokozuna. Read more
17 Aug 1971: Wilhelm List, German field marshal (born 1880) Siegmund Wilhelm Walther List was a German war criminal and Generalfeldmarschall of the Wehrmacht during World War II. Read more
17 Aug 1970: Rattana Pestonji, Thai director and producer (born 1908) Rattana Pestonji was a Thai film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer and is regarded as the father of contemporary Thai film. Although his filmography was brief, his films placed Thai cinema on the world stage. He also pushed for innovations, and was one of the first Thai directors to use 35-mm film. He died just as he was giving a speech to government officials to call for support of a domestic industry he saw as coming under threat from Hollywood films. Read more
17 Aug 1969: Otto Stern, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1888) Otto Stern was a German–American experimental physicist. He is the second most nominated person for a Nobel Prize, with 82 nominations during the years 1925–1945. In 1943, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his contribution to the development of the molecular ray method and his discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton." Read more
17 Aug 1966: Ken Miles, English race car driver and engineer (born 1918) Kenneth Henry Jarvis Miles was an English sports car racing engineer and driver best known for his motorsport career in the U.S. and with American teams on the international scene. He is an inductee to the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America. As an automotive engineer, he is known for developing, along with driver and designer Carroll Shelby, the Ford GT40, the car that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966, 1967, 1968, and 1969. Miles and Shelby's efforts at Le Mans were dramatized in the 2019 Oscar-winning film Ford v Ferrari. Read more
17 Aug 1958: Arthur Fox, English-American fencer (born 1878) Arthur George Fox was an English-American fencer who competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics. Read more
17 Aug 1949: Gregorio Perfecto, Filipino journalist, jurist, and politician (born 1891) Gregorio Milián Perfecto was a Filipino journalist, politician and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines from 1945 to 1949. A controversial figure who was described as an "apostle of liberal causes", Perfecto was notable for his libertarian views, his colorful writing style, and the frequency of his dissenting opinions while on the Supreme Court. Read more
17 Aug 1945: Reidar Haaland, Norwegian police officer and soldier (born 1919) Reidar Haaland was a police officer and Waffen-SS member. Read more
17 Aug 1940: Billy Fiske, American soldier and pilot (born 1911) William Meade Lindsley Fiske III was an American combat fighter pilot and Olympic bobsledder. At the 1928 and 1932 Winter Olympics, Fiske won gold as driver for the US bobsledding team, also acting as the American Olympic flagbearer in 1932. Read more
17 Aug 1936: José María of Manila, Spanish-Filipino priest and martyr (born 1880) José María of Manila was a Criollo Catholic priest and friar of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. He was martyred in the early phase of the Spanish Civil War, and is the third Filipino to have been declared blessed by the Roman Catholic Church. Read more
17 Aug 1935: Adam Gunn, American decathlete (born 1872) Adam Beattie Gunn was a Scottish-American athlete who competed mainly in the "All rounder", the forerunner of today's Decathlon. Gunn took first place in the Amateur Athletic Union's U.S. All-around championships in 1901 and 1902. The 1901 title was won in Buffalo, New York which Gunn adopted as his home town. Read more
17 Aug 1935: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, American sociologist and author (born 1860) Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman, also known by her first married name Charlotte Perkins Stetson, was an American humanist, novelist, writer, lecturer, early sociologist, and advocate for social reform. She was an early and leading figure in the women's rights movement in the United States, and in modern terms is regarded as a socialist feminist. Read more
17 Aug 1925: Ioan Slavici, Romanian journalist and author (born 1848) Ioan Slavici was a Romanian writer and journalist from Austria-Hungary, later Romania. Read more
17 Aug 1924: Tom Kendall, English-Australian cricketer and journalist (born 1851) Thomas Kingston Kendall was an Australian cricketer, who played in two Test matches in 1877, including the inaugural Test which was played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March 1877. Read more
17 Aug 1920: Ray Chapman, American baseball player (born 1891) Raymond Johnson Chapman was an American professional baseball player. He spent his entire career as a shortstop for the Cleveland Indians of the American League. Read more
17 Aug 1918: Moisei Uritsky, Russian activist and politician (born 1873) Moisei Solomonovich Uritsky, also known by his pen-name Boretsky, was a Bolshevik revolutionary leader in Russia. After the October Revolution, he was the head of the Petrograd Cheka from January 1918 until his death on 30 August 1918. Uritsky was assassinated by Leonid Kannegisser, a military cadet, who was executed shortly afterwards. Read more
17 Aug 1909: Madan Lal Dhingra, Indian activist (born 1883) Madan Lal Dhingra was an Indian freedom fighter who, whilst a student at University College London in 1909, assassinated Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie, the political Aide-de-camp to the secretary of State for India, in London. Read more
17 Aug 1908: Radoje Domanović, Serbian satirist and journalist (born 1873) Radoje Domanović was a Serbian journalist, writer and teacher, most famous for his satirical short stories. His adult years were a constant fight against tuberculosis. This circumstance of his life, and the affection which he inspired in all who knew him, created an aura of romanticism and sentimentality which stand in contrast to his literary accomplishments as a satirist and a powerful critic of the contemporary Serbian society. Read more
17 Aug 1903: Hans Gude, Norwegian-German painter and academic (born 1825) Hans Fredrik Gude was a Norwegian romanticist painter and is considered along with Johan Christian Dahl to be one of Norway's foremost landscape painters. He has been called a mainstay of Norwegian National Romanticism. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting and is best known for landscapes of Norway’s mountains, fjords, and coast. Read more
17 Aug 1901: Edmond Audran, French organist and composer (born 1842) Achille Edmond Audran was a French composer best known for several internationally successful comic operas and operettas. Read more
17 Aug 1897: William Jervois, English engineer and diplomat, 10th Governor of South Australia (born 1821) Lieutenant-General Sir William Francis Drummond Jervois was a British military engineer and diplomat. After joining the British Army in 1839, he saw service, as a second captain, in South Africa. In 1858, as a major, he was appointed Secretary of a Royal Commission set up to examine the state and efficiency of British land-based fortifications against naval attack; and this led to further work in Canada and South Australia. From 1875 to 1888 he was, consecutively, Governor of the Straits Settlements, Governor of South Australia and Governor of New Zealand. Read more
17 Aug 1875: Wilhelm Bleek, German linguist and anthropologist (born 1827) Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Bleek was a German linguist who lived in the Cape Colony and developed a particular interest for the languages and culture of the San peoples. He is the author of A Comparative Grammar of South African Languages. His great project, jointly executed with Lucy Lloyd in collaboration with San individuals who came to stay at his house for months or years, is the Bleek and Lloyd Archive of ǀXam and ǃKung texts, which has been listed on UNESCO's Memory of the World register. A collection of these texts eventually reached press with Specimens of Bushman Folklore. Bleek was influenced by scientific racism and this is reflected in some of his scientific practices and theories. Read more
17 Aug 1870: Perucho Figueredo, Cuban poet and activist (born 1818) Pedro Felipe Figueredo, mostly known as Perucho, was a Cuban poet, musician, and freedom fighter of the 19th century. In the 1860s, he was active in the planning of the Cuban uprising against the Spanish known as the Ten Years' War. Read more
17 Aug 1861: Alcée Louis la Branche, American politician and diplomat, 1st United States Ambassador to Texas (born 1806) Alcée Louis la Branche was an American politician who served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the state of Louisiana. He served one term as a Democrat from 1843 to 1845. Read more
17 Aug 1850: José de San Martín, Argentinian general and politician, 1st President of Peru (born 1778) José Francisco de San Martín y Matorras, nicknamed "the Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru", was an Argentine general and the primary leader of the southern and central parts of South America's successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire who served as the Protector of Peru. Born in Yapeyú, Corrientes, in modern-day Argentina, he left the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata at the early age of seven to study in Málaga, Spain. Read more
17 Aug 1838: Lorenzo Da Ponte, Italian playwright and poet (born 1749) Lorenzo Da Ponte was an Italian and American librettist, poet and Roman Catholic priest. He wrote the libretti for 28 operas by 11 composers, including three of Mozart's most celebrated operas: The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Così fan tutte (1790). Read more
17 Aug 1834: Husein Gradaščević, Ottoman general (born 1802) Husein Gradaščević (Husein-kapetan), also known as Zmaj od Bosne, was an Ottoman Bosnian military commander who led an uprising against the Tanzimat, a system of political reforms with aim to modernise the Ottoman Empire. Born into a Bosnian noble family, Gradaščević became the captain of Gradačac in the early 1820s, succeeding his relatives in the position. He grew up surrounded by a political climate of turmoil in the western reaches of the Ottoman Empire. With the Russo-Turkish war (1828–29), Gradaščević's importance rose; the Bosnian governor gave him the task of mobilising an army between the Drina and Vrbas. Read more
17 Aug 1814: John Johnson, English architect and surveyor (born 1732) John Johnson was an English architect and surveyor to the county of Essex. He is best known for designing the Shire Hall, Chelmsford. Read more
17 Aug 1809: Matthew Boulton, English businessman and engineer, co-founded Boulton and Watt (born 1728) Matthew Boulton was an English businessman, inventor, mechanical engineer, and silversmith. He was a business partner of the Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century, the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on the state of the art, making possible the mechanisation of factories and mills. Boulton applied modern techniques to the minting of coins, striking millions of pieces for Britain and other countries, and supplying the Royal Mint with up-to-date equipment. Read more

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