Born on Thursday, 29th January – Famous Birthdays

29/01/2003

Jarell Quansah, English footballer

Jarell Amorin Quansah is an English professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen and the England national team.

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29/01/2001

Lee Dae-hwi, South Korean singer

Lee Dae-hwi, known mononymously as Daehwi, is a South Korean singer-songwriter, producer and television personality. He is a member of South Korean boy group AB6IX, and is known for his participation in the reality competition show Produce 101 Season 2, where he finished in third place overall and became a member of the boy group Wanna One. In addition to singing and writing songs for various artists, he guest hosted and then became the permanent host for the long-time running variety show M Countdown.

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29/01/1997

Joel Eriksson Ek, Swedish ice hockey player

Joel Eriksson Ek is a Swedish professional ice hockey player who is a centre for the Minnesota Wild of the National Hockey League (NHL).

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Jack Roslovic, American ice hockey player

John Roslovic is an American professional ice hockey player who is a center for the Edmonton Oilers of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was selected in the first round, 25th overall by the Winnipeg Jets in the 2015 NHL entry draft.

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29/01/1993

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, Japanese singer

Kiriko Takemura , known professionally as Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, is a Japanese singer, model and tarento. Her public image is associated with Japan's kawaii and decora culture, centered in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. Kyary's music is produced by musician Yasutaka Nakata of electronic music duo Capsule.

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29/01/1992

Markel Brown, American basketball player

DeMarious Markel Brown is an American professional basketball player for Pallacanestro Trieste of the Italian Lega Basket Serie A (LBA). He played college basketball for the Oklahoma State Cowboys.

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Maxi Kleber, German basketball player

Maximilian Kleber is a German professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He spent the first seven years of his career playing in Germany and Spain. In 2017, he joined the Dallas Mavericks, with whom he would play until being traded to the Lakers in 2025.

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29/01/1989

Mohamed Abou Gabal, Egyptian footballer

Mohamed Qotb Abou Gabal Ali, also known as Gabaski, is an Egyptian professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Egyptian Premier League club Modern Sport and the Egypt national team.

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Kevin Shattenkirk, American ice hockey player

Kevin Michael Shattenkirk is an American former professional ice hockey defenseman. He played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Colorado Avalanche, St. Louis Blues, Washington Capitals, New York Rangers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Anaheim Ducks and Boston Bruins. He was drafted in the first round, 14th overall, at the 2007 NHL entry draft by the Avalanche and made his NHL debut with them in 2010. Shattenkirk won the Stanley Cup as a member of the Lightning in 2020.

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29/01/1988

Ayobami Adebayo, Nigerian author

Ayobami Adebayo is a Nigerian writer, whose debut novel, Stay With Me, won the 9mobile Prize for Literature in 2017. She was awarded The Future Awards Africa Prize for Arts and Culture in the same year.

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Jake Auchincloss, American politician, businessman, and Marine veteran

Jacob Daniel Auchincloss is an American politician, businessman, and Marine Corps officer serving as the U.S. representative for Massachusetts's 4th congressional district since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as a member of the Newton City Council from 2015 to 2021.

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Hank Conger, American baseball player

Hyun Choi "Hank" Conger is an American former professional baseball catcher who currently serves as the bullpen coach for the Baltimore Orioles of Major League Baseball (MLB). Conger was selected in the first round of the 2006 MLB draft by the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. He played in MLB for the Angels, Houston Astros, and Tampa Bay Rays from 2010 to 2016. Conger coached for the Lotte Giants of the KBO League from 2020 to 2021, and the Minnesota Twins from 2022 to 2025.

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Shay Logan, English footballer

Shaleum Narval Logan is an English former professional footballer who played as a right-back.

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29/01/1987

José Abreu, Cuban baseball player

José Dariel Abreu Correa is a Cuban-born professional baseball first baseman who is a free agent. He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Chicago White Sox and Houston Astros.

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Alex Avila, American baseball player

Alexander Thomas Avila is an American former professional baseball catcher. Between 2009 and 2021 he played for the Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, Arizona Diamondbacks and Minnesota Twins and Washington Nationals. Avila is the son of former Tigers general manager Al Avila.

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Jessica Burkhart, American author

Jessica Ashley, better known by her pen name Jessica Burkhart, is an American author. Burkhart works primarily in the tween fiction genre, and is the writer of the Canterwood Crest series of novels.

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Vladimír Mihálik, Slovak ice hockey player

Vladimír Mihálik is a Slovak professional ice hockey defenceman who currently playing for HC Prešov of the Slovak 1. Liga.

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29/01/1986

Chris Bourque, American ice hockey player

Christopher Ray Bourque is an American former professional ice hockey forward. Originally drafted by the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League (NHL), he has played 51 NHL games for the Capitals, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Boston Bruins. Bourque currently serves as a free agent scout for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

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Thomas Greiss, German ice hockey player

Thomas Greiss is a German professional ice hockey goaltender who currently plays for Löwen Frankfurt of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga. Selected 94th overall in the third round of the 2004 NHL entry draft by the San Jose Sharks, he played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Sharks, Phoenix Coyotes, Pittsburgh Penguins, New York Islanders, Detroit Red Wings and St. Louis Blues.

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Jair Jurrjens, Curaçaoan baseball player

Jair Francoise Jurrjens is a Dutch-Curaçaoan professional baseball pitcher who is a free agent. He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Detroit Tigers, Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles, and Colorado Rockies. He then pitched in the Chinese Professional Baseball League, American minor league and independent leagues, and the Mexican League. He pitched for the Netherlands in international competition, including three World Baseball Classic tournaments.

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29/01/1985

Marc Gasol, Spanish basketball player

Marc Gasol Sáez is a Spanish former professional basketball player who is the president of Bàsquet Girona of the Liga ACB. The center is a two-time All-NBA Team member and a three-time NBA All-Star. He was named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year with the Memphis Grizzlies in 2013, and won an NBA championship with the Toronto Raptors in 2019.

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Isabel Lucas, Australian actress and model

Isabel Lucas is an Australian actress, environmentalist and model. She is best known for her roles in Home and Away (2003–06), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), Daybreakers (2009), The Waiting City (2009), The Pacific (2010), Immortals (2011), A Heartbeat Away (2011), Red Dawn (2012), The Loft (2014), The Water Diviner (2014), Knight of Cups (2015), and That's Not Me (2017). In 2015, she acted beside Nick Jonas in the thriller film Careful What You Wish For. In 2017, Lucas joined the American television series MacGyver. In 2018, she appeared in In Like Flynn which was a success in Australia, New Zealand, and Britain, and the same year played Brooke in Chasing Comets.

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Rag'n'Bone Man, English singer-songwriter

Rory Charles Graham, known professionally as Rag'n'Bone Man, is an English singer. He is known for his baritone voice. His first hit single, "Human", was released in 2016, and his first album Human was released in 2017. The album became the fastest selling debut album by a male in the UK for the decade and has since achieved 4× Platinum certification. At the 2017 Brit Awards, he was named British Breakthrough Act and received the Critics' Choice Award. He also received a further Brit Award for Best British Single with the title track, in 2018.

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29/01/1983

Tim Gleason, American ice hockey player

Timothy Patrick Gleason is an American former professional ice hockey defenseman and current assistant coach to the Carolina Hurricanes. Drafted by the Ottawa Senators in the first round, 23rd overall, at the 2001 NHL entry draft, Gleason played in the NHL for the Los Angeles Kings, Carolina Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs and the Washington Capitals.

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29/01/1982

Adam Lambert, American singer, songwriter and actor

Adam Mitchel Lambert is an American singer, songwriter and actor. He is known for his dynamic vocal performances that combine his theatrical training with modern and classic genres. Lambert rose to fame in 2009 after finishing as runner-up on the eighth season of American Idol. Later that year, he released his debut album For Your Entertainment, which debuted at number three on the U.S. Billboard 200. The album spawned several singles, including "Whataya Want from Me", for which he received a Grammy nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. He is also known for replacing Paul Rodgers for a reunion project known as Queen + Adam Lambert, which features the remaining members of rock band Queen.

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29/01/1981

Tenoch Huerta, Mexican actor

José Tenoch Huerta Mejía is a Mexican actor and activist. He has appeared in a number of movies in Latin America and Spain, and has had a starring role in the crime drama Narcos: Mexico (2018–2020). He has since portrayed Namor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) and reprised his role in the upcoming film Avengers: Doomsday (2026).

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Jonny Lang, American singer, songwriter and guitarist

Jon Gordon Langseth Jr., known as Jonny Lang, is an American blues, gospel, rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He has recorded five albums that have charted on the top 50 of the Billboard 200 chart and won a Grammy Award for his 2006 album Turn Around.

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29/01/1980

Jason James Richter, American actor and musician

Jason James Richter is an American actor, musician, producer, and director.

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29/01/1979

Andrew Keegan, American actor

Andrew Keegan is an American actor. He began his career as a child actor, making his film debut with a supporting role in Camp Nowhere (1994). Keegan later received recognition for his main role as Jack Kelly on season 2 of the ABC sitcom Thunder Alley (1994–1995).

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Christina Koch, American engineer and astronaut

Christina Hammock Koch is an American engineer and NASA astronaut of the class of 2013. She received Bachelor of Science degrees in electrical engineering and physics and a Master of Science in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University. She also did advanced study while working at the Goddard Space Flight Center. Just before becoming an astronaut, she served at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as station chief for American Samoa.

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29/01/1977

Justin Hartley, American actor

Justin Scott Hartley is an American actor, television producer, and director. He has played Fox Crane on the NBC daytime soap opera Passions (2002–2006), Oliver Queen on the WB/CW television series Smallville (2006–2011), and Adam Newman on the CBS daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless (2014–2016) which earned him a Daytime Emmy nomination. He also had recurring roles in the third season of the television drama series Revenge (2013–2014) and in the final three seasons of the drama series Mistresses (2014–2016).

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Sam Jaeger, American actor and screenwriter

Samuel Heath Jaeger is an American actor and screenwriter.

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29/01/1975

Sharif Atkins, American actor

Sharif Atkins is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Dr. Michael Gallant on ER (2001–2006), FBI Agent Clinton Jones on White Collar (2009–2014), and Captain Norman 'Boom Boom' Gates on NCIS: Hawaiʻi (2021–2024).

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Sara Gilbert, American actress, producer, and talk show host

Sara Gilbert is an American actress best known for portraying Darlene Conner on Roseanne and its sequel, The Conners (2018–25), a role for which she received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. She created and was a co-host of the CBS daytime talk show The Talk, and had the recurring role of Leslie Winkle on CBS's The Big Bang Theory.

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Kelly Packard, American actress

Kelly Chemane Packard is an American actress and television personality. She is best known for her roles as Tiffani Smith on California Dreams and April Giminski on Baywatch, as well as co-hosting Ripley's Believe It or Not!. She also co-hosted the late segment of GSN Live from September 15, 2008 until November 28, 2008.

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29/01/1973

Megan McArdle, American journalist

Megan Jennifer McArdle is an American columnist and blogger based in Washington, D.C. She writes for The Washington Post, mostly about economics, finance, and government policy.

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Jason Schmidt, American baseball player

Jason David Schmidt is an American former Major League Baseball pitcher. In his career, he has played for the Los Angeles Dodgers (2007–2009), San Francisco Giants (2001–06), Pittsburgh Pirates (1996–2001) and Atlanta Braves (1995–96), by whom he had been drafted in the eighth round, 206th overall, of the 1991 draft.

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29/01/1972

Brian Wood, American writer, illustrator and graphic designer

Brian Wood is an American writer, illustrator, and graphic designer, known for his work in comic books, television and video games. His noted comic book work includes the series DMZ, Demo, Northlanders, The Massive, Marvel Comics' The X-Men, and Star Wars. His web series work includes adaptations of his own short stories from the comics series The Massive and Conan the Barbarian for Geek & Sundry and YouTube, and his video game work includes three years on staff at Rockstar Games, co-writing 1979 Revolution: Black Friday and story contributions to Aliens: Fireteam Elite. His television work includes pilot scripts for AMC, Amazon Studios, and Sonar Entertainment. He is a contributing writer on HBO Max's DMZ adaptation of his own work.

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29/01/1971

Clare Balding, English broadcaster, journalist and author

Clare Victoria Balding is an English broadcast journalist and author. She currently presents programmes for BBC Sport and Channel 4, and previously for BT Sport. She also formerly presented Good Morning Sunday on BBC Radio 2. Balding was appointed as the 30th president of the Rugby Football League, serving a two-year term until December 2022.

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29/01/1970

Heather Graham, American actress

Heather Joan Graham is an American actress. The accolades she has received include nominations for two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Critics' Choice Movie Award, and an Independent Spirit Award.

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Jörg Hoffmann, German swimmer

Jörg Hoffmann is a retired freestyle swimmer from Germany and former World record holder. He was also multiple World and European champion, in both Long and Short Course Championships.

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Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Indian colonel and politician

Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore is an Indian politician, Olympic medallist in shooting and retired colonel in the Indian Army. He is serving as a cabinet minister at the Industry & Commerce, Youth Affairs & Sports Department in the Government of Rajasthan since December 2023. Rathore was a Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha from Jaipur Rural seat since 2014 till 2023.

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Paul Ryan, American politician, 62nd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

Paul Davis Ryan is an American politician who served as the 54th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he was the party's vice presidential nominee in the 2012 election running alongside Mitt Romney, losing to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

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29/01/1969

Sam Trammell, American actor

Sam Trammell is an American actor, best known for his role as Sam Merlotte on the HBO fantasy drama series True Blood. He was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance as Richard Miller in Ah, Wilderness!

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29/01/1968

Edward Burns, American actor, director, writer, and producer

Edward Fitzgerald Burns is an American actor and filmmaker. He rose to fame with The Brothers McMullen (1995), his low-budget independent film that became successful worldwide. His other film appearances include Saving Private Ryan (1998), The Holiday (2006), 27 Dresses (2008), Man on a Ledge (2012), Friends with Kids (2012), and Alex Cross (2012). Burns directed films such as She's the One (1996), Sidewalks of New York (2001), and The Fitzgerald Family Christmas (2012). On television, he appeared as Bugsy Siegel in the TNT crime drama series Mob City and as Terry Muldoon in TNT's Public Morals.

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Monte Cook, American game designer and writer

Monte Cook is an American professional tabletop role-playing game designer and writer, best known for his work on Dungeons & Dragons.

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Aeneas Williams, American football player

Aeneas Demetrius Williams is an American former professional football player who was a cornerback and safety in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons. He played college football for the Southern Jaguars and was selected in the third round of the 1991 NFL draft by the Phoenix Cardinals, where he spent 10 seasons. During his final four seasons, he was a member of the St. Louis Rams. Williams received eight Pro Bowl selections and three first-team All-Pro honors, as well as being on the second NFL 1990s All-Decade Team. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2014.

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29/01/1967

Sean Burke, Canadian ice hockey player and coach

Sean Burke is a Canadian former professional ice hockey goaltender and the current director of goaltending for the Vegas Golden Knights, with whom he won the Stanley Cup with in 2023. He played 18 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the New Jersey Devils, Hartford Whalers, Carolina Hurricanes, Vancouver Canucks, Philadelphia Flyers, Florida Panthers, Phoenix Coyotes, Tampa Bay Lightning and Los Angeles Kings between 1988 and 2007. He was born in Windsor, Ontario, but grew up in Toronto, Ontario.

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Stacey King, American basketball player, coach, and sportscaster

Ronald Stacey King is an American sports announcer and former National Basketball Association (NBA) center who won three consecutive championships with the Chicago Bulls from 1991 to 1993 while playing next to Michael Jordan. King is the color commentator for Chicago Bulls television broadcasts.

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29/01/1965

David Agus, American physician and author

David B. Agus is an American physician and author specializing in advanced cancer. He serves as professor of medicine and biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and Viterbi School of Engineering, as well as the founding director and CEO of the Ellison Medical Institute. He is also the cofounder of several personalized medicine companies and a contributor to CBS News on health topics.

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Dominik Hašek, Czech ice hockey player

Dominik Hašek is a Czech former ice hockey player who was a goaltender for 16 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL), mostly for the Buffalo Sabres. Widely considered to be the best goaltender in history, Hašek also played for the Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, and Ottawa Senators in his NHL career before finishing his career in Europe. While in Buffalo, he became one of the league's finest goaltenders, earning him the nickname "The Dominator". His strong play has been credited with establishing European goaltenders in a league previously dominated by North Americans. He is a two-time Stanley Cup champion, both with the Red Wings, winning his first as the starting goaltender in his first season with the team in 2002, and his second in 2008 as the team's backup in his last NHL season.

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29/01/1964

Roddy Frame, Scottish singer-songwriter and musician

Roddy Frame is a Scottish singer-songwriter and musician. He was the founder of the 1980s new wave band Aztec Camera and has undertaken a solo career since the group's dissolution. In November 2013, journalist Brian Donaldson described Frame as: "Aztec Camera wunderkind-turned-elder statesman of intelligent, melodic, wistful Scotpop."

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Andre Reed, American football player

Andre Darnell Reed is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver for 16 seasons in the National Football League (NFL), primarily with the Buffalo Bills. He played college football for the Kutztown Golden Bears and was selected by the Bills in the fourth round of the 1985 NFL draft with the 86th overall selection. Following 15 seasons with the Bills, with whom he earned seven Pro Bowl selections, Reed spent his final season as a member of the Washington Redskins in 2000.

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29/01/1962

Gauri Lankesh, Indian journalist and activist (died 2017)

Gauri Lankesh was an Indian activist and journalist from Bangalore, Karnataka. She worked as an editor in Lankesh Patrike, a Kannada weekly started by her father P. Lankesh, and ran her own weekly called Gauri Lankesh Patrike. She was murdered outside her home in Rajarajeshwari Nagar on 5 September 2017. At the time of her death, Gauri was known for being a critic of right-wing Hindu extremism. She was honoured with the Anna Politkovskaya Award for speaking against right-wing Hindu extremism, campaigning for women's rights and opposing caste-based discrimination.

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Lee Terry, American politician and lawyer

Lee Raymond Terry is an American former politician and senior law firm adviser. From 1999 to 2015, he served eight terms as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Nebraska's 2nd congressional district as a member of the Republican Party. Since 2015, Terry reactivated his law license and is a senior adviser to the government relations and public group for the international law firm Kelley Drye & Warren.

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Nicholas Turturro, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter

Nicholas Turturro Jr. is an American actor. He is known as one of the frequent collaborators of Spike Lee, and his roles as Detective James Martinez on NYPD Blue and Sergeant Anthony Renzulli on Blue Bloods. He was nominated twice for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his work on NYPD Blue. He is also a Screen Actors Guild Award winner and a Independent Spirit Award nominee.

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29/01/1961

Strive Masiyiwa, Zimbabwean businessman and philanthropist

Strive Masiyiwa is a London-based Zimbabwean billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder and executive chairman of international technology groups Econet Global and Cassava Technologies. As of 2026, Forbes estimates his net worth at US$2.2 billion.

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29/01/1960

Cho-liang Lin, Taiwanese-American musician

Cho-Liang Lin is a Taiwanese-American violinist who is renowned for his appearances as a soloist with major orchestras. Musical America named him its "Instrumentalist of the Year" in 2000. He founded the Taipei International Music Festival in 1997, the largest classical music festival in the history of Taiwan, performing to an indoor audience of over 53,000 and the Taipei Music Academy & Festival in 2019, a summer music festival.

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Greg Louganis, American diver and author

Gregory Efthimios Louganis is an American Olympic diver who won gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics on the springboard and platform. He is the only man and the second diver in Olympic history to sweep the diving events in consecutive Olympic Games. He has been called both "the greatest American diver" and "probably the greatest diver in history".

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Steve Sax, American baseball player

Stephen Louis Sax is an American former Major League Baseball player and coach. He played as a second baseman in Major League Baseball from 1981 to 1994, celebrated as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers with whom he won world championships in 1981 and 1988. A five-time All-Star, Sax was named the National League Rookie of the Year in 1982 and won the Silver Slugger Award in 1986. He also played for the New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox, and the Oakland Athletics. Sax hosts for SiriusXM's MLB Network Radio.

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Gia Carangi, American supermodel (died 1986)

Gia Marie Carangi was an American supermodel, considered by some to be the first supermodel. In 2023, Harper's Bazaar ranked her 15th among the greatest supermodels in the 1980s. She was featured on the cover of numerous magazines, including multiple editions of Vogue and Cosmopolitan, and appeared in advertising campaigns for fashion houses including Armani, Dior, Versace and Yves Saint Laurent.

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29/01/1958

Judy Norton, American actress and theater director

Judy Norton is an American actress and theater director who is best known for her role as Mary Ellen Walton on The Waltons television series and subsequent Waltons TV movies.

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29/01/1957

Diane Delano, American actress (died 2024)

Diane Delano was an American character actress. She was known for her numerous roles in films and television, such as Sergeant Barbara Semanski on the CBS television series Northern Exposure and Roberta "Bobbi" Glass on The WB television series Popular.

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Ron Franscell, American author and journalist

Ron Franscell is an American journalist, novelist and true crime writer best known for the true account The Darkest Night about the 1973 crimes against two childhood friends in the small community where Franscell grew up.

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29/01/1956

Irlene Mandrell, American musician, actress, and model

Ellen Irlene Mandrell is an American musician. She is the younger sister of country singers Barbara and Louise Mandrell.

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Amii Stewart, American singer and dancer

Amy Paulette "Amii" Stewart is an American disco and soul singer who found prominence with her 1979 U.S. Billboard number 1 hit cover of Eddie Floyd's song "Knock on Wood", often considered a classic of the disco genre. Other singles include "Light My Fire" (1979) and "Friends" (1985). Stewart is the stepsister of actress-singer Miquel Brown and aunt to Brown's daughter, singer Sinitta.

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29/01/1955

Greg Ballard, American basketball player and coach (died 2016)

Gregory Ballard was an American professional basketball player and NBA assistant coach. A collegiate All-American at Oregon, Ballard averaged 12.4 points and 6.1 rebounds over an eleven-season NBA career with the Washington Bullets, Golden State Warriors and briefly, the Seattle SuperSonics.

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John Tate, American boxer (died 1998)

John Tate was an American professional boxer and held the WBA heavyweight championship from 1979 to 1980. As an amateur he won a bronze medal in the heavyweight division at the 1976 Summer Olympics. He scored notable victories over future Heavyweight Champion Gerrie Coetzee as well as beating number three ranked heavyweight Kallie Knoetze in 1979 and knocking out contender Bernardo Mercado and fringe contender Duane Bobick.

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29/01/1954

Terry Kinney, American actor and director

Terry Kinney is an American actor, theater director, and founding member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, with Gary Sinise and Jeff Perry. Kinney is best known for his role as Tim McManus on HBO's prison drama Oz.

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Oprah Winfrey, American talk show host, actress, and producer, founded Harpo Productions

Oprah Gail Winfrey is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and media proprietor. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which ran in national syndication for 25 years, from 1986 to 2011. Globally, she is the richest Black woman and the wealthiest female celebrity. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she was the richest African-American of the 20th century and was once the world's only Black billionaire. By 2007, she was often ranked as the most influential woman in the world.

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29/01/1953

Teresa Teng, Taiwanese singer (died 1995)

Teng Li-Chun, also known as Teresa Teng, was a Taiwanese singer, television personality, musician, and philanthropist. Widely regarded as one of the most culturally significant figures in the Chinese-speaking world of the 20th century, she is considered to be one of the most successful and influential Asian musicians of all time. Her contributions to Chinese pop has given birth to the phrase, "Wherever there are Chinese-speaking people, there is music of Teresa Teng." A polyglot, Teng's music has transcended geographical, linguistic, and political boundaries across Asia for several decades.

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Charlie Wilson, American singer-songwriter and producer

Charles Kent Wilson, also known as Uncle Charlie, is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer who served as lead vocalist for the Gap Band from its 1967 formation until its 2010 disbandment. As a solo act, Wilson has been nominated for 13 Grammy Awards and 11 NAACP Image Awards, received a 2009 Soul Train Icon Award, and was a recipient of a BMI Icon Award in 2005. In 2009 and 2020, he was named Billboard magazine's No. 1 Adult R&B Artist, and his song "There Goes My Baby" was named the No. 1 Urban Adult Song for 2009 in Billboard.

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29/01/1952

Pete Geren, American attorney and politician

Preston Murdoch "Pete" Geren III is an American attorney and politician who served as the 20th United States Secretary of the Army from July 16, 2007, to September 16, 2009. He is a Democratic former member of the United States House of Representatives from Texas's 12th congressional district. He is the president of the Sid W. Richardson Foundation in Fort Worth, Texas and is a member of the board of trustees of the Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Virginia.

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Tim Healy, British actor

Timothy Malcolm Healy is an English actor. He played Dennis Patterson in the comedy-drama series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1983–2004), Lesley Conroy in the sitcom Benidorm (2009–2018), and Gastric in the comedy series Still Open All Hours (2014–2019).

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29/01/1950

Ann Jillian, American actress and singer

Ann Jillian is an American former actress and singer whose career began as a child actress in 1960. She is best known for her role as the sultry waitress Cassie Cranston on the 1980s sitcom It's a Living.

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Miklós Vámos, Hungarian writer, novelist, screenwriter and translator

Miklós Vámos originally Tibor Vámos, is a Hungarian writer, novelist, screenwriter, translator and talkshow host, who has published 33 books.

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29/01/1949

Doris Davenport, American poet and teacher

Doris Davenport, sometimes styled as doris davenport, was an American writer, educator, and literary and performance poet. She wrote an essay featured in This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color entitled "The Pathology of Racism: A Conversation with Third World Wimmin." She also focuses her efforts on poetry and education.

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Tommy Ramone, Hungarian-American drummer and producer (died 2014)

Thomas Erdelyi, known professionally as Tommy Ramone, was a Hungarian musician. He was the drummer for the influential punk rock band the Ramones from its debut in 1974 to 1978, later serving as its producer, and was the longest-surviving original member of the Ramones.

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29/01/1948

Raymond Keene, English chess player and author

Raymond Dennis Keene is an English chess grandmaster, a FIDE International Arbiter, a chess organiser, and a journalist and author. He won the British Chess Championship in 1971, and was the first player from England to earn a Grandmaster norm, in 1974, at the Nice Olympiad. In 1976, he became the second Englishman to be awarded the Grandmaster title, and he was the second British chess player to beat an incumbent World Chess Champion. He represented England in eight Chess Olympiads.

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Cristina Saralegui, Cuban-American journalist, actress and talk show host

Cristina María Saralegui de Ávila is a Cuban-born American journalist, television personality, actress and talk show host of the Spanish-language eponymous show, El show de Cristina. Before her television career, she worked for ten years as editor-in-chief of the Spanish-language version of Cosmopolitan magazine distributed throughout Latin America.

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Marc Singer, Canadian-American actor

Marc Singer is a Canadian-American actor best known for his roles in the Beastmaster film series, as Mike Donovan in the original 1980s TV series V, and as Matt Cantrell in 1983 Dallas.

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29/01/1947

Linda B. Buck, American biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate

Linda Brown Buck is an American biologist best known for her work on the olfactory system. She was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Richard Axel, for their work on olfactory receptors. She is currently on the faculty of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

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David Byron, English singer-songwriter (died 1985)

David Garrick, better known by his stage name David Byron, was a British singer who was best known in the early 1970s as the original lead vocalist of the rock band Uriah Heep. Byron possessed a powerful operatic voice and exuded a flamboyant stage presence.

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Marián Varga, Slovak organist and composer (died 2017)

Marián Varga was a Slovak musician, composer and organist. In the context of Czech-Slovak musical culture of the second half of the 20th century, Varga was a significant figure in the field of autonomous, modern classical music, rock music, as well as improvised or experimental music. In 1967, he became a member of the band Prúdy, with whom he recorded and co-wrote the legendary album Zvoňte, Zvonky. Influenced by Brian Auger and Keith Emerson, Marián Varga founded the progressive rock band Collegium Musicum in 1969, whose albums Konvergencie, Zelená pošta, Live and Divergencie represent the main pillars of Czech-Slovak rock music. He died on 9 August 2017 after several health problems, including cancer and lung disease.

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29/01/1946

Geater Davis, American singer-songwriter (died 1984)

Vernon "Geater" Davis was an American soul singer and songwriter. He has been described as "one of the South's great lost soul singers, an impassioned stylist whose voice was a combination of sweetness and sandpaper grit."

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Bettye LaVette, American singer-songwriter

Bettye LaVette is an American soul singer who made her first record at sixteen, but achieved only intermittent fame until 2005, when her album I've Got My Own Hell to Raise was released to widespread critical acclaim, and was named on many critics' "Best of 2005" lists. Her next album, The Scene of the Crime, debuted at number one on Billboard's Top Blues Albums chart and was nominated for Best Contemporary Blues Album at the 2008 Grammy Awards. She received the Legacy of Americana Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2023 Americana Music Honors & Awards.

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29/01/1945

Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, Malian academic and politician, Prime Minister of Mali (died 2022)

Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, often known by his initials IBK, was a Malian politician who served as the president of Mali from September 2013 to August 2020, when he was forced to resign in the 2020 Malian coup d'état. He served as Mali's prime minister from February 1994 to February 2000 and as president of the National Assembly of Mali from September 2002 to September 2007.

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Tom Selleck, American actor and businessman

Thomas William Selleck is an American actor. His breakout role was playing private investigator Thomas Magnum in the television series Magnum, P.I. (1980–88), for which he received five Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, winning in 1984. From 2010–24, he was NYC Police Commissioner Frank Reagan in Blue Bloods. From 2005–15, he was troubled small-town police chief Jesse Stone in nine television films based on the Robert B. Parker novels.

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29/01/1943

Tony Blackburn, English radio and television host

Anthony Kenneth Blackburn is an English disc jockey, singer and television presenter, whose career spans over 60 years.

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Pat Quinn, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (died 2014)

John Brian Patrick Quinn, was a Canadian ice hockey player, head coach, and executive. Known by the nickname "The Big Irishman", he coached for the National Hockey League's Philadelphia Flyers, Los Angeles Kings, Vancouver Canucks, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Edmonton Oilers, reaching the Stanley Cup Final twice, with the Flyers in 1980 and the Canucks in 1994. Internationally, Quinn coached Team Canada to gold medals at the 2002 Winter Olympics, 2008 IIHF World U18 Championships and 2009 World Junior Championship, as well as World Cup championship in 2004.

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Mark Wynter, English singer and actor

Terence Sidney Lewis, professionally known as Mark Wynter, is an English singer and actor, who had four Top 20 singles in the 1960s, including "Venus in Blue Jeans" and "Go Away Little Girl". He enjoyed a lengthy career from 1960 to 1968 as a pop singer and teen idol, and developed later into an actor in film, musicals and plays.

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29/01/1942

Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, Cuban military officer, legislator and cosmonaut

Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez is a Cuban military officer, legislator, and former cosmonaut and the first person of African heritage in space. In 1980, as a member of the crew of Soyuz 38, he became the first Cuban citizen, the first Latin American, the first person of African descent, and the first person from a country in the Western Hemisphere other than the United States to travel into Earth orbit.

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29/01/1941

Robin Morgan, American actress, journalist, and author

Robin Morgan is an American poet, writer, activist, journalist, lecturer and former child actor. Since the early 1960s, she has been a key radical feminist member of the American Women's Movement, and a leader in the international feminist movement. Her 1970 anthology Sisterhood Is Powerful was cited by the New York Public Library as "One of the 100 Most Influential Books of the 20th Century". She has written more than 20 books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and was editor of Ms. magazine.

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Gamini Jayawickrama Perera, Sri Lankan politician (died 2024)

Mallawa Arachchige Gamini Jayawickrama Perera was a Sri Lankan politician. He was a United National Party member of the Parliament of Sri Lanka for the Kurunegala District between 1994 and 2020, and had previously represented Katugampola in the National State Assembly from 1977 to 1989. Perera served many cabinet positions in various Sri Lankan governments, including being the Minister of Buddha Sasana, Minister of Wayamba Development, Minister of Sustainable Development and Wildlife, Minister of Food Security and the Minister of Irrigation and Water Management. Perera also briefly left national politics to become the Chief Minister of the North Western Province and serve in the North Western Provincial Council. Perera helped represent Sri Lanka's interests internationally as the chairman of United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, a position he was elected to in April 2016. Furthermore, he held the position of chairman of the United National Party during a significant period of his career.

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29/01/1940

Justino Díaz, Puerto Rican opera singer

Justino Díaz is a Puerto Rican operatic bass-baritone. In 1963, Díaz won an annual contest held at the Metropolitan Opera of New York, becoming the first Puerto Rican to obtain such an honor and as a consequence, made his Metropolitan debut in October 1963 in Verdi's Rigoletto as Monterone.

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Katharine Ross, American actress and author

Katharine Juliet Ross is a retired American actress. Her accolades include an Academy Award nomination, a BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards.

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29/01/1939

Germaine Greer, Australian journalist and author

Germaine Greer is an Australian writer and public intellectual, regarded as one of the major voices of the second-wave feminism movement in the latter half of the 20th century.

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Jeanne Lee, American jazz singer, poet and composer (died 2000)

Jeanne Lee was an American jazz singer, poet and composer. Best known for a wide range of vocal styles she mastered, Lee collaborated with numerous distinguished composers and performers who included Gunter Hampel, Andrew Cyrille, Ran Blake, Carla Bley, Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown, Archie Shepp, Mal Waldron, Mark Whitecage and many others.

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29/01/1937

Jeff Clyne, British musician (died 2009)

Jeffrey Ovid Clyne was a British jazz bassist.

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29/01/1936

James Jamerson, American bass player (died 1983)

James Lee Jamerson was an American bassist. He was the uncredited bassist on most of the Motown Records hits in the 1960s and early 1970s, and is now regarded as one of the greatest and most influential bass players in modern music history. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. As a session musician he played on twenty-three Billboard Hot 100 number-one hits, as well as fifty-six R&B number-one hits.

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Veturi, Indian poet and songwriter (died 2010)

Veturi Sundararama Murthy, known mononymously by his surname Veturi, was an Indian poet and lyricist who is known for his works in Telugu literature and cinema. Veturi is a recipient of the National Film Award, various Nandi Awards, Filmfare Awards, and other state honors. His career in Telugu cinema spanned more than four decades.

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29/01/1934

Alan Cowley, British chemist (died 2020)

Alan Herbert Cowley FRS was a British chemist, and Robert A. Welch Chair at the University of Texas at Austin. He was a 1976 Guggenheim Fellow.

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29/01/1933

Sacha Distel, French singer and guitarist (died 2004)

Alexandre "Sacha" Distel was a French musician and singer who had hits with a cover version of "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" in 1970, which reached No. 10 on the UK charts, "Scoubidou", and "The Good Life". He was made Chevalier (Knight) of the Légion d'honneur in 1997. He had also scored a hit as a songwriter when Tony Bennett recorded "The Good Life" in 1963. It peaked at No. 18 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart and reached the top 10 of the Easy Listening chart.

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29/01/1932

Raman Subba Row, English cricketer and referee (died 2024)

Raman Subba Row was a 20th-century Anglo-Indian cricket player and administrator, who played Test cricket for England and captained Northamptonshire CCC (1958–61), later serving as Chairman of the Test and County Cricket Board (1985–90).

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29/01/1931

Leslie Bricusse, English playwright and composer (died 2021)

Leslie Charles Bricusse was a British composer, lyricist, and playwright who worked on theatre musicals and wrote theme music for films. He was best known for writing the music and lyrics for the films Doctor Dolittle; Goodbye, Mr. Chips; Scrooge; Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory; Tom and Jerry: The Movie; the titular James Bond film songs "Goldfinger" and "You Only Live Twice"; "Can You Read My Mind? " from Superman; and "Le Jazz Hot!" from Victor/Victoria.

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Ferenc Mádl, Hungarian academic and politician, 2nd President of Hungary (died 2011)

Ferenc Mádl was a Hungarian legal scholar, professor, and politician, who served as President of Hungary from 2000 until 2005. Prior to that he had been minister without portfolio from 1990 to 1993 then Minister of Education from 1993 to 1994 in the conservative cabinets of József Antall and Péter Boross.

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29/01/1929

Elio Petri, Italian director and screenwriter (died 1982)

Eraclio Petri, commonly known as Elio Petri, was an Italian film and theatre director, screenwriter and film critic. The Museum of Modern Art described him as "one of the preeminent political and social satirists of 1960s and early 1970s Italian cinema". His film Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion won the 1971 Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, and his subsequent film The Working Class Goes to Heaven received the Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival.

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29/01/1928

Joseph Kruskal, American mathematician and computer scientist (died 2010)

Joseph Bernard Kruskal, Jr. was an American mathematician.

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Lee Shau-kee, Hong Kong real estate billionaire (died 2025)

Lee Shau-kee was a Hong Kong business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He was a real estate tycoon and majority owner of Henderson Land Development, a property conglomerate with interests in property, hotels, restaurants and internet services in Hong Kong and other countries. In 2019, aged 91, Lee stepped down as chairman and managing director of the company, in favour of two of his sons, Peter and Martin Lee. He retained a role as an executive director.

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29/01/1927

Edward Abbey, American environmentalist and author (died 1989)

Edward Paul Abbey was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental groups, and the non-fiction work Desert Solitaire.

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29/01/1926

Abdus Salam, Pakistani-British physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1996)

Mohammad Abdus Salam was a Pakistani theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate. He shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Steven Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow "for their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current". He was the first Pakistani, first Muslim scientist, and second person from any Muslim country to win a Nobel Prize.

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29/01/1923

Paddy Chayefsky, American author and screenwriter (died 1981)

Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky was an American playwright, screenwriter and novelist. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for writing both Adapted and Original screenplays.

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Eddie Taylor, American electric blues guitarist and singer (died 1985)

Eddie Taylor was an American electric blues guitarist and singer.

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29/01/1920

Paul Gayten, American R&B pianist, songwriter, producer, and record company executive (died 1991)

Paul Leon Gayten was an American R&B pianist, songwriter, producer, and record company executive.

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29/01/1918

John Forsythe, American actor (died 2010)

John Lincoln Forsythe was an American stage, film/television actor, producer, narrator, and drama teacher whose career spanned six decades. He also appeared as a guest on several talk and variety shows and as a panelist on numerous game shows.

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29/01/1917

John Raitt, American actor and singer (died 2005)

John Emmet Raitt was an American actor and singer best known for his performances in musical theatre. His most notable role was Billy Bigelow in the original Broadway cast of Carousel.

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29/01/1916

Roy Markham, British plant virologist (died 1979)

Roy Markham FRS was a British plant virologist who served as the fifth director of the John Innes Centre from 1967 until his death in 1979.

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29/01/1915

Bill Peet, American author and illustrator (died 2002)

William Bartlett Peet was an American children's book illustrator and a story writer and animator for Walt Disney Animation Studios.

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John Serry Sr., Italian-American concert accordionist and composer (died 2003)

John Serry was an American concert accordionist, arranger, composer, organist, and educator. He performed on the CBS Radio and Television networks and contributed to Voice of America's cultural diplomacy initiatives during the Golden Age of Radio. He also concertized on the accordion as a member of several orchestras and jazz ensembles for nearly forty years between the 1930s and 1960s.

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29/01/1913

Victor Mature, American actor (died 1999)

Victor John Mature was an American stage, film, and television actor who was a leading man in Hollywood during the 1940s and 1950s. His best known film roles include One Million B.C. (1940), My Darling Clementine (1946), Kiss of Death (1947), Samson and Delilah (1949), and The Robe (1953). He also appeared in many musicals opposite such stars as Rita Hayworth and Betty Grable.

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29/01/1905

Barnett Newman, American painter and etcher (died 1970)

Barnett Newman was an American painter. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense of place that viewers experience with art and incorporate the simplest forms to emphasize this feeling.

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29/01/1901

Allen B. DuMont, American engineer and broadcaster, founded the DuMont Television Network (died 1965)

Allen Balcom DuMont was an American electronics engineer, scientist and inventor who improved the cathode-ray tube in 1931 for use in television receivers. Seven years later he manufactured and sold the first commercially practical television set to the public. In June 1938, his Model 180 television receiver was the first all-electronic television set sold to the public, a few months prior to RCA's first TV set in April 1939. In 1946, DuMont founded the first television network to be licensed, the DuMont Television Network, by linking station WABD in New York City to station W3XWT, which later became WTTG, in Washington, D.C. WTTG was named for Dr. Thomas T. Goldsmith, DuMont's Vice President of Research, and his best friend. DuMont's successes in television picture tubes, TV sets and components and his involvement in commercial TV broadcasting made him the first millionaire in the business.

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E. P. Taylor, Canadian businessman and horse breeder (died 1989)

Edward Plunket Taylor, CMG, was a Canadian business tycoon, investor, and philanthropist. He was a famous breeder of Thoroughbred race horses, and a major force behind the evolution of the Canadian horse-racing industry. Known to his friends as "Eddie," he is all but universally recorded as "E. P. Taylor".

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29/01/1895

Muna Lee, American poet and author (died 1965)

Muna Lee was an American poet, author, and activist, who first became known and widely published as a lyric poet in the early 20th century. She also was known for her writings that promoted Pan-Americanism and feminism. She translated and published in Poetry a 1925 landmark anthology of Latin American poets, and continued to translate from poetry in Spanish.

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29/01/1892

Ernst Lubitsch, German American film director, producer, writer, and actor (died 1947)

Ernst Lubitsch was a German and American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch". Among his best known works are Trouble in Paradise (1932), Design for Living (1933), Ninotchka (1939), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), To Be or Not to Be (1942) and Heaven Can Wait (1943).

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29/01/1888

Sydney Chapman, English mathematician and geophysicist (died 1970)

Sydney Chapman was a British mathematician and geophysicist. His work on the kinetic theory of gases, solar-terrestrial physics, and the Earth's ozone layer has inspired a broad range of research over many decades.

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Wellington Koo, Chinese statesman (died 1985)

Koo Vi Kyuin, better known as V. K. Wellington Koo, was a Chinese diplomat.

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29/01/1886

Karl Freudenberg, German chemist (died 1983)

Karl Johann Freudenberg was a German chemist who did early seminal work on the absolute configurations to carbohydrates, terpenes, and steroids, and on the structure of cellulose and other polysaccharides, and on the nature, structure, and biosynthesis of lignin. The Research Institute for the Chemistry of Wood and Polysaccharides at the University of Heidelberg was created for him in the mid to late 1930s, and he led this until 1969.

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29/01/1884

Juhan Aavik, Estonian-Swedish composer and conductor (died 1982)

Juhan Aavik was an Estonian composer.

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29/01/1881

Alice Catherine Evans, American microbiologist (died 1975)

Alice Catherine Evans was an American microbiologist. She became a researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture where she investigated bacteriology in milk and cheese. She proved that Bacillus abortus caused the disease brucellosis in both cattle and humans, which led to the pasteurization of milk in the US in 1930. Evans was the first woman president elected by the Society of American Bacteriologists.

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29/01/1880

W. C. Fields, American actor, comedian, and screenwriter (died 1946)

William Claude Dukenfield, better known as W. C. Fields, was an American actor, comedian, juggler and writer. His career in show business began in vaudeville, where he attained international success as a silent juggler. He began to incorporate comedy into his act and was a featured comedian in the Ziegfeld Follies for several years. He became a star in the Broadway musical comedy Poppy (1923), in which he played a colorful small-time con man. His subsequent stage and film roles were often similar scoundrels or henpecked everyman characters.

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29/01/1876

Havergal Brian, English composer (died 1972)

William Havergal Brian was an English composer, librettist, and church organist.

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29/01/1874

John D. Rockefeller Jr., American businessman and philanthropist (died 1960)

John Davison Rockefeller Jr. was an American financier and philanthropist. Rockefeller was the fifth child and only son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He was involved in the development of the vast office complex in Midtown Manhattan known as Rockefeller Center, making him one of the largest real estate holders in the city at that time. Towards the end of his life, he was famous for his philanthropy, donating over $500 million to a wide variety of different causes, including educational establishments. Among his projects was the reconstruction of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. He was widely blamed for having orchestrated the Ludlow Massacre and other offenses during the Colorado Coalfield War. Rockefeller was the father of six children: Abby, John III, Nelson, Laurance, Winthrop, and David.

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29/01/1867

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Spanish journalist and author (died 1928)

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez was a journalist, politician, and a bestselling Spanish novelist in various genres whose most widespread and lasting fame in the English-speaking world is from Hollywood films that were adapted from his works.

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29/01/1866

Romain Rolland, French historian, author, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1944)

Romain Rolland was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915 "as a tribute to the lofty idealism of his literary production and to the sympathy and love of truth with which he has described different types of human beings".

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29/01/1864

Richard Arman Gregory, British astronomer (died 1952)

Sir Richard Arman Gregory, 1st Baronet FRS, FRAS was a British astronomer and promoter of science. Some of his work was published as by Richard A. or R. A. Gregory.

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29/01/1862

Frederick Delius, English composer (died 1934)

Frederick Theodore Albert Delius was an English composer. Born in Bradford in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce. He was sent to Florida in the United States in 1884 to manage an orange plantation. He soon neglected his managerial duties, and in 1886 returned to Europe.

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29/01/1861

Florida Ruffin Ridley, American civil rights activist, teacher, editor, and writer (died 1943)

Florida Ruffin Ridley was an African-American civil rights activist, suffragist, teacher, writer, and editor from Boston, Massachusetts. She was one of the first black public schoolteachers in Boston, and edited The Woman's Era, the country's first newspaper published by and for African-American women.

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29/01/1860

Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright and short story writer (died 1904)

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short story writer, widely considered one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov was a physician by profession. "Medicine is my lawful wife," he once said, "and literature is my mistress."

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29/01/1858

Henry Ward Ranger, American painter and academic (died 1916)

Henry Ward Ranger was an American artist. Born in western New York State, he was a prominent landscape and marine painter, an important Tonalist, and the leader of the Old Lyme Art Colony. Ranger became a National Academician (1906), and a member of the American Water Color Society. Among his paintings are, Top of the Hill, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and East River Idyll, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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29/01/1852

Frederic Hymen Cowen, Jamaican-English pianist, composer, and conductor (died 1935)

Sir Frederic Hymen Cowen, was an English composer, conductor and pianist.

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29/01/1846

Karol Olszewski, Polish chemist, mathematician and physicist (died 1915)

Karol Stanisław Olszewski was a Polish chemist, mathematician, and physicist. Together with Zygmunt Wróblewski, in 1883 he was the first scientist in the world to liquify oxygen and nitrogen.

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29/01/1843

William McKinley, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 25th President of the United States (died 1901)

William McKinley was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. A member of the Republican Party, he led a realignment that made Republicans largely dominant in the industrial states and nationwide for decades. McKinley successfully led the U.S. in the Spanish–American War and oversaw a period of American expansionism, with the annexations of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and American Samoa.

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29/01/1810

Ernst Kummer, Polish-German mathematician and academic (died 1893)

Ernst Eduard Kummer was a German mathematician. Skilled in applied mathematics, Kummer trained German army officers in ballistics; afterwards, he taught for 10 years in a gymnasium, the German equivalent of high school, where he inspired the mathematical career of Leopold Kronecker.

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Mary Whitwell Hale, American teacher, school founder, and hymnwriter (died 1862)

Mary Whitwell Hale was an American teacher, school founder, and hymnwriter of the Romantic era. She was a contributor to The Christian Register. Her pen name was made up of the concluding letters of her first, middle, and surname.

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29/01/1801

Johannes Bernardus van Bree, Dutch violinist, composer, and conductor (died 1857)

Johannes Bernardus van Bree was a Dutch composer, violinist and conductor.

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29/01/1792

Lemuel H. Arnold, American politician (died 1852)

Lemuel Hastings Arnold was an American politician from the U.S. state of Rhode Island. A Whig, he served as the 12th governor of the State of Rhode Island and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

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29/01/1782

Daniel Auber, French composer (died 1871)

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber was a French composer and director of the Paris Conservatoire.

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29/01/1761

Albert Gallatin, Swiss-American ethnologist, linguist, and politician, 4th United States Secretary of the Treasury (died 1849)

Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin was a Genevan-American politician, diplomat, ethnologist, and linguist. Often described as "America's Swiss Founding Father", he was a leading figure in the early years of the United States, helping shape the new republic's financial system and foreign policy. Gallatin was a prominent member of the Democratic-Republican Party, represented Pennsylvania in both chambers of Congress, and held several influential roles across four presidencies, most notably as the longest serving U.S. secretary of the treasury. He is also known for his contributions to academia, namely as the founder of New York University and cofounder of the American Ethnological Society.

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29/01/1756

Henry Lee III, American general and politician, 9th Governor of Virginia (died 1818)

Henry Lee III was an early American Patriot and politician who served as the ninth Governor of Virginia and as the Virginia Representative to the United States Congress. Lee's service during the American Revolution as a cavalry officer in the Continental Army earned him the nickname by which he is best known, "Light-Horse Harry". He was a member of the Lee Family of Virginia and the father of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.

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29/01/1754

Moses Cleaveland, American general, lawyer, and politician, founded Cleveland, Ohio (died 1806)

Moses Cleaveland was an American lawyer, politician, soldier, and surveyor from Connecticut who founded the city of Cleveland, Ohio, while surveying the Connecticut Western Reserve in 1796. During the American Revolution, Cleaveland was the brigadier general of the Connecticut militia.

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29/01/1749

Christian VII of Denmark (died 1808)

Christian VII was King of Denmark and Norway and Duke of Schleswig and Holstein from 1766 until his death in 1808. He was affected by mental illness and was only nominally king for most of his reign. His royal advisers changed depending on the outcome of power struggles. From 1770 to 1772, his court physician Johann Friedrich Struensee was the de facto ruler of the country and introduced progressive reforms signed into law by the king. Struensee was deposed by a coup in 1772, after which the country was ruled by Christian's stepmother, Queen Dowager Juliane Marie of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, his half-brother Hereditary Prince Frederick, and the Danish politician Ove Høegh-Guldberg. From 1784 until Christian VII's death in 1808, Christian's son, later Frederick VI, acted as unofficial prince regent.

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29/01/1737

Thomas Paine, English-American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary (died 1809)

Thomas Paine was an English-born American Founding Father, French Revolutionary, inventor, political philosopher, and statesman. His pamphlets Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783) framed the Patriot argument for independence from Great Britain at the outset of the American Revolution. Paine advanced Enlightenment-era arguments for human rights that shaped revolutionary discourse on both sides of the Atlantic.

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29/01/1718

Paul Rabaut, French pastor (died 1794)

Paul Rabaut was a French pastor of the Huguenot "Church of the Desert". He was regarded by many as the leader and director of the proscribed church. He was a peacemaker and a scholar despite, due to persecution, living like a troglodyte for more than 30 years.

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29/01/1717

Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, English field marshal and politician, 19th Governor General of Canada (died 1797)

Field Marshal Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, was a British Army officer and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in the British Army. Amherst is credited as the architect of Britain's successful campaign to conquer the territory of New France during the Seven Years' War. Under his command, British forces captured the cities of Louisbourg, Quebec City and Montreal, as well as several major fortresses. He was also the first British governor general in the territories that eventually became Canada. Numerous places and streets are named after him, in both Canada and the United States.

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29/01/1715

Georg Christoph Wagenseil, Austrian organist and composer (died 1777)

Georg Christoph Wagenseil was an Austrian composer.

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29/01/1711

Giuseppe Bonno, Austrian composer (died 1788)

Giuseppe Bonno was an Austrian composer of Italian origin.

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29/01/1688

Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish astronomer, philosopher, and theologian (died 1772)

Emanuel Swedenborg was a Swedish polymath; a scientist, engineer, astronomer, anatomist, Christian theologian, philosopher, and mystic. He became best known for his book on the afterlife, Heaven and Hell (1758).

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29/01/1632

Johann Georg Graevius, German scholar and critic (died 1703)

Johann Georg Graevius was a German classical scholar and critic. He was born in Naumburg, in the Electorate of Saxony.

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29/01/1602

Countess Amalie Elisabeth of Hanau-Münzenberg (died 1651)

Amalie Elisabeth of Hanau-Münzenberg was Landgravine consort and Regent of Hesse-Kassel. She married the future William V, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel in 1619 and became Landgravine upon his ascension to power in 1627. In 1637, military defeats forced her and William V into exile in East Frisia. Later that year, she became regent for their son William VI upon her husband's death. Through skillful diplomacy and military successes in the Thirty Years' War, she advanced the fortunes of Hesse-Kassel and influenced the Peace of Westphalia that brought the conflict to an end. She handed over an enlarged landgraviate to her son when she abdicated upon his majority in 1650. However, her health had deteriorated over the course of the war, and she died soon after her abdication in 1651.

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29/01/1591

Franciscus Junius, German pioneer philologist (died 1677)

Franciscus Junius , also known as François du Jon, was a pioneer of Germanic philology. As a collector of ancient manuscripts, he published the first modern editions of a number of important texts. In addition, he wrote the first comprehensive overview of ancient writings on the visual arts, which became a cornerstone of classical art theories throughout Europe.

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29/01/1584

Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange (died 1647)

Frederick Henry was the sovereign prince of Orange and stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from his older half-brother's death on 23 April 1625 until his death on 14 March 1647. In the last seven years of his life, he was also the stadtholder of Groningen (1640-1647).

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29/01/1525

Lelio Sozzini, Italian humanist and reformer (died 1562)

Lelio Francesco Maria Sozzini, often known in English by his Latinized name Laelius Socinus, was an Italian Renaissance humanist and theologian, and, alongside his nephew Fausto Sozzini, founder of the Nontrinitarian Christian belief system known as Socinianism. His doctrine was developed among the Polish Brethren in the Polish Reformed Church between the 16th and 17th centuries, and embraced by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania during the same period.

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29/01/1499

Katharina von Bora, wife of Martin Luther; formerly a Roman Catholic nun (died 1552)

Katharina von Bora, after her wedding Katharina Luther, also referred to as "die Lutherin", was the wife of the German reformer Martin Luther and a seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation. Although little is known about her, she is often considered to have been important to the Reformation, her marriage setting a precedent for Protestant family life and clerical marriage.

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29/01/1475

Giuliano Bugiardini, Italian painter (died 1555)

Giuliano di Piero di Simone Bugiardini was an Italian Renaissance painter. He was born and was mainly active in Florence. He was a painter primarily of religious subjects but he also executed a number of portraits and a few works with mythological subjects.

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29/01/1455

Johann Reuchlin, German-born humanist and scholar (died 1522)

Johann Reuchlin, sometimes called Johannes, was a German Catholic humanist and a scholar of Greek and Hebrew, whose work also took him to modern-day Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and France. Most of Reuchlin's career centered on advancing German knowledge of Greek and Hebrew.

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