Born on Wednesday, 4th February – Famous Birthdays

On this day, 159 notable people were born on 4th February — spanning from 1447 to 2003. From world leaders to artists and scientists, discover who shares this birthday.

February 4th marks the birth of numerous notable figures across entertainment, sport and public service. Danish footballer Rasmus Hojlund, born in 2003, has established himself as a rising talent in professional football, whilst Czech tennis player Lucie Safarova, born in 1987, competed at the highest levels of women’s tennis. Among those commemorated on this date are figures of considerable historical significance. Friedrich Ebert, born in 1871, served as the first President of Germany and played a central role in the early years of the Weimar Republic. Belgian cyclist Johan Vansummeren, born in 1981, secured victory in the Tour of Flanders, one of cycling’s most prestigious one-day races.

The date falls during winter in the northern hemisphere, with meteorological conditions varying significantly depending on geographical location. Those in temperate regions typically experience cold temperatures and variable precipitation patterns characteristic of the season. Individuals born on February 4th fall under the Aquarius zodiac sign, associated with characteristics such as innovation and independent thinking. The lunar calendar shows this date occurs during the waning gibbous moon phase, a period traditionally associated with reflection and assessment.

DayAtlas provides comprehensive information about any date and location, displaying weather patterns, historical events, notable births and deaths. The platform serves as a useful reference tool for those researching specific dates or exploring historical significance tied to particular calendar days.

Discover who was born today 6th April.

04/02/2003

Kyla Kenedy, American actress

Kyla Kenedy is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Izzie on the television film Raising Izzie, and Mika Samuels on AMC horror series The Walking Dead. In 2016, she began playing Dylan DiMeo on the ABC sitcom Speechless, which ran for three seasons through 2019. In 2021, Kenedy was cast as Orly Bremer in the NBC sitcom Mr. Mayor. Kyla starred opposite Charlie Gillespie in the 2025 feature film Shatterd Ice


Rasmus Højlund, Danish footballer

Rasmus Winther Højlund is a Danish professional footballer who plays as a striker for Serie A club Napoli, on loan from Premier League club Manchester United, and the Denmark national team.


04/02/1999

MJ Lenderman, American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

Mark Jacob Lenderman, also known as MJ Lenderman and Jake Lenderman, is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. His style has been described as indie rock and alternative country.


04/02/1998

Malik Monk, American basketball player

Malik Ahmad Monk is an American professional basketball player for the Sacramento Kings of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played one season of college basketball for the Kentucky Wildcats, earning consensus second-team All-American honors in 2017. Monk was selected in the first round of the 2017 NBA draft by the Charlotte Hornets with the 11th overall pick. He has also played for the Los Angeles Lakers.


Maximilian Wöber, Austrian footballer

Maximilian Wöber is an Austrian professional footballer who plays as a centre-back or left-back for German Bundesliga club Werder Bremen, on loan from Premier League club Leeds United, and the Austria national team.


04/02/1996

Mohamed Sherif, Egyptian footballer

Mohamed Sherif Mohamed Ragaei Bakr is an Egyptian professional footballer who plays as a striker for Egyptian Premier League club Al Ahly and the Egypt national team.


04/02/1989

Lavoy Allen, American basketball player

Lavoy Allen is an American former professional basketball player. He was selected in the second round, 50th overall pick in the 2011 NBA draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. Allen is the son of a truck driver, and did not play much basketball until eighth grade. He attended Pennsbury High School, where he was coached by Oliver Aaron. Rivals.com ranked him the 14th best center in his class, and Scout.com named him the 110th overall prospect. Allen committed to Temple University and coach Fran Dunphy.


04/02/1988

Charlie Barnett, American actor

Charlie Barnett is an American actor. He is known for starring as firefighter/paramedic Peter Mills on the NBC drama Chicago Fire from 2012 to 2015 and Jedi Knight Yord Fandar in the Star Wars television series The Acolyte on Disney+. Among his other starring roles are Alan Zaveri on the Netflix comedy series Russian Doll, Ben Marshall on the Netflix series Tales of the City, and Gabe Miranda in the Netflix thriller series You.


Carly Patterson, American gymnast and singer

Carly Rae Patterson is an American singer, songwriter and former artistic gymnast. She was the all-around champion at the 2004 Olympics, the first all-around champion for the United States at a non-boycotted Olympics, and is a member of the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame. Patterson frequently joins radio segments on 1310 AM and 96.7 FM The Ticket in Dallas Fort-Worth.


04/02/1987

Darren O'Dea, Irish footballer

Darren O'Dea is an Irish professional football coach and former player. He played as a centre back for clubs in Scotland, England, Canada, Ukraine and India, and represented the Republic of Ireland internationally.


Lucie Šafářová, Czech tennis player

Lucie Šafářová is a Czech professional tennis player who was ranked world No. 1 in doubles, and No. 5 in singles.


04/02/1986

Maximilian Götz, German racing driver

Maximilian "Maxi" Götz is a German racing driver. He has competed in such series as International Formula Master and the Formula 3 Euro Series. He won the 2003 Formula BMW ADAC season, taking six victories. He also won the 2021 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, in a highly controversial fashion, by finishing three points ahead of Liam Lawson in the drivers' championship.


Mahmudullah Riyad, Bangladeshi cricketer

Mohammad Mahmudullah, also known as Riyad, is a former Bangladeshi international cricketer who captained the national team. He plays for Dhaka Division and has represented the national team in all formats. An all-rounder, he is a lower or middle-order batter as well as an off spin bowler. He has scored more than 10,000 runs and taken 150+ wickets in international cricket. He is renowned for his ability to finish a close limited-over game. He is the first Bangladeshi to score a World Cup hundred. Mahmudullah started his career as a bowler and then converted into a batsman who could bowl off-breaks.


04/02/1984

Doug Fister, American baseball player

Douglas Wildes Fister is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Seattle Mariners, Detroit Tigers, Washington Nationals, Houston Astros, Boston Red Sox, and Texas Rangers from 2009 through 2018.


Mauricio Pinilla, Chilean footballer

Mauricio Ricardo Pinilla Ferrera is a Chilean former professional footballer who played as a striker.


04/02/1983

Hannibal Buress, American comedian and actor

Hannibal Amir Buress is an American comedian, actor, producer, writer, musician, and venue owner. He started performing comedy in 2002 while attending Southern Illinois University. He starred on Adult Swim's The Eric Andre Show from 2012 to 2020, and was featured on Comedy Central's Broad City from 2014 to 2019. He is also known for his October 16, 2014 stand-up routine, which brought the sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby to public attention and outcry, for which he was lauded.


Rebecca White, Australian politician

Rebecca Peta White is an Australian politician. She was elected to the House of Representatives at the 2025 federal election, representing the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Tasmanian seat of Lyons. She was previously leader of the Tasmanian Labor Party from 2017 to 2021 and 2021 to 2024, leading the party to three state elections. She is an assistant minister of Australia in 3 portfolios of the second Albanese ministry.


04/02/1982

Ivars Timermanis, Latvian basketball player

Ivars Timermanis is a retired Latvian professional basketball player who played the Small forward position.


04/02/1981

Jason Kapono, American basketball player

Jason Alan Kapono is an American former professional basketball player. He was the first National Basketball Association (NBA) player to lead the league in three-point field goal percentage in two consecutive seasons, and also won the Three-Point Contest twice. He won an NBA championship with the Miami Heat in 2006.


Johan Vansummeren, Belgian cyclist

Johan Vansummeren is a Belgian former professional road racing cyclist, who rode professionally between 2004 and 2016 for the Relax–Bodysol, Silence–Lotto, Garmin–Sharp and AG2R La Mondiale teams.


04/02/1980

Raimonds Vaikulis, Latvian basketball player

Raimonds Vaikulis is a Latvian former professional basketball player.


04/02/1979

Giorgio Pantano, Italian racing driver

Giorgio Pantano is an Italian former professional racing driver who drove for the Jordan Formula One team for much of the 2004 season before being replaced by Timo Glock. He also raced in Formula 3000. He retired from racing at the end of 2014.


04/02/1977

Gavin DeGraw, American singer-songwriter

Gavin Shane DeGraw is an American singer-songwriter. DeGraw rose to fame with his song "I Don't Want to Be" from his debut album Chariot (2003); the song became the main theme song for The WB/CW drama series One Tree Hill. Other notable singles from his debut album were the title track and "Follow Through".


04/02/1976

Cam'ron, American rapper and actor

Cameron Giles, known mononymously as Cam'ron, is an American rapper. Beginning his career in the early 1990s as Killa Cam, Giles signed with Lance "Un" Rivera's Untertainment, an imprint of Epic Records to release his first two studio albums Confessions of Fire (1998) and S.D.E. (2000); the former received gold certification by the RIAA. After leaving Epic, Giles signed with Roc-A-Fella Records in 2001 to release his third studio album, Come Home with Me, the following year. It received platinum certification by the RIAA and spawned the singles "Oh Boy" and "Hey Ma", which peaked at numbers four and three on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively. His fourth studio album, Purple Haze (2004) was met with similar success and likewise received gold certification by the RIAA.


04/02/1975

Natalie Imbruglia, Australian singer-songwriter and actress

Natalie Jane Imbruglia is an Australian and British singer, songwriter, and actress.


04/02/1973

Oscar De La Hoya, American boxer

Oscar De La Hoya is a Mexican-American boxing promoter and former professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2008. His accolades include winning 11 world titles in six weight classes, including lineal championships in three weight classes. De La Hoya was nicknamed "The Golden Boy of Boxing" by the media when he represented the United States at the 1992 Summer Olympics where, shortly after having graduated from James A. Garfield High School, he won a gold medal in the lightweight division. He is regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time and is ranked the 16th greatest boxer by BoxRec.


04/02/1972

Giovanni, Brazilian footballer and manager

Giovanni Silva de Oliveira, better known as Giovanni, is a Brazilian football manager and former player. He played as either an attacking midfielder or a forward.


Dara Ó Briain, Irish comedian and television host

Dara Ó Briain is an Irish comedian and television presenter based in the United Kingdom. He is noted for performing stand-up comedy shows all over the world and for hosting topical panel shows such as Mock the Week, The Panel, and The Apprentice: You're Fired!. In 2009, the Irish Independent described Ó Briain as "Terry Wogan's heir apparent as Britain's 'favourite Irishman'".


04/02/1971

Rob Corddry, American actor, producer, and screenwriter

Robert William Corddry is an American actor and comedian. He is known for his work as a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (2002–2006) and for his starring role in the film Hot Tub Time Machine. He is the creator and star of Adult Swim's Childrens Hospital and has been awarded four Primetime Emmy Awards. He previously starred in the HBO series Ballers and the CBS comedy The Unicorn.


Michael A. Goorjian, American actor, director, and writer

Michael A. Goorjian is an American actor, filmmaker, and writer. Goorjian won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Special for his role as David Goodson in the television film David's Mother (1994). He is also known for his role as Justin, Neve Campbell’s love interest on the series Party of Five (1994–2000), as well as Heroin Bob in the film SLC Punk! (1998) and its sequel, Punk's Dead (2016). As a director, Goorjian achieved recognition for his first major independent film, Illusion (2004), which he wrote, directed and starred in alongside Kirk Douglas. In 2022, Goorjian wrote, directed, and starred in Amerikatsi, an Armenian-language feature that premiered to strong critical acclaim and was selected as Armenia’s submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the 96th Academy Awards.


04/02/1970

Gabrielle Anwar, English-American actress

Gabrielle Anwar is a British-American actress. She is known for her television roles as Sam Black in the second series of Press Gang, as Margaret Tudor in the first season of The Tudors, as Lady Tremaine in the seventh season of Once Upon a Time, and for her starring role as Fiona Glenanne on the USA network television series Burn Notice (2007–2013). Anwar is also known for the 1991 film Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken, for dancing tango with Al Pacino in the 1992 film Scent of a Woman, and for the 1993 films Body Snatchers and For Love or Money.


Hunter Biden, American attorney and lobbyist

Robert Hunter Biden is an American attorney and businessman. He is the second son of former president Joe Biden and his first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was a founding board member of BHR Partners, a Chinese investment company, in 2013, and later served on the board of Burisma Holdings, one of the largest private natural gas producers in Ukraine, from 2014 until his term expired in April 2019. He has worked as a lobbyist and legal representative for lobbying firms, a hedge fund principal, and a venture capital and private equity fund investor.


04/02/1967

Sergei Grinkov, Russian figure skater (died 1995)

Sergei Mikhailovich Grinkov was a Soviet and Russian pair skater. Together with his wife Ekaterina Gordeeva, he was the 1988 and 1994 Olympic Champion and a four-time World Champion.


04/02/1966

Viatcheslav Ekimov, Russian cyclist

Viatcheslav Vladimirovich Ekimov is a Russian former professional racing cyclist. A triple Olympic gold medalist, he was awarded the title of Russian Cyclist of the Century in 2001.


04/02/1965

Jerome Brown, American football player (died 1992)

Willie Jerome Brown III was an American professional football defensive tackle who played for the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League (NFL). He played his entire five-year NFL career with the Eagles from 1987 to 1991, before his death just before the 1992 season. He was selected to two Pro Bowls in 1990 and 1991. He played college football for the Miami Hurricanes.


04/02/1964

Elke Philipp, German Paralympic equestrian

Elke Philipp is a German Paralympic equestrian.


04/02/1963

Noodles, American musician and songwriter

Kevin John Wasserman, better known as Noodles, is an American musician who serves as the lead guitarist and backing vocalist for the Offspring. He earned the nickname "Noodles" for his frequent noodling (improvising) on the guitar.


Pirmin Zurbriggen, Swiss skier

Pirmin Zurbriggen is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from Switzerland. One of the most successful ski racers ever, he won the overall World Cup title four times, an Olympic gold medal in 1988 in Downhill, and nine World Championships medals.


04/02/1962

Clint Black, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer

Clint Patrick Black is an American country music singer, songwriter, musician, actor, and record producer. Signed to RCA Nashville in 1989, Black's debut album Killin' Time produced four straight number one singles on the US Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts. Although his momentum gradually slowed throughout the 1990s, Black consistently charted hit songs into the 2000s. He has had more than thirty singles on the US Billboard country charts, thirteen of which have reached number one, in addition to having released twelve studio albums and several compilation albums. In 2003, Black founded his own record label, Equity Music Group. Black has also ventured into acting, having made appearances in a 1993 episode of the TV series Wings and in the 1994 film Maverick, as well as a starring role in 1998's Still Holding On: The Legend of Cadillac Jack.


Vern Fleming, American basketball player

Vern Fleming is an American former professional basketball player who played twelve seasons in the NBA from 1984 until 1996 for the Indiana Pacers and New Jersey Nets. He played college basketball for the Georgia Bulldogs.


04/02/1961

Denis Savard, Canadian ice hockey player and coach

Denis Joseph Savard is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. He played in the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1980 to 1997, and was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2000. In 2017, Savard was named one of the '100 Greatest NHL Players' in history. Savard was drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks and became the forefront of the team during the 1980s. He led the Blackhawks to the Conference Finals four times, losing each time, twice to Wayne Gretzky's Edmonton Oilers. Savard is known for the spin' o rama move, a tactic in hockey used to create distance between the puck carrier and opponent. Savard won one Stanley Cup with the Montreal Canadiens in 1993. Savard also played with the Tampa Bay Lightning for two seasons before returning to the Chicago Blackhawks in 1994, and then retiring there in 1997. He has also served as head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL, and now serves as an ambassador for the Blackhawks' organization. Savard was born in Pointe Gatineau but grew up in Montreal.


04/02/1960

Siobhan Dowd, English author and activist (died 2007)

Siobhan Dowd was a British writer and activist. The last book she completed, Bog Child, posthumously won the 2009 Carnegie Medal from the professional librarians, recognising the year's best book for children or young adults published in the UK.


Jonathan Larson, American lyricist, composer, and playwright (died 1996)

Jonathan David Larson was an American composer, lyricist and playwright, most famous for writing the musicals Rent and Tick, Tick... Boom!, which explored the social issues of multiculturalism, substance use disorder, and homophobia.


04/02/1959

Christian Schreier, German footballer and manager

Christian Schreier is a German former professional footballer and the general manager of SC Paderborn. He played as a midfielder, most notably with VfL Bochum and Bayer Leverkusen, and won one cap for West Germany, in 1984. His biggest successes came in 1988, when he won the UEFA Cup and an Olympic bronze Medal.


Lawrence Taylor, American football player

Lawrence Julius Taylor, nicknamed "L.T.", is an American former professional football linebacker who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons with the New York Giants. He is widely regarded as the greatest defensive player of all time – and considered by some as the best football player ever.


04/02/1958

Tomasz Pacyński, Polish journalist and author (died 2005)

Tomasz Pacyński was a Polish fantasy and science fiction writer, born in Warsaw. He was one of the creators and, from 2004, the chief editor of Fahrenheit, the first Polish Internet science fiction fanzine. He published short stories in such magazines as Science Fiction, SFera, and Fantasy, and in Internet fanzines such as Fahrenheit, Esensja, Fantazin and Srebrny Glob. He also wrote articles published in SFera and Science Fiction.


04/02/1957

Matthew Cobb, British zoologist and author

Matthew John Cobb is a British zoologist and Emeritus professor of zoology at the University of Manchester. He is known for his popular science books The Egg & Sperm Race: The Seventeenth-Century Scientists Who Unravelled the Secrets of Sex, Life and Growth; Life's Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code; and The Idea of the Brain: A History. Cobb has appeared on BBC Radio 4's The Infinite Monkey Cage, The Life Scientific, Start the Week and The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry, as well as on BBC Radio 3 and the BBC World Service.


04/02/1955

Mikuláš Dzurinda, Slovak politician, Prime Minister of Slovakia

Mikuláš Dzurinda is a Slovak politician who was the prime minister of Slovakia from 30 October 1998 to 4 July 2006. Dzurinda is the founder and leader of the Slovak Democratic Coalition (SDK) and then the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ–DS). From 2002 to 2006, his party formed a coalition government with the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), the Alliance of the New Citizen (ANO), and the Party of the Hungarian Coalition (SMK–MKP).


04/02/1952

Lisa Eichhorn, American actress, writer, and producer

Lisa Eichhorn is an American actress, writer and producer. She made her film debut in 1979 in the John Schlesinger film Yanks, for which she received two Golden Globe nominations. Her international career has included film, theatre and television.


Jenny Shipley, New Zealand politician, Prime Minister of New Zealand

Dame Jennifer Mary Shipley is a New Zealand former politician who served as the 36th prime minister of New Zealand from 1997 to 1999. She was the first female prime minister of New Zealand, and the first woman to lead the National Party.


Thomas Silverstein, American criminal and prisoner (died 2019)

Thomas Edward Silverstein was an American criminal who spent the last 42 years of his life in prison after being convicted of three separate murders, with a fourth murder conviction being overturned and Silverstein being implicated in a fifth, while imprisoned for armed robbery. Silverstein spent the last 36 years of his life in solitary confinement for killing corrections officer Merle Clutts at the Marion Penitentiary in Illinois. Prison authorities described him as a brutal killer and a former leader of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang. Silverstein maintained that the dehumanizing conditions inside the prison system contributed to the three murders he committed. He was the longest-held prisoner in solitary confinement within the Bureau of Prisons at the time of his death. Correctional officers refused to talk to Silverstein out of respect for Clutts.


04/02/1951

Patrick Bergin, Irish actor

Patrick Connolly Bergin is an Irish actor and singer. In 1991, he starred opposite Julia Roberts in Sleeping with the Enemy and played the title character in Robin Hood. His other roles include terrorist Kevin O'Donnell in Patriot Games (1992) and the villainous Aidan Maguire in the BBC soap opera EastEnders (2017–2018).


04/02/1949

Michael Beck, American actor

Michael Beck is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Swan in The Warriors (1979) as Sonny Malone in Xanadu (1980), and as Koda in Triumphs of a Man Called Horse (1983).


Rasim Delić, Bosnian general (died 2010)

Rasim Delić was the chief of staff of the Bosnian Army. He was a career officer in the Yugoslav Army but left it during the breakup of Yugoslavia and was convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for failing to prevent and punish crimes committed by the El Mujahid unit under his command. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison.


04/02/1948

Alice Cooper, American singer-songwriter

Alice Cooper is an American singer and songwriter. With a career spanning seven decades, Cooper is known for his raspy singing voice and theatrical stage shows that feature numerous props and illusions. He is considered by music journalists and peers to be "The Godfather of Shock Rock". He has drawn from horror films, vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a macabre and theatrical brand of rock designed to shock audiences.


Mienoumi Tsuyoshi, Japanese sumo wrestler

Mienoumi Tsuyoshi is a Japanese former professional sumo wrestler from Matsusaka, Mie. He was the 57th yokozuna of the sport. After retiring he founded the Musashigawa stable and was a chairman of the Japan Sumo Association. He was the first rikishi in history who was demoted from the rank of Ozeki but still managed the promotion to Yokozuna.


04/02/1947

Dennis C. Blair, American admiral and politician, third Director of National Intelligence

Dennis Cutler Blair is the former United States Director of National Intelligence and a retired United States Navy admiral who was the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific region. Blair was a career officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the White House during the presidencies of both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Blair retired from the Navy in 2002 as an Admiral. In 2009, Blair was selected as President Barack Obama’s first Director of National Intelligence, but after a series of bureaucratic battles, he resigned on May 20, 2010.


Dan Quayle, American sergeant, lawyer, and politician, 44th Vice President of the United States

James Danforth Quayle is an American retired politician and US Army National Guard veteran who served as the 44th vice president of the United States from 1989 to 1993 under President George H. W. Bush. A member of the Republican Party, Quayle represented Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 to 1981 and in the U.S. Senate from 1981 to 1989.


04/02/1944

Florence LaRue, American singer and actress

Florence LaRue is an American singer and actress, best known as an original member of the 5th Dimension.


Alan Shields, American artist and ship captain (died 2005)

Alan J. Shields was an American painter, and for a time during the 1980s, had a secondary career as a commercial boat operator, including as ferryboat captain.


04/02/1943

Alberto João Jardim, Portuguese journalist and politician, second President of the Regional Government of Madeira

Alberto João Cardoso Gonçalves Jardim, GCC, GCIH is a Portuguese politician who was the President of the Regional Government of Madeira, Portugal, from 1978 to 2015.


Wanda Rutkiewicz, Lithuanian-Polish mountaineer (died 1992)

Wanda Rutkiewicz was a Polish mountaineer and computer engineer. She was the first woman to reach the summit of K2 and the third woman to summit Mount Everest.


Ken Thompson, American computer scientist and programmer, co-developed the B programming language

Kenneth Lane Thompson is an American pioneer of computer science. Thompson worked at Bell Labs for most of his career where he designed and implemented the original Unix operating system. He also invented the B programming language, the direct predecessor to the C language, and was one of the creators and early developers of the Plan 9 operating system. Other notable contributions included his work on regular expressions and early computer text editors QED and ed, the definition of the UTF-8 encoding, and his work on computer chess that included the creation of endgame tablebases and the chess machine Belle.


04/02/1941

Russell Cooper, Australian politician, 33rd Premier of Queensland

Theo Russell Cooper is an Australian retired National Party politician. He was Premier of Queensland for a period of 73 days, from 25 September 1989 to 7 December 1989. His loss at the state election of 1989 ended 32 years of continuous National Party rule over Queensland.


Ron Rangi, New Zealand rugby player (died 1988)

Ronald Edward Rangi was a New Zealand rugby union player. A centre three-quarter, Rangi represented Auckland at a provincial level, and was a member of the New Zealand national side, the All Blacks, from 1964 to 1966. He made 10 appearances for the All Blacks, all of them in test matches, scoring three tries. Of Māori descent, Rangi played for the New Zealand Māori side between 1963 and 1965, and was awarded the Tom French Cup for the Māori player of the year in 1964 and 1965.


Jiří Raška, Czech skier and coach (died 2012)

Jiří Raška was a Czech ski jumper who competed for Czechoslovakia. He is regarded as the most famous Czech ski jumper in the 20th century.


John Steel, English musician and songwriter

John Steel is an English musician who is the long-serving drummer for the British rock band the Animals. Having served as the band's drummer at its inception in 1963, he is the only original band member playing in the current incarnation of the Animals. He was inducted with the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.


04/02/1940

George A. Romero, American director and producer (died 2017)

George Andrew Romero was an American-Canadian filmmaker, writer, editor and actor. Regarded as an influential pioneer of the horror film genre and in particular zombie films, he has been called an "icon" and the "father of the zombie film". The first half of his Night of the Living Dead series—Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), and Day of the Dead (1985)—are considered three of the best and most influential horror films ever made, and were major contributors to the image of the zombie in modern culture.


John Schuck, American actor

Conrad John Schuck Jr. is an American film, stage, and television actor. He is best known for his role as Sergeant Charles Enright in the 1970s crime drama McMillan & Wife. He also played Herman Munster in the late-1980s – early 1990s sitcom The Munsters Today, playing the role originated by Fred Gwynne in the 1960s sitcom The Munsters.


04/02/1939

Stan Lundine, American lawyer and politician, Lieutenant Governor of New York

Stanley Nelson Lundine is an American politician from Jamestown, New York who served as the mayor of Jamestown, a United States representative, and the lieutenant governor of New York.


04/02/1938

Frank J. Dodd, American businessman and politician, president of the New Jersey Senate (died 2010)

Frank J. "Pat" Dodd was an American businessman and Democratic Party politician who served as President of the New Jersey Senate from 1974 to 1975.


04/02/1937

Birju Maharaj, Indian dancer, composer, singer and exponent of the Lucknow "Kalka-Bindadin" Gharana of Kathak dance (died 2022)

Birju Maharaj was an Indian dancer, composer, singer, and exponent of the Lucknow "Kalka-Bindadin" Gharana of Kathak dance in India. He was a descendant of the Maharaj family of Kathak dancers, which includes his two uncles, Shambhu Maharaj and Lachhu Maharaj, and his father and guru, Acchan Maharaj. He also practised Hindustani classical music and was a vocalist. After working along with his uncle, Shambhu Maharaj at Bhartiya Kala Kendra, later the Kathak Kendra, New Delhi, he remained head of the latter, for several years, until his retirement in 1998 when he opened his own dance school, Kalashram, also in Delhi.


David Newman, American director and screenwriter (died 2003)

David Newman was an American screenwriter. From the late 1960s through the early 1980s he frequently collaborated with Robert Benton. He was married to fellow writer Leslie Newman, with whom he had two children, until his death in 2003 from a stroke.


04/02/1936

David Brenner, American comedian, actor, and author (died 2014)

David Norris Brenner was an American stand-up comedian, actor and author. The most frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the 1970s and 1980s, Brenner "was a pioneer of observational comedy." His friend, comedian Richard Lewis, described Brenner as "the king of hip, observational comedy."


Gary Conway, American actor

Gary Conway is an American actor and screenwriter. His notable credits include a co-starring role with Gene Barry in the detective series Burke's Law from 1963 to 1965. In addition, he starred in the Irwin Allen sci-fi series Land of the Giants from 1968 to 1970.


Claude Nobs, Swiss businessman, founded the Montreux Jazz Festival (died 2013)

Claude Nobs was the founder and general manager of the Montreux Jazz Festival.


04/02/1935

Wallis Mathias, Pakistani cricketer (died 1994)

Wallis Mathias was a Pakistani cricketer who played in 21 Test matches from 1955 to 1962. A Catholic, he was the first non-Muslim cricketer to play for Pakistan. He belonged to Karachi's Goan community.


Martti Talvela, Finnish opera singer (died 1989)

Martti Olavi Talvela was a Finnish operatic bass.


Collin Wilcox, American actress (died 2009)

Collin Randall Wilcox was an American film, stage and television actress. Over her career, she was also credited as Collin Wilcox-Horne or Collin Wilcox-Paxton. Wilcox may be best known for her role in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), in which she played Mayella Violet Ewell, whose father falsely claimed she had been raped by a black man, which sparks the trial at the center of the film.


04/02/1932

Robert Coover, American novelist (died 2024)

Robert Lowell Coover was an American novelist, short story writer, and T. B. Stowell Professor Emeritus in Literary Arts at Brown University. He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction. He became a proponent of electronic literature and was a founder of the Electronic Literature Organization.


04/02/1931

Isabel Perón, Argentinian dancer and politician, 41st President of Argentina

Isabel Martínez de Perón is an Argentine politician who served as the president of Argentina from 1974 to 1976. She was one of the first female republican heads of state in the world, and the first woman to serve as president of a country. Perón was the third wife of President Juan Perón. During her husband's third term as president from 1973 to 1974, she served as both the vice president and first lady of Argentina. From 1974 until her resignation in 1985, she was also the second President of the Justicialist Party. Isabel Perón's politics exemplify right-wing Peronism and Orthodox Peronism. Ideologically, she was considered close to corporate neo-fascism.


04/02/1930

Tibor Antalpéter, Hungarian volleyball player and diplomat, Hungarian Ambassador to the United Kingdom (died 2012)

Tibor Antalpéter was a Hungarian volleyball player who played for Csepel SC and the Hungarian national team. He served as Hungarian Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1990 to 1995.


Arthur E. Chase, American businessman and politician (died 2015)

Arthur E. Chase was an American businessman and politician who represented the Worcester District in the Massachusetts Senate from 1991 to 1995. He co-founded the Central Massachusetts Legislative Caucus. In 1991 he designed the Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science at WPI and in 1992 sponsored legislation to create it. He was the Republican nominee for Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1994, but lost in the general election to William F. Galvin.


Jim Loscutoff, American basketball player and coach (died 2015)

James Loscutoff Jr. was a professional basketball player for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). A forward, Loscutoff played on seven Celtics championship teams between 1956 and 1964.


04/02/1929

Jerry Adler, American actor, director, and producer (died 2025)

Jerome Elliott Adler was an American actor, theatrical producer, and director. He was known for his films Manhattan Murder Mystery, The Public Eye, In Her Shoes, and Prime, and for his television work as Herman "Hesh" Rabkin on The Sopranos, Howard Lyman on The Good Wife and The Good Fight, building maintenance man Mr. Wicker on Mad About You, Bob Saget's father Sam Stewart on Raising Dad, Fire Chief Sidney Feinberg on Rescue Me, Moshe Pfefferman on Transparent, Saul Horowitz on Broad City, and Hillston on Living with Yourself with Paul Rudd.


Paul Burlison, American musician (died 2003)

Paul Burlison was an American rockabilly guitarist and a founding member of The Rock and Roll Trio.


Neil Johnston, American basketball player (died 1978)

Donald Neil Johnston was an American basketball player and coach. A center, Johnston played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1951 to 1959. He was a member of the Philadelphia Warriors for his entire career. Known for his hook shot, Johnston was a six-time NBA All-Star; he led the NBA in scoring three times and led the league in rebounding once. He won an NBA championship with the Warriors in 1956. After his playing career ended due to a knee injury, Johnston coached in the NBA, in other professional basketball leagues, and at the collegiate level. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a player in 1990.


04/02/1928

Oscar Cabalén, Argentinian racing driver (died 1967)

Oscar Cabalén, was an Argentine racing driver, mainly active in the Turismo Carretera series. He also took part in the Carrera Panamericana and the Mille Miglia, and was a reserve driver for the Formula One Argentine Grand Prix in 1960.


Osmo Antero Wiio, Finnish journalist, academic, and politician (died 2013)

Osmo Antero Wiio was a Finnish academic, journalist, author and member of the Finnish Parliament. He is best known for his somewhat facetious Wiio's laws around communication, succinctly summarized as "Communication usually fails, except by accident".


04/02/1927

Rolf Landauer, German-American physicist and academic (died 1999)

Rolf William Landauer was a German-American physicist who made important contributions in diverse areas of the thermodynamics of information processing, condensed matter physics, and the conductivity of disordered media. Born in Germany, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1938, obtained a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard in 1950, and then spent most of his career at IBM.


04/02/1926

Gyula Grosics, Hungarian footballer and manager (died 2014)

Gyula Grosics was a Hungarian football goalkeeper who played 86 times for the Hungary national football team and was part of the "Golden Team" of the 1950s. Regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time, he was thought to be the first goalkeeper to play as the sweeper-keeper. Grosics was nicknamed "Black Panther", because he wore black clothing while playing. He won a gold medal in football at the 1952 Summer Olympics.


04/02/1925

Russell Hoban, American author and illustrator (died 2011)

Russell Conwell Hoban was an American writer. His works span many genres, including fantasy, science fiction, mainstream fiction, magical realism, poetry, and children's books. He lived in London from 1969 until his death.


Stanley Karnow, American journalist and historian (died 2013)

Stanley Abram Karnow was an American journalist and historian. He is best known for his writings on East Asia and the Vietnam War.


Christopher Zeeman, English mathematician and academic (died 2016)

Sir Erik Christopher Zeeman FRS was a British mathematician known for his work in geometric topology and singularity theory.


04/02/1923

Conrad Bain, Canadian-American actor (died 2013)

Conrad Stafford Bain was a Canadian-American actor. His television credits include a leading role as Phillip Drummond in the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1978–1986), as Dr. Arthur Harmon on Maude (1972–1978), and as Charlie Ross in Mr. President (1987–1988).


04/02/1922

Bhimsen Joshi, Indian vocalist of the Hindustani classical music tradition (died 2011)

Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi, also known by the honorific prefix Pandit, was one of the greatest Indian vocalists in the Hindustani classical tradition from the Indian subcontinent. He is known for the khayal form of singing, as well as for his popular renditions of devotional music. Joshi belongs to the Kirana gharana tradition of Hindustani Classical Music. He is noted for his concerts, and between 1964 and 1982 Joshi toured Afghanistan, Italy, France, Canada and USA. He was the first musician from India whose concerts were advertised through posters in New York City. Joshi was instrumental in organising the Sawai Gandharva Music Festival annually, as homage to his guru, Sawai Gandharva.


04/02/1921

Betty Friedan, American author and feminist (died 2006)

Betty Friedan was an American feminist writer and activist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the second wave of American feminism in the 20th century. In 1966, Friedan co-founded and was elected the first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), which aimed to bring women "into the mainstream of American society now [in] fully equal partnership with men."


Lotfi Zadeh, Iranian-American mathematician and computer scientist and founder of fuzzy logic (died 2017)

Lotfi Aliasger Zadeh was a mathematician, computer scientist, electrical engineer, artificial intelligence researcher, and professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. Zadeh is best known for proposing fuzzy mathematics, consisting of several fuzzy-related concepts: fuzzy sets, fuzzy logic, fuzzy algorithms, fuzzy semantics, fuzzy languages, fuzzy control, fuzzy systems, fuzzy probabilities, fuzzy events, and fuzzy information. Zadeh was a founding member of the Eurasian Academy.


04/02/1920

Janet Waldo, American actress and voice artist (died 2016)

Janet Waldo was an American radio and voice actress. In animation, she voiced Judy Jetson in various Hanna-Barbera media, Nancy in Shazzan, Penelope Pitstop, Princess from Battle of the Planets, and Josie in Josie and the Pussycats. On radio, she was the title character in Meet Corliss Archer.


04/02/1918

Ida Lupino, English-American actress and director (died 1995)

Ida Lupino was a British-American actress, director, writer, and producer. Throughout her 48-year career, she appeared in 59 films and directed eight, working primarily in the United States, where she became a citizen in 1948. She is widely regarded as the most prominent female filmmaker working in the 1950s during the Hollywood studio system. With her independent production company, she co-wrote and co-produced several social-message films and became the first woman to direct a film noir, The Hitch-Hiker, in 1953.


Luigi Pareyson, Italian philosopher and author (died 1991)

Luigi Pareysón was an Italian philosopher, best known for challenging the positivist and idealist aesthetics of Benedetto Croce in his 1954 monograph, Estetica. Teoria della formatività.


04/02/1917

Yahya Khan, Pakistan general and politician, third President of Pakistan (died 1980)

Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan was a Pakistani general who served as the third president of Pakistan from 1969 to 1971, under martial law. His presidency oversaw a civil war and genocide in East Pakistan, resulting in the province's secession as Bangladesh. He also served as the fifth commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Army from 1966 to 1971.


04/02/1915

William Talman, American actor and screenwriter (died 1968)

William Whitney Talman Jr. was an American television and movie actor, best known for playing Los Angeles District Attorney Hamilton Burger in the television series Perry Mason.


Norman Wisdom, English comedian, actor and singer-songwriter (died 2010)

Sir Norman Joseph Wisdom was an English actor, comedian, musician, and singer best known for his series of comedy films produced between 1953 and 1966, in which he portrayed the endearingly inept character Norman Pitkin. He rose to prominence with his first leading film role in Trouble in Store (1953), which earned him the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles.


04/02/1914

Alfred Andersch, German-Swiss author and publisher (died 1980)

Alfred Hellmuth Andersch was a German writer, publisher, and radio editor. The son of a conservative East Prussian army officer, he was born in Munich, Germany, and died in Berzona, Ticino, Switzerland. Martin Andersch, his brother, was also a writer.


04/02/1913

Rosa Parks, American civil rights activist (died 2005)

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an American civil rights activist. She is best known for her 1955 refusal to move from her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in defiance of Jim Crow racial segregation laws, which sparked the Montgomery bus boycott. She is sometimes known as the "mother of the civil rights movement".


04/02/1912

Ola Skjåk Bræk, Norwegian banker and politician, Norwegian Minister of Industry (died 1999)

Ola Skjåk Bræk was a Norwegian banker and politician for the Liberal Party. He was Minister of Industry in 1972–1973.


Erich Leinsdorf, Austrian-American conductor (died 1993)

Erich Leinsdorf was an Austrian-born American conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality. He also published books and essays on musical matters.


Byron Nelson, American golfer and sportscaster (died 2006)

John Byron Nelson Jr. was an American professional golfer between 1935 and 1946, widely considered one of the greatest golfers of all time.


04/02/1908

Julian Bell, English poet and academic (died 1937)

Julian Heward Bell was an English poet, and the son of Clive and Vanessa Bell. The writer Quentin Bell was his younger brother and the writer and painter Angelica Garnett was his half-sister.


04/02/1906

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor and theologian (died 1945)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, neo-orthodox theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential; his 1937 book The Cost of Discipleship is described as a modern classic. Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Nazi euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel Prison for a year and a half. Later, he was transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp.


Letitia Dunbar-Harrison, Irish librarian (died 1994)

Letitia Dunbar-Harrison was an Irish librarian who became the subject of a controversy over her appointment. A graduate of Trinity College Dublin, she is the subject of the 2009 book by Pat Walsh, The Curious Case of the Mayo Librarian, and a RTÉ documentary of the same name.


Clyde Tombaugh, American astronomer and academic, discovered Pluto (died 1997)

Clyde William Tombaugh was an American astronomer and telescope maker, best known for discovering Pluto in 1930, marking the first detection of what would eventually be recognized as the Kuiper belt. At the time, Pluto was referred to as the ninth planet in the Solar System, a classification that stood for over seven decades.


04/02/1905

Hylda Baker, English comedian, actress and music hall performer (died 1986)

Hylda Baker was an English comedian, actress and music hall performer. Born and brought up in Farnworth, Lancashire, she is perhaps best remembered for her role as Nellie Pledge in the Granada ITV sitcom Nearest and Dearest (1968–1973) and for her role in the 1960 film Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.


04/02/1904

MacKinlay Kantor, American author and screenwriter (died 1977)

MacKinlay Kantor, born Benjamin McKinlay Kantor, was an American journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He wrote more than 30 novels, several set during the American Civil War, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1956 for his 1955 novel, Andersonville.


Deng Yingchao, Chinese politician, Chairwoman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (died 1968)

Deng Yingchao was a prominent Chinese revolutionary, politician, and women's rights advocate who played a significant role in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for over six decades. She served as Chairwoman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from 1983 to 1988 and was the wife of Zhou Enlai, the first Premier of the People's Republic of China.


04/02/1903

Alexander Imich, Polish-American chemist, parapsychologist, and academic (died 2014)

Alexander Imich was a Polish-American chemist, parapsychologist, zoologist and writer who was the president of the Anomalous Phenomena Research Center in New York City. He was born in 1903 in Częstochowa, Poland to a Jewish family.


04/02/1902

Charles Lindbergh, American pilot and explorer (died 1974)

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, military officer, and author. On May 20–21, 1927, he made the first nonstop flight from New York to Paris, a distance of 3,600 miles (5,800 km), flying alone for over 33 hours. His aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis, was built to compete for the $25,000 Orteig Prize for the first flight between the two cities. Although not the first transatlantic flight, it was the first solo crossing of the Atlantic and the longest at the time by nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km), setting a new flight distance world record. The achievement garnered Lindbergh worldwide fame and stands as one of the most consequential flights in history, signalling a new era of air transportation between parts of the globe.


Hartley Shawcross, Baron Shawcross, German-English lawyer and politician, Attorney General for England and Wales (died 2003)

Hartley William Shawcross, Baron Shawcross,, known from 1945 to 1959 as Sir Hartley Shawcross, was an English barrister and Labour politician who served as the lead British prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal. He also served as Britain's principal delegate to the United Nations immediately after the Second World War and as Attorney General for England.


04/02/1900

Jacques Prévert, French poet and screenwriter (died 1977)

Jacques Prévert was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems became and remain popular in the French-speaking world, particularly in schools. His best-regarded films formed part of the poetic realist movement, and include Les Enfants du Paradis (1945). He published his first book in 1946.


04/02/1899

Virginia M. Alexander, American physician and founder of the Aspiranto Health Home (died 1949)

Virginia Margaret Alexander was an American physician, public health researcher, and the founder of the Aspiranto Health Home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.


04/02/1897

Ludwig Erhard, German soldier and politician, second Chancellor of West Germany (died 1977)

Ludwig Wilhelm Erhard was a German politician and economist who served as the second chancellor of West Germany from 1963 until 1966. Affiliated with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he is known for leading the West German postwar economic reforms and economic recovery in his role as Minister of Economic Affairs under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer from 1949 to 1963. During that period, he promoted the concept of the social market economy, on which Germany's economic policy in the 21st century continues to be based.


04/02/1896

Friedrich Glauser, Austrian-Swiss author (died 1938)

Friedrich Glauser was a German-language Swiss writer.


Friedrich Hund, German physicist and academic (died 1997)

Friedrich Hermann Hund was a German physicist from Karlsruhe known for his work on atoms and molecules. He is known for the Hund's rules to predict the electron configuration of chemical elements. His work on Hund's cases and molecular orbital theory furthered the understanding of molecular structure.


04/02/1895

Nigel Bruce, English actor (died 1953)

William Nigel Ernle Bruce was a British character actor on stage and screen. He was best known for his portrayal of Dr. Watson in a series of films and in the radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring alongside Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes in both. Bruce is also remembered for his roles in the Alfred Hitchcock films Rebecca and Suspicion, as well as Charlie Chaplin's Limelight and the original Lassie film Lassie Come Home.


04/02/1893

Raymond Dart, Australian paleoanthropologist (died 1988)

Raymond Arthur Dart was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominin closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa in the Northwest province. He also did extensive work on physical anthropology in the tradition of scientific racism.


04/02/1892

E. J. Pratt, Canadian poet and academic (died 1964)

Edwin John Dove Pratt, who published as E. J. Pratt, was a Canadian poet. Originally from Newfoundland, Pratt lived most of his life in Toronto, Ontario. A three-time winner of the country's Governor General's Award for poetry, he has been called "the foremost Canadian poet of the first half of the century."


04/02/1891

M. A. Ayyangar, Indian lawyer and politician, second Speaker of the Lok Sabha (died 1978)

Madabhushi Ananthasayanam Ayyangar was the first Deputy Speaker and then Speaker of the Lok Sabha in the Indian Parliament. He also served as the 5th Governor of Bihar.


04/02/1883

Reinhold Rudenberg, German-American inventor and a pioneer of electron microscopy (died 1961)

Reinhold Rudenberg was a German-American electrical engineer and inventor, credited with many innovations in the electric power and related fields. Aside from improvements in electric power equipment, especially large alternating current generators, among others were the electrostatic-lens electron microscope, carrier-current communications on power lines, a form of phased array radar, an explanation of power blackouts, preferred number series, and the number prefix "Giga-".


04/02/1881

Eulalio Gutiérrez, Mexican general and politician, President of Mexico (died 1939)

Eulalio Gutiérrez Ortiz was a Mexican general and politician in the Mexican Revolution from state of Coahuila. He is most notable for his election as provisional president of Mexico during the Aguascalientes Convention and led the country for a few months between 6 November 1914 and 16 January 1915. The Convention was convened by revolutionaries who had successfully ousted the regime of Victoriano Huerta after more than a year of conflict. Gutiérrez rather than "First Chief" Venustiano Carranza was chosen president of Mexico and a new round of violence broke out as revolutionary factions previously united turned against each other. "The high point of Gutiérrez's career occurred when he moved with the Conventionist army to shoulder the responsibilities of his new office [of president]." Gutiérrez's government was weak and he could not control the two main generals of the Army of the Convention, Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. Gutiérrez moved the capital of his government from Mexico City to San Luis Potosí. He resigned as president and made peace with Carranza. He went into exile in the United States, but later returned to Mexico. He died in 1939, outliving many other major figures of the Mexican Revolution.


Fernand Léger, French painter and sculptor (died 1955)

Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style. His boldly simplified treatment of modern subject matter has caused him to be regarded as a forerunner of pop art.


Kliment Voroshilov, Soviet politician and Marshal of the Soviet Union, People's Commissar for Defence (died 1969)

Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov, popularly known as Klim Voroshilov, was a prominent Soviet military officer and politician during the Stalin era (1924–1953). He was one of the original five Marshals of the Soviet Union, the second highest military rank of the Soviet Union, and served as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the nominal Soviet head of state, from 1953 to 1960.


04/02/1879

Varia Kipiani, Georgian scientist

Barbare "Varia" Kipiani was the first Georgian trained as a psychophysiologist and is recognized as a pioneering woman scholar of Georgia. Born into a noble family, Kipiani and her sisters were raised by her father after her parents' divorce. After graduating from St. Nino's School in Tbilisi in 1899, she taught in a school in Khoni for two years. Moving to Belgium, where her father had relocated, she entered the medical faculty of the Free University of Brussels in 1902. Unable to afford her tuition, Kipiani was mentored by Polish academic, Józefa Joteyko, who paid her school fees and allowed her to work in a laboratory. She wrote a paper titled "L'ergographie du sucre", which evaluated the use of sugar in alleviating fatigue. Her study won a silver medal from the Association des chimistes de France et des colonies in 1906. After completing her coursework in the medical faculty in 1907, Kipiani lectured at various universities and continued research with Joteyko on nutrition and fatigue. They jointly were awarded the Vernois Prize of the French Académie Nationale de Médecine in 1908 for their work on vegetarianism.


04/02/1877

Eddie Cochems, American football player and coach (died 1953)

Edward Bulwer Cochems was an American football player and coach. He played football for the University of Wisconsin from 1898 to 1901 and was the head football coach at North Dakota Agricultural College—now known as North Dakota State University (1902–1903), Clemson University (1905), Saint Louis University (1906–1908), and the University of Maine (1914). During his three years at Saint Louis, he was the first football coach to build an offense around the forward pass, which became a legal play in the 1906 college football season. Using the forward pass, Cochems' 1906 team compiled an undefeated 11–0 record, led the nation in scoring, and outscored opponents by a combined score of 407 to 11. He is considered by some to be the "father of the forward pass" in American football.


04/02/1875

Ludwig Prandtl, German physicist and engineer (died 1953)

Ludwig Prandtl was a German fluid dynamicist, physicist and aerospace scientist. He was a pioneer in the development of rigorous systematic mathematical analyses which he used for underlying the science of aerodynamics, which have come to form the basis of the applied science of aeronautical engineering. In the 1920s, he developed the mathematical basis for the fundamental principles of subsonic aerodynamics in particular; and in general up to and including transonic velocities. His studies identified the boundary layer, thin-airfoils, and lifting-line theories. The Prandtl number was named after him.


04/02/1873

Étienne Desmarteau, Canadian shot putter and discus thrower (died 1905)

Joseph-Étienne Desmarteau was a Canadian athlete, winner of the weight throwing event at the 1904 Summer Olympics.


04/02/1872

Gotse Delchev, Bulgarian and Macedonian revolutionary activist (died 1903)

Georgi Nikolov Delchev, known as Gotse Delchev or Goce Delčev, was a prominent Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary (komitadji) and one of the most important leaders of what is commonly known as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). He was active in the Ottoman-ruled Macedonia and Adrianople regions, as well as in Bulgaria, at the turn of the 20th century. Delchev was IMRO's foreign representative in Sofia, the capital of the Principality of Bulgaria. As such, he was also a member of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC) for a period, participating in the work of its governing body. He was killed in a skirmish with an Ottoman unit on the eve of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising.


04/02/1871

Friedrich Ebert, German lawyer and politician, first President of Germany (died 1925)

Friedrich Ebert was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as the first president of Germany from 1919 until his death in 1925.


04/02/1869

Bill Haywood, American labor organizer (died 1928)

William Dudley Haywood, nicknamed "Big Bill", was an American labor organizer and founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and a member of the executive committee of the Socialist Party of America. During the first two decades of the 20th century, Haywood was involved in several important labor battles, including the Colorado Labor Wars, the Lawrence Textile Strike, and other textile strikes in Massachusetts and New Jersey.


04/02/1868

Constance Markievicz, Irish revolutionary and first woman elected to the UK House of Commons (died 1927)

Constance Georgine Markievicz, also known as Countess Markievicz and Madame Markievicz, was an Irish revolutionary nationalist politician, suffragist and socialist who was the first woman elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Born in London, she came from the upper class Anglo-Irish Protestant landowning elite, which she abandoned in favour of Irish independence and social reform.


04/02/1865

Abe Isoo, Japanese minister and politician (died 1949)

Abe Isoo was a Japanese Christian socialist, parliamentarian and pacifist. He largely contributed to development of baseball in Japan, and was called "Father of Japanese baseball." He created a baseball club of Waseda University.


04/02/1862

Édouard Estaunié, French novelist (died 1942)

Édouard Estaunié was a French novelist. Estaunié trained as a scientist and engineer, working at the Post and Telegraph service and training further in Holland, before turning to the novel in 1891. In 1904, he devised the word "telecommunication" in his Traité pratique de télécommunication électrique. He was elected to the Académie française in 1923. He was also a reviewer, critic, and homme de lettres as well as a novelist.


04/02/1849

Jean Richepin, French poet, author, and playwright (died 1926)

Jean Richepin was a French poet, novelist and dramatist.


04/02/1848

Jean Aicard, French poet, author, and playwright (died 1921)

Jean François Victor Aicard was a French poet, dramatist, and novelist.


04/02/1831

Oliver Ames, American financier and politician, 35th Governor of Massachusetts (died 1895)

Oliver Ames was an American businessman, investor, philanthropist, and Republican politician who served as the 35th governor of Massachusetts from 1887 to 1890.


04/02/1818

Emperor Norton, San Francisco eccentric and visionary (died 1880)

Joshua Abraham Norton was a resident of San Francisco, California, who in 1859 declared himself "Emperor of these United States" in a proclamation that he signed "Norton I., Emperor of the United States". Commonly known as Emperor Norton, he took the secondary title "Protector of Mexico" in 1866.


04/02/1803

Antonija Höffern, Slovenian noblewoman (died 1871)

Antonija Höffern was a Slovenian noblewoman and educator who is credited as being the first Slovenian woman to immigrate to the United States, doing so in 1837. After spending two years working as a missionary with the Ojibwe, she moved to Philadelphia, where she established an elite girls' school.


04/02/1799

Almeida Garrett, Portuguese journalist and author (died 1854)

João Baptista da Silva Leitão de Almeida Garrett, 1st Viscount of Almeida Garrett was a Portuguese poet, orator, playwright, novelist, journalist, politician, and a peer of the realm. A major promoter of theater in Portugal he is considered the greatest figure of Portuguese Romanticism and a true revolutionary and humanist. He proposed the construction of the D. Maria II National Theatre and the creation of the Conservatory of Dramatic Art.


04/02/1778

Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, Swiss botanist, mycologist, and academic (died 1841)

Augustin Pyramus de Candolle was a Swiss botanist. René Louiche Desfontaines launched de Candolle's botanical career by recommending him at a herbarium. Within a couple of years de Candolle had established a new genus, and he went on to document hundreds of plant families and create a new natural plant classification system. Although de Candolle's main focus was botany, he also contributed to related fields such as phytogeography, agronomy, paleontology, medical botany, and economic botany.


04/02/1740

Carl Michael Bellman, Swedish poet and composer (died 1795)

Carl Michael Bellman was a Swedish songwriter, composer, musician, poet, and entertainer. He is a central figure in the Swedish song tradition and remains a powerful influence in Swedish music, as well as in Scandinavian literature, to this day. He has been compared to Shakespeare, Beethoven, Mozart, and Hogarth, but his gift, using elegantly rococo classical references in comic contrast to sordid drinking and prostitution—at once regretted and celebrated in song—is unique.


04/02/1725

Dru Drury, English entomologist and author (died 1804)

Dru Drury was a British collector of natural history specimens and an entomologist. He received specimens collected from across the world through a network of ship's officers and collectors including Henry Smeathman. His collections were used by many entomologists of his time to describe and name new species and he is best known for his book Illustrations of Natural History which includes the names and descriptions of many insects, published in parts from 1770 to 1782 with most of the copperplate engravings done by Moses Harris.


04/02/1688

Pierre de Marivaux, French author and playwright (died 1763)

Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux, commonly referred to as Marivaux, was a French playwright and novelist.


04/02/1677

Johann Ludwig Bach, German violinist and composer (died 1731)

Johann Ludwig Bach was a German composer and violinist.


04/02/1646

Hans Erasmus Aßmann, German poet and politician (died 1699)

Hans Erasmus Aßmann, Freiherr von Abschatz was a statesman and poet from the second Silesian school. He lived in Bohemia.


04/02/1575

Pierre de Bérulle, French cardinal and theologian, founded the French school of spirituality (died 1629)

Pierre de Bérulle was a French Catholic priest, cardinal and statesman in 17th-century France. He was the founder of the French school of spirituality and counted among his disciples Vincent de Paul and Francis de Sales, although both developed significantly different spiritual theologies.


04/02/1505

Mikołaj Rej, Polish poet and author (died 1580)

Mikołaj Rej or Mikołaj Rey of Nagłowice was a Polish poet and prose writer of the emerging Renaissance in Poland as it succeeded the Middle Ages, as well as a politician and musician. He was the first Polish author to write exclusively in the Polish language, and is considered, to be one of the founders of Polish literary language and literature.


04/02/1495

Francesco II Sforza, Duke of Milan (died 1535)

Francesco II Sforza was Duke of Milan from 1521 until his death. He became the Duke of Milan after Emperor Charles V reconquered it from the French. He fought at the Battle of Bicocca against the French, but in 1526 joined the League of Cognac with Francis I of France. Surviving a poisoning, he married Christina of Denmark, but died childless. He was the last member of the Sforza family to rule Milan.


Jean Parisot de Valette, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller (died 1568)

Fra' Jean "Parisot" de (la) Valette was a French nobleman and 49th Grand Master of the Order of Malta, from 21 August 1557 to his death in 1568. As a Knight Hospitaller, joining the order in the Langue de Provence, he fought with distinction against the Turks at Rhodes. As Grand Master, Valette became the Order's hero and most illustrious leader, commanding the resistance against the Ottomans at the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, sometimes regarded as one of the greatest sieges of all time.


04/02/1447

Lodovico Lazzarelli, Italian poet (died 1500)

Ludovico Lazzarelli was an Italian poet, philosopher, courtier, hermeticist and (likely) magician and diviner of the early Renaissance.