Important Events on 06 February in History

• 2023: Two earthquakes measuring Mww 7.8 and 7.5 struck near the border between Turkey and Syria with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XII (Extreme). The earthquakes resulted in numerous aftershocks and a death toll of 57,658 people. Read more
• 2021: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken suspends agreements with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to send asylum seekers back to their home countries. Read more
• 2018: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, a super heavy launch vehicle, makes its maiden flight. Read more
• 2016: An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 strikes southern Taiwan, killing 117 people. Read more
• 2012: A magnitude 6.7 earthquake hits the central Philippine island of Negros, leaving 112 people dead. Read more
• 2006: Stephen Harper becomes Prime Minister of Canada. Read more
• 2000: Second Chechen War: Russia captures Grozny, Chechnya, forcing the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria government into exile. Read more
• 1998: Washington National Airport is renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport. Read more
• 1996: Willamette Valley Flood: Floods in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, United States, causes over US$500 million in property damage throughout the Pacific Northwest. Read more
• 1996: Birgenair Flight 301 crashed off the coast of the Dominican Republic, killing all 189 people on board. This is the deadliest aviation accident involving a Boeing 757. Read more
• 1989: The Round Table Talks start in Poland, thus marking the beginning of the overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe. Read more
• 1987: Justice Mary Gaudron becomes the first woman to be appointed to the High Court of Australia. Read more
• 1981: The National Resistance Army of Uganda launches an attack on a Ugandan Army installation in the central Mubende District to begin the Ugandan Bush War. Read more
• 1978: The Blizzard of 1978, one of the worst Nor’easters in New England history, hit the region, with sustained winds of 65 mph and snowfall of four inches an hour. Read more
• 1976: In testimony before a United States Senate subcommittee, Lockheed Corporation president Carl Kotchian admits that the company had paid out approximately $3 million in bribes to the office of Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka. Read more
• 1973: The Ms  7.6 Luhuo earthquake strikes Sichuan Province, causing widespread destruction and killing at least 2,199 people. Read more
• 1959: Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit. Read more
• 1959: At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished. Read more
• 1958: Eight Manchester United F.C. players and 15 other passengers are killed in the Munich air disaster. Read more
• 1952: Elizabeth II becomes Queen of the United Kingdom and her other Realms and Territories and Head of the Commonwealth upon the death of her father, George VI. At the exact moment of succession, she was in a tree house at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya. Read more
• 1951: The Canadian Army enters combat in the Korean War. Read more
• 1951: The Broker, a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derails near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. The accident kills 85 people and injures over 500 more. The wreck is one of the worst rail disasters in American history. Read more
• 1944: World War II: The Great Raids Against Helsinki begins. Read more
• 1934: Far-right leagues rally in front of the Palais Bourbon in an attempted coup against the French Third Republic, creating a political crisis in France. Read more
• 1922: The Washington Naval Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C., limiting the naval armaments of United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy. Read more
• 1919: The five-day Seattle General Strike begins, as more than 65,000 workers in the city of Seattle, Washington, walk off the job. Read more
• 1918: British women over the age of 30 who meet minimum property qualifications, get the right to vote when Representation of the People Act 1918 is passed by Parliament. Read more
• 1900: The Permanent Court of Arbitration, an international arbitration court at The Hague, is created when the Senate of the Netherlands ratifies an 1899 peace conference decree. Read more
• 1899: Spanish–American War: The Treaty of Paris, a peace treaty between the United States and Spain, is ratified by the United States Senate. Read more
• 1865: The municipal administration of Finland is established. Read more
• 1862: American Civil War: Forces under the command of Ulysses S. Grant and Andrew H. Foote give the Union its first victory of the war, capturing Fort Henry, Tennessee in the Battle of Fort Henry. Read more
• 1851: The largest Australian bushfires in a populous region in recorded history take place in the state of Victoria. Read more
• 1843: The first minstrel show in the United States, The Virginia Minstrels, opens (Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City). Read more
• 1840: Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, establishing New Zealand as a British colony. Read more
• 1833: Otto becomes the first modern King of Greece. Read more
• 1820: The first 86 African American immigrants sponsored by the American Colonization Society depart New York to start a settlement in present-day Liberia. Read more
• 1819: The Treaty of Singapore was signed by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, Hussein Shah of Johor, and Temenggong Abdul Rahman, and it is now recognised as the founding of modern Singapore. Read more
• 1806: Battle of San Domingo: British naval victory against the French in the Caribbean. Read more

 Important Births on 06 February in History

• 2002: Ona Huczkowski, Finnish actress Ona Serafiina Huczkowski is a Finnish actress. Her film debut was in the 2020 youth drama film Eden, but she got her first leading role in the 2023 western comedy film The Unhanged. In addition, she has acted in Yle’s comedy drama series Riding the Beat, which is set in the rap world. Read more
• 2000: Conor Gallagher, English footballer Conor John Gallagher is an English professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur and the England national team. Read more
• 1998: Adley Rutschman, American baseball player Adley Stan Rutschman is an American professional baseball catcher for the Baltimore Orioles of Major League Baseball (MLB). He played college baseball for the Oregon State Beavers. He was named the Pac-12 Conference Player of the Year in 2019. The Orioles selected Rutschman with the first overall selection in the 2019 MLB draft, and he signed for $8.1 million, at the time the highest MLB draft signing bonus ever. Rutschman made his MLB debut in 2022 and is a two-time All-Star. Read more
• 1996: Kevon Looney, American basketball player Kevon Grant Looney is an American professional basketball player for the New Orleans Pelicans of the National Basketball Association (NBA). As a freshman playing college basketball with the UCLA Bruins, he earned second-team all-conference honors in the Pac-12 in 2015. After the season, Looney decided to forgo his college eligibility and enter the 2015 NBA draft, and was selected in the first round by the Golden State Warriors with the 30th overall pick. He won three NBA championships during his 10-year tenure with the Warriors. Read more
• 1995: Nyck de Vries, Dutch racing driver Hendrik Johannes Nicasius “Nyck” de Vries is a Dutch racing driver, who competes in the FIA World Endurance Championship for Toyota and in Formula E for Mahindra. In formula racing, de Vries competed in Formula One at 11 Grands Prix from 2022 to 2023, and won the 2020–21 Formula E World Championship with Mercedes. Read more
• 1995: Leon Goretzka, German footballer Leon Christoph Goretzka is a German professional footballer who plays as a central midfielder for Bundesliga club Bayern Munich and the Germany national team. Read more
• 1995: Sam McQueen, English footballer Samuel James McQueen is an English former professional footballer. Other than loan periods at Southend United in 2016 and Middlesbrough in 2018, he spent his career at hometown club Southampton, having joined the club’s academy at the age of eight. He played primarily as a left-sided full-back or winger. Read more
• 1994: Charlie Heaton, English actor and musician Charles Ross Heaton is an English actor and musician. He is best known for his role as Jonathan Byers in the science fiction series Stranger Things (2016–2025). He has also starred in films such as As You Are (2016), Marrowbone (2017), The New Mutants (2020), No Future (2021), and The Souvenir Part II (2021). Prior to his acting career, he was the drummer in a number of rock bands. Read more
• 1993: Teresa Scanlan, American beauty pageant titleholder, Miss America 2011 Teresa Michelle Scanlan is an American attorney and beauty pageant titleholder from Gering, Nebraska who was named Miss Nebraska 2010, subsequently winning Miss America 2011 at age 17 and becoming the youngest Miss America since Bette Cooper in 1937. She now works as a business litigation attorney at King & Spalding in Houston, Texas, and serves as a staff sergeant in the Wyoming Air National Guard, in the Force Support Squadron. Read more
• 1993: Tinashe, American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress Tinashe Jorgensen Kachingwe is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actress. Born in Lexington, Kentucky, Tinashe moved to Pasadena, California, as a child, where she pursued work in entertainment. Her roles include a motion-capture performance in the animated film The Polar Express (2004), Robin Wheeler in the Cartoon Network television series Out of Jimmy’s Head (2007–2008), and a recurring role in the CBS series Two and a Half Men (2008–2009). From 2007 to 2011, she was a member of the girl group the Stunners. After they disbanded, Tinashe released her first musical projects, the mixtapes In Case We Die (2012), Reverie (2012) and Black Water (2013). Read more
• 1992: Víctor Mañón, Mexican footballer Víctor Omar Mañón Barrón is a Mexican professional footballer who plays as a forward for Panathinaikos Chicago. Read more
• 1991: Tobias Eisenbauer, Austrian ice dancer Tobias Eisenbauer is an Austrian ice dancer. With partner Kira Geil, he is the 2011 Austrian champion. Read more
• 1991: Aleksandar Katai, Serbian footballer Aleksandar Katai is a Serbian professional footballer who plays as a winger for Red Star Belgrade. Read more
• 1991: Ida Njåtun, Norwegian speed skater Ida Njåtun is a Norwegian speed skater specialising in the 1500 and 3000 metres distances. She represents the club Asker SK. Read more
• 1991: Eva Wacanno, Dutch tennis player Eva Wacanno is a Dutch former tennis player. Read more
• 1991: Fei Yu, Chinese footballer Fei Yu is a Chinese former professional footballer who played as a defensive midfielder. Read more
• 1990: Adam Henrique, Canadian ice hockey player Adam Henrique is a Canadian professional ice hockey player who is a centre for the Edmonton Oilers of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was selected 82nd overall at the 2008 NHL Entry Draft by the New Jersey Devils. Henrique previously played for the Devils and Anaheim Ducks. He played Major Junior hockey with the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) where he was a member of the team that won back-to-back Memorial Cups in 2009 and 2010. Read more
• 1990: Jermaine Kearse, American football player Jermaine Levan Kearse is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver for eight seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Washington Huskies. Kearse was signed by the Seattle Seahawks as an undrafted free agent in 2012 and later won Super Bowl XLVIII with the team. After five seasons with the Seahawks, Kearse played two more seasons for the New York Jets from 2017 to 2018. In 2019, he joined the Detroit Lions, but missed the entire season due to injury. Read more
• 1990: Aida Rybalko, Lithuanian figure skater Aida Rybalko-Laurecke is a Lithuanian figure skater. She is a two-time Lithuanian national vice-champion. Read more
• 1990: Dominic Sherwood, English actor Dominic Anthony Sherwood is an English actor and model, best known for his roles as Christian Ozera in the teen vampire film Vampire Academy (2014), Jace Wayland on the Freeform fantasy series Shadowhunters (2016–2019), Kurt in the series Penny Dreadful: City of Angels (2020) and Jeff Murphy in the Netflix legal drama Partner Track (2022). Read more
• 1989: Craig Cathcart, Northern Irish footballer Craig George Cathcart is a Northern Irish former professional footballer who played as a centre-back. Read more
• 1989: Jonny Flynn, American basketball player Jonny William Flynn is an American former professional basketball player. A three-year National Basketball Association (NBA) veteran, he last played for the Orlandina Basket of the Lega Basket Serie A and played collegiate basketball for the Syracuse Orange. Read more
• 1988: Anna Diop, Senegalese-American actress Mame-Anna Diop is a Senegalese-American actress and model. Her first major roles were as a series regular on The CW supernatural mystery The Messengers (2015) and the Fox thriller 24: Legacy (2017). Diop achieved further prominence for portraying Kory Anders / Starfire on the DC Universe / HBO Max series Titans from 2018 to 2023. Outside of television, she headlined the psychological thriller film Nanny (2022). Read more
• 1988: Bailey Hanks, American actress, singer, and dancer Bailey Noel Hanks Weidman is an American singer, actress, and dancer best known for winning MTV’s Legally Blonde: The Musical – The Search for Elle Woods. She performed on Broadway as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde: The Musical in 2008. Read more
• 1987: Pedro Álvarez, Dominican-American baseball player Pedro Manuel Álvarez Jr., nicknamed “El Toro”, is a Dominican-American former professional baseball designated hitter and infielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles. Read more
• 1987: Travis Wood, American baseball player Travis Alan Wood is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs, Kansas City Royals, and San Diego Padres. Read more
• 1986: Dane DeHaan, American actor Dane William DeHaan is an American actor. His roles include Andrew Detmer in Chronicle (2012), Jason Glanton in The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Lucien Carr in Kill Your Darlings (2013), Harry Osborn / Green Goblin in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), Lockhart in A Cure for Wellness (2016), Valerian in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017), Chris Lynwood in ZeroZeroZero, and Kenneth Nichols in Oppenheimer (2023). In 2021, he starred in the psychological romance horror miniseries Lisey’s Story. He also had a role in the true crime limited series adaptation of The Staircase in 2022. Read more
• 1986: Tony Johnson, American mixed martial artist Anthony Johnson Jr. is an American mixed martial artist currently competing in the Heavyweight division of Absolute Championship Akhmat where he is the former ACA Heavyweight Champion. A professional competitor since 2008, Johnson has formerly competed for Bellator MMA, ONE Fighting Championship, Fight Nights Global, and King of the Cage. He is the former KOTC Heavyweight Champion. He is ranked #6 in the ACA heavyweight rankings. Read more
• 1986: Yunho, South Korean singer and actor Jung Yunho, better known by his stage name U-Know Yunho (유노윤호) or simply U-Know, is a South Korean singer-songwriter, actor, and a member of the pop duo TVXQ. Born and raised in Gwangju, South Korea, Yunho started his musical training under the talent agency SM Entertainment in 2001 and joined TVXQ in 2003 as the band’s leader. Fluent in Korean and Japanese, Yunho has released chart-topping albums throughout Asia as a member of TVXQ. He has made occasional acting appearances in television dramas. Read more
• 1985: Fallulah, Danish singer-songwriter Fallulah is a Danish-Romanian singer-songwriter and musician. Her given name is Maria Apetri. Following a short dancing career, she entered the music industry and released her debut album in 2010 which peaked at number three in Denmark and went on to be certified platinum. Read more
• 1985: Kris Humphries, American basketball player Kristopher Nathan Humphries is an American former professional basketball power forward who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played in the NBA for the Utah Jazz, Toronto Raptors, Dallas Mavericks, New Jersey / Brooklyn Nets, Boston Celtics, Washington Wizards, Phoenix Suns, and the Atlanta Hawks from 2004 to 2016. Humphries played college basketball for the Minnesota Golden Gophers and for the United States men’s national basketball team. He was married to Kim Kardashian for 72 days before they divorced. Read more
• 1985: Crystal Reed, American actress Crystal Marie Reed is an American actress. She came to prominence playing Allison Argent in the series Teen Wolf (2011–2014). She departed the series after the third season but made a guest appearance in the fifth season as Allison’s ancestor Marie-Jeanne Valet. Reed went on to reprise her role as Allison Argent in the reunion film Teen Wolf: The Movie (2023). Read more
• 1984: Darren Bent, English international footballer Darren Ashley Bent is an English former professional footballer who played as a striker and is currently a radio presenter for talkSPORT. He played in the Premier League and Championship for nine clubs, and at senior international level for the England national team. Read more
• 1984: Piret Järvis, Estonian singer-songwriter and guitarist Piret Järvis-Milder is an Estonian television host and a singer, guitarist, and songwriter of the popular rock band Vanilla Ninja. Read more
• 1984: Antoine Wright, American basketball player Antoine Domonick Wright is an American former professional basketball player. He attended preparatory school at Lawrence Academy at Groton; in 2002, he led the Spartans to an Independent School League basketball championship. After his junior year at Texas A&M University, he was selected 15th overall in the 2005 NBA draft by the Nets, the highest pick from the Big 12 Conference that year and in Texas A&M University history until Acie Law was drafted 11th in the 2007 NBA Draft. Wright played his first five seasons of professional basketball in the NBA. He has since played overseas and in the NBA D-League. Read more
• 1983: Dimas Delgado, Spanish footballer Dimas Delgado Morgado, known simply as Dimas, is a Spanish former professional footballer who played as a midfielder, currently assistant coach of Philippines. Read more
• 1983: S. Sreesanth, Indian cricketer Shanthakumaran Nair Sreesanth is an Indian former cricketer and film actor who played all formats of the game for his country. He is a right-arm fast-medium-pace bowler and a right-handed tail-ender batsman. In first class cricket, he played for Kerala. In the Indian Premier League (IPL) he played for the Rajasthan Royals. He became the first Kerala Ranji player to play Twenty20 cricket for India. Sreesanth was initially banned for life after spot-fixing in the 2013 IPL, however, the ban was reduced to seven years in August 2019.
  In 2018, he participated in the popular reality show, Bigg Boss and became the runner up. In 2020 he was selected for the Kerala cricket team and resumed his career in national cricket. In March 2022, Sreesanth announced his retirement from domestic cricket. Sreesanth was a member of the Indian team that won both the 2007 T20 World Cup and the 2011 Cricket World Cup, where in the 2007 final, he took the winning catch. Read more
• 1983: Jamie Whincup, Australian race car driver Jamie David Whincup is an Australian professional racing driver competing in the Supercars Championship. He currently is team principal for Triple Eight Race Engineering. He has driven the No. 88 Holden ZB Commodore, won a record seven Supercars championship titles, four Bathurst 1000 victories, and a Bathurst 12 Hour victory. Whincup is the all-time record holder in the Supercars Championship for race wins, at 125 career wins. He is also the first driver to win the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy twice at Pukekohe Park Raceway in Auckland, New Zealand. Read more
• 1982: Alice Eve, English actress Alice Sophia Eve is a British and American actress. The daughter of actors Trevor Eve and Sharon Maughan, she began her career with supporting roles in the films Hawking and Stage Beauty. Her other credits include Starter for 10 (2006), She’s Out of My League (2010), Men in Black 3 (2012), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), Before We Go (2014), Please Stand By (2017), Replicas (2018), and Bombshell (2019). On television, she has had recurring roles on HBO’s Entourage (2011), Marvel’s Iron Fist (2018), and Amazon Prime’s The Power (2023). Read more
• 1982: Elise Ray, American gymnast Mary Elise Ray is an American gymnast who represented the United States at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and the 1999 World Championships. She was the head gymnastics coach at the University of Washington from 2016 to 2020. Read more
• 1982: Tank, Taiwanese singer-songwriter Lü Jianzhong, better known by his stage name Tank, is a Taiwanese singer-songwriter. He is currently signed to HIM International Music. His debut album, Fighting was released on 23 February 2006. His latest album, The 3rd Round, was released on 31 May 2009. Read more
• 1981: Ricky Barnes, American golfer Richard Kyle Barnes is an American professional golfer who currently plays on the PGA Tour. Read more
• 1981: Calum Best, American-English model and actor Calum Milan Best is a British-American television personality and entrepreneur. He is the only child of footballer George Best. He is also the chairman of the Dorking Wanderers women’s team. Read more
• 1981: Shim Eun-jin, South Korean singer and actress Shim Eun-jin is a South Korean singer and actress. She was a member of South Korean girl group Baby V.O.X. Read more
• 1981: Alison Haislip, American actress and producer Alison Fesq Haislip is an American actress and former television personality for Attack of the Show! on the first incarnation of the G4 network and the NBC reality singing competition show The Voice. Read more
• 1981: Jens Lekman, Swedish singer-songwriter and guitarist Jens Martin Lekman is a Swedish musician. His music is guitar-based pop with heavy use of samples and strings, with lyrics that are often witty, romantic, and melancholic. His work is heavily influenced by Jonathan Richman and Belle & Sebastian, and he has been likened to Stephin Merritt, David Byrne, and Scott Walker. Read more
• 1980: Kerry Jeremy, Antiguan cricketer Kerry Clifford Bryan Jeremy is a cricketer. He played six One Day Internationals for West Indies from 2000 to 2001. Read more
• 1980: Konnor, American wrestler Ryan Parmeter is an American professional wrestler, He is best known for his work in WWE, where he wrestled under the ring name Konnor. He was part of the fourth season of NXT, and earned fourth place on the show’s fifth season, NXT Redemption.he also competed in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, where he performed under the ring name Kon. Read more
• 1980: Ben Lawson, Australian actor Ben Lawson is an Australian actor. From 2006 until 2008, he played Frazer Yeats in the Australian soap opera Neighbours. The role earned him a Logie Award nomination. Lawson has since appeared in several American television series, including The Deep End, Covert Affairs, and Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23. In 2011, he starred opposite Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher in the film No Strings Attached. From 2017 to 2018, he starred as Damien Rennett on the ABC political drama Designated Survivor. He also played baseball coach Rick Wlodimierzin in the second season of 13 Reasons Why, and Larry Hemsworth on The Good Place. Lawson portrays Lachlan Murdoch in the 2019 film Bombshell, alongside his brother Josh Lawson who played James Murdoch. He also starred in the Netflix series Firefly Lane (2021-2023). Read more
• 1980: Kim Poirier, Canadian actress, singer, and producer Kim Poirier is a Canadian actress, singer, film producer, and television host. Read more
• 1980: Luke Ravenstahl, American politician, 58th Mayor of Pittsburgh Luke Robert Ravenstahl is an American politician who served as the 59th Mayor of Pittsburgh from 2006 until 2014. A Democrat, he became the youngest mayor in Pittsburgh’s history in September 2006 at the age of 26. He was among the youngest mayors of a major city in American history. Read more
• 1979: Dan Bălan, Moldovan singer-songwriter and producer Dan Bălan is a Moldovan musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is the founder of Moldovan Eurodance band O-Zone, and wrote their international hit single “Dragostea din tei”, which topped the charts in 32 countries and sold 12 million copies worldwide. Read more
• 1978: Yael Naim, French-Israeli singer-songwriter Yael Naim is a French-born Israeli singer and actress. She rose to fame in 2008 in the US after her hit single “New Soul” was used by Apple in an advertising campaign for its MacBook Air. The song peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2013, the French government made her a knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Read more
• 1977: Josh Stewart, American actor Joshua Regnall Stewart is an American actor. He had his breakout with a main role as Officer Brendan Finney on the sixth and final season of the NBC crime drama television series Third Watch (2004–2005). Following Third Watch, Stewart had a main role as Holt McLaren on the FX series Dirt (2007–2008) and a recurring role as Detective William LaMontagne Jr. on the CBS and Paramount+ police procedural series Criminal Minds. Read more
• 1976: Tanja Frieden, Swiss snowboarder and educator Tanja Frieden is a Swiss snowboarder. She won a gold medal in the inaugural Snowboard Cross competition at the 2006 Winter Olympics. Read more
• 1976: Kim Zmeskal, American gymnast and coach Kimberly Lynn Zmeskal Burdette is an American retired artistic gymnast turned gymnastics coach and the 1991 World All-Around champion. A member of the silver medal-winning U.S. team from the 1991 World Championships, she was the first American woman to win the all-around title at the World Championships, as well as the first to win a world championship medal of any color in the all-around. A three-time United States national all-around champion (1990–92), Zmeskal was also the 1992 world champion on both balance beam and floor exercise, and was a member of the bronze medal-winning U.S. team at the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, the first U.S. team medal won at a fully attended Olympic Games. She also posted the highest optional all-around score in the qualification round in Barcelona. Read more
• 1975: Chad Allen, American baseball player and coach John Chad Allen is an American former professional baseball left fielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Minnesota Twins, Cleveland Indians, Florida Marlins and Texas Rangers. Read more
• 1975: Orkut Büyükkökten, Turkish computer scientist and engineer, created Orkut Orkut Büyükkökten is a Turkish software engineer who developed the social networking services Club Nexus, inCircle and Orkut. He is a former product manager at Google. Read more
• 1975: Tomoko Kawase, Japanese singer-songwriter and producer Tomoko Kawase is a Japanese singer, songwriter, producer, actress, and model from Kyoto. She is the lead singer of the alternative rock band The Brilliant Green. She also has a solo career under the alter-ego pseudonyms Tommy february6 and Tommy heavenly6. Read more
• 1974: Aljo Bendijo, Filipino journalist Alexes Joseph “Aljo” Rubia Bendijo is a Filipino broadcast journalist. Read more
• 1972: Stefano Bettarini, Italian footballer Stefano Bettarini is an Italian retired professional footballer who played as a defender, and a television personality. He played once for the Italy national team. He was a contestant on Grande Fratello VIP, 2016 and currently a host presenter in L’Isola dei Famosi. Read more
• 1972: David Binn, American football player David Aaron Binn is an American former professional football player who was a long snapper for 18 seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the California Golden Bears and was signed by the San Diego Chargers as an undrafted free agent in 1994. He was the last remaining active member of the Chargers’ Super Bowl XXIX team, as well as their infamous 2000 season, where they went 1–15. Read more
• 1971: Brad Hogg, Australian cricketer George Bradley Hogg is a former Australian cricketer who played all formats of the game. He was a left-arm wrist spin bowler, and a lower-order left-handed batsman. Read more
• 1971: Carlos Rogers, American basketball player Carlos Deon Rogers is an American former professional basketball player who played eight seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Rogers was an All-American college player for the Tennessee State Tigers, then was selected by the Seattle SuperSonics in the first round of the 1994 NBA draft. Read more
• 1971: Brian Stepanek, American actor Brian Patrick Stepanek is an American actor known for his role as Arwin Hochhauser on the Disney Channel original series The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and Brian on Brian O’Brian. He was also a Sector Seven Agent in the 2007 Michael Bay film Transformers, played Sheldon’s high school science teacher, Mr. Givens, in the show Young Sheldon, and also had a supporting role in The Island. Stepanek is also known as the voice of Roger in Father of the Pride and played Tom Harper on the Nickelodeon series Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn from 2014 to 2018. Since 2016, he has voiced Lynn Loud Sr. on the Nickelodeon animated series The Loud House, and has reprised his role in the 2022 live-action spinoff series The Really Loud House. Read more
• 1970: Per Frandsen, Danish footballer and manager Per Frandsen is a Danish professional football manager and former player who is currently the head coach of Odds Ballklubb in the Norwegian second tier. Read more
• 1970: Tim Herron, American golfer Timothy Daniel Herron is an American professional golfer. He currently plays on the PGA Tour Champions. He was previously a member of the PGA Tour, where he was a four-time winner. Read more
• 1969: David Hayter, American actor and screenwriter David Hayter is a Canadian-American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He is well known as the English-language voice actor for Solid Snake and Naked Snake in the Metal Gear video game series. He wrote the superhero film X-Men (2000), for which he won the Saturn Award for Best Writing. He also co-wrote The Scorpion King (2002), X-Men’s first sequel, X2 (2003), and Watchmen (2009), and was a writer and producer on the streaming television series Warrior Nun. Read more
• 1969: Masaharu Fukuyama, Japanese singer-songwriter, producer, and actor Masaharu Fukuyama is a Japanese singer-songwriter and actor from Nagasaki. He debuted in 1990 with the single “Tsuioku no Ame no Naka”. Read more
• 1969: Tim Sherwood, English footballer and manager Timothy Alan Sherwood is an English former football player and manager. Read more
• 1969: Bob Wickman, American baseball player Robert Joe Wickman is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played 15 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for five teams: the New York Yankees, Milwaukee Brewers, Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, and Arizona Diamondbacks. He batted and threw right-handed. Read more
• 1968: Adolfo Valencia, Colombian footballer Adolfo José Valencia Mosquera is a Colombian retired footballer who played as a striker. Read more
• 1968: Akira Yamaoka, Japanese composer and producer Akira Yamaoka is a Japanese composer, producer and sound designer. He is known for scoring every installment of Konami’s horror video game series Silent Hill (1999–present), with the exception of Downpour and Book of Memories, though he still played guitar on the latter. He has also produced many of the games and composed the soundtracks of the Silent Hill film franchise (2006–2025). Read more
• 1967: Anita Cochran, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Anita Renee Cockerham, known professionally as Anita Cochran, is an American country music singer, songwriter, and guitarist. She has released two albums for Warner Bros. Records Nashville and one for Straybranch Records. Cochran is best known for her late 1997-early 1998 single “What If I Said”, a duet with Steve Wariner that reached the number-one position on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. Read more
• 1967: Izumi Sakai, Japanese singer-songwriter (died 2007) Sachiko Kamachi , known professionally as Izumi Sakai , was a Japanese pop singer and core member of the group Zard. As Sakai was the only member in the group for the majority of the 16 years which it was active, Zard and Sakai may be referred to interchangeably. She was the best-selling female recording artist of the 1990s and has sold over 38 million copies of sales, making her one of the best-selling music artists in Japan of all time. Read more
• 1967: Michelle Thrush, Canadian actress and activist Michelle Thrush is a Canadian actress and First Nations activist for Indigenous peoples in Canada and the other Indigenous peoples of the Americas. She is best known for her leading role as Gail Stoney in Blackstone, for which she won the Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role in 2011, and her recurring roles as Sylvie LeBret in North of 60 and Deanna Martin in Arctic Air. Read more
• 1966: Rick Astley, English singer-songwriter Richard Paul Astley is an English singer, songwriter, radio DJ and podcaster. He gained fame through his association with the production trio Stock Aitken Waterman, releasing the 1987 album Whenever You Need Somebody, which sold 15 million copies worldwide and was certified platinum by both the BPI and the RIAA. His debut single “Never Gonna Give You Up” was a No. 1 hit in more than 25 countries, winning the 1988 Brit Award for Best British Single. The song also stayed at the top of the UK chart for five weeks in 1987 and was the best-selling single of that year. His 1988 single “Together Forever” also topped the US Billboard Hot 100 and was one of his eight songs to reach the UK Singles Chart top 10. Read more
• 1965: Jan Svěrák, Czech actor, director, and screenwriter Jan Svěrák is a Czech film director and screenwriter. He is the son of screenwriter and actor Zdeněk Svěrák, with whom he collaborated on his most successful films. He is among the most recognized Czech filmmakers. His best-known films are the Oscar-winning Kolya and the Oscar-nominated The Elementary School. Read more
• 1964: Laurent Cabannes, French rugby player Laurent Jean-Marie Cabannes is a former French rugby union footballer. He played as a flanker. Read more
• 1964: Gordon Downie, Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (died 2017) Gordon Edgar Downie was a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, musician, writer, poet, and activist. He was the singer and lyricist for the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip, which he fronted from its formation in 1984 until his death in 2017. He is revered by many as an inspiring and influential artist in Canada’s music history. Read more
• 1964: Colin Miller, Australian cricketer and sportscaster Colin Reid Miller is an Australian former cricketer who played 18 Tests for Australia between 1998 and 2001. In May 2002, Miller announced his retirement from cricket. Read more
• 1964: Andrey Zvyagintsev, Russian actor and director Andrey Petrovich Zvyagintsev is a Russian filmmaker. Most known for his feature debut film The Return (2003), which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Read more
• 1963: David Capel, English cricketer (died 2020) David John Capel was an English cricketer who played for Northamptonshire County Cricket Club and the English cricket team. Cricket writer Colin Bateman noted that “Capel was one of those unfortunate cricketers who became tagged as being the next all-rounder to fill Ian Botham’s boots”. He was well known for his long stint with Northamptonshire as a player as well as coach for nearly 32 years. He died on 2 September 2020, at the age of 57, after being diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2018. Read more
• 1963: Scott Gordon, American ice hockey player and coach Scott M. Gordon is an American professional ice hockey coach and former professional goaltender. He is currently the head coach for the Waterloo Black Hawks of the United States Hockey League (USHL). He previously served as the head coach of the NHL’s New York Islanders from 2008 to 2010 and the head coach of the National Hockey League’s Philadelphia Flyers in the 2018–19 season, and, as well as the head coach of the Providence Bruins and Lehigh Valley Phantoms of the American Hockey League (AHL) between 2002 and 2021. Before coaching he played 23 games in the NHL with the Quebec Nordiques during the 1989–90 and 1990–91 seasons, and in the minor leagues from 1986 to 1994. Internationally he played for the American national team at the 1992 Winter Olympics and the 1991 World Championships. Gordon was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, but grew up in Easton, Massachusetts. Read more
• 1963: Quentin Letts, English journalist and critic Quentin Richard Stephen Letts is an English journalist and theatre critic. He has written for The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, and The Oldie. On 26 February 2019, it was announced that Letts would return to The Times. On 1 September 2023, Letts returned to the Daily Mail. Read more
• 1962: Stavros Lambrinidis, Greek lawyer and politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Greece Stavros Lambrinidis is a Greek lawyer and politician, currently serving as Ambassador of the European Union to the United Nations. He was previously Ambassador of the European Union to the United States from March 2019 until December 2023, European Union special representative for human rights from 2012 to 2019 and Minister for Foreign Affairs in Greece from June 2011 to November 2011. Read more
• 1962: Axl Rose, American singer-songwriter and producer W. Axl Rose is an American singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the hard rock band Guns N’ Roses. He has been the band’s only constant member since its formation in 1985. Renowned for his wide-ranging, powerful voice, Rose has been ranked among the greatest singers of all time by outlets such as Rolling Stone, NME and Billboard. Read more
• 1961: Cam Cameron, American football player and coach Malcolm “Cam” Cameron is an American football coach who was most recently the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach of the LSU Tigers football program. Cameron attended Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and played quarterback for the school. Cameron began his coaching career in the NCAA with the Michigan Wolverines. After that he switched to the National Football League (NFL), where he was offensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens and the San Diego Chargers and head coach for the Miami Dolphins, coaching them to a 1–15 record in his only season. Read more
• 1961: Bill Lester, American race car driver William Alexander Lester III is an American semi-retired professional racing driver. He last competed part-time in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, driving the No. 17 Ford F-150 for David Gilliland Racing. Lester previously competed full-time in the Truck Series from 2002 to midway through 2007. Lester was the NASCAR’s only full-time African-American driver during that time. After that, he moved to sports car racing, competing in the Rolex Sports Car Series from 2007 to 2012. Lester had also competed part-time in the same series from 1998 to 2001. Read more
• 1961: Yury Onufriyenko, Ukrainian-Russian colonel, pilot, and astronaut Col. Yuri Ivanovich Onufrienko is a retired Russian cosmonaut. He is a veteran of two extended spaceflights, aboard the space station Mir in 1996 and aboard the International Space Station in 2001–2002. Read more
• 1960: Jeremy Bowen, Welsh journalist Jeremy Francis John Bowen is a British journalist and television presenter. Read more
• 1960: Megan Gallagher, American actress Megan Gallagher is an American theater and television actress. Having studied at the Juilliard School under the supervision of John Houseman, Gallagher began her career on stage, and has appeared in several Broadway theatre productions, winning a Theatre World Award for her role in A Few Good Men. Read more
• 1958: Cecily Adams, American actress and casting director (died 2004) Cecily April Adams was an American actress. Read more
• 1957: Andres Lipstok, Estonian economist and politician, Estonian Minister of Economic Affairs Andres Lipstok was the chairman of the Bank of Estonia from 7 June 2005 to 7 June 2012. He has been a member of the Eesti Reformierakond since 1994 and also the Vice President of the Estonian Olympic Committee from 2004 to 2008. Read more
• 1957: Kathy Najimy, American actress and comedian Kathy Ann Najimy is an American actress and activist. She was first nationally known for her feminist play The Kathy and Mo Show, which she wrote and performed with Mo Gaffney. On film, she is best known for her roles in Soapdish (1991), Sister Act (1992) and its sequel (1993), Hocus Pocus (1993) and its sequel (2022), Hope Floats (1998), The Wedding Planner (2001), Rat Race (2001), WALL-E (2008), Step Up 3D (2010), The Guilt Trip (2012), Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas (2013), A Christmas Melody (2015), Dumplin’ (2018), Music (2021), and Single All the Way (2021). On television, she is best known for her portrayal of Olive Massery on the NBC sitcom Veronica’s Closet (1997–2000) and for voicing Peggy Hill on the animated television series King of the Hill. Read more
• 1957: Simon Phillips, English drummer and producer Simon Phillips is an English jazz fusion and rock drummer, songwriter, and record producer, based in the United States. He worked with rock bands during the 1970s and 1980s, and was the drummer for the band Toto from 1992 to 2014. Read more
• 1957: Robert Townsend, American actor and director Robert Townsend is an American actor, director, comedian, and writer. Townsend is best known for directing the films Hollywood Shuffle (1987), Eddie Murphy Raw (1987), The Five Heartbeats (1991) and various other films and stand-up specials. He is especially known for his portrayal of The WB’s sitcom The Parent ‘Hood ‘s main character Robert Peterson, the series he created and directed select episodes of ran from 1995 to 1999. He later wrote, directed and produced Making the Five Heartbeats (2018), a documentary film about the production process and behind the scenes insight into creating the film. Townsend is also known for his production company Townsend Entertainment which has produced films Playin’ for Love, In the Hive and more. During the 1980s and early–1990s, Townsend gained national exposure through his stand-up comedy routines and appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Townsend has worked with talent including Halle Berry, Morgan Freeman, Chris Tucker, Beyoncé, Denzel Washington, Ayo Edebiri, and many more. Read more
• 1956: Jerry Marotta, American drummer Jerome David Marotta is an American drummer who resides in Woodstock, New York. He is the younger brother of Rick Marotta, who is also a drummer and composer. Read more
• 1955: Avram Grant, Israeli football manager Avraham “Avram” Grant is an Israeli professional football manager who has spent the majority of his career coaching and managing in Israel, winning a number of national league and cup victories with different teams, and also managing the Israel national team for four years. Read more
• 1955: John Kuester, American basketball player and coach John Dewitt Kuester Jr. is an American basketball coach and scout. As a player he spent three seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1977 to 1980 and then coached in the college ranks before moving on to the NBA sidelines as an assistant. Kuester was named head coach of the Detroit Pistons in July 2009 and coached the team for two seasons. Read more
• 1955: Michael Pollan, American journalist, author, and academic Michael Kevin Pollan is an American journalist who is a professor and the first Lewis K. Chan Arts Lecturer at Harvard University. Concurrently, he is the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism where in 2020 he cofounded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, in which he leads the public-education program. Pollan is best known for his books that explore the socio-cultural impacts of food, such as The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Read more
• 1955: Bruno Stolorz, French rugby player and coach Bruno Stolorz is a former coach of the German national rugby union team. Read more
• 1952: Ric Charlesworth, Australian cricketer, coach, and politician Richard Ian Charlesworth AO is an Australian sports coach and former politician. He played first-class cricket for Western Australia and international field hockey for the Kookaburras, winning a silver medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics and winning the World Cup in 1986. Charlesworth served as a federal member of parliament from 1983 to 1993, representing the Labor Party. After leaving politics, he was appointed coach of the Hockeyroos, leading them to Olympic gold medals in 1996 and 2000. Charlesworth later coached the Kookaburras from 2009 to 2014, and has also worked in consulting roles with the New Zealand national cricket team, the Australian Institute of Sport, and the Fremantle Football Club. Read more
• 1952: Viktor Giacobbo, Swiss actor, producer, and screenwriter Viktor Giacobbo is a Swiss writer, comedian and actor. Read more
• 1952: Ricardo La Volpe, Argentinian footballer, manager, and coach Ricardo Antonio La Volpe Guarchoni is an Argentine former professional footballer and manager. He is a World Cup-winning goalkeeper who played for most of his career in Argentina and Mexico. Read more
• 1951: Kevin Whately, English actor Kevin Whately OBE is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Neville “Nev” Hope in the comedy drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet; Robert “Robbie” Lewis in the British crime dramas Inspector Morse (1987–2000) and Lewis (2006–2015); and Jack Kerruish in the drama series Peak Practice (1993–1995). He has appeared in numerous other roles. Read more
• 1950: Natalie Cole, American singer-songwriter and actress (died 2015) Natalie Maria Cole was an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She was the daughter of singer and jazz pianist Nat King Cole. She rose to prominence in the mid-1970s, with the release of her debut album Inseparable (1975), along with the song “This Will Be “, and the album’s title track. Its success led to her receiving the Grammy Award for Best New Artist at the 18th Annual Grammy Awards, for which she became the first African-American recipient as well as the first R&B act to win the award. The singles “Sophisticated Lady” (1976), “I’ve Got Love on My Mind”, and “Our Love” (1977) followed. Read more
• 1950: Timothy M. Dolan, American cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan is currently the Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of New York until the Installation of Archbishop-designate Hicks. He is an American prelate of the Catholic Church. A cardinal of the Catholic Church since 2012, he was Archbishop of New York from 2009 to 2025. Dolan served as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) from 2010 to 2013. Dolan was rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome from 1994 to 2001, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Louis from 2001 to 2002, and archbishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee from 2002 to 2009. Read more
• 1950: Punky Meadows, American rock guitarist and songwriter Punky Meadows is an American guitarist best known as a member of the band Angel between 1975 and 1980, and for his glam rock image. Read more
• 1949: Mike Batt, English singer-songwriter and producer Michael Philip Batt is an English singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, record producer, director, and conductor. He served as the Deputy Chairman of the British Phonographic Industry. Read more
• 1949: Manuel Orantes, Spanish tennis player Manuel Orantes Corral is a Spanish former professional tennis player. He won 36 career singles titles, including the 1975 US Open, defeating defending champion Jimmy Connors in the final. Orantes reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 2. Read more
• 1949: Jim Sheridan, Irish director, producer, and screenwriter Jim Sheridan is an Irish filmmaker. Between 1989 and 1993, Sheridan directed three critically acclaimed films set in Ireland, My Left Foot (1989), The Field (1990), and In the Name of the Father (1993), and later directed the films The Boxer (1997), In America (2003), and Brothers (2009). Sheridan has received six Academy Award nominations for his work. Read more
• 1949: Mike Anderson, former American football player. Michael Howard Anderson is an American former football player. Read more
• 1947: Charlie Hickcox, American swimmer (died 2010) Charles Buchanan Hickcox II was an American competition swimmer who swam for the University of Indiana, a three-time Olympic champion at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, and a former world record-holder in six events. Read more
• 1947: Bill Staines, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2021) William Russell Staines was an American folk musician and singer-songwriter from New Hampshire who wrote and performed songs with a wide array of subjects. Called “the Woody Guthrie of my generation” by singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith, he also wrote and recorded children’s songs. Read more
• 1946: Richie Hayward, American drummer and songwriter (died 2010) Richard Hayward was an American drummer best known as a founding member and drummer in the band Little Feat. He performed with several bands and worked as a session player. Hayward also joined with friends in some small acting roles on television, which included an episode of F Troop. Read more
• 1946: Kate McGarrigle, Canadian musician and singer-songwriter (died 2010) Kate McGarrigle was a Canadian folk music singer-songwriter, who wrote and performed as a duo with her sister Anna McGarrigle. Read more
• 1946: Jim Turner, American captain and politician James William Turner is an American lawyer and politician who was the Democratic U.S. Representative for Texas’s 2nd congressional district from 1997 until 2005. Read more
• 1945: Bob Marley, Jamaican singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1981) Robert Nesta Marley was a Jamaican singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, he fused elements of reggae, ska, and rocksteady, and was renowned for his distinctive vocal and songwriting style. Marley increased the visibility of Jamaican music worldwide and became a global figure in popular culture. He became known as a Rastafarian icon, and he infused his music with a sense of spirituality. Marley is also considered a global symbol of Jamaican music, culture and identity and was controversial in his outspoken support for democratic social reforms. Marley also supported the legalisation of cannabis and advocated for pan-Africanism. Read more
• 1945: Michael Tucker, American actor and producer Michael Tucker is an American actor, author, and playwright. He is best known for his role in the television series L.A. Law (1986–1994), for which he received two Golden Globe nominations and three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Read more
• 1944: Christine Boutin, French politician, French Minister of Housing and Urban Development

   

  Christine Boutin is a French former politician leading the small French Christian Democratic Party. She served as a member of the French National Assembly representing Yvelines, from 1986 until 2007, when she was appointed Minister of Housing and Urban Development by President Nicolas Sarkozy. She was a candidate in the 2002 French presidential election, in which she scored 1.19% on the first round of balloting. Read more

• 1944: Willie Tee, American singer-songwriter, keyboard player, and producer (died 2007) Wilson Turbinton, professionally known as Willie Tee, was an American keyboardist, songwriter, singer, producer and notable early architect of New Orleans funk and soul, who helped shape the sound of New Orleans for more than four decades. Read more
• 1943: Fabian Forte, American pop singer and actor Fabian Anthony Forte, professionally known as Fabian, is an American singer and actor. He became a teen idol in the late 1950s. Read more
• 1943: Gayle Hunnicutt, American actress (died 2023) Gayle Hunnicutt, Lady Jenkins was an American film, television and stage actress. She starred in more than 30 films. Read more
• 1942: Ahmad-Jabir Ahmadov, Azerbaijani philosopher and academic (died 2021) Ahmad-Jabir Ismayil oghlu Ahmadov – was a professor of “Commodity research and examination of food” in Azerbaijan State Economic University, Doctor of Philosophy in technical sciences (1973), Professor of the department “Commodity research of Foodstuffs” (2001), Honored Teacher of Azerbaijan (2002), a member of the Union of Azerbaijani Writers and Union of Journalists of Azerbaijan, Golden Pen Media award winner (2010). Author of over 300 scientific publications, including 60 books. Read more
• 1942: Sarah Brady, American activist and author (died 2015) Sarah Jane Brady was a prominent advocate for gun control in the United States. Her husband, James Brady, was press secretary to U.S. president Ronald Reagan and was left permanently disabled as a result of an assassination attempt on Reagan. Read more
• 1942: Charlie Coles, American basketball player and coach (died 2013) Charlie Coles was an American college basketball coach and the former men’s basketball head coach at Miami University and Central Michigan University. Read more
• 1942: James Loewen, American sociologist and historian (died 2021) James William Loewen was an American sociologist, historian, and author. He was best known for his 1995 book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. A 2005 book, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, galvanized a national effort to develop a list of sundown towns. Read more
• 1942: Tommy Roberts, English fashion designer (died 2012) Thomas Steven Roberts was an English designer and fashion entrepreneur who operated independent retail outlets including pop art boutique, Mr Freedom, and the 1980s decorative arts and homewares store, Practical Styling. Read more
• 1941: Stephen Albert, American pianist and composer (died 1992) Stephen Joel Albert was an American composer. He is best known for his Pulitzer Prize winning Symphony No. 1 RiverRun (1983) and his Cello Concerto (1990), written for Yo-Yo Ma. He died suddenly in a 1992 automobile accident, having just sketched out his Second Symphony. The work was subsequently completed by Sebastian Currier, and his death sparked musical tributes from composer colleagues such as Aaron Jay Kernis and Christopher Rouse. Read more
• 1941: Dave Berry, English pop singer Dave Berry is an English rock singer and former teen idol during the 1960s. His best-remembered hits are “Memphis, Tennessee”, “The Crying Game” (1964) and his 1965 hit “Little Things”, a cover version of Bobby Goldsboro’s Stateside Records top 40 success. Read more
• 1941: Gigi Perreau, American actress and director Ghislaine Elizabeth Marie Thérèse Perreau-Saussine, known professionally as Gigi Perreau, is an American film and television actress. Read more
• 1940: Tom Brokaw, American journalist and author Thomas John Brokaw is an American author and retired network television journalist. He first served as the co-anchor of The Today Show from 1976 to 1981 with Jane Pauley, then as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News for 22 years (1982–2004). In the previous decade he served as a weekend anchor for the program from 1973 to 1976. He is the only person to have hosted all three major NBC News programs: The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and, briefly, Meet the Press. He formerly held a special correspondent post for NBC News. Read more
• 1940: Petr Hájek, Czech mathematician and academic (died 2016) Petr Hájek was a Czech scientist in the area of mathematical logic and a professor of mathematics. Born in Prague, he worked at the Institute of Computer Science at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and as a lecturer at the faculty of mathematics and physics at the Charles University in Prague and at the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague. Read more
• 1940: Jimmy Tarbuck, English comedian and actor James Joseph Tarbuck is an English comedian, singer, actor, entertainer and game show host. Read more
• 1939: Jean Beaudin, Canadian director and screenwriter (died 2019) Jean Beaudin was a Canadian film director and screenwriter. He directed 20 films since 1969. His film J.A. Martin Photographer, was entered into the 1977 Cannes Film Festival, where Monique Mercure won the award for Best Actress. The film also won best Film, he won best Director, and Mercure won best Actress awards at the 1977 Canadian Film Awards. He was nominated for the Genie Award for Best Achievement in Direction in 1986, 1992 and 2003 for his films The Alley Cat , Being at Home with Claude and The Collector , respectively. Read more
• 1939: Mike Farrell, American actor, director, producer, activist and public speaker Michael Joseph Farrell Jr. is an American actor, best known for his role as Captain B.J. Hunnicutt on the television series M*A*S*H (1975–83). In addition, Farrell was a producer of Patch Adams (1998) starring Robin Williams, and he starred in the television series Providence (1999–2002). Read more
• 1939: Jair Rodrigues, Brazilian singer (died 2014) Jair Rodrigues de Oliveira was a Brazilian musician and singer. He is the father of Luciana Mello and Jair Oliveira, who also followed in his footsteps and became musicians. Read more
• 1938: Fred Mifflin, Canadian admiral and politician, 19th Minister of Veterans Affairs (died 2013) Rear-Admiral Fred J. Mifflin, was a rear admiral in the Canadian Forces and a politician. Read more
• 1936: Kent Douglas, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (died 2009) Kent Gemmell Douglas was a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman and coach. Read more
• 1933: Leslie Crowther, English comedian, actor, and game show host (died 1996) Leslie Douglas Sargent Crowther was an English comedian, actor, TV presenter, and game show host. Read more
• 1932: Camilo Cienfuegos, Cuban soldier and anarchist (died 1959) Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán was a Cuban revolutionary. One of the major figures of the Cuban Revolution, he was considered second only to Fidel Castro among the revolutionary leadership. Read more
• 1932: François Truffaut, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1984) François Roland Truffaut was a French filmmaker, actor, and critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. He came under the tutelage of film critic Andre Bazin as a young man and was hired to write for Bazin’s Cahiers du Cinéma, where he became a proponent of the auteur theory, which posits that a film’s director is its true author. The 400 Blows (1959), starring Jean-Pierre Léaud as Truffaut’s alter ego Antoine Doinel, was a defining film of the New Wave. Truffaut contributed to another significant milestone of the movement with his work on Breathless (1960), a film directed by his colleague from Cahiers, Jean-Luc Godard. Read more
• 1931: Rip Torn, American actor (died 2019) Elmore Rual “Rip” Torn Jr. was an American actor whose career spanned roughly 60 years. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing Marsh Turner in Cross Creek (1983). Torn’s portrayal of Artie the producer on The Larry Sanders Show (1992–1998) received six Emmy Award nominations, winning in 1996. Torn was also known for his roles as Judas Iscariot in King of Kings (1961), Thomas J. Finley, Jr. in Sweet Bird of Youth (1962), Dr. Nathan Bryce in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Bob Diamond in Defending Your Life (1991), Zeus in Hercules (1997), Zed in the Men in Black franchise, Jim Brody in Freddy Got Fingered (2001), Patches O’Houlihan in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), and Louis XV in Marie Antoinette (2006). Read more
• 1931: Fred Trueman, English cricketer (died 2006) Frederick Sewards Trueman, was an English cricketer who played for Yorkshire County Cricket Club and the England cricket team. He had professional status and later became an author and broadcaster. Read more
• 1931: Mamie Van Doren, American actress and model Mamie Van Doren is an American actress. A blonde bombshell, she is one of the “Three M’s” along with Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, who were friends and contemporaries. In 1953 Van Doren, then named Joan Lucille Olander, signed a seven-year contract with Universal, who hoped that she would be their version of Monroe. She starred in teen dramas, exploitation, musical, comedy, and rock and roll films, among other genres, many of which have gone on to become cult classics. She was one of the leading sex symbols in the 1950s. Read more
• 1931: Ricardo Vidal, Filipino cardinal (died 2017) Ricardo Tito Jamin Vidal was a Filipino prelate of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. Made a cardinal in 1985, he was Archbishop of Cebu from 1982 to 2010. Read more
• 1930: Jun Kondo, Japanese physicist and academic (died 2022) Jun Kondō was a Japanese theoretical physicist. Read more
• 1929: Colin Murdoch, New Zealand pharmacist and veterinarian, invented the tranquilliser gun (died 2008) Colin Albert Murdoch was a New Zealand pharmacist and veterinarian who made a number of significant inventions, in particular the tranquilliser gun, the disposable hypodermic syringe and the child-proof medicine container. He had a total of 46 patents registered in his name. Read more
• 1929: Oscar Sambrano Urdaneta, Venezuelan author and critic (died 2011) Oscar Sambrano Urdaneta was a Venezuelan writer, essayist and literary critic, specialized in the life and work of Andrés Bello. In 1978, he won the Municipal Prize of Literature for the work Poesía contemporánea de Venezuela. He served as the president of the Venezuelan Academy of Language, is an honorary member of the Caro y Cuervo Institute, and was president of the National Council of Culture (CONAC) in the late 1990s. He also has hosted the television show Valores (Values). Read more
• 1929: Valentin Yanin, Russian historian and author (died 2020) Valentin Lavrentievich Yanin was a leading Russian historian who authored 700 books and articles. He had also edited a number of important journals and primary sources, including works on medieval Russian law, sphragistics and epigraphy, archaeology and history. His expertise was medieval Rus’ especially Novgorod the Great, where he had headed archaeological digs beginning in 1962. Read more
• 1928: Allan H. Meltzer, American economist and academic (died 2017) Allan H. Meltzer was an American economist and Allan H. Meltzer Professor of Political Economy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business and Institute for Politics and Strategy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Meltzer specialized on studying monetary policy and the Federal Reserve System, and authored several academic papers and books on the development and applications of monetary policy, and about the history of central banking in the United States. Read more
• 1927: Gerard K. O’Neill, American physicist and astronomer (died 1992) Gerard Kitchen O’Neill was an American physicist and space activist. As a faculty member of Princeton University, he invented a device called the particle storage ring for high-energy physics experiments. Later, he invented a magnetic launcher called the mass driver. In the 1970s, he developed a plan to build human settlements in outer space, including a space habitat design known as the O’Neill cylinder. He founded the Space Studies Institute, an organization devoted to funding research into space manufacturing and colonization. Read more
• 1924: Billy Wright, English footballer and manager (died 1994) William Ambrose Wright was an English footballer who played as a centre-back. He spent his entire club career at Wolverhampton Wanderers. The first footballer in the world to earn 100 international caps, Wright also held the record for longest unbroken run in competitive international football, with 70 consecutive appearances, although that was surpassed by Andoni Zubizarreta’s 86 consecutive appearances for Spain (1985–94). He also made a total of 105 appearances for England, captaining them a record 90 times, including during their campaigns at the 1950, 1954 and 1958 World Cup finals. Read more
• 1924: Jin Yong, Hong Kong author and publisher, founded Ming Pao (died 2018) Louis Cha Leung-yung, better known by his pen name Jin Yong, was a Hong Kong wuxia novelist and co-founder of Ming Pao. Cha authored 15 novels between 1955 and 1972 and became one of the most popular Chinese writers of all time, with over 100 million copies sold globally—excluding widespread pirated editions. Cha’s novels, which have been adapted into numerous TV dramas, films, and video games, are esteemed for their literary quality and universal appeal, resonating with both scholarly and popular audiences. Read more
• 1923: Gyula Lóránt, Hungarian footballer and manager (died 1981) Gyula Lóránt was a Hungarian footballer and manager of Croatian descent. He played as a defender and midfielder for, among others, UTA Arad, Vasas SC, Honvéd and the Hungary national team. Read more
• 1922: Patrick Macnee, English-American actor and costume designer (died 2015) Daniel Patrick Macnee was a British-American actor best known for his breakthrough role as secret agent John Steed in the television series The Avengers (1961–1969). Starting out as the assistant to David Keel, he became the lead when Hendry left after the first series, and was subsequently partnered with a succession of female assistants. He later reprised the role in The New Avengers (1976–1977). Read more
• 1922: Denis Norden, English actor, screenwriter, and television host (died 2018) Denis Mostyn Norden was an English comedy writer and television presenter. After an early career working in cinemas, he began scriptwriting during the Second World War. From 1948 to 1959, he co-wrote the BBC Radio comedy programme Take It from Here with Frank Muir. Muir and Norden remained associated for more than 50 years, appearing regularly together on the radio panel programmes My Word! and My Music after they stopped collaborating on scripts. He also wrote scripts for Hollywood films. He presented television programmes on ITV for many years, including the nostalgia quiz Looks Familiar and blooper shows It’ll be Alright on the Night and Laughter File. Read more
• 1922: Haskell Wexler, American director, producer, and cinematographer (died 2015) Haskell Wexler was an American filmmaker, cinematographer, and documentarian. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography twice, in 1966 for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and 1976 for Bound for Glory, out of five total nominations. As a director, he was known for his socio-politically provocative documentary and docufiction works, emerging from the civil rights movement and counterculture of the 1960s. Read more
• 1921: Carl Neumann Degler, American historian and author (died 2014) Carl Neumann Degler was an American historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. He was the Margaret Byrne Professor of American History Emeritus at Stanford University. Read more
• 1921: Bob Scott, New Zealand rugby player (died 2012) Robert William Henry Scott was a New Zealand rugby union player who represented the All Blacks between 1946 and 1954. Read more
• 1919: Takashi Yanase, Japanese poet and illustrator, created Anpanman (died 2013) Takashi Yanase was a Japanese manga artist and writer, poet, illustrator and lyricist. Read more
• 1918: Lothar-Günther Buchheim, German author and painter (died 2007) Lothar-Günther Buchheim was a German author, painter, and wartime journalist under the Nazi regime. In World War II he served as a war correspondent aboard ships and U-boats. He is best known for his 1973 antiwar novel Das Boot, based on his experiences during the war, which became an international bestseller and was adapted as the 1981 Oscar-nominated film of the same name. His artworks, collected in a gallery on the banks of the Starnberger See, range from heavily decorated cars to a variety of mannequins seated or standing as if themselves visitors to the gallery, thus challenging the division between visitor and art work. Read more
• 1917: Louis-Philippe de Grandpré, Canadian lawyer and jurist (died 2008) Louis-Philippe de Grandpré was a Canadian lawyer and puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Read more
• 1917: Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hungarian-American actress and socialite (died 2016) Zsa Zsa Gabor was a Hungarian-American socialite and actress. Her sisters were socialite Magda Gabor and actress and businesswoman Eva Gabor. Read more
• 1916: John Crank, English mathematician and physicist (died 2006) John Crank was a mathematical physicist, best known for his work on the numerical solution of partial differential equations. Read more
• 1915: Kavi Pradeep, Indian poet and songwriter (died 1998) Kavi Pradeep, was an Indian poet and songwriter who is best known for his patriotic song “Aye Mere Watan Ke Logo” written as a tribute to the soldiers who had died defending the country during the Sino-Indian War. Read more
• 1914: Thurl Ravenscroft, American voice actor and singer (died 2005) Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft was an American actor and bass singer. He was well known as one of the booming voices behind Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes animated spokesman Tony the Tiger for more than five decades. He was also the uncredited vocalist for the song “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” from the classic Christmas television special Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Read more
• 1913: Mary Leakey, English-Kenyan archaeologist and anthropologist (died 1996) Mary Douglas Leakey, FBA was a British paleoanthropologist who discovered the first fossilised Proconsul skull, an extinct ape believed to be ancestral to humans. She also discovered the robust Zinjanthropus skull at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, eastern Africa. For much of her career she worked with her husband, Louis Leakey, at Olduvai Gorge, where they uncovered fossils of ancient hominines and the earliest hominins, as well as the stone tools produced by the latter group. Mary Leakey developed a system for classifying the stone tools found at Olduvai. She discovered the Laetoli footprints, and at the Laetoli site she discovered hominin fossils that were more than 3.75 million years old. Read more
• 1912: Eva Braun, German wife of Adolf Hitler (died 1945) Eva Anna Paula Hitler was a German photographer who was the longtime companion and briefly the wife of Adolf Hitler. Braun met Hitler in Munich in 1929 when she was an assistant and model for his personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. She began seeing Hitler often about two years later. Read more
• 1912: Christopher Hill, English historian and author (died 2003) John Edward Christopher Hill was an English Marxist historian and academic, specialising in 17th-century English history. From 1965 to 1978 he was Master of Balliol College, Oxford. Read more
• 1911: Ronald Reagan, American actor and politician, 40th President of the United States (died 2004) Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A member of the Republican Party, he became an important figure in the American conservative movement. The period encompassing his presidency is known as the Reagan era. Read more
• 1910: Roman Czerniawski, Polish air force officer and spy (died 1985) Roman Garby-Czerniawski was a Polish Air Force captain and Allied double agent during World War II who used the code name Brutus. Read more
• 1910: Irmgard Keun, German author (died 1982) Irmgard Keun was a German novelist. Noted for her portrayals of the life of women, she is described as “often reduced to the bold sexuality of her writing, [yet] a significant author of the late Weimar period and die Neue Sachlichkeit.” She was born into an affluent family and was given the autonomy to explore her passions. After her attempts at acting ended at the age of 16, Keun began working as a writer after years of working in Hamburg and Greifswald. Her books were banned by Nazi authorities but gained recognition during the final years of her life. Read more
• 1910: Carlos Marcello, Tunisian-American gangster (died 1993) Carlos Joseph Marcello was an Italian-American crime boss of the New Orleans crime family from 1947 to 1990. Read more
• 1908: Geo Bogza, Romanian poet and journalist (died 1993) Geo Bogza was a Romanian avant-garde theorist, poet, and journalist, known for his left-wing and communist political convictions. As a young man in the interwar period, he was known as a rebel and was one of the most influential Romanian Surrealists. Several of his controversial poems twice led to his imprisonment on grounds of obscenity, and saw him partake in the conflict between young and old Romanian writers, as well as in the confrontation between the avant-garde and the far right. At a later stage, Bogza won acclaim for his many and accomplished reportage pieces, being one of the first to cultivate the genre in Romanian literature, and using it as a venue for social criticism. Read more
• 1908: Amintore Fanfani, Italian journalist and politician, 32nd Prime Minister of Italy (died 1999) Amintore Fanfani was an Italian politician and statesman who served as 32nd prime minister of Italy for five separate terms. He was one of the best-known Italian politicians after the Second World War and a historical figure of the left-wing faction of Christian Democracy. He is also considered one of the founders of the modern Italian centre-left. Read more
• 1908: Edward Lansdale, American general and CIA agent (died 1987) Edward Geary Lansdale was a United States Air Force officer until retiring in 1963 as a major general before continuing his work with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Lansdale was a pioneer in clandestine operations and psychological warfare. In the early 1950s, Lansdale played a significant role in suppressing the Hukbalahap rebellion in the Philippines. In 1954, he moved to Saigon and started the Saigon Military Mission, a covert intelligence operation that was created to sow dissension in North Vietnam. Lansdale believed the United States could win guerrilla wars by studying the enemy’s psychology, an approach that notionally won the approval of the presidential administrations of both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson but largely would not be implemented due to bureaucratic opposition. Read more
• 1908: Michael Maltese, American actor, screenwriter, and composer (died 1981) Michael Maltese was an American screenwriter and storyboard artist for classic animated cartoon shorts. He is best known for working in the 1950s on a series of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons with director Chuck Jones. This collaboration produced many highly acclaimed animated shorts, including 4 of the top 5 “greatest cartoons” as judged by 1000 animation professionals; What’s Opera, Doc? tops this list as the best animated short of all time. Read more
• 1906: Joseph Schull, Canadian playwright and historian (died 1980) Joseph Schull was a Canadian playwright and historian who wrote more than two dozen books and 200 plays for radio and television. Read more
• 1905: Władysław Gomułka, Polish politician (died 1982) Władysław Gomułka was a Polish Communist politician. He was the de facto leader of post-war Poland from 1947 until 1948, and again from 1956 to 1970. Read more
• 1905: Jan Werich, Czech actor and playwright (died 1980) Jan Werich was a Czech actor, playwright and writer. Read more
• 1903: Claudio Arrau, Chilean pianist and composer (died 1991) Claudio Arrau León was a Chilean and American pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century. Read more
• 1902: George Brunies, American trombonist (died 1974) George Clarence Brunies, a.k.a. Georg Brunis, was an American jazz trombonist, who was part of the dixieland revival. He was known as “The King of the Tailgate Trombone”. Read more
• 1901: Ben Lyon, American actor (died 1979) Ben Lyon was an American film actor and a studio executive at 20th Century-Fox who later acted in British radio, films and TV. Read more
• 1899: Ramon Novarro, Mexican-American actor, singer, and director (died 1968) Ramón Gil Samaniego, known professionally as Ramon Novarro, was a Mexican actor. He began his career in American silent films in 1917 and eventually became a leading man and one of the top box-office attractions of the 1920s and early ’30s. Novarro was promoted by MGM as a “Latin lover” and became known as a sex symbol after the death of Rudolph Valentino. He is recognized as the first Latin American actor to succeed in Hollywood. Read more
• 1898: Harry Haywood, American soldier and politician (died 1985) Harry Haywood was an American political activist and a leading figure in the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). He was principally known for his efforts “to bring the political philosophy of the Party in line with issues of race.” Read more
• 1895: Robert La Follette Jr., American politician (died 1953) Robert Marion La Follette Jr. was an American politician who served as United States senator from Wisconsin from 1925 to 1947. A member of the La Follette family, he was often referred to by the nickname “Young Bob” to distinguish him from his father, Robert M. “Fighting Bob” La Follette, who had served as a U.S. senator and governor of Wisconsin. Robert Jr., along with his brother Philip La Follette, carried on their father’s legacy of progressive politics and founded the Wisconsin Progressive Party. Robert Jr. was the last major Progressive Party politician in the U.S. Senate, ending in 1946 when the party disbanded. La Follette was defeated in the 1946 Republican Senate primary by Joseph McCarthy. Read more
• 1895: María Teresa Vera, Cuban singer, guitarist and composer (died 1965) María Teresa Vera was a Cuban singer, guitarist and composer. She was an outstanding example of the Cuban trova movement. Read more
• 1895: Babe Ruth, American baseball player and coach (died 1948) George Herman “Babe” Ruth was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed “the Bambino” and “the Sultan of Swat”, he began his MLB career as a star left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, but achieved his greatest fame as a slugging outfielder for the New York Yankees. Ruth is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture and is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time. In 1936, Ruth was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of its “first five” members. Read more
• 1894: Eric Partridge, New Zealand-English lexicographer and academic (died 1979) Eric Honeywood Partridge was a New Zealand–British lexicographer of the English language, particularly of its slang. His writing career was interrupted only by his service in the Army Education Corps and the RAF correspondence department during World War II. Read more
• 1894: Kirpal Singh, Indian spiritual master (died 1974) Kirpal Singh was a spiritual master (satguru) in the tradition of Radha Soami. Read more
• 1893: Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, Pakistani politician and diplomat, 1st Minister of Foreign Affairs for Pakistan (died 1985) Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan was a Pakistani diplomat and jurist who served as the first foreign minister of Pakistan. After serving as foreign minister he continued his international career and is the only Pakistani to-date to preside over the International Court of Justice. He also served as the President of the UN General Assembly. He is the only person to-date to serve as the President of both UN General Assembly and the International Court of Justice. Read more
• 1892: Maximilian Fretter-Pico, German general (died 1984) Maximilian Fretter-Pico was a German general during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves of Nazi Germany. Read more
• 1892: William P. Murphy, American physician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1987) William Parry Murphy Sr. was an American physician who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1934 with George Richards Minot and George Hoyt Whipple for their combined work in devising and treating macrocytic anemia. Read more
• 1890: Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Pakistani activist and politician (died 1988) Abdul Ghaffar Khan, also known as Bacha Khan, Badshah Khan or Frontier Gandhi was an Indian independence activist from the North-West Frontier Province, and founder of the Khudai Khidmatgar resistance movement against British rule in colonial India. After the partition occurred, he became a Pakistani politician and led the Azad Party. Read more
• 1890: James McGirr, Australian politician, 28th Premier of New South Wales (died 1957) James McGirr was an Australian politician. He served as premier of New South Wales from 1947 to 1952, holding office as leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He led the party to victory at the 1947 and 1950 New South Wales state elections. He was a pharmacist by profession and the younger brother of Patrick and Greg McGirr, who were also members of parliament; Greg also led the ALP briefly but was never premier. Read more
• 1887: Josef Frings, German cardinal (died 1978) Josef Richard Frings, was a German clergyman and Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Cologne from 1942 to 1969. Considered a significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism, he was elevated to the cardinalate in 1946 by Pope Pius XII. Read more
• 1884: Marcel Cohen, French linguist and scholar (died 1974) Marcel Samuel Raphaël Cohen was a French linguist. He was an important scholar of Semitic languages and especially of Ethiopian languages. He studied the French language and contributed much to general linguistics. Read more
• 1880: Nishinoumi Kajirō II, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 25th Yokozuna (died 1931) Nishinoumi Kajirō II was a Japanese professional sumo wrestler. He was the sport’s 25th yokozuna. Read more
• 1879: Othon Friesz, French painter (died 1949) Achille-Émile Othon Friesz, who later called himself Othon Friesz, a native of Le Havre, was a French artist of the Fauvist movement. Read more
• 1879: Magnús Guðmundsson, Icelandic lawyer and politician, 3rd Prime Minister of Iceland (died 1937) Magnús Guðmundsson was an Icelandic politician. He graduated in laws from the University of Copenhagen in 1907. Magnus was a member of Althingi for his constituency in North west Iceland from 1916 till the day of his death in 1937. He served as prime minister of Iceland for 15 days, from 23 June to 8 July 1926 following the death of Jón Magnússon. Magnus is the shortest serving prime minister in Icelandic history. Magnus was a member of the now defunct Conservative Party (Íhaldsflokkurinn). He was the Minister of Industrial Affairs in the presiding Government of Jón Magnússon from 1924 to 1927. Prior to that he had served as Minister of Finance of Iceland from 1920 to 1922. He was a founding member of the Independence Party and served as a minister of Justice in the first government that the Independence Party participated in, from 1932 to 1934. Read more
• 1879: Edwin Samuel Montagu, English politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (died 1924) Edwin Samuel Montagu PC was a British Liberal politician who served as Secretary of State for India between 1917 and 1922. Montagu was a “radical” Liberal and the third practising Jew to serve in the British cabinet. Read more
• 1879: Carl Ramsauer, German physicist and author (died 1955) Carl Wilhelm Ramsauer was a German physicist known for the discovery of the Ramsauer–Townsend effect. He pioneered the field of electron and proton collisions with gas molecules. Read more
• 1876: Henry Blogg, English fisherman and sailor (died 1954) Henry George Blogg GC BEM was a lifeboatman from Cromer on the north coast of Norfolk, England, and the most decorated in Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) history. Read more
• 1875: Leonid Gobyato, Russian general (died 1915) Leonid Nikolaevich Gobyato was a lieutenant-general in the Imperial Russian Army and designer of the modern, man-portable mortar. Read more
• 1874: Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, Indian religious leader, founded the Gaudiya Math (died 1937) Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, born Bimala Prasad Datt, was an Gaudīya Vaisnava Guru, Ācārya, and revivalist in early twentieth-century India. To his followers, he was known as Srila Prabhupāda. Read more
• 1872: Robert Maillart, Swiss engineer, designed the Salginatobel Bridge and Schwandbach Bridge (died 1940) Robert Maillart was a Swiss civil engineer who revolutionized the use of structural reinforced concrete with such designs as the three-hinged arch and the deck-stiffened arch for bridges, and the beamless floor slab and mushroom ceiling for industrial buildings. His Salginatobel (1929–1930) and Schwandbach (1933) bridges changed the aesthetics and engineering of bridge construction dramatically and influenced decades of architects and engineers after him. In 1991 the Salginatobel Bridge was declared an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Read more
• 1866: Karl Sapper, German linguist and explorer (died 1945) Karl Theodor Sapper was a German traveler, explorer, and antiquarian who is known for his research into the natural history, and cultures of Central America. Read more
• 1864: John Henry Mackay, Scottish-German philosopher and author (died 1933) John Henry Mackay was a Scottish-German egoist anarchist, thinker and writer. Born in Scotland and raised in Germany, Mackay was the author of Die Anarchisten and Der Freiheitsucher. Read more
• 1861: Nikolay Zelinsky, Russian chemist and academic (died 1953) Nikolay Dmitriyevich Zelinsky was a Russian and Soviet chemist and educator. He was a professor at Moscow University from 1893 and an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union (1929). Read more
• 1852: C. Lloyd Morgan, English zoologist and psychologist (died 1936) Conwy Lloyd Morgan, FRS was a British ethologist and psychologist. He is remembered for his theory of emergent evolution, and for the experimental approach to animal psychology now known as Morgan’s Canon, a principle that played a major role in behaviourism, insisting that higher mental faculties should only be considered as explanations if lower faculties could not explain a behaviour. Read more
• 1852: Vasily Safonov, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor (died 1918) Vasily Ilyich Safonov, also known as Wassily Safonoff, was a Russian pianist, teacher, conductor and composer. Read more
• 1847: Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, American architect, designed the Plaza Hotel (died 1918) Henry Janeway Hardenbergh was an American architect, best known for his hotels and apartment buildings, and as a “master of a new building form — the skyscraper.” He worked three times with Edward Clark, the wealthy owner of the Singer Sewing Machine Company and real estate developer: The Singer company’s first tower in New York City, the Dakota Apartments, and its precursor, the Van Corlear. He is best known for building apartment dwellings and luxury hotels. Read more
• 1845: Isidor Straus, German-American businessman and politician (died 1912) Isidor Straus and Rosalie Ida Straus were an American couple who died in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Isidor was a German-Jewish businessman, politician, U.S. congressman and co-owner of Macy’s department store with his brother Nathan. He also served for just over a year as a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the state of New York. He died with his wife, Ida, in the sinking of the Titanic. Read more
• 1843: Inoue Kowashi, Japanese scholar and politician (died 1895) Viscount Inoue Kowashi (Japanese: 井上 毅; 6 February 1844 – 15 March 1895) was a Japanese statesman of the Meiji period. Read more
• 1843: Frederic William Henry Myers, English poet and philologist, co-founded the Society for Psychical Research (died 1901) Frederic William Henry Myers was a British poet, classicist, philologist, and a founder of the Society for Psychical Research. Myers’ work on psychical research and his ideas about a “subliminal self” were influential in his time, but have not been accepted by the scientific community. Read more
• 1842: Alexandre Ribot, French academic and politician, Prime Minister of France (died 1923) Alexandre-Félix-Joseph Ribot was a French politician, four times Prime Minister. Read more
• 1839: Eduard Hitzig, German neurologist and psychiatrist (died 1907) Eduard Hitzig was a German neurologist and neuropsychiatrist of Jewish ancestry born in Berlin. Read more
• 1838: Henry Irving, English actor and manager (died 1905) Sir Henry Irving, né John Henry Brodribb, was an English actor-manager in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. He established himself at the West End theatre the Lyceum. His long campaign to have theatre recognised as an art of equal importance with music and painting culminated when he was knighted in 1895, the first actor to be thus honoured. Read more
• 1838: Israel Meir Kagan, Lithuanian-Polish rabbi and author (died 1933) Yisrael Meir ha-Kohen Kagan was a Lithuanian Jewish rabbi, and posek (decider on points of Jewish law, and ethicist whose works are widely influential in Orthodox Jewish life. He was known popularly as the Chofetz Chaim, after his book with that title on lashon hara, and was also well known for the Mishna Berurah, his book on ritual law. Read more
• 1834: Edwin Klebs, German-Swiss pathologist and academic (died 1913) Theodor Albrecht Edwin Klebs was a German-Swiss microbiologist. He is mainly known for his work on infectious diseases. His works paved the way for the beginning of modern bacteriology, and inspired Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch. He was the first to identify a bacterium that causes diphtheria, which was called Klebs–Loeffler bacterium. He was the father of physician Arnold Klebs. Read more
• 1834: Ema Pukšec, Croatian-German soprano (died 1889) Ema Pukšec, also known as Ilma de Murska, as well as Ilma di Murska, was a 19th-century operatic dramatic soprano with a voice with nearly three octaves compass from Croatia. Read more
• 1834: Wilhelm von Scherff, German general and author (died 1911) Wilhelm von Scherff was a German general and military writer. Read more
• 1833: José María de Pereda, Spanish author and academic (died 1906) José María de Pereda y Sánchez de Porrúa was a Spanish novelist, and a Member of the Royal Spanish Academy. Read more
• 1833: J. E. B. Stuart, American general (died 1864) James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart was a Confederate cavalry general during the American Civil War. He was known to his friends as “Jeb”, from the initials of his given names. Stuart was a cavalry commander known for his mastery of reconnaissance and the use of cavalry in support of offensive operations. While he cultivated a cavalier image, his serious work made him the trusted eyes and ears of Robert E. Lee’s army and inspired Southern morale. Read more
• 1832: John Brown Gordon, American general and politician, 53rd Governor of Georgia (died 1904) John Brown Gordon was an American politician, Confederate States Army general, attorney, slaveowner and planter. “One of Robert E. Lee’s most trusted generals” by the end of the Civil War, according to historian Ed Bearss, he strongly opposed Reconstruction. A member of the Democratic Party, he was twice elected by the Georgia state legislature as a United States Senator, serving from 1873 to 1880, and again from 1891 to 1897. He served two terms as the 53rd Governor of Georgia from 1886 to 1890. Read more
• 1829: Joseph Auguste Émile Vaudremer, French architect, designed the La Santé Prison and Saint-Pierre-de-Montrouge (died 1914) Joseph Auguste Émile Vaudremer was a French architect. He won the prix de Rome and designed several public buildings in France, particularly in Paris, four of which have been designated monuments historiques. Read more
• 1820: Thomas C. Durant, American railroad tycoon (died 1885) Thomas Clark Durant was an American physician, businessman, and financier. He was vice-president of the Union Pacific Rail Road (UP) in 1869 when it met with the Central Pacific Railroad at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. He created the financial structure that led to the Crédit Mobilier scandal. He was interested in hotels in the Adirondacks and once owned the schooner-yacht Idler, a successful America’s Cup defender. Read more
• 1818: William M. Evarts, American lawyer and politician, 27th United States Secretary of State (died 1901) William Maxwell Evarts was an American lawyer and statesman from New York who served as U.S. Secretary of State, U.S. Attorney General and U.S. Senator from New York. He was renowned for his skills as a litigator and was involved in three of the most important causes of American political jurisprudence in his day: the impeachment of a president, the Geneva arbitration and the contests before the electoral commission to settle the presidential election of 1876. Read more
• 1814: Auguste Chapdelaine, French missionary and saint (died 1856) Auguste Chapdelaine, Chinese name Mǎ Lài was a French Christian missionary of the Paris Foreign Missions Society. France used his death—Chapdelaine was executed by Chinese officials—as a casus belli for its participation in the Second Opium War. Read more
• 1811: Henry Liddell, English priest, author, and academic (died 1898) Henry George Liddell was dean (1855–1891) of Christ Church, Oxford, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University (1870–1874), headmaster (1846–1855) of Westminster School, author of A History of Rome (1855), and co-author of the monumental work A Greek–English Lexicon, known as “Liddell and Scott”, which is still widely used by students of Greek. Lewis Carroll wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for Henry Liddell’s daughter Alice. Read more
• 1802: Charles Wheatstone, English-French physicist and cryptographer (died 1875) Sir Charles Wheatstone was an English physicist and inventor best known for his contributions to the development of the Wheatstone bridge, originally invented by Samuel Hunter Christie, which is used to measure an unknown electrical resistance, and as a major figure in the development of telegraphy. His other contributions include the English concertina, the stereoscope and the Playfair cipher. Read more
• 1800: Achille Devéria, French painter and lithographer (died 1857) Achille Jacques-Jean-Marie Devéria was a French painter and lithographer known for his portraits of famous writers and artists. His younger brother was the Romantic painter Eugène Devéria, and two of his six children were Théodule Devéria and Gabriel Devéria. Read more

 Important Deaths on 06 February in History

• 2025: Virginia Halas McCaskey, American football executive (born 1923) Virginia Halas McCaskey was an American football executive who was the principal owner of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL) from 1983 until her death in 2025. She was the daughter of team founder George Halas and inherited ownership upon his death in 1983. Under her stewardship, the team won Super Bowl XX in 1986. Read more
• 2025: Nigel McCrery, English screenwriter, producer and writer (born 1953) Nigel Colin McCrery was an English screenwriter, producer and writer. He was the creator of the long-running crime dramas Silent Witness (1996–present) and New Tricks (2003–2015). Read more
• 2024: Sebastian Piñera, former Chilean president (born 1949) Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique was a Chilean businessman and politician who served as 34th and 36th president of Chile from 2010 to 2014 and from 2018 to 2022. The son of a Christian Democratic politician and diplomat, he studied business administration at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and economics at Harvard University. At the time of his death, he had an estimated net worth of US$2.7 billion, according to Forbes, making him the third richest person in Chile. Read more
• 2023: Greta Andersen, Danish swimmer (born 1927) Greta Marie Andersen was a Danish swimmer who won a gold and a silver medal in 100 m freestyle events at the 1948 Summer Olympics. In the mid-1950s she moved to the United States, where she set several world records in marathon swimming in the distances up to 50 miles. Read more
• 2022: Lata Mangeshkar, Indian singer and music composer (born 1929) Lata Mangeshkar was an Indian playback singer and occasional music composer. She is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential singers of the Indian subcontinent. Her contribution to the Indian music industry in a career spanning eight decades gained her honorific titles such as the “Queen of Melody” and “Voice of the Millennium”. Read more
• 2021: George Shultz, American politician, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Labor (born 1920) George Pratt Shultz was an American economist, businessman, diplomat, and statesman who served in various positions under Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. A member of the Republican Party, he is one of the only two persons to have held four different Cabinet-level posts, the other being Elliot Richardson. As United States Secretary of State, Shultz played a major role in shaping the foreign policy of the Reagan administration, and conservative foreign policy thought thereafter. Read more
• 2020: Jhon Jairo Velásquez, Colombian hitman and drug dealer (born 1962) Jhon Jairo Velásquez Vásquez, also known by the alias “Popeye” or “JJ”, was a Colombian hitman, who was part of the criminal structure of the Medellín Cartel until his surrender to the Colombian justice system in 1992. Within this structure he claimed to be a lieutenant commanding half of the sicarios. Read more
• 2019: Manfred Eigen, German Nobel Prize winning biophysical chemist (born 1927) Manfred Eigen was a German biophysical chemist who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on measuring fast chemical reactions. Read more
• 2019: Rosamunde Pilcher, British author (born 1924) Rosamunde E. M. L. Pilcher, OBE was a British novelist, best known for her sweeping novels set in Cornwall. Her books have sold over 60 million copies worldwide. Early in her career she was published under the pen name Jane Fraser. Read more
• 2018: Donald Lynden-Bell, English astrophysicist (born 1935) Donald Lynden-Bell CBE FRS was a British theoretical astrophysicist. He was the first to determine that galaxies contain supermassive black holes at their centres, and that such black holes power quasars. Lynden-Bell was President of the Royal Astronomical Society (1985–1987) and received numerous awards for his work, including the inaugural Kavli Prize for Astrophysics. He worked at the University of Cambridge for his entire career, where he was the first director of its Institute of Astronomy. Read more
• 2017: Irwin Corey, American comedian and actor (born 1914) Irwin Corey was an American stand-up comic, film actor and activist, often billed as “The World’s Foremost Authority”. He introduced his unscripted, improvisational style of stand-up comedy at the San Francisco club the hungry i. Lenny Bruce described Corey as “one of the most brilliant comedians of all time.” Read more
• 2017: Inge Keller, German actress (born 1923) Inge Keller was a German stage and film actress whose career on stage and screen spanned seventy years. She was one of the most prominent performers in the former German Democratic Republic. Thomas Langhoff described her as “perhaps the most famous actress of the German Democratic Republic—a star.” Deutschlandradio Kultur reporter Dieter Kranz called her “a theater legend”. Read more
• 2017: Alec McCowen, English actor (born 1925) Alexander Duncan McCowen, was an English actor. He was known for his work in numerous film and stage productions. Read more
• 2017: Joost van der Westhuizen, South African rugby union footballer (born 1971) Joost van der Westhuizen was a South African professional rugby union player who made 89 appearances in test matches for the national team, scoring 38 tries. He mostly played as a scrum-half and participated in three Rugby World Cups, most notably in the 1995 tournament, which was won by South Africa. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest scrumhalves in the history of this sport. Read more
• 2016: Dan Gerson, American screenwriter (born 1966) Daniel Robert Gerson was an American screenwriter and voice actor, best known for his work with Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He co-wrote the screenplays of Monsters, Inc., Monsters University and Big Hero 6, which was reported to be his last film as screenwriter. Read more
• 2016: Dan Hicks, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1941) Daniel Ivan Hicks was an American singer-songwriter and musician, and the leader of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. His idiosyncratic style combined elements of cowboy folk, jazz, country, swing, bluegrass, pop, and gypsy music. He is perhaps best known for the songs “I Scare Myself” and “Canned Music”. His songs are frequently infused with humor, as evidenced by the title of his tune “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away?” His album Live at Davies (2013) capped over forty years of music. Read more
• 2015: André Brink, South African author and playwright (born 1935) André Philippus Brink was a South African novelist, essayist and poet. He wrote in both Afrikaans and English and taught English at the University of Cape Town. Read more
• 2015: Alan Nunnelee, American lawyer and politician (born 1958) Patrick Alan Nunnelee was an American businessman and politician who served as the U.S. representative for Mississippi’s 1st congressional district from 2011 until his death in 2015. Previously he served in the Mississippi State Senate, representing the 6th district, from 1995 to 2011. He was a member of the Republican Party. Read more
• 2015: Pedro León Zapata, Venezuelan cartoonist (born 1929) Pedro León Zapata was a prominent Venezuelan artist, humorist and cartoonist. Read more
• 2014: Vasiľ Biľak, Slovak politician (born 1917) RSDr. Vasiľ Biľak was a Slovak Communist politician and leader of Rusyn origin. Read more
• 2014: Ralph Kiner, American baseball player and sportscaster (born 1922) Ralph McPherran Kiner was an American Major League Baseball player and broadcaster. An outfielder, Kiner played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs, and Cleveland Indians from 1946 through 1955. Read more
• 2014: Maxine Kumin, American author and poet (born 1925) Maxine Kumin was an American poet and author. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1981–1982. Read more
• 2014: Vaçe Zela, Albanian-Swiss singer and guitarist (born 1939) Vaçe Zela was an Albanian singer and songwriter. She was a leading figure in Albania’s music industry and is considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Read more
• 2013: Chokri Belaid, Tunisian lawyer and politician (born 1964) Chokri Belaïd, also transliterated as Shokri Belaïd, was a Tunisian politician and lawyer who was an opposition leader with the left-secular Democratic Patriots’ Movement. Belaïd was a vocal critic of the Ben Ali regime prior to the 2011 Tunisian revolution and of the then Islamist-led Tunisian government. On 6 February 2013, he was fatally shot outside his house in El Menzah, close to the Tunisian capital, Tunis. As a result of his assassination, Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali announced his plan to dissolve the existing national government and to form a temporary “national unity” government. Read more
• 2013: Menachem Elon, German-Israeli academic and jurist (born 1923) Menachem Elon was an Israeli jurist and Professor of Law specializing in traditional Jewish Law, an Orthodox rabbi, and a prolific author on traditional Jewish law (Halakha). He was the head of the Jewish Law Institute of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He lost the 1983 Israeli Presidential Election to Chaim Herzog. Read more
• 2012: David Rosenhan, American psychologist and academic (born 1929) David L. Rosenhan was an American psychologist. He is known best for the Rosenhan experiment, a study challenging the validity of psychiatry diagnoses. Read more
• 2012: Antoni Tàpies, Spanish painter and sculptor (born 1923) Antoni Tàpies i Puig, 1st Marquess of Tàpies was a Catalan painter, sculptor, and art theorist. Read more
• 2012: Janice E. Voss, American engineer and astronaut (born 1956) Janice Elaine Voss was an American engineer and a NASA astronaut. Voss received her B.S. in engineering science from Purdue University, her M.S. in electrical engineering from MIT, and her PhD in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT. She flew in space five times, jointly holding the record for American women. Voss died in Arizona on February 6, 2012, from breast cancer. Read more
• 2011: Gary Moore, Irish singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (born 1952) Robert William Gary Moore was a Northern Irish musician. Over the course of his career, he played in various groups and performed a range of music including blues, blues rock, hard rock, heavy metal and jazz fusion. Read more
• 2009: Philip Carey, American actor (born 1925) Philip Carey was an American actor, well-known for playing the role of Asa Buchanan on the soap opera One Life to Live for nearly three decades. Read more
• 2009: Shirley Jean Rickert, American actress (born 1926) Shirley Jean Rickert was an American child actress who was briefly the “blonde girl” for the Our Gang series in 1931, during the Hal Roach early talkie period. Read more
• 2009: James Whitmore, American actor (born 1921) James Allen Whitmore Jr. was an American actor, who appeared in over 150 stage, film, and television roles over a 50-year career. He was the recipient of numerous accolades, including three of the four EGOT honors – a Grammy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Tony Award. He was nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Supporting Actor for Battleground (1949) and Best Actor for Give ’em Hell, Harry! (1975). Read more
• 2008: Tony Rolt, English race car driver and engineer (born 1918) Major Anthony Peter Roylance Rolt, MC & Bar, was a British racing driver, soldier and engineer. A war hero, Rolt maintained a long connection with the sport, albeit behind the scenes. The Ferguson 4WD project he was involved in paid off with spectacular results, and he was involved in other engineering projects. Read more
• 2007: Lew Burdette, American baseball player and coach (born 1926) Selva Lewis Burdette, Jr. was an American right-handed starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who played primarily for the Boston / Milwaukee Braves. The team’s top right-hander during its years in Milwaukee, he was the Most Valuable Player of the 1957 World Series, leading the franchise to its first championship in 43 years, and the only title in Milwaukee history. An outstanding control pitcher, his career average of 1.84 walks per nine innings pitched places him behind only Robin Roberts (1.73), Greg Maddux (1.80), Carl Hubbell, (1.82) and Juan Marichal (1.82) among pitchers with at least 3,000 innings since 1920. Read more
• 2007: Frankie Laine, American singer-songwriter and actor (born 1913) Frankie Laine was an American singer and songwriter whose career spanned nearly 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of “That’s My Desire” in 2005. Often billed as “America’s Number One Song Stylist”, Laine’s other nicknames include “Mr. Rhythm”, “Old Leather Lungs”, and “Mr. Steel Tonsils”. His hits included “That’s My Desire”, “That Lucky Old Sun”, “Mule Train”, “Jezebel”, “High Noon”, “I Believe”, “Hey Joe!”, “The Kid’s Last Fight”, “Cool Water”, “Rawhide”, and “You Gave Me a Mountain”. Read more
• 2007: Willye White, American runner and long jumper (born 1939) Willye Brown White was an American track and field athlete who took part in five Olympics from 1956 to 1972. She was America’s best female long jumper of the time and also competed in the 100 meters sprint. White was a Tennessee State University Tigerbelle under Coach Ed Temple. An African-American, White was the first U.S. athlete to compete in track in five Olympics. Read more
• 2005: Karl Haas, German-American pianist, conductor, and radio host (born 1913) Karl Haas was a German-American classical music radio host, known for his sonorous speaking voice, humanistic approach to music appreciation, and popularization of classical music. He was the host of the classical music radio program Adventures in Good Music, which was syndicated to commercial and public radio stations around the world. He also published the book Inside Music. He was a respected musicologist, as well as an accomplished pianist and conductor. In 1996, he received an honorary degree in Doctor of Letters from Oglethorpe University. Read more
• 2004: Gerald Bouey, Canadian lieutenant and economist (born 1920) Gerald Keith Bouey was a Canadian economist who served as the fourth governor of the Bank of Canada from 1973 to 1987, succeeding Louis Rasminsky. He was succeeded by John Crow. Read more
• 2002: Max Perutz, Austrian-English biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1914) Max Ferdinand Perutz was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of haemoglobin and myoglobin. He went on to win the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1971 and the Copley Medal in 1979. At Cambridge he founded and chaired (1962–79) The MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), fourteen of whose scientists have won Nobel Prizes. Read more
• 2001: Filemon Lagman, Filipino theoretician and activist (born 1953) Filemon Castelar Lagman, also known by the aliases Ka Popoy and Carlos Forte, was a Filipino revolutionary socialist and labor leader who supported Marxism-Leninism. He split with the Communist Party of the Philippines in 1991 due to ideological disagreements to form the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP). He was assassinated in 2001 at the University of the Philippines Diliman in Quezon City. Read more
• 2001: Trần Văn Lắm, South Vietnamese diplomat and politician (born 1913) Trần Văn Lắm, also known as Charles Trần Văn Lắm, was a South Vietnamese diplomat and politician, who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Vietnam under Prime Minister Trần Thiện Khiêm during the height of the Vietnam War. He was most notable for his role in the Paris Peace Accords that occurred in 1973. In the late 1950s to early 1960s he served as the South Vietnamese Ambassador to both Australia and New Zealand. Lắm served as the President of the Senate of the Republic of Vietnam from 1973 until the Fall of Saigon in 1975. Read more
• 2000: Phil Walters, American race car driver (born 1916) Philip F. Walters was an American racing driver, who won both the 12 Hours of Sebring and Watkins Glen Grand Prix twice. Read more
• 2000: Hani al-Rahib, Syrian novelist and literary academic (born 1939) Hani Muhammad-Ali al-Rahib was a Syrian novelist and literary academic who wrote a number of distinguished novels. The Defeated was his first novel, which was published in 1961 when he was 22 years old. In the same year, he won the Al-Adab magazine literature award. His second novel was titled A Crack in a Long History (1970) then came A Thousand and Two Nights in 1977, followed in the early 1980s by The Epidemic, which some critics chose as one of the 100 most important Arab novels published in the twentieth century, according to Al-Faisal Magazine. Read more
• 1999: Don Dunstan, Australian lawyer and politician, 35th Premier of South Australia (born 1926) Donald Allan Dunstan was an Australian politician who served as the 35th premier of South Australia from 1967 to 1968, and again from 1970 to 1979. He was a member of the House of Assembly (MHA) for the division of Norwood from 1953 to 1979, and leader of the South Australian Branch of the Australian Labor Party from 1967 to 1979. Before becoming premier, Dunstan served as the 38th attorney-general of South Australia and the treasurer of South Australia. He is the fourth longest serving premier in South Australian history. Read more
• 1999: Jimmy Roberts, American tenor (born 1924) Jimmy Roberts was an American tenor singer. He was a featured performer on the TV variety program The Lawrence Welk Show during its entire broadcast run from 1955 to 1982. Read more
• 1998: Falco, Austrian pop-rock musician (born 1957) Johann “Hans” Hölzel, better known by his stage name Falco, was an Austrian musician. He had several international hits, including “Der Kommissar” (1981), “Rock Me Amadeus”, “Vienna Calling”, which reached number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100, “Jeanny”, “The Sound of Musik”, “Coming Home “, and posthumously released “Out of the Dark”. Read more
• 1995: James Merrill, American poet and playwright (born 1926) James Ingram Merrill was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1977 for Divine Comedies. His poetry falls into two distinct bodies of work: the polished and formalist lyric poetry of his early career, and the epic narrative of occult communication with spirits and angels, titled The Changing Light at Sandover, which dominated his later career. Although most of his published work was poetry, he also wrote essays, fiction, and plays. Read more
• 1994: Joseph Cotten, American actor (born 1905) Joseph Cheshire Cotten Jr. was an American film, stage, radio and television actor. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original stage productions of The Philadelphia Story (1939) and Sabrina Fair (1953). He gained worldwide fame for his collaborations with Orson Welles on films Citizen Kane (1941), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), and Journey into Fear (1943). Cotten starred in the latter and was also credited with the screenplay. Read more
• 1994: Jack Kirby, American author and illustrator (born 1917) Jack Kirby was an American comic book artist, widely regarded as one of the medium’s major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He grew up in New York City and learned to draw cartoon figures by tracing characters from comic strips and editorial cartoons. He entered the nascent comics industry in the 1930s, drawing various comics features under different pen names, including Jack Curtiss, before settling on Jack Kirby. In 1940, he and writer-editor Joe Simon created the highly successful superhero character Captain America for Timely Comics, predecessor of Marvel Comics. During the 1940s, Kirby regularly teamed with Simon, creating numerous characters for that company and for National Comics Publications, later to become DC Comics. Read more
• 1993: Arthur Ashe, American tennis player and sportscaster (born 1943) Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. was an American professional tennis player. He won three Grand Slam titles in singles and two in doubles. Ashe was the first Black player selected to the United States Davis Cup team, and the only Black man ever to win the singles titles at Wimbledon, the US Open, and the Australian Open. He retired in 1980. Read more
• 1991: Salvador Luria, Italian biologist and physician, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1912) Salvador Edward Luria was an Italian microbiologist, later a naturalized U.S. citizen. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1969, with Max Delbrück and Alfred Hershey, for their discoveries on the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses. Salvador Luria also showed that bacterial resistance to viruses (phages) is genetically inherited. Read more
• 1991: Danny Thomas, American actor, producer, and humanitarian (born 1914) Amos Muzyad Yaqoob Kairouz, known professionally as Danny Thomas, was an American entertainer, producer, and philanthropist. After launching his career in the 1940s in radio and cinema, he created and starred in the 1953–1964 television sitcom Make Room for Daddy / The Danny Thomas Show, and went on to produce a number of successful television programs. In 1962, he leveraged his celebrity status to establish St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a leading center in pediatrics research and treatment, with a focus on pediatric cancer. He was the father of Marlo Thomas, Terre Thomas, and Tony Thomas. Read more
• 1990: Jimmy Van Heusen, American pianist and composer (born 1913) James Van Heusen was an American composer. He wrote songs for films, television, and theater, and won an Emmy and four Academy Awards for Best Original Song. Many of his compositions later went on to become jazz standards. Read more
• 1989: Barbara W. Tuchman, American historian and author (born 1912) Barbara Wertheim Tuchman was an American historian, journalist and author. She won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for The Guns of August (1962), a best-selling history of the prelude to and the first month of World War I, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China (1971), a biography of General Joseph Stilwell. Read more
• 1987: Julien Chouinard, Canadian lawyer and jurist (born 1929) Julien Chouinard, was a Canadian lawyer and civil servant who served as a puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada from 1979 to 1987. He was the sole Clark appointee to serve as a justice of the Supreme Court. Read more
• 1986: Frederick Coutts, Scottish 8th General of The Salvation Army (born 1899) Frederick Coutts, CBE was the eighth General of The Salvation Army (1963–1969). Read more
• 1986: Dandy Nichols, English actress (born 1907) Dandy Nichols was an English actress best known for her role as Else Garnett, the long-suffering wife of the character Alf Garnett, in the BBC sitcom Till Death Us Do Part. Read more
• 1986: Minoru Yamasaki, American architect, designed the World Trade Center (born 1912) Minoru Yamasaki was an American architect, best known for designing the original World Trade Center in New York City and several other large-scale projects. He and fellow architect Edward Durell Stone are generally considered to be the two master practitioners of “New Formalism”. Read more
• 1985: James Hadley Chase, English-Swiss soldier and author (born 1906) James Hadley Chase was an English writer. While his birth name was René Lodge Brabazon Raymond, he was well known by his various pseudonyms, including James Hadley Chase, James L. Docherty, Raymond Marshall, R. Raymond, and Ambrose Grant. He was one of the best known thriller writers of all time. The canon of Chase, comprising 90 titles, earned him a reputation as the king of thriller writers in Europe. He was also one of the internationally best-selling authors, and to date 50 of his books have been made into films. Read more
• 1982: Ben Nicholson, British painter (born 1894) Benjamin Lauder Nicholson, OM was an English painter of abstract compositions, landscapes, and still-life. He was one of the leading promoters of abstract art in England. Read more
• 1981: Hugo Montenegro, American composer and conductor (born 1925) Hugo Mario Montenegro was an American orchestra leader and composer of film soundtracks. His best-known work is interpretations of the music from Spaghetti Westerns, especially his cover version of Ennio Morricone’s main theme from the 1966 film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He composed the score for the 1969 Western Charro!, which starred Elvis Presley. He also wrote for various television series, most notably the theme to “I Dream of Jeannie” Read more
• 1976: Ritwik Ghatak, Bangladeshi-Indian director and screenwriter (born 1925) Ritwik Kumar Ghatak was an Indian film director, screenwriter, actor and playwright. Widely considered as one of the greatest film makers of all time, his works remained largely underrated and ignored during his lifetime. Along with prominent contemporary Bengali filmmakers like Satyajit Ray, Tapan Sinha and Mrinal Sen, his cinema is primarily remembered for its meticulous depiction of social reality, partition and feminism. He won the National Film Award’s Rajat Kamal Award for Best Story in 1974 for his Jukti Takko Aar Gappo and Best Director’s Award from Bangladesh Cine Journalist’s Association for Titash Ekti Nadir Naam. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri for Arts in 1970. Read more
• 1976: Vince Guaraldi, American singer-songwriter and pianist (born 1928) Vincent Anthony Guaraldi was an American jazz pianist best known for composing music for animated television adaptations of the Peanuts comic strip. His compositions for this series included their signature melody “Linus and Lucy” and the holiday standard “Christmas Time Is Here”. Guaraldi is also known for his performances on piano as a member of Cal Tjader’s 1950s ensembles and for his own solo career. Guaraldi’s 1962 composition “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” became a radio hit and won a Grammy Award in 1963 for Best Original Jazz Composition. He died of a heart attack on February 6, 1976, at age 47, moments after concluding the first half of a nightclub performance in Menlo Park, California. Read more
• 1972: Julian Steward, American anthropologist (born 1902) Julian Haynes Steward was an American anthropologist known best for his role in developing “the concept and method” of cultural ecology, as well as a scientific theory of culture change. Read more
• 1971: Lew “Sneaky Pete” Robinson, drag racer (born 1933) Lew Russell Robinson, nicknamed “Sneaky Pete”, was an American drag racer. Read more
• 1967: Martine Carol, French actress (born 1920) Martine Carol was a French film actress. She frequently was cast as an elegant blonde seductress. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, she was the leading sex symbol and a top box-office draw of French cinema, and she was considered a French version of America’s Marilyn Monroe. One of her more famous roles was as the title character in Lola Montès (1955), directed by Max Ophüls, in a role that required dark hair. However, by the late 1950s, roles for Carol had become fewer, partly because of the introduction of Brigitte Bardot. Read more
• 1964: Emilio Aguinaldo, Filipino general and politician, 1st President of the Philippines (born 1869) Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy was a Filipino revolutionary, statesman, and military leader who was the first president of the Philippines from 1899 to 1901, and the first president of an Asian constitutional republic. He led the Philippine forces first against Spain in the Philippine Revolution (1896–1898), then in the Spanish–American War (1898), and finally against the United States during the Philippine–American War (1899–1901). He is regarded in the Philippines as having been the country’s first president during the period of the First Philippine Republic, though he was not recognized as such outside of the revolutionary Philippines. Read more
• 1963: Piero Manzoni, Italian painter and sculptor (born 1933) Piero Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo was an Italian artist best known for his ironic approach to avant-garde art. Often compared to the work of Yves Klein, his own work anticipated, and directly influenced, the work of a generation of younger Italian artists brought together by the critic Germano Celant in the first Arte Povera exhibition held in Genoa, 1967. Manzoni is most famous for a series of artworks that call into question the nature of the art object, directly prefiguring Conceptual Art. His work eschews normal artist’s materials, instead using everything from rabbit fur to human excrement in order to “tap mythological sources and to realize authentic and universal values”. Read more
• 1958: victims of the Munich air disaster Geoffrey Bent was an English footballer who played as a left back for Manchester United from 1948 until 1958. He was one of the Busby Babes, the young team formed under manager Matt Busby in the mid-1950s. Bent only made twelve first-team appearances for Manchester United, who already had an international-quality left back in Roger Byrne. Modern writers speculate that at most other teams Bent would have been a regular starter, and he was the subject of interest from fellow First Division clubs, but Busby refused to let him leave. He was one of eight Manchester United players who died in the Munich air disaster, when their aircraft crashed on its third attempt to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport after a European Cup match in Belgrade. Read more
• 1958: victims of the Munich air disaster Roger William Byrne was an English footballer who played as a full-back and captain of Manchester United. He died at the age of 28 in the Munich air disaster. He was one of the eight Manchester United players who lost their lives in the disaster on 6 February 1958. He made 33 appearances for the England national team. Read more
• 1958: victims of the Munich air disaster Edward Colman was an English football player who played as an wing-half and one of the eight Manchester United players who died in the Munich air disaster. Read more
• 1958: victims of the Munich air disaster Walter Raymond Crickmer was an English football club secretary and manager. Read more
• 1958: victims of the Munich air disaster Mark Jones was an English footballer and one of eight Manchester United players to lose their lives in the Munich air disaster. Jones was born in Wombwell, near Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire in 1933, the third of seven children born to miner Amos Jones (1894–1968) and his wife Lucy (1896–1957). He was the club’s first-choice centre-half for much of the 1950s and collected two League Championship winner’s medals. Read more
• 1958: victims of the Munich air disaster David Pegg was an English footballer who played as an outside-left and one of the eight Manchester United players who died in the Munich air disaster on 6 February 1958. Read more
• 1958: victims of the Munich air disaster Frank Victor Swift was an English footballer, who played as a goalkeeper for Manchester City and England. After starting his career with Fleetwood, near his hometown of Blackpool, in 1932 he was signed by First Division Manchester City, with whom he played his entire professional career. Read more
• 1958: victims of the Munich air disaster Thomas Taylor was an English footballer, who played as a centre-forward and was known for his aerial ability. He was one of the eight Manchester United players who died in the Munich air disaster. Read more
• 1952: George VI of the United Kingdom (born 1895) George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was also the last Emperor of India from 1936 until the British Raj was dissolved in August 1947, and the first Head of the Commonwealth following the London Declaration of 1949. Read more
• 1951: Gabby Street, American baseball player, coach, and manager (born 1882) Charles Evard “Gabby” Street, also nicknamed “the Old Sarge”, was an American catcher, manager, coach, and radio broadcaster in Major League Baseball during the first half of the 20th century. As a catcher, he participated in one of the most publicized baseball stunts of the century’s first decade. As a manager, he led the St. Louis Cardinals to two National League championships (1930–31) and one world title (1931). As a broadcaster, he entertained St. Louis baseball fans in the years following World War II. Read more
• 1942: Jaan Soots, Estonian general and politician, 7th Estonian Minister of War (born 1880) Jaan Soots was an Estonian military commander during the Estonian War of Independence and politician. Read more
• 1938: Marianne von Werefkin, Russian-Swiss painter (born 1860) Mariamna Vladimirovna Veryovkina, commonly known as Marianne von Werefkin, was a Russian-born painter, active in Germany and Switzerland during the late Belle Époque and interwar periods. She is particularly known for her Expressionist works. Read more
• 1932: John Earle, Australian politician, 22nd Premier of Tasmania (born 1865) John Earle was an Australian politician who served as Premier of Tasmania from 1914 to 1916 and also for one week in October 1909. He later served as a Senator for Tasmania from 1917 to 1923. Prior to entering politics, he worked as a miner and prospector. He began his career in the Australian Labor Party (ALP), helping to establish a local branch of the party, and was Tasmania’s first ALP premier. However, he was expelled from the party during the 1916 split and joined the Nationalists, whom he represented in the Senate. Read more
• 1931: Motilal Nehru, Indian lawyer and politician, President of the Indian National Congress (born 1861) Motilal Nehru was an Indian lawyer, activist, and politician affiliated with the Indian National Congress. He served as the Congress President twice, from 1919 to 1920 and from 1928 to 1929. He was a patriarch of the Nehru-Gandhi family and the father of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister. Read more
• 1929: Maria Christina of Austria (born 1858) Maria Christina Henriette Desideria Felicitas Raineria of Austria was Queen of Spain as the second wife of Alfonso XII. She was queen regent during the vacancy of the throne between her husband’s death in November 1885 and the birth of their son Alfonso XIII in May 1886, and subsequently also until her son came of age in May 1902. Read more
• 1918: Gustav Klimt, Austrian painter and illustrator (born 1862) Gustav Klimt was an Austrian symbolist painter and a founding member of the Vienna Secession movement. His work helped define the Art Nouveau style in Europe. Klimt is known for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d’art. Klimt’s primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism. Amongst his figurative works, which include allegories and portraits, he painted landscapes. He is best known for The Kiss and Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. Among the artists of the Vienna Secession, Klimt was the most influenced by Japanese art and its methods. Read more
• 1916: Rubén Darío, Nicaraguan poet, journalist, and diplomat (born 1867) Félix Rubén García Sarmiento, known as Rubén Darío, was a Nicaraguan poet who initiated the Spanish-language literary movement known as modernismo (modernism) that flourished at the end of the 19th century. Darío had a great and lasting influence on 20th-century Spanish-language literature and journalism. Read more
• 1908: Harriet Samuel, English businesswoman and founder of the jewellery retailer H. Samuel (born 1836) Harriet Samuel was an English businesswoman and the founder of H. Samuel, one of the United Kingdom’s best-known high street jewellery retailers. Read more
• 1902: John Colton, English-Australian politician, 13th Premier of South Australia (born 1823) Sir John Blackler Colton, was an Australian politician, Premier of South Australia and philanthropist. His middle name, Blackler, was used only rarely, as on the birth certificate of his first son. Read more
• 1899: Leo von Caprivi, German general and politician, chancellor of Germany (born 1831) Georg Leo Graf von Caprivi de Caprara de Montecuccoli was a German general and statesman. He served as the imperial chancellor of the German Empire from March 1890 to October 1894, succeeding longtime chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Read more
• 1865: Isabella Beeton, English author of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (born 1836) Isabella Mary Beeton, known as Mrs Beeton, was an English journalist, editor and writer. Her name is particularly associated with her first book, the 1861 work Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management. She was born in London and, after schooling in Islington, north London, and Heidelberg, Germany, she married Samuel Orchart Beeton, an ambitious publisher and magazine editor. Read more
• 1834: Richard Lemon Lander, English explorer (born 1804) Richard Lemon Lander was a British explorer of western Africa. He and his brother John were the first Europeans to follow the course of the River Niger, and discover that it led to the Atlantic. Read more
• 1833: Pierre André Latreille, French zoologist and entomologist (born 1762) Pierre André Latreille was a French zoologist, specialising in arthropods. Having trained as a Roman Catholic priest before the French Revolution, Latreille was imprisoned, and only regained his freedom after recognising a rare beetle species he found in the prison, Necrobia ruficollis. Read more
• 1804: Joseph Priestley, English chemist and theologian (born 1733) Joseph Priestley was an English chemist, Unitarian, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator and classical liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted experiments in several areas of science. Read more