History of Today 14 August: Important Events, Births and Deaths

Welcome to History of Today 14 August. On this page, you can read important historical events, famous births, notable deaths and general knowledge facts related to 14 August. This information is useful for UPSC, SSC, Banking, Railway, State PSC and other competitive exams.

Last updated on 14 August 2026, 01:00 AM

Important Events on 14 August in History

• 14 Aug 2023: Former U.S. president Donald Trump is charged in Georgia along with 18 others in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election in that state, his fourth indictment of 2023. Read more
• 14 Aug 2022: An explosion destroys a market in Armenia, killing six people and injuring dozens. Read more
• 14 Aug 2021: A magnitude 7.2 earthquake strikes southwestern Haiti, killing at least 2,248 people and causing a humanitarian crisis. Read more
• 14 Aug 2018: The collapse of the Ponte Morandi bridge in Genoa, Italy, left 16 people injured and 43 people killed. Read more
• 14 Aug 2015: The U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba re-opens after 54 years of being closed when Cuba–United States relations were broken off. Read more
• 14 Aug 2013: Egypt declares a state of emergency as security forces kill hundreds of demonstrators supporting former president Mohamed Morsi. Read more
• 14 Aug 2013: UPS Airlines Flight 1354 crashes short of the runway at Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport, killing both crew members on board. Read more
• 14 Aug 2007: The Kahtaniya bombings kill at least 500 people. Read more
• 14 Aug 2006: Lebanon War: A ceasefire takes effect three days after the United Nations Security Council's approval of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, formally ending hostilities between Lebanon and Israel. Read more
• 14 Aug 2006: Sri Lankan Civil War: Sixty-one schoolgirls killed in Chencholai bombing by Sri Lanka Air Force air strike. Read more
• 14 Aug 2005: Helios Airways Flight 522, en route from Larnaca, Cyprus to Prague, Czech Republic via Athens, crashes in the hills near Grammatiko, Greece, killing 121 passengers and crew. Read more
• 14 Aug 2003: A widescale power blackout affects the northeast United States and Canada. Read more
• 14 Aug 1996: Greek Cypriot refugee Solomos Solomou is shot and killed by a Turkish security officer while trying to climb a flagpole in order to remove a Turkish flag from its mast in the United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus. Read more
• 14 Aug 1994: Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, also known as "Carlos the Jackal", is captured. Read more
• 14 Aug 1980: Lech Wałęsa leads strikes at the Gdańsk, Poland shipyards. Read more
• 14 Aug 1974: Turkey launches the second phase of the invasion of Cyprus, which eventually resulted in the Turkish occupation of 37% of Cyprus. Read more
• 14 Aug 1972: An Ilyushin Il-62 airliner crashes near Königs Wusterhausen, East Germany killing 156 people. Read more
• 14 Aug 1971: Bahrain declares independence from Britain. Read more
• 14 Aug 1969: The Troubles: British troops are deployed in Northern Ireland as political and sectarian violence breaks out, marking the start of the 37-year Operation Banner. Read more
• 14 Aug 1967: UK Marine Broadcasting Offences Act 1967 declares participation in offshore pirate radio illegal. Read more
• 14 Aug 1959: Founding and first official meeting of the American Football League. Read more
• 14 Aug 1948: An Idaho Department of Fish and Game program to relocate beavers known as Beaver drop occurred. This program relocated beavers from Northwestern Idaho to Central Idaho by airplane and then parachuting the beavers into the Chamberlain Basin. Read more
• 14 Aug 1947: Pakistan gains independence from the British Empire as the Dominion of Pakistan, due to the partition of India. Read more
• 14 Aug 1941: World War II: Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt sign the Atlantic Charter of war stating postwar aims. Read more
• 14 Aug 1936: Rainey Bethea is hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky in the last known public execution in the United States. Read more
• 14 Aug 1935: Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act, creating a government pension system for the retired. Read more
• 14 Aug 1933: Loggers cause a forest fire in the Coast Range of Oregon, later known as the first forest fire of the Tillamook Burn; destroying 240,000 acres (970 km2) of land. Read more
• 14 Aug 1921: Tannu Uriankhai, later Tuvan People's Republic is established as a completely independent country (which is supported by Soviet Russia). Read more
• 14 Aug 1920: The 1920 Summer Olympics, having started four months earlier, officially open in Antwerp, Belgium, with the newly adopted Olympic flag and the Olympic oath being raised and taken at the Opening Ceremony for the first time in Olympic history. Read more
• 14 Aug 1917: World War I: The Republic of China, which had heretofore been shipping labourers to Europe to assist in the war effort, officially declares war on the Central Powers, although it will continue to send to Europe labourers instead of combatants for the remaining duration of the war. Read more
• 14 Aug 1914: World War I: Start of the Battle of Lorraine, an unsuccessful French offensive. Read more
• 14 Aug 1901: The first claimed powered flight, by Gustave Whitehead in his Number 21. Read more
• 14 Aug 1900: Battle of Peking: The Eight-Nation Alliance occupies Beijing, China, in a campaign to end the bloody Boxer Rebellion in China. Read more
• 14 Aug 1893: France becomes the first country to introduce motor vehicle registration. Read more
• 14 Aug 1885: Japan's first patent is issued to the inventor of a rust-proof paint. Read more
• 14 Aug 1880: Construction of Cologne Cathedral, the most famous landmark in Cologne, Germany, is completed. Read more
• 14 Aug 1848: Oregon Territory is organized by act of Congress. Read more
• 14 Aug 1848: Pica Law (Legge Pica), a form of martial law, is established as the Italian government passes this anti-brigandage law to suppress resistance to Italian Unification. Read more
• 14 Aug 1842: American Indian Wars: Second Seminole War ends, with the Seminoles forced from Florida. Read more
• 14 Aug 1816: The United Kingdom formally annexes the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, administering the islands from the Cape Colony in South Africa. Read more
• 14 Aug 1814: A cease fire agreement, called the Convention of Moss, ended the Swedish–Norwegian War. Read more

Famous Births on 14 August

• 14 Aug 2004: Marsai Martin, American actress and producer Caila Marsai Martin is an American actress and producer, best known for her role as Diane Johnson on the ABC sitcom Black-ish (2014–2022). In 2019, Martin had a starring role in the comedy film Little, which she also produced at the age of 14. Due to her work on this film,, Martin holds the Guinness World Record as the youngest Hollywood executive producer. Time magazine named her on its "Time 100 Next" the year of its release. In 2022, she produced and starred in the sports comedy film, Fantasy Football. Read more
• 14 Aug 2000: Johan Rojas, Dominican baseball player Johan Stiven Rojas is a Dominican professional baseball outfielder for the Philadelphia Phillies of Major League Baseball (MLB). Rojas signed with the Phillies as an international free agent in 2018. Read more
• 14 Aug 1998: Doechii, American rapper Jaylah Ji'mya Hickmon, known professionally as Doechii, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and actress. After her songs went viral on TikTok in 2021, she signed recording contracts with Top Dawg Entertainment and Capitol Records in 2022. Her 2023 single, "What It Is ", marked her first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 and received platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). That same year, she made her acting debut with the drama film Earth Mama. Read more
• 14 Aug 1997: Greet Minnen, Belgian tennis player Greet Minnen is a Belgian tennis player.
  Minnen has career-high WTA rankings of world No. 59 in singles and No. 45 in doubles, achieved on 16 October 2023 and on 8 January 2024, respectively. Read more
• 14 Aug 1995: Léolia Jeanjean, French tennis player Léolia Jeanjean is a French tennis player.
  She has a career-high singles ranking of No. 91 by the WTA, achieved on 18 August 2025. Her highest doubles ranking of No. 162 she reached on 18 March 2024. Read more
• 14 Aug 1994: Maya Jama, British TV presenter. Maya Indea Jama is a British broadcaster and media personality. She rose to prominence as a presenter on MTV and BBC Radio 1. She has presented television shows including The Circle (2017), Glow Up: Britain's Next Make-Up Star (2021–2022), and Love Island (2023–present). Since 2025, Jama has appeared as a panellist on The Masked Singer. She hosted #DriveWithMaya on Rinse FM from 2014 to 2017, and co-presented Radio 1's Greatest Hits and presented her eponymous show, Maya Jama on BBC Radio 1 from 2018 to 2020. Read more
• 14 Aug 1991: Richard Freitag, German ski jumper Richard "Richi" Freitag is a German former ski jumper who competed at World Cup level from 2010 to 2022. He was runner-up in the overall 2017–18 Ski Jumping World Cup, and won the bronze medal at the 2018 Ski Flying World Championships. Read more
• 14 Aug 1991: Giovanny Gallegos, Mexican baseball player Giovanny Gallegos is a Mexican professional baseball pitcher who is a free agent. He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals. Gallegos made his MLB debut in 2017 with the Yankees and also pitched for them in 2018 before being traded to the Cardinals. Read more
• 14 Aug 1989: Ander Herrera, Spanish footballer Ander Herrera Agüera is a Spanish professional footballer who plays for Zaragoza in the Primera Federación – Group 2. Read more
• 14 Aug 1989: Kyle Turris, Canadian ice hockey player Kyle Turris is a Canadian former professional ice hockey centre. He was selected third overall in the 2007 NHL entry draft by the Phoenix Coyotes. He has also played with the Ottawa Senators, Oulun Kärpät, Nashville Predators and Edmonton Oilers. Read more
• 14 Aug 1987: Johnny Gargano, American wrestler John Anthony Nicholas Gargano is an American professional wrestler. He is signed in WWE, where he performs on the SmackDown brand. He is best known for his tenure in NXT, where he became the first-ever NXT Triple Crown winner by winning the NXT Championship once, the NXT North American Championship a record three times, and the NXT Tag Team Championship once as a part of #DIY with Tommaso Ciampa. His popularity and success in NXT led him to be given the moniker "The Heart and Soul of NXT". Read more
• 14 Aug 1987: David Peralta, Venezuelan baseball player Senger David Peralta Guerreiro is a Venezuelan former professional baseball left fielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Tampa Bay Rays, Los Angeles Dodgers, and San Diego Padres. Read more
• 14 Aug 1987: Tim Tebow, American football and baseball player and sportscaster Timothy Richard Tebow is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for three seasons, primarily with the Denver Broncos. Tebow played college football for the Florida Gators, becoming the first underclassman to win the Heisman Trophy and leading the team to two BCS National Championship titles in 2006 and 2008. At the conclusion of his collegiate career, Tebow held the Southeastern Conference's records for career passing efficiency and rushing touchdowns. He was selected by the Broncos in the first round of the 2010 NFL draft. Read more
• 14 Aug 1986: Braian Rodríguez, Uruguayan footballer Braian Damián Rodríguez Carballo, known as Braian Rodríguez, is a Uruguayan professional footballer who plays as a striker for Brazilian club Juventude in Brazil. Read more
• 14 Aug 1985: Christian Gentner, German footballer Christian Gentner is a German professional football official and a former player who played as a midfielder. He works as a head of the professional player department at VfB Stuttgart. He won the Bundesliga twice, with VfB Stuttgart in 2007 and VfL Wolfsburg in 2009. He was also called up five times to the senior Germany national team. Read more
• 14 Aug 1985: Shea Weber, Canadian ice hockey player Shea Weber is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player who was a defenceman for 16 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL). Originally selected in the second round, 49th overall, by the Nashville Predators in the 2003 NHL entry draft, he spent eleven seasons in Nashville until being traded to the Montreal Canadiens in June 2016. Weber is predominantly known for his powerful slapshot, winning the hardest shot event four times at the annual NHL All-Star Skills Competition. Weber was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2024. Read more
• 14 Aug 1984: Eva Birnerová, Czech tennis player Eva Birnerová is a Czech former tennis player. Read more
• 14 Aug 1984: Clay Buchholz, American baseball player Clay Daniel Buchholz is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Toronto Blue Jays. Buchholz made his MLB debut with the Red Sox in 2007. In his second major league start, he pitched a no-hitter, becoming the third MLB pitcher since 1900 to throw a no-hitter in his first or second start and the first Red Sox rookie to throw one. He was a two-time MLB All-Star. Read more
• 14 Aug 1984: Giorgio Chiellini, Italian footballer Giorgio Chiellini is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a centre-back or left-back. Considered one of the best defenders of all time, Chiellini was known for his strength, aggressiveness, man-marking, and ability to play in either a three or four-man defence. Read more
• 14 Aug 1984: Josh Gorges, Canadian ice hockey player Joshua Daniel Gorges is a Canadian former professional ice hockey defenceman. He is of German ancestry; his grandparents emigrated from Germany to Canada. Gorges played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the San Jose Sharks, Montreal Canadiens and Buffalo Sabres. Read more
• 14 Aug 1984: Nick Grimshaw, English radio and television host Nicholas Peter Andrew Grimshaw, nicknamed "Grimmy", is an English radio DJ, television presenter and writer. He hosted a variety of shows on BBC Radio 1 from 2007 to 2021, including BBC Switch and the breakfast show. Since 2024, he has presented BBC Radio 6 Music's flagship breakfast show. Read more
• 14 Aug 1984: Nicola Slater, Scottish tennis player Nicola Slater is a British pickleball player and former tennis player. Read more
• 14 Aug 1984: Robin Söderling, Swedish tennis player Robin Bo Carl Söderling is a Swedish former professional tennis player. He was ranked world No. 4 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in November 2010. Söderling won ten singles titles on the ATP Tour, with career highlights including two consecutive finals at the French Open in 2009 and 2010, and a Masters title at the 2010 Paris Masters. He was the first player to defeat Rafael Nadal at the French Open. Söderling played his last professional match at only age 26 after contracting a lingering bout of mononucleosis. Read more
• 14 Aug 1983: Elena Baltacha, Ukrainian-Scottish tennis player (died 2014) Elena Sergeevna Baltacha was a Ukrainian-born British professional tennis player. Being a four-time winner of the AEGON Awards, she was also a long-term British No. 1, a position she held intermittently from 2002 to 2012. However, as a result of her absence from competition due to knee surgery, she dropped down the world rankings and at the time of her retirement on 18 November 2013, she was ranked as the world No. 221 and British No. 6. Her career-high ranking of world No. 49 was achieved in September 2010. Read more
• 14 Aug 1983: Mila Kunis, Ukrainian-American actress Milena Markovna "Mila" Kunis is an American actress. Born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, and raised in Los Angeles, she began acting with minor television roles in the early 1990s. She starred as Jackie Burkhart on That '70s Show from 1998 to 2006 and has voiced Meg Griffin on Family Guy since 1999. Read more
• 14 Aug 1983: Lamorne Morris, American actor and comedian Lamorne Morris is an American actor and comedian. He has played the roles of Winston Bishop in the Fox sitcom New Girl (2011–2018), cartoonist Keef Knight in the Hulu comedy Woke (2020–2022), and State Trooper Whitley "Witt" Farr in the fifth season of Fargo, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award. He has also starred as Jerrod in Barbershop: The Next Cut (2016), Officer Mikey Jameson in The Christmas Chronicles (2018) and comedian Garrett Morris in Saturday Night (2024). Read more
• 14 Aug 1983: Spencer Pratt, American television personality Spencer William Pratt is an American reality television personality. In 2007, he began dating Heidi Montag, a primary cast member of the reality television series The Hills and came to prominence after being cast in the series. A feud between them and Montag's fellow cast member Lauren Conrad became the central focus of the series and carried on through each subsequent season. Read more
• 14 Aug 1981: Earl Barron, American basketball player Earl Daniel Barron Jr. is an American professional basketball former player and coach. He played college basketball for the University of Memphis and had stints in the NBA with multiple teams. Read more
• 14 Aug 1981: Paul Gallen, Australian rugby league player, boxer, and sportscaster Paul Gallen is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer and retired professional boxer. He played as a lock, second-row and prop forward and captained the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks in the NRL to their maiden NRL Premiership in 2016. Read more
• 14 Aug 1981: Julius Jones, American football player Julius Andre Maurice Jones is an American former professional football player who was a running back in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Jones was selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the second round of the 2004 NFL draft. He also played in the NFL for the Seattle Seahawks and the New Orleans Saints. Read more
• 14 Aug 1981: Kofi Kingston, Ghanaian-American wrestler Kofi Nahaje Sarkodie-Mensah, better known by his ring name Kofi Kingston, is a Ghanaian professional wrestler. He is best known for his 20-year tenure in WWE from 2006 to 2026, where he held various championships, including the WWE Championship and is a record-holding 16-time Tag Team Champion. He is also known for being a member of The New Day alongside Xavier Woods and Big E. Read more
• 14 Aug 1981: Scott Lipsky, American tennis player Scott Lipsky is an American former professional tennis player and coach. As a player, Lipsky was primarily a doubles specialist. Read more
• 14 Aug 1980: Peter Malinauskas, Australian politician, 47th Premier of South Australia Peter Bryden Malinauskas is an Australian politician who has served as the 47th premier of South Australia since 2022. He has held office as the leader of the South Australian Labor Party and as the member of the House of Assembly (MP) for Croydon since 2018, having previously served in the Legislative Council from 2015 to 2018. Read more
• 14 Aug 1979: Paul Burgess, Australian pole vaulter Paul Burgess is an Australian pole vaulter who became the thirteenth pole vaulter in the world to vault over 6 metres. Read more
• 14 Aug 1978: Anastasios Kyriakos, Greek footballer Tasos Kyriakos is a former Greek footballer who played as a defender or midfielder. Read more
• 14 Aug 1978: Greg Rawlinson, New Zealand rugby player Greg Rawlinson is a New Zealand international rugby union player.
  Rawlinson, who has made four appearances for the All Blacks, was born in South Africa and moved to New Zealand in 2002. The second row rejected overtures from the Springboks to remain in All Black contention and was rewarded with a call-up to face Ireland in June 2006. He became only the second ever South African-born All Black, the other being Andrew Mehrtens who was also born in Durban. Read more
• 14 Aug 1977: Juan Pierre, American baseball player Juan D'Vaughn Pierre is an American former professional baseball outfielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 2000–2013 for the Colorado Rockies, Florida/Miami Marlins, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago White Sox, and Philadelphia Phillies. Known for his speed, he stole 614 bases in his career, the 18th-most in MLB history at the time of his retirement. He worked as an MLB Network on-air analyst before joining the Marlins as a Minor League Outfield Coordinator for the 2019 season. Read more
• 14 Aug 1976: Fabrizio Donato, Italian triple jumper Fabrizio Donato is an Italian former athlete who competed in the triple jump and occasionally in the long jump. He is known for winning gold medals at the 2001 Mediterranean Games and the 2009 European Indoor Championships, the latter in a new championship record of 17.59 metres. He is the Italian record holder with 17.60 metres outdoor and 17.73 indoor. Read more
• 14 Aug 1975: Mike Vrabel, American football player Michael George Vrabel is an American professional football coach and former linebacker who is the head coach for the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL). Vrabel previously played in the NFL for 14 seasons, most notably with the Patriots. He also served as the head coach of the Tennessee Titans from 2018 to 2023. Read more
• 14 Aug 1974: Chucky Atkins, American basketball player Kenneth Lavon "Chucky" Atkins is an American former professional basketball player who played for nine different NBA teams throughout his career. Read more
• 14 Aug 1974: Christopher Gorham, American actor Christopher David Gorham is an American actor. He is best known for his work on television, particularly for playing Henry Grubstick on the ABC comedy-drama series Ugly Betty, Auggie Anderson on the action-drama series Covert Affairs, Bob Barnard on the dark comedy-drama series Insatiable, Harrison John on The WB’s teen comedy-drama series Popular, Henry Dunn in the limited slasher series Harper's Island, and Trevor Elliott on the legal drama series The Lincoln Lawyer. Read more
• 14 Aug 1973: Jared Borgetti, Mexican footballer Jared Francisco Borgetti Echavarría is a Mexican former professional footballer who works as a commentator for ESPN Deportes and ESPN Mexico. Read more
• 14 Aug 1973: Kieren Perkins, Australian swimmer Kieren John Perkins is an Australian former freestyle swimmer. He specialised in the 1500-metre freestyle and won successive Olympic gold medals in this event in the 1990s. He won his first at the 1992 Olympics which he won in world record time and then at the 1996 Olympics when he defended his title. In total he won four Olympic medals. Read more
• 14 Aug 1972: Laurent Lamothe, Haitian businessman and politician, Prime Minister of Haiti Laurent Salvador Lamothe is a Haitian businessman, technology entrepreneur, and political figure who has served in the government of Haiti as Foreign Minister beginning in October 2011, then as Prime Minister after appointment on 4 May 2012. On 14 December 2014, Lamothe resigned from his position as Prime Minister. More recently Lamothe has publicly spoken about the urgent need for the return of law and order in Haiti. Read more
• 14 Aug 1971: Raoul Bova, Italian actor, producer, and screenwriter Raoul Bova is an Italian actor. Bova's European film breakthrough was in the 1993 film Piccolo grande amore, and he's played romantic male leads in the following years. His American film credits include Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), Alien vs. Predator (2004) and The Tourist (2010). Read more
• 14 Aug 1971: Benito Carbone, Italian footballer Benito Carbone is an Italian football manager and former professional player. Since July 2025, he is the head coach of Inter Milan's under-20 side. Read more
• 14 Aug 1971: Peter Franzén, Finnish actor Peter Vilhelm Franzén is a Finnish actor, author, screenwriter, and director. He is best known for his role as King Harald Finehair in Vikings (2016–2020). Read more
• 14 Aug 1971: Mark Loretta, American baseball player Mark David Loretta is an American former professional baseball infielder. He played 15 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) between 1995 and 2009 for the Milwaukee Brewers, Houston Astros, San Diego Padres, Boston Red Sox, and Los Angeles Dodgers. Read more
• 14 Aug 1970: Kevin Cadogan, American rock guitarist: 2005 Kevin Rene Cadogan is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and guitarist. A founding member of the band Third Eye Blind, he performed with the band from 1993 to 2000. He co-wrote some of Third Eye Blind's most notable hits, including "How's It Going to Be", "Losing a Whole Year", and "Graduate", ten of the fourteen songs on their debut album Third Eye Blind as well as six of the thirteen tracks on his final collaboration with the band in their second album Blue. Read more
• 14 Aug 1969: Tracy Caldwell Dyson, American chemist and astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson is an American chemist and NASA astronaut. She was a mission specialist on Space Shuttle Endeavour flight STS-118 in August 2007 and has participated in two long-duration missions to the International Space Station, Expedition 23 and 24 from April to September 2010 and Expedition 70 and 71 from March to September 2024. She has completed four spacewalks, logging nearly 24 hours of extravehicular activity. Read more
• 14 Aug 1969: Stig Tøfting, Danish footballer Stig Tøfting, commonly known as Tøffe, is a Danish former professional footballer and assistant coach, who most recently was the assistant of Erik Rasmussen at AGF. Read more
• 14 Aug 1968: Ben Bass, American actor Ben Bass is an American-Canadian actor. He is best known for his role as officer/detective Sam Swarek on the Global police television series Rookie Blue, which also aired on ABC. Read more
• 14 Aug 1968: Catherine Bell, English-American actress and producer Catherine Lisa Bell is a British and American actress known for her roles as Lieutenant Colonel Sarah MacKenzie in the television series JAG from 1997 to 2005, Denise Sherwood in the series Army Wives from 2007 to 2013, and Cassandra "Cassie" Nightingale in Hallmark's The Good Witch films and television series from 2008 to 2021. Read more
• 14 Aug 1968: Darren Clarke, Northern Irish golfer Darren Christopher Clarke is a professional golfer from Northern Ireland who currently plays on the PGA Tour Champions. Previously he played on the European Tour and PGA Tour. He has won 21 tournaments worldwide, including on the Japan Golf Tour and Sunshine Tour. His biggest victory came when he won the 2011 Open Championship at Royal St George's in England, his first major win after more than 20 years and 54 attempts. Read more
• 14 Aug 1968: Jason Leonard, English rugby player Jason Leonard is an English former rugby union player. He won a then-record 114 caps for England men’s rugby team during a 14-year international career. Read more
• 14 Aug 1966: Halle Berry, American model, actress, and producer Halle Maria Berry is an American actress. She began her career as a model and beauty contestant becoming Miss Ohio USA in 1986, first runner-up in Miss USA 1986 and placing sixth in Miss World 1986. Her early film roles include Boomerang (1992), The Flintstones (1994) and Bulworth (1998). She later produced and starred in the television film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999), for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Read more
• 14 Aug 1966: Karl Petter Løken, Swedish-Norwegian footballer Karl Petter "Kalle" Løken is a Norwegian businessman and former footballer. He became the CEO of Kværner ASA in May 2018. Read more
• 14 Aug 1965: Paul Broadhurst, English golfer Paul Andrew Broadhurst is an English professional golfer. He won six times on the European Tour and played in the 1991 Ryder Cup. A former World Top 50 player, since turning fifty he has had success in senior events, winning the 2016 Senior Open Championship and the 2018 Senior PGA Championship. Read more
• 14 Aug 1964: Neal Anderson, American football player and coach Charles Neal Anderson is an American former professional football player who was a running back for eight seasons with the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL) during the 1980s and 1990s. Anderson played college football for the Florida Gators. He was a first-round pick in the 1986 NFL draft and was a four-time Pro Bowl selection with the Bears. Read more
• 14 Aug 1964: Jason Dunstall, Australian footballer Jason Hadfield Dunstall is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Hawthorn Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Read more
• 14 Aug 1963: José Cóceres, Argentinian golfer José Eusebio Cóceres is an Argentine professional golfer who spent many years on the European Tour and the PGA Tour. Read more
• 14 Aug 1962: Mark Gubicza, American baseball player Mark Steven Gubicza, nicknamed "Gubie", is an American former professional baseball pitcher and current sportscaster. Gubicza played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City Royals (1984–96) and Anaheim Angels (1997). He is a color commentator for Los Angeles Angels games on FanDuel Sports Network West. Read more
• 14 Aug 1961: Susan Olsen, American actress and radio host Susan Marie Olsen is an American actress and former radio personality. Olsen is known for her role as Cindy Brady, the youngest Brady child in the sitcom The Brady Bunch for the full run of the show, from 1969 to 1974. Read more
• 14 Aug 1960: Sarah Brightman, English singer and actress Sarah Brightman is an English classical crossover soprano singer and actress. Read more
• 14 Aug 1960: Fred Roberts, American basketball player Frederick Clark Roberts is an American former basketball player who played power forward in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for 13 seasons, a career spanning from 1983 to 1997, becoming a successful journeymen in the league. He also played in FC Barcelona of the Liga ACB. Read more
• 14 Aug 1959: Frank Brickowski, American basketball player Francis Anthony Brickowski is an American former professional basketball player, who started his career playing 3 seasons overseas before playing 13 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Read more
• 14 Aug 1959: Marcia Gay Harden, American actress Marcia Gay Harden is an American actress. Her breakthrough came in 1990 with the Coen brothers' film Miller's Crossing. She received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Pollock (2000) and Mystic River (2003), winning for her portrayal of artist Lee Krasner in the former. Her other notable film credits include The First Wives Club (1996), Flubber (1997), Space Cowboys (2000), Mona Lisa Smile (2003), and the Fifty Shades film series (2015–2018). Read more
• 14 Aug 1959: Magic Johnson, American basketball player and coach Earvin "Magic" Johnson Jr. is an American businessman and former professional basketball player. He is widely regarded as the greatest point guard of all time and one of the greatest basketball players in history. Johnson spent his entire career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). After winning a national championship with the Michigan State Spartans in 1979, Johnson was selected first overall in the 1979 NBA draft by the Lakers, then led the team to five NBA championships during their "Showtime" era. Johnson retired abruptly in 1991 after announcing that he had contracted HIV, but returned to play in the 1992 All-Star Game, winning the All-Star MVP Award. He retired again after fellow players protested his return, but returned in 1996, at age 36, to play 32 games for the Lakers before retiring for the third and final time. Read more
• 14 Aug 1957: Peter Costello, Australian lawyer and politician Peter Howard Costello is an Australian former politician and barrister who served as the treasurer of Australia from 1996 to 2007 and the deputy leader of the Liberal Party from 1994 to 2007. He was the member of parliament (MP) for the Victorian division of Higgins from 1990 to 2009. Read more
• 14 Aug 1956: Jackée Harry, American actress and television personality Jacqueline Yvonne "Jackée" Harry is an American actress, comedian, and television personality. She starred as Sandra Clark, the nemesis of Mary Jenkins, on the NBC sitcom 227 (1985–1990), and as Lisa Landry on the ABC/The WB sitcom Sister, Sister (1994–1999). Harry was the first African American to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. Read more
• 14 Aug 1956: Andy King, English footballer and manager (died 2015) Andrew Edward King was an English professional footballer who played as a midfielder. He made 350 appearances and scored 92 goals in the Football League in the 1970s and 1980s, and also played abroad. He was capped twice by England at under-21 level. After retiring as a player, he had a lengthy career in management. Read more
• 14 Aug 1956: Rusty Wallace, American race car driver Russell William Wallace Jr. is an American former professional stock car racing driver and team owner, who raced from 1980 to 2005 in the former NASCAR Winston Cup Series, most notably driving the No. 2 nicknamed "Midnight" for Penske Racing. Read more
• 14 Aug 1954: Mark Fidrych, American baseball player and sportscaster (died 2009) Mark Steven Fidrych, nicknamed "the Bird", was an American professional baseball pitcher who played five seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Detroit Tigers. Read more
• 14 Aug 1954: Stanley A. McChrystal, American general Stanley Allen McChrystal is a retired United States Army general best known for his command of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) from 2003 to 2008 during which his organization was credited with the elimination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. His final assignment was as Commander, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Commander, United States Forces – Afghanistan (USFOR-A). He previously served as Director, Joint Staff from August 2008 to June 2009. McChrystal received criticism for his alleged role in the cover-up of the Pat Tillman friendly fire incident. McChrystal was reportedly known for saying what other military leaders were thinking but were afraid to say; this was one of the reasons cited for his appointment to lead all forces in Afghanistan. He held the post from 15 June 2009 to 23 June 2010. Read more
• 14 Aug 1953: James Horner, American composer and conductor (died 2015) James Roy Horner was an American film composer and conductor. He is known for the integration of choral and electronic elements alongside traditional orchestrations, and for his use of motifs associated with Celtic music. Read more
• 14 Aug 1952: Debbie Meyer, American swimmer Deborah Elizabeth Meyer, also known by her married name Deborah Meyer Weber, is an American former competition swimmer, a 1968 three-time Olympic champion, and a former world record-holder in five freestyle events: 200, 400, 800, and 1500 meters, and 880yd freestyle. Read more
• 14 Aug 1951: Slim Dunlap, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2024) Robert Bruce "Slim" Dunlap was an American rock musician. He was a Minnesota-based guitarist and singer-songwriter who was best known as a member of the Replacements from 1987 to 1991, replacing original lead guitarist Bob Stinson. Dunlap also recorded two solo albums in the mid-1990s. Read more
• 14 Aug 1951: Carl Lumbly, American actor Carl Winston Lumbly is an American actor. He is best known for M.A.N.T.I.S. (1994–1997) and has also had television roles on Cagney & Lacey (1982–1988) and Alias (2001–2006). Read more
• 14 Aug 1950: Gary Larson, American cartoonist Gary Larson is an American cartoonist who created The Far Side, a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to more than 1,900 newspapers for fifteen years. The series ended on January 1, 1995, though since 2020 Larson has published additional comics online. His twenty-three books of collected cartoons have combined sales of more than forty-five million copies. Read more
• 14 Aug 1949: Bob Backlund, American wrestler Robert Louis Backlund is an American retired amateur and professional wrestler. He is best known for his appearances in the World Wide Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Federation from 1976 to 1984 and in the 1990s, where he held the WWWF/WWF Championship on two occasions. His 2,135-day reign is recognized as the second longest in the championship's history. Backlund was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013. Read more
• 14 Aug 1949: Morten Olsen, Danish footballer Morten Per Olsen is a Danish former football manager and former player. He was the head coach of the Denmark national team for 15 years from 2000 until 2015, guiding Denmark to the 2002 FIFA World Cup, 2004 European Championship, 2010 FIFA World Cup and 2012 European Championship. He has also managed Brøndby to two Danish Superliga championships and Ajax to the Double of the 1998 Eredivisie championship and Dutch Cup trophy. He is one of only two persons ever in football, alongside Didier Deschamps, to achieve 100 national matches for his country both as player as well as coach. Read more
• 14 Aug 1947: Maddy Prior, English folk singer Madeleine Edith Prior is an English folk rock singer, best known as the lead vocalist of Steeleye Span. She was born in Blackpool and moved to St Albans in her teens. Her father, Allan Prior, was co-creator of the police drama Z-Cars. She was married to Steeleye bass guitarist Rick Kemp, and their daughter, Rose Kemp, is also a singer. Their son, Alex Kemp, is also a guitarist and has deputised for his father playing bass guitar for Steeleye Span. Read more
• 14 Aug 1947: Danielle Steel, American author Danielle Fernandes Dominique Schuelein-Steel is an American writer best known for her romance novels. She is the bestselling living author and the fourth-best-selling fiction author of all time, with over 800 million copies sold. As of 2024, she has written 210 books, including over 182 novels. Read more
• 14 Aug 1947: Joop van Daele, Dutch footballer (died 2025) Johannes Cornelis "Joop" van Daele was a Dutch footballer who played as a defender. Read more
• 14 Aug 1946: Antonio Fargas, American actor Antonio Fargas is an American actor known for his roles in 1970s blaxploitation and comedy movies, as well as his portrayal as Huggy Bear in the 1970s TV series Starsky & Hutch. Read more
• 14 Aug 1946: Larry Graham, American soul/funk bass player and singer-songwriter Larry Graham Jr. is an American bassist and baritone singer, with the psychedelic soul/funk band Sly and the Family Stone and as the founder and frontman of Graham Central Station. In 1980, he released the single "One in a Million You", which reached the top ten on the US Billboard Hot 100. He is credited with the invention of the slapping technique on the electric bass guitar, which radically expanded the tonal palette of the bass, although he himself refers to the technique as "thumpin' and pluckin'". Read more
• 14 Aug 1946: Susan Saint James, American actress Susan Saint James is an American former actress. She is most widely known for the spy series It Takes a Thief, detective series McMillan & Wife (1971–1976) and the sitcom Kate & Allie (1984–1989). Read more
• 14 Aug 1946: Tom Walkinshaw, Scottish race car driver and businessman (died 2010) Thomas Dobbie Thomson Walkinshaw was a British racing car driver from Scotland and the founder of the racing team Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR). He was also involved in professional rugby union, as owner of Gloucester Rugby, and chairman of the team owners organisation for the Aviva Premiership. Read more
• 14 Aug 1945: Steve Martin, American actor, comedian, musician, producer, and screenwriter Stephen Glenn Martin is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and musician. Known for his work in comedy films, television, and recording, he has received many accolades, including five Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award as well as nominations for eight Golden Globe Awards and two Tony Awards. Martin received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2005, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, the Honorary Academy Award in 2013, and an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2015. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Martin at sixth place in a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics. Read more
• 14 Aug 1945: Wim Wenders, German director, producer, and screenwriter Wim Wenders is a German filmmaker and photographer. Regarded as a major figure of New German Cinema and widely considered an auteur director, he has received various accolades, including a BAFTA Award, a Palme d'Or, a Golden Lion, and an Honorary Golden Bear, in addition to nominations for three Academy Awards, an Emmy Award, and a Grammy Award. Read more
• 14 Aug 1944: Ahad Hosseini, Iranian Azerbaijani artist Sayyid Ahad Hosseini is an Iranian Azerbaijani sculptor and painter. He is sometimes regarded as a patriotic figure and national symbol of Iran. Read more
• 14 Aug 1943: Ronnie Campbell, English miner and politician (died 2024) Ronald Campbell was a British Labour politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Blyth Valley from 1987 until 2019. Read more
• 14 Aug 1943: Ben Sidran, American jazz and rock keyboardist Ben Hirsh Sidran is an American jazz and rock keyboardist, producer, label owner, and music writer. Early in his career he was a member of the Steve Miller Band and is the father of Grammy-nominated musician, composer and performer Leo Sidran. Read more
• 14 Aug 1942: Willie Dunn, Canadian singer-songwriter and producer (died 2013) William Lawrence Dunn was a Canadian singer-songwriter, film director and politician. Born in Montreal, he was of mixed Mi'kmaq and Scottish/Irish background. Dunn often highlighted indigenous issues in his work. Read more
• 14 Aug 1941: David Crosby, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2023) David Van Cortlandt Crosby was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He first found fame as a member of the Byrds, with whom he helped pioneer the genres of folk rock and psychedelia in the mid-1960s, and later as part of the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash, which helped popularize the California sound of the 1970s. In addition to his music, Crosby was known for his outspoken personality, politics, and personal troubles: he was sometimes depicted as emblematic of the counterculture of the 1960s. Read more
• 14 Aug 1941: Connie Smith, American country music singer-songwriter and guitarist Constance June Stuart, known professionally as Connie Smith, is an American country music singer and songwriter. Her contralto vocals have been described by music writers as significant and influential to the women of country music. Read more
• 14 Aug 1938: Bennie Muller, Dutch footballer (died 2024) Bernardus "Bennie" Muller was a Dutch professional footballer who played as a midfielder for Ajax, Holland Sport, and the Netherlands national team. Read more
• 14 Aug 1935: John Brodie, American football player John Riley Brodie was an American professional football player who was a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) for 17 seasons. He had a second career as a Senior PGA Tour professional golfer and was a television broadcaster for both sports. Read more
• 14 Aug 1933: Richard R. Ernst, Swiss chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2021) Richard Robert Ernst was a Swiss physical chemist and Nobel laureate. Read more
• 14 Aug 1932: Lee Hoffman, American author (died 2007) Shirley Bell Hoffman (1932–2007) was an American science fiction fan, an editor of early folk music fanzines, and an author of science fiction, Western and romance novels. She wrote as Lee Hoffman. Read more
• 14 Aug 1931: Frederic Raphael, American journalist, author, and screenwriter Frederic Michael Raphael is an American-born British novelist, biographer, journalist and Oscar-winning screenwriter, known for writing the screenplays for Darling, Far from the Madding Crowd, Two for the Road, and Stanley Kubrick's last film Eyes Wide Shut. Raphael rose to prominence in the early 1960s with the publication of several acclaimed novels, but most notably with the release of the John Schlesinger film Darling, starring Julie Christie and Dirk Bogarde, a romantic drama set in Swinging London, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1966. Two years later he was nominated again in the same category, this time for his work on Stanley Donen’s Two for the Road, starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney. Since the death of screenwriter D. M. Marshman Jr. in 2015, he is the earliest surviving recipient of the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and the sole surviving recipient of the now retired BAFTA category of Best British Screenplay. Read more
• 14 Aug 1930: Arthur Latham, British politician and Member of Parliament (died 2016) Arthur Charles Latham was a British Labour Party politician, who was the MP for Paddington North from 1969 to 1974, and its successor seat, Paddington, from that year until 1979. Read more
• 14 Aug 1930: Earl Weaver, American baseball player and manager (died 2013) Earl Sidney Weaver was an American professional baseball manager, author, and television color commentator. Weaver played in minor league baseball as a second baseman from 1948 to 1960. In 1956, he began his managerial career, serving as a player–manager for five seasons before he stopped playing to concentrate on managing, without ever having played in Major League Baseball (MLB). He progressed through the minor league system before going on to become a manager in the Major Leagues with the Baltimore Orioles, winning a World Series championship in 1970. He was a three-time Manager of the Year. In 1996, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Read more
• 14 Aug 1929: Giacomo Capuzzi, Italian Roman Catholic prelate, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lodi from 1989 to 2005 (died 2021). Giacomo Capuzzi was an Italian Roman Catholic prelate, who served as a bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lodi. Read more
• 14 Aug 1929: Dick Tiger, Nigerian boxer (died 1971) Richard Ihetu GCOI, professionally known as Dick Tiger was a Nigerian professional boxer and former military officer of the Biafran army often regarded as one of the best boxers of the 20th century and one of the greatest boxers of his generation, Tiger held the undisputed middleweight and light-heavyweight championships making him the first African to do so. He is the first African to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Read more
• 14 Aug 1928: Lina Wertmüller, Italian director and screenwriter (died 2021) Arcangela Felice Assunta "Lina" Wertmüller was an Italian film director and screenwriter. She is best known for her 1970s art house films Seven Beauties, The Seduction of Mimi, Love and Anarchy, and Swept Away. Read more
• 14 Aug 1926: René Goscinny, French author and illustrator (died 1977) René Goscinny was a French comic editor and writer, who created the Asterix comic book series with illustrator Albert Uderzo. Born in France to a Jewish family from Poland, he spent his childhood in Argentina where he attended French schools and later lived in the United States for a short period of time. There he met Belgian cartoonist Morris. After his return to France, they collaborated for more than 20 years on the comic series Lucky Luke. Read more
• 14 Aug 1926: Buddy Greco, American singer and pianist (died 2017) Armando Joseph "Buddy" Greco was an American jazz and pop singer and pianist who had a long career in the US and UK. His recordings have sold millions, including "Oh Look A-There Ain't She Pretty", "Up, Up and Away", and "Around the World". His most successful single was "The Lady Is a Tramp", which sold over one million copies. During his career, he recorded over sixty albums. He conducted the London Symphony Orchestra and performed for Queen Elizabeth II and with the Beatles. Read more
• 14 Aug 1925: Russell Baker, American critic and essayist (died 2019) Russell Wayne Baker was an American journalist, narrator, writer of Pulitzer Prize-winning satirical commentary and self-critical prose, and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography Growing Up (1982). He was a columnist for The New York Times for 36 years, and hosted eleven seasons of the PBS show Masterpiece Theatre. The Forbes Media Guide Five Hundred, 1994 stated: "Baker, thanks to his singular gift of treating serious, even tragic events and trends with gentle humor, has become an American institution." Read more
• 14 Aug 1924: Sverre Fehn, Norwegian architect, designed the Hedmark Museum (died 2009) Sverre Fehn was a Norwegian architect. Read more
• 14 Aug 1924: Georges Prêtre, French conductor (died 2017) Georges Prêtre was a French orchestral and opera conductor. Read more
• 14 Aug 1923: Alice Ghostley, American actress (died 2007) Alice Margaret Ghostley was an American actress and singer on stage, film and television. Ghostley was best known for her roles as bumbling witch Esmeralda (1969–72) on Bewitched, as Cousin Alice (1970–71) on Mayberry R.F.D., and as Bernice Clifton (1986–93) on Designing Women. Read more
• 14 Aug 1916: Frank and John Craighead, American naturalists (twins, Frank d. 2001, John d. 2016) Frank Cooper Craighead Jr. and John Johnson Craighead, twin brothers, were American conservationists, naturalists, and researchers who made important contributions to the studies of falconry and grizzly bear biology. The brothers were born in Washington, D.C., where both graduated from Western High School in 1935. The brothers began collecting and identifying animals and plants they found alongside the Potomac and soon expanded their interests to birds and hawks. They traveled west in 1934 to begin studying falconry. After World War II, during which they were employed as survival trainers, they each married and resumed their work in falconry. During the 1950s, the Craighead brothers expanded their work to other animals, including many species living in and around Yellowstone, and eventually separated. Read more
• 14 Aug 1916: Wellington Mara, American businessman (died 2005) Wellington Timothy Mara was an American professional football executive. He was the co-owner of the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL) from 1959 until his death. He was the younger son of Tim Mara, who founded the Giants in 1925. Wellington was a ball boy that year. Read more
• 14 Aug 1915: B. A. Santamaria, Australian political activist and publisher (died 1998) Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria, usually known as B. A. Santamaria or Bob Santamaria and sometimes writing under the pseudonym John Williams, was an Australian anti-communist political activist and journalist. A Roman Catholic, he was a guiding influence in the founding of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), the party that split from the Labor Party (ALP) in the 1950s. Read more
• 14 Aug 1914: Herman Branson, American physicist, chemist, and academic (died 1995) Herman Russell Branson was an American physicist, chemist, best known for his research on the α protein structure, and was also the president of two colleges. He received a fellowship from the Rosenwald Foundation. He was one of the first African American physicists to make crystallography the focus of his research. Read more
• 14 Aug 1913: Hector Crawford, Australian director and producer (died 1991) Hector William Crawford AO, CBE was an Australian entrepreneur, conductor and media mogul, best known for his radio and television production firms. He and his sister Dorothy Crawford founded Crawford Productions, which was responsible for many iconic programs and initiated the careers of a number of notable Australian actors and entertainers. His influence on the Australian entertainment industry was immense and enduring, and one obituary described him as "one of the best-known and most respected names in the history of Australian entertainment". Read more
• 14 Aug 1913: Paul Dean, American baseball player (died 1981) Paul Dee Dean, nicknamed "Daffy", was an American Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher. Born in Lucas, Arkansas, he pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals (1934–1939), the New York Giants (1940–1941), and the St. Louis Browns (1943). Read more
• 14 Aug 1912: Frank Oppenheimer, American physicist and academic (died 1985) Frank Friedman Oppenheimer was an American particle physicist, cattle rancher, professor of physics at the University of Colorado, and the founder of the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Read more
• 14 Aug 1910: Nüzhet Gökdoğan, Turkish astronomer and mathematician (died 2003) Hatice Nüzhet Gökdoğan was a Turkish astronomer, mathematician and academic. After studying mathematics and astronomy in France as a young adult, Gökdoğan joined the faculty of Istanbul University in 1934 and completed her PhD. She was elected Dean of the university's Faculty of Science in 1954, becoming the first Turkish woman to serve as a university dean, and she was later made Chair of the astronomy department, significantly expanding her department's capacity and working to improve national and international collaboration between astronomers. Read more
• 14 Aug 1910: Willy Ronis, French photographer (died 2009) Willy Ronis was a French photographer. His best-known work shows life in post-war Paris and Provence. Read more
• 14 Aug 1910: Pierre Schaeffer, French composer and producer (died 1995) Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist, acoustician and founder of Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC). His innovative work in both the sciences—particularly communications and acoustics—and the various arts of music, literature and radio presentation after the end of World War II, as well as his anti-nuclear activism and cultural criticism garnered him widespread recognition in his lifetime. Read more
• 14 Aug 1900: Margret Boveri, German journalist (died 1975) Margret Antonie Boveri was one of the best-known German journalists and writers of the post-World War II period. She was a recipient of the German Critics' Prize and the Bundesverdienstkreuz. Read more
• 14 Aug 1896: Albert Ball, English fighter pilot (died 1917) Albert Ball, was a British fighter pilot during the First World War. At the time of his death he was the United Kingdom's leading flying ace, with 44 victories, and remained its fourth-highest scorer behind Edward Mannock, James McCudden and George McElroy. Read more
• 14 Aug 1896: Theodor Luts, Estonian director and cinematographer (died 1980) Theodor Luts was an Estonian film director and cinematographer, brother of classic writer Oskar Luts. Theodor Luts was the first major figure of Estonian cinematography Read more
• 14 Aug 1895: Jack Gregory, Australian cricketer (died 1973) Jack Morrison Gregory was an Australian cricketer. Read more
• 14 Aug 1895: Amaza Lee Meredith, American architect (died 1984) Amaza Lee Meredith was an American architect, educator and artist. Meredith was unable to enter the profession as an architect because of "both her race and her sex" as an African-American woman, and worked primarily as an art teacher at Virginia State University, where she founded the art department. Sex and race wasn't the only factor that was challenging at the time. Amaza Lee Meredith lived authentically as an African-American Queer artist despite at the time heterosexual norms. She is best known for her residence, Azurest South, where she and her partner, Dr. Edna Meade Colson, resided together. Moreover, she co-founded the Azurest Syndicate Inc., a vacation destination for black middle class Americans on Sag Harbor, New York. As an educated black woman, Meredith is a rare example of a financially and socially independent black woman living in the time of Jim Crow Segregation Laws. Read more
• 14 Aug 1894: Frank Burge, Australian rugby league player and coach (died 1958) Frank Burge was an Australian rugby league footballer. He was one of the greatest forwards in the history of rugby league in Australia, and later became one of the game's finest coaches. His club career was with Glebe and the St. George Dragons. He represented New South Wales on twenty-six occasions and played thirteen test matches for the Australia and played for the Kangaroos in a further twenty-three tour matches. Read more
• 14 Aug 1892: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, English pianist, composer, and critic (died 1988) Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji was an English composer, music critic, pianist and writer. His music, written over a period of seventy years, ranges from sets of miniatures to works lasting several hours. One of the most prolific 20th-century composers, he is best known for his piano pieces, notably nocturnes such as Gulistān and Villa Tasca, and large-scale, technically intricate compositions, which include seven symphonies for piano solo, four toccatas, Sequentia cyclica and 100 Transcendental Studies. He felt alienated from English society by reason of his homosexuality and mixed ancestry, and had a lifelong tendency to seclusion. Read more
• 14 Aug 1890: Bruno Tesch, German chemist and businessman (died 1946) Bruno Emil Tesch was a German chemist, entrepreneur, and war criminal. Together with Gerhard Peters and Walter Heerdt, he invented the insecticide Zyklon B. He was the owner of Tesch & Stabenow, a pest control company he co-founded in 1924 with Paul Stabenow in Hamburg, Germany. During the Holocaust, Tesch sold vast quantities of Zyklon B, utilising his pesticide as a way to commit genocide. Over 1.1 million people were murdered by the Nazis using Zyklon B. A former employee of Tesch later said he was motivated not by ideology, but financial gain. Read more
• 14 Aug 1889: Otto Tief, Estonian lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of Estonia (died 1976) Otto Tief was an Estonian politician, military commander, and a lawyer. Read more
• 14 Aug 1886: Arthur Jeffrey Dempster, Canadian-American physicist and academic (died 1950) Arthur Jeffrey Dempster was a Canadian-American physicist best known for his work in mass spectrometry and his discovery in 1935 of the uranium isotope 235U. As part of his research, he investigated the isotopic constitution of multiple other elements. Read more
• 14 Aug 1883: Ernest Everett Just, American biologist and academic (died 1941) Ernest Everett Just was an American biologist, academic and science writer. Just's primary legacy is his recognition of the fundamental role of the cell surface in the development of organisms. In his work within marine biology, cytology and parthenogenesis, he advocated the study of whole cells under normal conditions, rather than simply breaking them apart in a laboratory setting. Read more
• 14 Aug 1881: Francis Ford, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1953) Francis Ford was an American film actor, writer and director. He was the mentor and elder brother of film director John Ford. As an actor, director and producer, he was one of the first filmmakers in Hollywood. Read more
• 14 Aug 1876: Alexander I of Serbia (died 1903) Alexander I reigned as the king of Serbia from 1889 to 1903 when he and his wife, Draga Mašin, were assassinated by a group of Royal Serbian Army officers, led by Captain Dragutin Dimitrijević. Read more
• 14 Aug 1875: Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Russian-Lithuanian painter and illustrator (died 1957) Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky or Dobujinsky was a Russian-Lithuanian artist noted for his cityscapes conveying the explosive growth and decay of the early 20th-century city. Read more
• 14 Aug 1871: Guangxu Emperor of China (died 1908) The Guangxu Emperor, also known by his temple name Emperor Dezong of Qing, personal name Zaitian, was the tenth and penultimate emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His succession was endorsed by dowager empresses Ci'an and Cixi for political reasons after the Tongzhi Emperor died without an heir. Cixi held political power for much of Guangxu's reign as regent, except for the period between his assumption of ruling powers in 1889 and the Hundred Days' Reform in 1898. Read more
• 14 Aug 1867: Cupid Childs, American baseball player (died 1912) Clarence Lemuel "Cupid" Childs was an American second baseman in Major League Baseball with a 13-season career from 1888, 1890–1901, playing for the Philadelphia Quakers, Cleveland Spiders, St. Louis Perfectos and Chicago Orphans of the National League and the Syracuse Stars of the American Association. Read more
• 14 Aug 1867: John Galsworthy, English novelist and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1933) John Galsworthy was an English novelist and playwright. He is best known for his trilogy of novels collectively called The Forsyte Saga, and two later trilogies, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter. He was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature. Read more
• 14 Aug 1866: Charles Jean de la Vallée-Poussin, Belgian mathematician and academic (died 1962) Charles-Jean Étienne Gustave Nicolas, baron de La Vallée Poussin was a Belgian mathematician. He is best known for proving the prime number theorem. Read more
• 14 Aug 1865: Guido Castelnuovo, Italian mathematician and academic (died 1952) Guido Castelnuovo was an Italian mathematician best known for his contributions to the field of algebraic geometry. He is also renowned for his contributions to the study of statistics and probability theory. Read more
• 14 Aug 1863: Ernest Thayer, American poet and author (died 1940) Ernest Lawrence Thayer was an American writer and poet who wrote the poem "Casey", which is "the single most famous baseball poem ever written" according to the Baseball Almanac, and "the nation’s best-known piece of comic verse—a ballad that began a native legend as colorful and permanent as that of Johnny Appleseed or Paul Bunyan". Read more
• 14 Aug 1860: Ernest Thompson Seton, American author, artist, and naturalist (died 1946) Ernest Thompson Seton was a Canadian and American author, wildlife artist, founder of the Woodcraft Indians in 1902, and one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) in 1910. Read more
• 14 Aug 1851: Doc Holliday, American dentist and gambler (died 1887) John Henry Holliday, better known as Doc Holliday, was an American dentist, gambler, and gunfighter who was a close friend and associate of lawman Wyatt Earp. Holliday is best known for his role in the events surrounding and his participation in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. He developed a reputation as having killed more than a dozen men in various altercations, but modern researchers have concluded that, contrary to popular myth-making, Holliday killed between one and three men. Holliday's colorful life and character have been depicted in many books and portrayed by well-known actors in numerous movies and television series. Read more
• 14 Aug 1848: Margaret Lindsay Huggins, Anglo-Irish astronomer and author (died 1915) Margaret Lindsay, Lady Huggins was an Irish-English scientific investigator and astronomer. With her husband William Huggins she was a pioneer in the field of spectroscopy and co-wrote the Atlas of Representative Stellar Spectra (1897). Read more
• 14 Aug 1847: Robert Comtesse, Swiss lawyer and politician (died 1922) Robert Comtesse was a Swiss politician and member of the Swiss Federal Council (1899-1912). Read more
• 14 Aug 1840: Richard von Krafft-Ebing, German-Austrian psychologist and author (died 1902) Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing was a German psychiatrist and author of the foundational work Psychopathia Sexualis (1886). Read more
• 14 Aug 1817: Alexander H. Bailey, American lawyer, judge, and politician (died 1874) Alexander Hamilton Bailey was an American politician, a United States representative and judge from New York. Read more
• 14 Aug 1814: Charlotte Fowler Wells, American phrenologist and publisher (died 1901) Charlotte Fowler Wells was an American phrenologist and publisher from New York. Along with her brothers, Orson Squire Fowler and Lorenzo Niles Fowler, her sister-in-law, Lydia Folger Fowler, and her husband, Samuel Roberts Wells, she was an early American popularizer of phrenology. Wells published the American Phrenological Journal, and taught the first class in phrenology in the United States. She founded Fowler & Wells Company, served as vice-president of the American Institute of Phrenology, and was a trustee of the New York Medical College for Women. Read more
• 14 Aug 1802: Letitia Elizabeth Landon, English poet and novelist (died 1838) Letitia Elizabeth Landon was an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L.E.L. Her first major breakthrough came with The Improvisatrice and she developed the metrical romance towards the Victorian ideal of the Victorian monologue, influencing fellow English writers such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson and Christina Rossetti. Her influence can also be found in the United States, where she was very popular. Edgar Allan Poe regarded her genius as self-evident. Read more

Notable Deaths on 14 August

• 14 Aug 2025: Mike Castle, American politician, 69th Governor of Delaware (born 1939) Michael Newbold Castle was an American politician and lawyer who served as the U.S. representative for Delaware's at-large congressional district from 1993 to 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 69th governor of Delaware from 1985 to 1992, lieutenant governor from 1981 to 1985, and as a member of the Delaware General Assembly from 1967 to 1977. As of 2025, Castle is the most recent Republican to represent Delaware in the U.S. Congress and to have been elected governor of the state. Read more
• 14 Aug 2024: Gena Rowlands, American actress (born 1930) Virginia Cathryn "Gena" Rowlands was an American actress, whose career in film, stage, and television spanned nearly seven decades. She was a four-time Emmy Award and two-time Golden Globe winner, and she was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Read more
• 14 Aug 2023: Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, Bangladeshi Islamic lecturer, politician (born 1940) Delwar Hossain Sayeedi was a Bangladeshi Islamic leader, politician and scholar who served as a Member of Parliament representing the Pirojpur-1 constituency from 1996 to 2006. Before entering politics, Sayeedi was known for delivering Islamic lectures at various Waz Mahfils across the country to large audiences.
  Due to his role as a mufassir, Sayeedi received praise from the Saudi Arabian Chief Imam Sheikh Sudais, the President of the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques. Read more
• 14 Aug 2021: Michael Aung-Thwin, American historian and scholar of Burmese and Southeast Asian history (born 1946) Michael Arthur Aung-Thwin was a Burmese American historian and emeritus professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, specializing in early Southeast Asian and Burmese history. Read more
• 14 Aug 2020: Julian Bream, English classical guitarist and lutenist (born 1933) Julian Alexander Bream was an English classical guitarist and lutenist. Regarded as one of the most distinguished classical guitarists of the 20th century, he played a significant role in improving the public perception of the classical guitar as a respectable instrument. Over the course of a career that spanned more than half a century, Bream also helped revive interest in the lute. Read more
• 14 Aug 2020: Angela Buxton, British tennis player (born 1934) Angela Buxton was a British tennis player. She won the women's doubles title at both the French Championships and Wimbledon in 1956 with her playing partner, Althea Gibson. Read more
• 14 Aug 2020: James R. Thompson, American politician, Governor of Illinois (born 1936) James Robert Thompson Jr. was an American politician and federal prosecutor who served as the 37th governor of Illinois from 1977 to 1991. He was Illinois's longest-serving governor, serving four consecutive terms over fourteen years. Read more
• 14 Aug 2019: Polly Farmer, Australian footballer and coach (born 1935) Graham Vivian "Polly" Farmer was an Australian rules footballer who played for the Geelong Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL) and the East Perth Football Club and West Perth Football Club in the Western Australian National Football League (WANFL). Read more
• 14 Aug 2018: Jill Janus, American singer (born 1975) Jill Janus was an American singer who was the lead vocalist of heavy metal bands Huntress, The Starbreakers and Chelsea Girls. Read more
• 14 Aug 2016: Fyvush Finkel, American actor (born 1922) Philip "Fyvush" Finkel was an American actor and director known as a star of Yiddish theater and for his role as lawyer Douglas Wambaugh on the television series Picket Fences, for which he earned an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 1994. He is also known for his portrayal of Harvey Lipschultz, a crotchety history teacher, on the television series Boston Public. Read more
• 14 Aug 2015: Bob Johnston, American songwriter and producer (born 1932) Donald William "Bob" Johnston was an American record producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, and Simon & Garfunkel. Read more
• 14 Aug 2014: Leonard Fein, American journalist and academic, co-founded Moment Magazine (born 1934) Leonard J. Fein, also known as Leibel Fein, was an American activist, writer, and teacher specializing in Jewish social themes. Read more
• 14 Aug 2014: George V. Hansen, American politician (born 1930) George Vernon Hansen was an American politician from Idaho. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 14 years, representing Idaho's 2nd district from 1965 to 1969 and again from 1975 to 1985. Read more
• 14 Aug 2013: Jack Germond, American journalist and author (born 1928) John Worthen Germond was an American journalist, author, and pundit whose career spanned over 50 years. Germond wrote for the Washington Star and the Baltimore Sun, and was a longtime panelist on the television discussion show The McLaughlin Group. Together with Jules Witcover, Germond also co-wrote "Politics Today," a five-day-a-week syndicated column, for almost a quarter-century. Read more
• 14 Aug 2012: Vilasrao Deshmukh, Indian lawyer and politician, Chief Minister of Maharashtra (born 1945) Vilasrao Dagadojirao Deshmukh was an Indian politician who served as the 14th Chief Minister of Maharashtra, first term from 18 October 1999 to 16 January 2003 and second term, from 1 November 2004 to 5 December 2008. He also served in the Union cabinet as the Minister of Science and Technology and Minister of Earth Sciences. Read more
• 14 Aug 2012: Svetozar Gligorić, Serbian chess player (born 1923) Svetozar Gligorić was a Serbian chess grandmaster and musician. He won a record 11 titles at Yugoslav Chess Championship, a record 12 team medals at Chess Olympiad, and is considered the best player ever from Serbia and Yugoslavia. In 1958, he received the Golden Badge award for the best athlete of Yugoslavia. Read more
• 14 Aug 2012: Phyllis Thaxter, American actress (born 1919) Phyllis St. Felix Thaxter was an American actress. She is best known for portraying Ellen Lawson in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) and Martha "Ma" Kent in Superman (1978). She also appeared in Bewitched (1945),
  Blood on the Moon (1948), and The World of Henry Orient (1964). Read more
• 14 Aug 2010: Herman Leonard, American photographer (born 1923) Herman Leonard was an American photographer known for his unique images of jazz icons. Read more
• 14 Aug 2007: Tikhon Khrennikov, Russian pianist and composer (born 1913) Tikhon Nikolayevich Khrennikov was a Russian and Soviet composer, pianist, and General Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers (1948–1991), who was also known for his political activities. He wrote three symphonies, four piano concertos, two violin concertos, two cello concertos, operas, operettas, ballets, chamber music, incidental music and film music. Read more
• 14 Aug 2006: Bruno Kirby, American actor (born 1949) Bruno Kirby was an American actor. He was best known for his roles in City Slickers, When Harry Met Sally…, Good Morning, Vietnam, The Godfather Part II, The Freshman, Sleepers, Donnie Brasco, and This Is Spinal Tap. He voiced Reginald Stout in Stuart Little. Read more
• 14 Aug 2004: Czesław Miłosz, Polish-born American novelist, essayist, and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1911) Czesław Miłosz was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, the Swedish Academy called Miłosz a writer who "voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts". Read more
• 14 Aug 2004: Trevor Skeet, New Zealand-English lawyer and politician (born 1918) Sir Trevor Herbert Harry Skeet was a New Zealand-born lawyer and a British Conservative Party politician. Read more
• 14 Aug 2003: Helmut Rahn, German footballer (born 1929) Helmut Rahn, known as Der Boss, was a German footballer who played as a forward. He became a legend for having scored the winning goal in the final of the 1954 FIFA World Cup. Rahn, along with the German team, were decorated by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1972. Read more
• 14 Aug 2002: Larry Rivers, American painter and sculptor (born 1923) Larry Rivers was an American painter, musician, filmmaker, and occasional actor. Considered by many scholars to be the "Godfather" and "Grandfather" of Pop art, he was one of the first artists to merge non-objective, non-narrative art with narrative and objective abstraction. He was also a lover of the American poet Frank O’Hara, despite accounts falsely reducing their relationship to a platonic, professional relationship. Read more
• 14 Aug 1999: Pee Wee Reese, American baseball player and sportscaster (born 1918) Harold Peter Henry "Pee Wee" Reese was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a shortstop for the Brooklyn / Los Angeles Dodgers from 1940 to 1958. A ten-time All-Star, Reese contributed to seven National League championships for the Dodgers and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984. Read more
• 14 Aug 1996: Sergiu Celibidache, Romanian conductor and composer (born 1912) Sergiu Celibidache was a Romanian conductor, composer, musical theorist, and teacher. Educated in his native Romania, and later in Paris and Berlin, Celibidache's career in music spanned over five decades, including tenures as principal conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Radio France, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and many other European orchestras such as the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra or the London Symphony Orchestra. Read more
• 14 Aug 1994: Elias Canetti, Bulgarian-Swiss author, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1905) Elias Canetti was a German-language writer, known as a modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and nonfiction writer. Read more
• 14 Aug 1994: Alice Childress, American actress, playwright, and author (born 1912) Alice Childress was an American novelist, playwright, and actress, acknowledged as "the only African-American woman to have written, produced, and published plays for four decades." Childress described her work as trying to portray the have-nots in a have society, saying: "My writing attempts to interpret the 'ordinary' because they are not ordinary. Each human is uniquely different. Like snowflakes, the human pattern is never cast twice. We are uncommonly and marvellously intricate in thought and action, our problems are most complex and, too often, silently borne." Childress became involved in social causes, and formed an off-Broadway union for actors. Read more
• 14 Aug 1992: John Sirica, American lawyer and judge (born 1904) John Joseph Sirica was an American lawyer and jurist who was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia from 1957 to 1992. Sirica became known in the early 1970s for presiding over the federal criminal trials relating to the origins of the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Read more
• 14 Aug 1991: Alberto Crespo, Argentinian race car driver (born 1920) Alberto Augusto Crespo was a racing driver from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He entered one World Championship Formula One Grand Prix, the 1952 Italian Grand Prix, with a Maserati entered for him by Enrico Platé. Crespo posted the 26th best time in the qualifying session of the 35 entrants, although he failed to qualify as only the fastest 24 started the race. Read more
• 14 Aug 1988: Roy Buchanan, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1939) Leroy "Roy" Buchanan was an American guitarist and blues rock musician. A pioneer of the "Telecaster sound", Buchanan worked as a sideman and as a solo artist, with two gold albums early in his career and two later solo albums that made it to the Billboard chart. He never achieved stardom, but is considered a highly influential guitar player. Guitar Player praised him as having one of the "50 Greatest Tones of All Time". He appeared on the PBS music program Austin City Limits in 1977. Read more
• 14 Aug 1988: Robert Calvert, South African-English singer-songwriter and playwright (born 1945): 1712 Robert Newton Calvert was a South African-British writer, poet, and musician. He is principally known for his role as lyricist, performance poet and lead vocalist of the space rock band Hawkwind. Read more
• 14 Aug 1988: Enzo Ferrari, Italian race car driver and businessman, founded Ferrari (born 1898) Enzo Anselmo Giuseppe Maria Ferrari was an Italian racing driver and entrepreneur, the founder of Scuderia Ferrari in Grand Prix motor racing, and subsequently of the Ferrari automobile marque. Under his leadership in Formula One, Ferrari won nine World Drivers' Championships and eight World Constructors' Championships during his lifetime. Read more
• 14 Aug 1985: Gale Sondergaard, American actress (born 1899) Gale Sondergaard was an American actress. Read more
• 14 Aug 1984: Spud Davis, American baseball player, coach, and manager (born 1904) Virgil Lawrence "Spud" Davis was an American professional baseball player, coach, scout and manager. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati Reds, and Pittsburgh Pirates. Davis' .308 career batting average ranks fourth all-time among major league catchers. Read more
• 14 Aug 1984: J. B. Priestley, English novelist and playwright (born 1894) John Boynton Priestley was an English novelist, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster and social commentator. Read more
• 14 Aug 1982: Mahasi Sayadaw, Burmese monk and philosopher (born 1904) Mahāsī Sayādaw U Sobhana was a Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk and meditation master who had a significant impact on the teaching of Vipassana (insight) meditation in the West and throughout Asia. Read more
• 14 Aug 1981: Karl Böhm, Austrian conductor and director (born 1894) Karl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He was best known for his performances of the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, and Richard Strauss. Read more
• 14 Aug 1981: Dudley Nourse, South African cricketer (born 1910) Arthur Dudley Nourse was a South African Test cricketer. Primarily a batsman, he was captain of the South African team from 1948 to 1951. Read more
• 14 Aug 1980: Dorothy Stratten, Canadian-American model and actress (born 1960) Dorothy Ruth Hoogstraten, known professionally as Dorothy Stratten, was a Canadian model and actress, primarily known for her appearances as a Playboy Playmate. Stratten was the Playboy Playmate of the Month for August 1979 and Playmate of the Year in 1980, and appeared in three comedy films and in several episodes of television shows broadcast on American networks. Stratten was murdered shortly after co-starring in the movie They All Laughed, at the age of 20, by her estranged husband and manager Paul Snider, whom she was in the process of divorcing and breaking business ties with. Snider committed suicide immediately after murdering Stratten. Read more
• 14 Aug 1978: Nicolas Bentley, English author and illustrator (born 1907) Nicolas Clerihew Bentley was a British writer and illustrator, best known for his humorous cartoon drawings in books and magazines in the 1930s and 1940s. The son of Edmund Clerihew Bentley, he was given the name Nicholas, but opted to change the spelling. Read more
• 14 Aug 1973: Fred Gipson, American journalist and author (born 1908) Frederick Benjamin Gipson was an American writer and screenwriter. He is best known for writing the 1956 novel Old Yeller, which became a popular 1957 Walt Disney film. Gipson was born on a farm near Mason in the Texas Hill Country, the son of Beck Gipson and Emma Deishler. After working at a variety of farming and ranching jobs, he enrolled in 1933 at the University of Texas at Austin. There he wrote for the Daily Texan and The Ranger, but he left school before graduating to become a newspaper journalist. Read more
• 14 Aug 1972: Oscar Levant, American actor, pianist, and composer (born 1906) Oscar Levant was an American concert pianist, composer, conductor and actor born in Pittsburgh, U.S., from Russian-emigrant parents. Levant studied under Zygmunt Stojowski and Arnold Schoenberg, and has 33 albums as a pianist, having recorded works of numerous classical composers. For a period of time during the 1940s, he was the highest paid concert pianist in the United States. Read more
• 14 Aug 1972: Jules Romains, French author and poet (born 1885) Jules Romains was a French poet and writer and the founder of the Unanimism literary movement. His works include the play Knock ou le Triomphe de la médecine, and a cycle of works called Les Hommes de bonne volonté . Sinclair Lewis called him one of the six best novelists in the world. Read more
• 14 Aug 1967: Bob Anderson, English motorcycle racer and race car driver (born 1931) Robert Hugh Fearon Anderson was a British Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and racing driver. He competed in Grand Prix motorcycle racing from 1958 to 1960 and in Formula One from 1963 to the 1967 seasons. He was also a two-time winner of the North West 200 race in Northern Ireland. Anderson was one of the last independent privateer drivers in Formula One before escalating costs made it impossible to compete without sponsorship. Read more
• 14 Aug 1965: Vello Kaaristo, Estonian skier (born 1911) Vello Kaaristo was the first Estonian cross-country skier to compete in the Olympics. At the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, he placed 30th in the 18 km event with a time of 1'25:11, and 23rd in the 50 km event with a time of 4'02:52. Read more
• 14 Aug 1964: Johnny Burnette, American singer-songwriter (born 1934) John Joseph Burnette was an American singer and songwriter of rockabilly and pop music. In 1952, Johnny, his brother Dorsey Burnette, and their mutual friend Paul Burlison, formed the band that became known as the Rock and Roll Trio. His career was cut short on August 14, 1964, when he drowned following a boat accident, aged 30. Read more
• 14 Aug 1963: Clifford Odets, American director, playwright, and screenwriter (born 1906) Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. In the mid-1930s, he was widely seen as the potential successor to Nobel Prize–winning playwright Eugene O'Neill, as O'Neill began to withdraw from Broadway's commercial pressures and increasing critical backlash. From January 1935, Odets's socially relevant dramas were extremely influential, particularly for the remainder of the Great Depression. His works inspired the next several generations of playwrights, including Arthur Miller, Paddy Chayefsky, Neil Simon, and David Mamet. After the production of his play Clash by Night in the 1941–42 season, Odets focused his energies primarily on film projects, remaining in Hollywood until mid-1948. He returned to New York for five and a half years, during which time he produced three more Broadway plays, only one of which was a success. His prominence was eventually eclipsed by Miller, Tennessee Williams, and, in the early- to mid-1950s, William Inge. Read more
• 14 Aug 1958: Frédéric Joliot-Curie, French physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1900) Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie was a French chemist and physicist who received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with his wife, Irène Joliot-Curie, for their discovery of induced radioactivity. They were the second married couple, after his parents-in-law, to win the Nobel Prize, adding to the Curie family legacy of four Nobel Prizes. Joliot-Curie and his wife also founded the Orsay Faculty of Sciences, part of the Paris-Saclay University. Read more
• 14 Aug 1956: Bertolt Brecht, German poet, playwright, and director (born 1898) Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Elisabeth Hauptmann and Kurt Weill and began a lifelong collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, Brecht wrote didactic Lehrstücke and became a leading theoretician of epic theatre and the Verfremdungseffekt. Read more
• 14 Aug 1956: Konstantin von Neurath, German lawyer and politician, Reich Minister of Foreign Affairs (born 1873) Konstantin Hermann Karl Freiherr von Neurath was a German politician, diplomat and convicted Nazi war criminal who served as Foreign Minister of Germany between 1932 and 1938. Read more
• 14 Aug 1955: Herbert Putnam, American lawyer and publisher, Librarian of Congress (born 1861) George Herbert Putnam was an American librarian. He was the eighth Librarian of Congress from 1899 to 1939. He implemented his vision of a universal collection with strengths in many languages, especially from Europe and Latin America. Read more
• 14 Aug 1954: Hugo Eckener, German pilot and airship designer (born 1868) Hugo Eckener was the manager of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin during the inter-war years, and also the commander of the famous Graf Zeppelin for most of its record-setting flights, including the first airship flight around the world, making him the most successful airship commander in history. He was also responsible for the construction of the most successful type of airships of all time. An anti-Nazi who was invited to campaign as a moderate in the German presidential elections, he was blacklisted by the Nazi regime and eventually sidelined. Read more
• 14 Aug 1951: William Randolph Hearst, American publisher and politician, founded the Hearst Corporation (born 1863) William Randolph Hearst was an American newspaper publisher and politician. He laid the foundation for the Hearst family's mass media empire via his control of the Hearst Corporation. His extravagant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human-interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 with Mitchell Trubitt after being entrusted with The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father, Senator George Hearst. Read more
• 14 Aug 1948: Eliška Misáková, Czech gymnast (born 1926) Eliška Misáková was a Czech gymnast who was selected to attend the 1948 Summer Olympics. Read more
• 14 Aug 1943: Joe Kelley, American baseball player and manager (born 1871) Joseph James Kelley was an American left fielder in Major League Baseball (MLB) who starred in the outfield of the Baltimore Orioles teams of the 1890s. Making up the nucleus of the Orioles along with John McGraw, Willie Keeler, and Hughie Jennings, Kelley received the nickname "Kingpin of the Orioles". Read more
• 14 Aug 1941: Maximilian Kolbe, Polish martyr and saint (born 1894) Maximilian Maria Kolbe, OFM Conv. was a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar, priest, missionary, and martyr. He volunteered to die in place of a man named Franciszek Gajowniczek in the German death camp of Auschwitz, located in German-occupied Poland during World War II. He had been active in promoting the veneration of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, founding and supervising the monastery of Niepokalanów near Warsaw, operating an amateur-radio station (SP3RN), and founding or running several other organizations and publications. Read more
• 14 Aug 1941: Paul Sabatier, French chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1854) Paul Sabatier was a French chemist, born in Carcassonne. In 1912, Sabatier was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Victor Grignard. Sabatier was honoured for his work improving the hydrogenation of organic species in the presence of metals. Read more
• 14 Aug 1938: Hugh Trumble, Australian cricketer and accountant (born 1876) Hugh Trumble was an Australian cricketer who played 32 Test matches as a bowling all-rounder between 1890 and 1904. He captained the Australian team in two Tests, winning both. Trumble took 141 wickets in Test cricket—a world record at the time of his retirement—at an average of 21.78 runs per wicket. He is one of only four bowlers to twice take a hat-trick in Test cricket. Observers in Trumble's day, including the authoritative Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, regarded him as ranking among the great Australian bowlers of the Golden Age of cricket. He was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1897 and the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame, established in 1996, inducted him in 2004. Read more
• 14 Aug 1928: Klabund, German author and poet (born 1890) Alfred Henschke, better known by his pseudonym Klabund, was a German writer. Read more
• 14 Aug 1922: Rebecca Cole, American physician and social reformer (born 1846) Rebecca J. Cole was an American physician, organization founder and social reformer. In 1867, she became the second African-American woman to become a doctor in the United States, after Rebecca Lee Crumpler three years earlier. Throughout her life she faced racial and gender-based barriers to her medical education, training in all-female institutions which were run by the first generation of graduating female physicians. Read more
• 14 Aug 1909: William Stanley, British engineer and author (born 1829) William Ford Robinson Stanley was an English inventor with 78 patents filed in both the United Kingdom and the United States of America. He was an engineer who designed and made precision drawing and mathematical instruments, as well as surveying instruments and telescopes, manufactured by his company "William Ford Stanley and Co. Ltd." Read more
• 14 Aug 1905: Simeon Solomon, English soldier and painter (born 1840) Simeon Solomon was a British painter associated with the Pre-Raphaelites who was noted for his depictions of Jewish life and same-sex desire. His career was cut short as a result of public scandal following his arrests and convictions for attempted sodomy in 1873 and 1874. Read more
• 14 Aug 1891: Sarah Childress Polk, First Lady of the United States (born 1803) Sarah Childress Polk was the first lady of the United States from 1845 to 1849. She was the wife of the 11th president of the United States, James K. Polk. Read more
• 14 Aug 1890: Michael J. McGivney, American priest, founded the Knights of Columbus (born 1852) Michael Joseph McGivney was an American Catholic priest based in New Haven, Connecticut. He founded the Knights of Columbus at a local parish to serve as a mutual aid and insurance organization, particularly for immigrants and their families. It developed through the 20th century as the world's largest Catholic fraternal organization. Read more
• 14 Aug 1870: David Farragut, American admiral (born 1801) David Glasgow Farragut was a flag officer of the United States Navy during the American Civil War. He was the first rear admiral, vice admiral, and admiral in the United States Navy. He is remembered in U.S. Navy tradition for his bold order at the Battle of Mobile Bay, usually abbreviated to "Damn the torpedoes … full speed ahead." Read more
• 14 Aug 1860: André Marie Constant Duméril, French zoologist and entomologist (born 1774) André Marie Constant Duméril was a French zoologist. He was professor of anatomy at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle from 1801 to 1812, when he became professor of herpetology and ichthyology. His son Auguste Duméril was also a zoologist, and the author citation Duméril is used for both André and his son. Read more
• 14 Aug 1854: Carl Carl, Polish-born actor and theatre director (born 1787) Karl Andreas Bernbrunn (1787–1854), known by the stage name Carl Carl, was a Kraków-born actor and theatre director. Read more
• 14 Aug 1852: Margaret Taylor, First Lady of the United States (born 1788) Margaret Mackall Taylor was the first lady of the United States from 1849 to 1850 as the wife of President Zachary Taylor. She married Zachary in 1810 and lived as an army wife, accompanying her husband to his postings in the American frontier. She had six children, two of whom died in childhood while the remaining four were sent to boarding schools in the eastern United States. After a brief period of stable domestic life in the 1840s, her husband was elected President of the United States to her dismay in 1848. She managed the White House from the upstairs residence while she delegated her responsibilities as White House hostess to her daughter. She was highly reclusive throughout her tenure as first lady, which ended abruptly with her husband's death in 1850. She lived in obscurity until her death two years later. Read more

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