Tuesday, 15th July 2025 in London

On this day, 245 notable people were born on 15th July — spanning from 980 to 2008. From world leaders to artists and scientists, discover who shares this birthday.

15/07/2008

Iain Armitage, American actor

Iain Armitage is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Sheldon Cooper in Young Sheldon, a spin-off prequel to The Big Bang Theory, from 2017 to 2024. He also played Ziggy Chapman in Big Little Lies (2017–2019) and voiced young Shaggy Rogers in Scoob! (2020)

---

15/07/2005

JuJu Watkins, American basketball player

Judea Skies "JuJu" Watkins is an American college basketball player for the USC Trojans of the Big Ten Conference.

---

15/07/1999

Mohamed Sobhy, Egyptian footballer

Mohamed Sobhy Mohamed Daader is an Egyptian professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Egyptian Premier League club Zamalek.

---

15/07/1998

Noah Gragson, American racing driver

Noah Quinn Gragson is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 4 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Front Row Motorsports.

---

15/07/1997

Jil Teichmann, Swiss tennis player

Jil Belén Teichmann is a Swiss professional tennis player. She has been ranked by the WTA as high as No. 21 in singles and No. 73 in doubles.

---

15/07/1996

Vivianne Miedema, Dutch football player

Anna Margaretha Marina Astrid "Vivianne" Miedema is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a striker or attacking midfielder for Women's Super League club Manchester City and the Netherlands national team. She previously played for Arsenal, Bayern Munich, and SC Heerenveen.

---

15/07/1993

Håvard Nielsen, Norwegian footballer

Håvard Nielsen is a Norwegian professional footballer who plays as a forward for 2. Bundesliga club Hannover 96. He played for the Norway national team.

---

Harrison Rhodes, American racing driver

Harrison L. Rhodes is an American professional stock car racing driver. He last competed part-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 52 Chevrolet Camaro for Jimmy Means Racing. He is not related to NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Ben Rhodes.

---

Masataka Yoshida, Japanese baseball player

Masataka Yoshida , shortened by teammates to “Masa”, nicknamed Macho Man, is a Japanese professional baseball designated hitter and left fielder for the Boston Red Sox of Major League Baseball (MLB). He started his professional career with the Orix Buffaloes of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).

---

15/07/1992

Tobias Harris, American basketball player

Tobias John Harris is an American professional basketball player for the Detroit Pistons of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played one season of college basketball for the Tennessee Volunteers before declaring for the 2011 NBA draft where he was drafted 19th overall by the Charlotte Bobcats and then traded to the Milwaukee Bucks. Harris has also played for the Orlando Magic, Los Angeles Clippers and Philadelphia 76ers. Harris' career earnings are the most of any player in NBA history without an All-Star appearance.

---

Wayde van Niekerk, South African sprinter

Wayde van Niekerk is a South African track and field sprinter who competes in the 200 and 400 metres. In the 400 metres, he is the current world and Olympic record holder, having set the record when he won the event at the 2016 Olympics.

---

15/07/1991

Danilo, Brazilian footballer

Danilo Luiz da Silva, known as Danilo, is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays as a centre-back or right-back for Campeonato Brasileiro Série A club Flamengo and the Brazil national team.

---

Derrick Favors, American basketball player

Derrick Bernard Favors is an American professional basketball player who last played for the Windy City Bulls of the NBA G League. Favors played college basketball for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets for one season before being selected by the New Jersey Nets with the third overall pick of the 2010 NBA draft.

---

Evgeny Tishchenko, Russian boxer

Evgeny Andreyevich Tishchenko is a Russian professional boxer. He was the inaugural World Boxing Association (WBA) bridgerweight champion but was subsequently stripped after testing positive for banned substance. As an amateur, he won gold medals at the 2016 Olympics, 2015 World Championships, and the 2015 and 2017 European Championships and silver at the 2013 and 2017 World Championships.

---

Nuria Párrizas Díaz, Spanish tennis player

Nuria Párrizas Díaz is a Spanish professional tennis player. She has been ranked as high as world No. 45 in singles by the WTA, which she first reached in March 2022, and No. 320 in doubles, achieved in September 2022.

---

15/07/1990

Olly Alexander, English singer and actor

Oliver Alexander Thornton is an English singer, songwriter, actor, and LGBTQ activist who rose to prominence as the lead singer of the English pop band Years & Years, achieving two No. 1 albums on the UK Albums Chart, a No. 1 single and five Top 10 entries on the UK Singles Chart. He continued to release music under the band's name between 2021 and 2023 until their dissolution in 2024. During their career Years & Years were nominated for six Brit Awards.

---

Zach Bogosian, American ice hockey player

Zach Bogosian is an American professional ice hockey player who is a defenseman for the Minnesota Wild of the National Hockey League (NHL). He has previously played for the Atlanta Thrashers, Winnipeg Jets, Buffalo Sabres, Tampa Bay Lightning and Toronto Maple Leafs. Bogosian won the Stanley Cup as a member of the Lightning in 2020.

---

Damian Lillard, American basketball player

Damian Lamonte Ollie Lillard Sr. is an American professional basketball player for the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He also serves as the general manager of the Weber State Wildcats men's basketball program in the Big Sky Conference. Nicknamed "Dame Time", he played college basketball for Weber State and earned third-team All-American honors in 2012. Lillard was selected by the Trail Blazers with the sixth overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft and was named the NBA Rookie of the Year for the 2012–13 season. He is a nine-time NBA All-Star, a seven-time All-NBA Team selection, and the Trail Blazers’ all-time leading scorer. As of the end of the 2024–25 season, he ranked fourth on the NBA's all-time list of three-point field goals made, with 2,804.

---

Tyler Young, American racing driver

Tyler Randall Young is an American former professional stock car racing driver and team owner. He owns Young's Motorsports, a team in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series, fielding the No. 02 and No. 42 Chevrolet Camaros and in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series which fields the No. 02 Chevrolet Silverado. He also has been a driver for his own team, last starting a race in 2018. Before stepping back to driving part-time to focus on the ownership side of the team, Young drove his No. 02 full-time in 2014 and 2015.

---

15/07/1989

Alisa Kleybanova, Russian tennis player

Alisa Mikhailovna Kleybanova is a Russian former tennis player. Her career-high singles ranking is world No. 20, achieved in February 2011. In her career, she won two singles titles and five doubles titles on the WTA Tour.

---

Anthony Randolph, American basketball player

Anthony Erwin Randolph Jr. is an American and naturalized Slovenian former professional basketball player. He represented the senior Slovenian national basketball team, winning the 2017 EuroBasket with them. Born in Germany to two American parents who served in the US military there, Randolph's family eventually relocated to the United States, where he grew up in Pasadena, California. The family later moved to Dallas, Texas, where Randolph soon became a standout at Woodrow Wilson High School, eventually being recruited by the LSU Tigers. After one year, Randolph left college, and entered the 2008 NBA draft, where he was chosen as the fourteenth pick overall by the Golden State Warriors. In 2016, he earned an All-EuroLeague Second Team selection.

---

15/07/1986

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, American actor

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Black Manta in the superhero films Aquaman (2018) and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023), Bobby Seale in the Netflix historical legal drama The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020), and Morpheus / Agent Smith in The Matrix Resurrections (2021). For his portrayal of Cal Abar / Doctor Manhattan in the HBO limited series Watchmen (2019), he won a Primetime Emmy Award. He also starred in episodes of The Handmaid's Tale (2018) and Black Mirror (2019).

---

Tyler Kennedy, Canadian ice hockey player

Tyler Kennedy is a Canadian-American former professional ice hockey centre who played nine seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Pittsburgh Penguins, San Jose Sharks, New York Islanders, and New Jersey Devils. He was selected by the Penguins in the fourth round, 99th overall, of the 2004 NHL entry draft.

---

Kareem Rahma, Egyptian-American comedian, artist, and media entrepreneur

Kareem Rahma is an Egyptian-American comedian, artist, and media entrepreneur. Rahma is one of the founders of Nameless Network, a media company started by a group of former Vice employees. Rahma is a senior advisor to XTR. Previously, he worked at The New York Times. He has since gained wider recognition for his ongoing internet interview series, Subway Takes.

---

15/07/1984

Angelo Siniscalchi, Italian footballer

Angelo Siniscalchi is an Italian footballer who plays for Serie D club AC Rezzato.

---

Veronika Velez-Zuzulová, Slovak skier

Veronika Valette-Zuzulová is a retired Slovak alpine ski racer. Born in Bratislava, she specialised in the slalom and was the most successful Slovak alpine skier before Petra Vlhová. She was coached by her father Timotej Zuzula and Vladimír Kovár. In april 2012, she married coach Romain Velez and added her maiden name to her married name becoming Velez-Zuzulová. They divorced in August 2022. In September 2025 she married french Gaspard Valette

---

15/07/1983

Salvatore Iovino, American racing driver

Salvatore Iovino is an American professional stock car racing driver. He is also a team owner for Holleran-Iovino Racing (HIR) in the K&N Pro Series East, competing under the Patriot Motorsports Group banner. Prior to competing in stock car racing, he competed as a NHRA drag racing driver. Iovino is a first-generation driver.

---

Nelson Merlo, Brazilian racing driver

Nelson Merlo is a Brazilian racing driver. In 2005, he won the Brazilian Formula Renault season, taking a win in 6 races.

---

Heath Slater, American wrestler

Heath Wallace Miller is an American professional wrestler. He is best known for his tenure in WWE from 2006 to 2020 under the ring name Heath Slater. He also performed in Impact Wrestling, under the mononymous name Heath.

---

15/07/1982

Julien Canal, French racing driver

Julien Antoine Jules Canal is a French racing driver. Having won his class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2010, 2011 and 2012 whilst driving GT cars, Canal became a staple of the LMP2 category, winning the WEC class title in 2015 and 2017.

---

Neemia Tialata, New Zealand rugby player

Neemia Stanley Tialata is a New Zealand former rugby union footballer. He most recently played for RC Narbonne in the Pro D2. Tialata also previously played for Stade Toulousain in the Top 14. As well as representing New Zealand All Blacks from 2005 to 2010, he also played for the Hurricanes in Super Rugby and for Wellington in the ITM/Air New Zealand Cup when available. Currently, Neemia serves as the Director of Rugby at Wellington College in Wellington, New Zealand - along with his former All Black teammate Piri Weepu, who serves as the Wellington College 1st XV head coach.

---

Aída Yéspica, Venezuelan model and actress

Aída María Yéspica Jaime is a Venezuelan actress, TV host, model and beauty pageant titleholder. Considered a sex symbol of the 2000s and 2010s, she has participated in variety and reality shows, acted in films and TV programs, posed for several nude calendars, and appeared in television commercials.

---

15/07/1981

Alou Diarra, French footballer

Alou Diarra is a French professional football coach and former player. Known for his leadership ability, he served as captain of both Bordeaux and the France national team.

---

Petros Klampanis, Greek bassist and composer

Petros Klampanis is a Greek jazz bassist, composer, arranger, and producer. Known for blending jazz with Mediterranean and Balkan folk influences, he is the founder of the independent label PKmusik, which features a range of artists from diverse backgrounds.

---

Marius Stankevičius, Lithuanian footballer

Marius Stankevičius is a Lithuanian professional football manager and former player who works as head coach of A Lyga club TransINVEST. A former defender, he was the Lithuanian player of the year in 2008 and 2009.

---

15/07/1980

Reggie Abercrombie, American baseball player

Reginald Damascus Abercrombie is an American former professional baseball outfielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Florida Marlins and Houston Astros.

---

Jonathan Cheechoo, Canadian ice hockey player

Jonathan Earl Cheechoo is a Canadian former professional ice hockey right winger who played in the National Hockey League (NHL).

---

Julia Perez, Indonesian singer and actress (died 2017)

Yuli Rachmawati, better known as Julia Perez, abbreviated as Jupe, was an Indonesian singer, model, and actress. In the early 2010s, she became known for her outspoken statements against conservative Muslim clerics, who deemed her as too erotic for Indonesian audiences.

---

15/07/1979

Laura Benanti, American actress and singer

Laura Ilene Benanti is an American actress and singer.

---

Alexander Frei, Swiss footballer

Alexander Frei or Alex Frei is a Swiss professional football coach and a former player who played as a striker. He was most recently head coach of FC Aarau in the Swiss Challenge League, the second tier of Swiss football.

---

Edda Garðarsdóttir, Icelandic footballer

Edda Garðarsdóttir is an Icelandic football coach and former player who last managed Úrvalsdeild club KR. Since her debut in 1997 she has accrued over 100 caps for Iceland's national team and competed at the UEFA Women's Euro 2009 finals in Finland.

---

Renata Kučerová, Czech tennis player

Renata Kučerová is a former Czech tennis player.

---

15/07/1978

Miguel Olivo, Dominican baseball player

Miguel Eduardo Olivo Peña is a Dominican former professional baseball player. He played as a catcher for several teams in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 2002 to 2014. He also played in the Mexican League from 2014 to 2017.

---

15/07/1977

D. J. Kennington, Canadian racing driver

Douglas James Kennington is a Canadian professional stock car racing driver. He currently competes full-time in the NASCAR Canada Series, driving the No. 17 Dodge Challenger for his own team, DJK Racing. He won the 2010 and 2012 Canada Series championships. Kennington also previously competed part-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 99 Toyota Supra for B. J. McLeod Motorsports, and part-time in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 77 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Spire Motorsports. He is the son of Doug Kennington, a former CASCAR driver and founder of St. Thomas Raceway Park.

---

André Nel, South African cricketer

André Nel is a South African former cricketer who played all formats as a fast bowler. He retired from international cricket on 25 March 2009.

---

Lana Parrilla, American actress

Lana Parrilla is an American actress. She was a regular cast member in the fifth season of the ABC sitcom Spin City (2000–2001) and in the fourth season of 24 (2005), and starred in Boomtown (2002–2003), Windfall (2006), Swingtown (2008), and as Dr. Eva Zambrano in the short-lived medical drama Miami Medical (2010), and as The Evil Queen / Regina Mills in the ABC fantasy drama series Once Upon a Time (2011–2018). Among her awards and nominations is a 2012 ALMA Award win for Outstanding TV Actress—Drama. In 2021, she played the role of Rita Castillo in the second season of Why Women Kill.

---

John St. Clair, American football player

John Bradley St. Clair is an American former professional football player who was an offensive tackle in the National Football League (NFL). He was selected by the St. Louis Rams in the third round of the 2000 NFL draft. He played college football for the Virginia Cavaliers.

---

Ray Toro, American singer-songwriter and guitarist

Raymond Toro is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer, best known as the lead guitarist and backing vocalist of the band My Chemical Romance.

---

15/07/1976

Steve Cunningham, American boxer

Steven Ormain Cunningham is an American professional boxer who held the IBF cruiserweight title twice between 2007 and 2011. His nickname, "USS", is a reference to his US Navy service on the aircraft carriers USS America and USS Enterprise between 1994 and 1998.

---

Marco Di Vaio, Italian footballer

Marco Di Vaio is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a striker. A prolific goalscorer, in his long club career, Di Vaio scored over 200 league goals while playing for several clubs, mainly in Italy, as well as in France, Spain and Canada. At international level, Di Vaio represented the Italy national football team at Euro 2004.

---

Diane Kruger, German actress and model

Diane Kruger is a German actress. She is a former model-turned-actress who, early in her film career, gained worldwide recognition and received the Trophée Chopard from the Cannes Film Festival.

---

Gabriel Iglesias, Mexican-American comedian and voice actor

Gabriel Jesús Iglesias, nicknamed Fluffy, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He has produced a number of stand-up specials for television outlets such as Comedy Central and Netflix, including I'm Not Fat... I'm Fluffy, and Hot and Fluffy. As an actor, he has appeared in numerous live-action and animated TV shows and films, including starring in the sitcom Mr. Iglesias on Netflix, playing Tobias in the 2012 movie Magic Mike and its 2015 sequel, and providing the voice of Speedy Gonzales in Space Jam: A New Legacy. He was also the host of the shows Stand Up Revolution on Comedy Central and Fluffy's Food Adventures on Fuse.

---

15/07/1975

Cherry, American wrestler and manager

Kara Elizabeth Drew is an American valet and professional wrestler, better known under the ring name Cherry. She is best known for her tenure in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), as the manager of former Tag Team Champions Deuce 'n Domino.

---

Danny Law, English cricketer

Danny Law is a former English cricketer. Born in Lambeth, Law played for Sussex, Essex and Durham between 1993 and 2003.

---

Ben Pepper, Australian basketball player

Ben Pepper is an Australian former professional basketball player who played twelve seasons in the National Basketball League (NBL).

---

15/07/1973

Brian Austin Green, American actor

Brian Austin Green is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of David Silver on the television series Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990–2000). Green was also a series regular on television shows Freddie (2005–2006), Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008–2009), Wedding Band (2012–2013), and Anger Management (2012–2014).

---

Buju Banton, Jamaican singer

Mark Anthony Myrie, known professionally as Buju Banton, is a Jamaican Reggae and dancehall musician. He is one of the most significant and well-regarded artists in Jamaican music. Banton has collaborated with many international artists, including those in the hip hop, Latin and punk rock genres, as well as the sons of Bob Marley.

---

15/07/1972

Scott Foley, American actor

Scott Kellerman Foley is an American actor, director and producer, who is known for roles on shows such as The Unit, Scrubs, Felicity, and Scandal. In film, he's most known as Roman Bridger in Scream 3. He has also guest starred on Grey's Anatomy, Dawson's Creek, and House.

---

15/07/1971

Jim Rash, American actor, comedian, and filmmaker

James Rash is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He played Dean Craig Pelton on the NBC sitcom Community (2009–2015), for which he was nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2012.

---

15/07/1970

Tarkan Gözübüyük, Turkish bass player and producer

Tarkan Gözübüyük is the bass player of the Turkish heavy metal band Mezarkabul. He is in relationship with Turkish actrist Janset over 20 years.

---

15/07/1969

Ain Tammus, Estonian footballer and coach

Ain Tammus is an Estonian goalkeeping coach and a former professional footballer. He is currently a goalkeeping coach at Levadia Tallinn.

---

15/07/1968

Eddie Griffin, American comedian, actor, and producer

Edward Rubin Griffin is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He is best known for portraying Eddie Sherman in the sitcom Malcolm & Eddie, the title character in the 2002 comedy film Undercover Brother, and Tiberius Jefferson "T.J." Hicks in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999) and Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (2005). He also portrayed Lester Matthews in John Q. (2002), Orpheus in Scary Movie 3 (2003), Pope Sweet Jesus in Norbit (2007), and voiced Richard Pryor on Black Dynamite (2012–2015). Griffin was ranked at number 62 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time.

---

15/07/1967

Adam Savage, American actor and special effects designer

Adam Whitney Savage is an American special effects creator and educational video presenter. He is best known as the former co-host, with Jamie Hyneman, of the Discovery Channel television series MythBusters and Unchained Reaction. His model work has appeared in major films, including Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones and The Matrix Reloaded. He hosts the TV program Savage Builds, which premiered on the Science Channel on June 14, 2019. His platform Adam Savage's Tested includes a website and a YouTube channel.

---

Elbert West, American singer-songwriter (died 2015)

Elbert Lee West was an American country music artist. Initially a session songwriter in Nashville, Tennessee, West saw his first chart success in the 1990s as a co-writer on singles for country singer Tracy Lawrence, including the Number Ones "Sticks and Stones" and "Can't Break It to My Heart". West co-wrote album tracks for other artists, including tracks for Tim McGraw and John Michael Montgomery.

---

15/07/1966

Jason Bonham, English singer-songwriter and drummer

Jason John Bonham is an English drummer. He is the son of Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham. Since his father's death in September 1980, he has performed with the surviving three members of Led Zeppelin on several occasions, including the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert at The O2 Arena in London in December 2007. He has also done extensive work as a session musician, led the group Bonham in the 1980s and '90s, and is a member of the supergroup Black Country Communion.

---

Irène Jacob, French-Swiss actress

Irène Marie Jacob is a French-Swiss actress known for her work with Polish film director Krzysztof Kieślowski. She won the 1991 Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for the Kieślowski film The Double Life of Veronique, and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her 1994 film Three Colours: Red. Her other film appearances include The Secret Garden (1993), Beyond the Clouds (1995), U.S. Marshals (1998), and Eternity (2016).

---

15/07/1965

Alistair Carmichael, Scottish lawyer and politician, Secretary of State for Scotland

Alexander Morrison "Alistair" Carmichael is a British politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Orkney and Shetland since 2001. A member of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, he previously served in the Cameron–Clegg coalition as Secretary of State for Scotland from 2013 to 2015 and as Deputy Government Chief Whip from 2010 to 2013. He currently serves as the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee.

---

Gero Miesenböck, Austrian neuroscientist and educator

Gero Andreas Miesenböck is an Austrian scientist. He is currently Waynflete Professor of Physiology and Director of the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour (CNCB) at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.

---

David Miliband, English politician, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

David Wright Miliband is a British former politician serving as President of the International Rescue Committee since 2013. He was the Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010 and the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Shields in North East England from 2001 to 2013. He and his brother, Ed Miliband, were the first siblings to sit in the Cabinet simultaneously since Edward, Lord Stanley and Oliver Stanley in 1938. He was a candidate for Labour Party leadership in 2010, following the resignation of Gordon Brown, but was defeated by his brother and subsequently left politics.

---

15/07/1963

Brigitte Nielsen, Danish-Italian actress

Brigitte Nielsen is a Danish actress, model, and singer. She began her career modelling for Greg Gorman and Helmut Newton. She subsequently acted in the 1985 films Red Sonja and Rocky IV, later returning to the Rocky series in Creed II (2018). Nielsen starred in the 1986 film Cobra alongside her then-husband Sylvester Stallone. She played a villain in Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) and starred as the Black Witch in the 1990s Italian film series Fantaghirò. She later built a career starring in B-movies, hosting TV shows, and appearing on reality shows.

---

Steve Thomas, English-Canadian ice hockey player and coach

Stephen Antony "Stumpy" Thomas is a Canadian former ice hockey right winger who played 20 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Chicago Blackhawks, New York Islanders, New Jersey Devils, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and Detroit Red Wings.

---

15/07/1962

Nikos Filippou, Greek basketball player and manager

Nikolaos "Nikos" Filippou is a retired Greek professional basketball player. At a height of 2.02 m, he played at the power forward position.

---

Michelle Ford, Australian swimmer

Michelle Jan Ford is an Australian former long-distance freestyle and butterfly swimmer of the 1970s and 1980s, who won a gold medal in the 800-metre freestyle, bronze in the 200-metre butterfly, and 4th in the 400-metres freestyle at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. She was the only non-Eastern Bloc female swimmer to win an individual gold medal at the 1980 games. She also set two world records in her career, and was the first Australian woman to win individual Olympic medals in two distinct specialised strokes.

---

15/07/1961

Lolita Davidovich, Canadian actress

Lolita Davidovich is a Canadian film and television actress, best known for portraying Blaze Starr in the 1989 film Blaze, for which she received a Chicago Film Critics Association Award nomination.

---

Jean-Christophe Grangé, French journalist and screenwriter

Jean-Christophe Grangé is a French mystery writer, journalist, and screenwriter.

---

Forest Whitaker, American actor

Forest Steven Whitaker is an American actor, filmmaker, and activist. His accolades include an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and the Honorary Palme d'Or.

---

15/07/1959

Vincent Lindon, French actor, director, and screenwriter

Vincent Lindon is a French actor and filmmaker. For his role in the film The Measure of a Man (2015), Lindon won Best Actor at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, Best Actor at the 41st César Awards and the IFFI Best Actor Award (Male) at the 46th International Film Festival of India.

---

15/07/1958

Gary Heale, English footballer and coach

Gary John Heale is an English former professional footballer who played for teams in England, the Netherlands, and the United States.

---

Mac Thornberry, American lawyer and politician

William McClellan "Mac" Thornberry is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 13th congressional district from 1995 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, Thornberry represented the most Republican district in the United States by partisan voting index. The district covers the Texas Panhandle and stretched between the Oklahoma and New Mexico borders.

---

15/07/1957

Cecile Richards, American activist and former Planned Parenthood president (died 2025)

Cecile Richards was an American activist who served as the president of both the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliated Planned Parenthood Action Fund from 2006 to 2018. In 2010, Richards was elected to the Ford Foundation board of trustees. In spring 2019, Richards co-founded Supermajority, a women's political action group.

---

15/07/1956

Ashoke Sen, Indian theoretical physicist and string theorist

Ashoke Sen FRS is an Indian theoretical physicist and ICTS-Infosys Madhava Chair Professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS), Bangalore. A former Distinguished Professor at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Prayagraj, He is also an honorary fellow in National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) India. He is also a Morningstar Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Distinguished Professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study. His main area of work is string theory. He was among the first recipients of the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics "for opening the path to the realization that all string theories are different limits of the same underlying theory".

---

Ian Curtis, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1980)

Ian Kevin Curtis was an English singer, songwriter and musician. He was the lead vocalist, songwriter, and occasional guitarist of the band Joy Division, with whom he released the albums Unknown Pleasures (1979) and Closer (1980).

---

Nicholas Harberd, British botanist, educator, and academician

Nicholas Paul Harberd an Emeritus Professor of Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford. He was previously Sibthorpian Professor and served as head of Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford before it became part of the Department of Biology, University of Oxford.

---

Barry Melrose, Canadian ice hockey player, coach, and sportscaster

Barry James Melrose is a Canadian–American retired broadcaster and former professional ice hockey player and head coach. Melrose played in the World Hockey Association (WHA) and National Hockey League (NHL). After retiring from playing, he became a head coach and is best known for being the coach of the Los Angeles Kings in their run to the 1993 Stanley Cup Finals. Until 2023, he was a long-time commentator and hockey analyst for ESPN as well as a contributor for the NHL Network.

---

Steve Mortimer, Australian rugby league player, coach, and administrator

Stephen Charles Mortimer, also nicknamed "Turvey", is an Australian former rugby league footballer who played as a halfback. Mortimer played a Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs club record 272 first-grade games between 1976 and 1988, winning four premierships with the club during the 1980s. Mortimer's two younger brothers, Peter and Chris, also played for the club.

---

Joe Satriani, American singer-songwriter and guitarist

Joseph Satriani is an American rock guitarist, composer, record producer, and songwriter. Early in his career, he worked as a guitar instructor, with many of his former students achieving fame, including Steve Vai, Larry LaLonde, Rick Hunolt, Kirk Hammett, Andy Timmons, Charlie Hunter, Kevin Cadogan, and Alex Skolnick. Satriani went on to have a successful solo music career, starting in the mid-1980s. He is a 15-time Grammy Award nominee and has sold over ten million albums, making him the bestselling instrumental rock guitarist of all time.

---

Wayne Taylor, South African racing driver

Wayne Taylor is a South African sports car racing driver and team owner. He won the 1996 and 2005 24 Hours of Daytona, and the 2005 Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prototype drivers' championship. He drove for SunTrust Racing with Max Angelelli. He co-drove in the 2006 International Race of Champions in the United States with Angelelli. Taylor now owns and manages his own team competing in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

---

15/07/1954

John Ferguson, Australian rugby league player

John "Chicka" Ferguson is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1980s. An Australian international and New South Wales State of Origin representative winger, in the New South Wales Rugby League premiership for the Newtown Jets, Eastern Suburbs Roosters and finally the Canberra Raiders, with whom he won the 1989 and 1990 NSWRL premierships. A prolific try-scorer, who topped the NSWRL's scoring list in 1988, Ferguson also played in England with Wigan, helping them to victory in the 1985 Challenge Cup Final. He has since been named in Australia's indigenous team of the century (1908–2008).

---

Giorgos Kaminis, American-Greek lawyer and politician, 78th Mayor of Athens

Georgios Kaminis is a Greek American politician and professor of constitutional law. He was the Greek Ombudsman from April 2003 until September 2010 and Mayor of Athens from 2011 until 2019.

---

Mario Kempes, Argentinian footballer and manager

Mario Alberto Kempes Chiodi is an Argentine former professional footballer who played as a striker or attacking midfielder. A prolific goalscorer, he finished as La Liga's top goalscorer twice with Valencia where he amassed 116 goals in 184 league games. He is regarded as one of the greatest players of all time.

---

15/07/1953

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haitian priest and politician, 49th President of Haiti

Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a Haitian former Salesian priest and politician who served as president of Haiti in 1991, from 1993 to 1994, from 1994 to 1996, and from 2001 to 2004. He was in exile after the 1991 military coup until 1994 and again after his overthrow in 2004 until 2011. Aristide was a member of the Lavalas Political Organization before he founded the party Fanmi Lavalas in 1996.

---

Sultanah Haminah, Malaysian royal consort

Che Puan Besar Hajah Haminah binti Haji Hamidun, formerly known as Sultanah Haminah is the former Sultanah of Kedah and the widow of Sultan Abdul Halim Mua'dzam Shah. Born as a commoner, she married Sultan Abdul Halim on 25 December 1975 as his second wife. She served as the 14th Raja Permaisuri Agong from 2011 to 2016, during her husband's second term as Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the Malaysian federal head of state. After her husband's death in September 2017, his successor and her brother-in-law Sultan Sallehuddin, bestowed upon her the title Che Puan Besar of Kedah, roughly equivalent to the queen dowager.

---

Mohamad Shahrum Osman, Malaysian politician

Mohamad Shahrum bin Osman was the Member of the Parliament of Malaysia for the Lipis constituency in Pahang from 2004 to 2013. He sat in Parliament as a member of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) party in the Barisan Nasional government and also served as the Chairman of the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN).

---

Alicia Bridges, American singer-songwriter

Alicia Bridges is an American singer and songwriter who co-wrote and performed her international hit "I Love the Nightlife " in 1978.

---

15/07/1952

John Cleland, British racing driver

John Cunningham Cleland is a British retired auto racing driver, best known for winning the British Touring Car Championship in 1989 and 1995.

---

Celia Imrie, English actress

Celia Diana Savile Imrie is an English actress.

---

Terry O'Quinn, American actor

Terrance Quinn, known professionally as Terry O'Quinn, is an American actor. He won a Primetime Emmy Award for his performance as John Locke on the TV series Lost (2004–2010). In film, he also played the title role in The Stepfather (1987) and Howard Hughes in The Rocketeer (1991) with roles in other films such as Heaven's Gate (1980), Silver Bullet (1985), Young Guns (1988), Blind Fury (1989), Tombstone (1993) and Primal Fear (1996).

---

David Pack, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer

David Robert Pack is an American singer, songwriter, is best known as co-founder, lead vocalist and guitarist of the rock band Ambrosia in the 1970s and 1980s. Pack wrote and sang all of Ambrosia's RIAA certified gold hits including 3x Grammy nominee “Biggest Part of Me”, “How Much I Feel” and “You're the Only Woman .”

---

Marky Ramone, American drummer and songwriter

Marc Steven Bell, better known as Marky Ramone, is an American drummer. He began playing in hard rock bands in the New York City area, notably Dust and Estus. He was asked to drum for the punk rock band Richard Hell and the Voidoids. He replaced drummer Tommy Ramone in the Ramones in 1978 and played with the band from 1978 to 1983 and 1987 to 1996: their longest-serving drummer. He has also played drums for other punk rock and heavy metal bands including his own band, Marky Ramone and the Intruders. As of 2025, he is one of three surviving members of the band, the others being Richie Ramone and C.J. Ramone. He continues to keep the Ramones' legacy alive around the world with his band Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg.

---

Johnny Thunders, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1991)

John Anthony Genzale, known professionally as Johnny Thunders, was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He came to prominence in the early 1970s as a member of New York Dolls. He later formed the Heartbreakers and played as a solo artist.

---

15/07/1951

Gregory Isaacs, Jamaican-English singer-songwriter (died 2010)

Gregory Anthony Isaacs OD was a Jamaican reggae musician. Milo Miles, writing in The New York Times, described Isaacs as "the most exquisite vocalist in reggae".

---

Jesse Ventura, American wrestler, actor, and politician, 38th Governor of Minnesota

Jesse Ventura is an American politician, Vietnam veteran, actor, and retired professional wrestler. After achieving fame in the World Wrestling Federation, he served as the 38th governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. He was elected governor with the Reform Party and is the party's only candidate to win a major government office.

---

15/07/1950

Colin Barnett, Australian economist and politician, 29th Premier of Western Australia

Colin James Barnett is an Australian former politician who served as the 29th Premier of Western Australia from 2008 to 2017. He concurrently served as the state's Treasurer at several points during his tenure and had previously held various other portfolios in Western Australia's Court–Cowan ministry.

---

Arianna Huffington, Greek-American journalist and publisher

Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington is a Greek and American author, syndicated columnist and businesswoman.

---

15/07/1949

Carl Bildt, Swedish politician and diplomat, Prime Minister of Sweden

Nils Daniel Carl Bildt is a Swedish politician and diplomat who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1991 to 1994 and as leader of the Moderate Party (M) from 1986 to 1999. He served twice as Leader of the Opposition. He later held office as Foreign Minister under Fredrik Reinfeldt, serving from 2006 to 2014. He represented Stockholm Municipality as a Member of the Riksdag from 1979 until 2001. As a member of the noble Bildt family, he is a great-great grandson of former prime minister Gillis Bildt.

---

Trevor Horn, English singer-songwriter, keyboard player, and producer

Trevor Charles Horn is a British record producer and musician. His influence on pop and electronic music in the 1980s was such that he has been called "the man who invented the eighties".

---

Harvey C. Krautschun, American politician (died 2026)

Harvey C. Krautschun was an American politician. He served as a Republican member of the South Dakota House of Representatives from 1985 to 1996, serving as Speaker of the House between 1995 and 1996.

---

Richard Russo, American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter

Richard Russo is an American novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and teacher. In 2002, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel Empire Falls. Several of his works have been adapted into television series and movies. He is known for his realistic depictions of rural, small-town life in the Northeastern United States, particularly in Maine, Pennsylvania, and Russo's native Upstate New York.

---

15/07/1948

Twinkle, English singer-songwriter (died 2015)

Lynn Annette Ripley, better known by the stage name Twinkle, was an English singer-songwriter. She had chart success in the 1960s with her songs "Terry" and "Golden Lights".

---

Dimosthenis Kourtovik, Greek anthropologist and critic

Dimosthenis Kourtovik is a Greek writer, literary critic and anthropologist. He studied biology in Athens and West Germany and specialized later on physical anthropology. In 1986 he obtained a doctoral degree from the University of Wroclaw, Poland, with a thesis on the evolution of human sexuality.

---

Artimus Pyle, American rock drummer and songwriter

Thomas Delmer "Artimus" Pyle is an American musician who played drums with the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd from 1974 to 1977 and from 1987 to 1991. He and his bandmates were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

---

15/07/1947

Lydia Davis, American short story writer, novelist, and essayist

Lydia Davis is an American short story writer, novelist, essayist, poet, and translator from French and other languages, who often writes very short stories. Davis has produced several new translations of French literary classics, including Swann's Way by Marcel Proust and Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.

---

Pridiyathorn Devakula, Thai economist and politician, Thai Minister of Finance

Mom Rajawongse Pridiyathorn Devakula is a Thai economist. He was the Governor of the Bank of Thailand from 2001 to 2006. Following the 2006 Thai coup d'état he served as minister of finance and deputy prime minister in the interim civilian government led by Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont. Following the 2014 Thai coup d'état he was appointed a deputy prime minister in the first military appointed cabinet under General Prayut Chan-o-cha. Two days earlier he had resigned from his position as chairman of the board of Post Publishing PLC, the publisher of the Bangkok Post, Thailand's leading English-language newspaper.

---

Roky Erickson, American singer-songwriter and musician (died 2019)

Roger Kynard "Roky" Erickson was an American musician and singer-songwriter. Called an "outsider genius," he was a founding member and leader of the 13th Floor Elevators, as well as a pioneer of psychedelic rock music during the mid to late 1960s. Additionally, he founded the band Roky Erickson and the Aliens in the late 1970s.

---

15/07/1946

Linda Ronstadt, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress

Linda Maria Ronstadt is an American retired singer and musician who performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, folk, pop, country, and soul.

---

Hassanal Bolkiah, Sultan of Brunei

Hassanal Bolkiah Muiz'zaddin Wad'daulah has reigned as the sultan of Brunei since 1967, and has also served as the prime minister of Brunei since its independence from British rule in 1984. He is among the world's few remaining absolute monarchs.

---

15/07/1945

David Arthur Granger, Guyanese politician, 9th President of Guyana

David Arthur Granger is a Guyanese former politician and retired military officer who served as the ninth president of Guyana from 2015 to 2020. A member of the People’s National Congress (PNC), he previously served as Commander of the Guyana Defence Force and as National Security Adviser from 1990 to 1992. He was leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly of Guyana from 2012 to 2015.

---

Peter Lewis, American singer-songwriter and guitarist

Peter Charles Lewis is one of the founding members of the band Moby Grape. Three of his better known songs with Moby Grape are "Fall on You" and "Sitting by the Window" from the self-titled first Moby Grape album and "If You Can't Learn from My Mistakes" from Moby Grape '69.

---

Jürgen Möllemann, German soldier and politician, Vice-Chancellor of Germany (died 2003)

Jürgen Wilhelm Möllemann was a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) who served as Minister of State at the Foreign Office (1982–1987), as Minister of Education and Research (1987–1991), as Minister of Economics (1991–1993) and as the vice chancellor of Germany (1992–1993) in the government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

---

15/07/1944

Millie Jackson, American singer-songwriter

Mildred Virginia Jackson is an American R&B and soul recording artist. Beginning her career in the early 1960s, three of Jackson's albums have been certified gold by the RIAA for over 500,000 copies sold. Jackson's songs often include long spoken sections, sometimes humorous, sometimes sexually explicit. According to the cataloguing site WhoSampled.com, her songs have appeared in 189 samples, 51 covers, and six remixes.

---

Jan-Michael Vincent, American actor (died 2019)

Jan-Michael Vincent was an American actor. He emerged as a leading man in the 1970s, playing notable roles in films like Going Home (1971), which earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture; The Mechanic (1972), Damnation Alley (1977), and Big Wednesday (1978). He earned his second Golden Globe nomination for his role on the television miniseries The Winds of War (1983), before starring as helicopter pilot Stringfellow Hawke on the television series Airwolf (1984–87).

---

Nigel Williams, English conservator (died 1992)

Nigel Reuben Rook Williams was an English conservator and expert on the restoration of ceramics and glass. From 1961 until his death he worked at the British Museum, where he became the Chief Conservator of Ceramics and Glass in 1983. There his work included the successful restorations of the Sutton Hoo helmet and the Portland Vase.

---

15/07/1943

Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Northern Irish astrophysicist, astronomer, and academic

Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell is a Northern Irish physicist who, while conducting research for her doctorate, discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967. This discovery later earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974, but she was not among the awardees.

---

15/07/1942

Vivian Malone Jones, American civil rights activist (died 2005)

Vivian Juanita Malone Jones was the first black student to graduate from the University of Alabama, in 1965. She and James Hood were the first black students able to enroll at the university since Autherine Lucy and Pollie Myers initially strove to desegregate the school. Malone became famous when George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, attempted to physically block her and Hood from enrolling at the all-white university. Malone faced threats and ostracism at the university but successfully graduated in two years with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management. Throughout her career, Malone continued to work for civil rights causes. She worked for various federal agencies like the Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency, and served as executive director of the Voter Education Project.

---

15/07/1941

Livia Gouverneur, Venezuelan activist (died 1961)

Livia Margarita Gouverneur Camero was a Venezuelan student who was killed during a protest in support of the Cuban Revolution and against the presence in Venezuela of allies of Fulgencio Batista. Her death has become a symbol of social justice in Venezuela.

---

15/07/1940

Chris Cord, American racing driver (died 2022)

Chris Cord was an American racing driver and investment banker. He won the Group 5 SP class at the 1978 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 1987 IMSA GT Championship in the GTO class.

---

Denis Héroux, Canadian director and producer (died 2015)

Denis Héroux, was a Canadian film director and producer.

---

Ronald Gene Simmons, American sergeant and convicted murderer (died 1990)

Ronald Gene Simmons Sr. was an American spree killer and former military serviceman who murdered 16 people, including 14 members of his own family, over a week in December 1987 in Arkansas. The killings, centered at his home near Dover and later at several public locations, remain the deadliest familicide and mass murder in Arkansas history. Simmons, a retired U.S. Navy and Air Force veteran, was convicted in two trials, sentenced to death, waived all appeals, and was executed by lethal injection in 1990 — the first person executed by that method in Arkansas. His refusal to appeal led to the U.S. Supreme Court case Whitmore v. Arkansas.

---

Robert Winston, English surgeon, academic, and politician

Robert Maurice Lipson Winston, Baron Winston is a British professor, medical doctor, scientist, television presenter, and Labour peer.

---

15/07/1939

Aníbal Cavaco Silva, Portuguese economist and politician, 19th President of the Portuguese Republic

Aníbal António Cavaco Silva is a Portuguese economist and politician who served as the president of Portugal from 2006 to 2016, and as prime minister of Portugal, from 1985 to 1995. His 10-year tenure was the longest of any prime minister since Salazar, and the longest for a freely elected prime minister in Portugal's republican history. He was the first Portuguese prime minister to win an absolute parliamentary majority under the current constitutional system. He is most recognized for guiding Portugal into the European Union, liberalizing the Portuguese economy and improving infrastructures across the country.

---

15/07/1938

Bill Alsup, American racing driver (died 2016)

Bill Alsup was an American race car driver. He was the first Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) Rookie of the Year in 1979 and competed in the 1981 Indianapolis 500, finishing 11th. He made 57 CART & USAC Champ Car starts in his career. His best race finish of third came three times and he was the 1981 CART Championship runner-up, putting in a winless but consistent season for Penske Racing, his only effort with a top-level team. He returned to his own team the next year and struggled until leaving Champ Car following the 1984 Sanair Super Speedway race.

---

Ernie Barnes, American football player, actor, and painter (died 2009)

Ernest Eugene Barnes Jr. was an American artist, well known for his unique style of elongated characters and movement. He was also a professional football player, actor and author.

---

Carmen Callil, Australian publisher, founded Virago Press (died 2022)

Dame Carmen Thérèse Callil, was an Australian publisher, writer and critic who spent most of her career in the United Kingdom. She founded Virago Press in 1973 and received the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature in 2017. She has been described by Gail Rebuck as "the most extraordinary publisher of her generation".

---

Barry Goldwater, Jr., American lawyer and politician

Barry Morris Goldwater Jr. is an American politician. He is a former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from California, serving from 1969 to 1983. He is the son of U.S. Senator and 1964 Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater.

---

15/07/1937

Prabhash Joshi, Indian journalist (died 2009)

Prabhash Joshi was an Indian journalist, especially Hindi journalism, writer and political analyst. He was strongly in favour of "ethics and transparency". He played a part in Gandhian movement, Bhoodan movement, and in the surrender of bandits and in the struggle against emergency.

---

15/07/1936

George Voinovich, American lawyer and politician, 65th Governor of Ohio (died 2016)

George Victor Voinovich was an American politician who served as a United States senator from Ohio from 1999 to 2011. He previously served as the 65th governor of Ohio from 1991 to 1998 and as the 54th mayor of Cleveland from 1980 to 1989; he is the last Republican to serve in that office.

---

15/07/1935

Donn Clendenon, American baseball player and lawyer (died 2005)

Donn Alvin Clendenon was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a first baseman from 1961 to 1972 for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Montreal Expos, New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals. Clendenon won the World Series Most Valuable Player Award for the 1969 World Series, during which he hit three home runs to help lead the "Miracle Mets" to an upset victory over the Baltimore Orioles.

---

Alex Karras, American football player, wrestler, and actor (died 2012)

Alexander George Karras was an American professional football player, professional wrestler, sportscaster, and actor. He was a four-time Pro Bowl selection playing defensive tackle for the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL), where he played from 1958 to 1970. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the Centennial class.

---

Ken Kercheval, American actor and director (died 2019)

Kenneth Marine Kercheval was an American actor, best known for his role as Cliff Barnes in the television series Dallas and its 2012 revival.

---

15/07/1934

Harrison Birtwistle, English composer and academic (died 2022)

Sir Harrison Birtwistle was an English composer of contemporary classical music best known for his operas, often based on mythological subjects. Among his many compositions, his better known works include The Triumph of Time (1972) and the operas The Mask of Orpheus (1986), Gawain (1991), and The Minotaur (2008). The last of these was ranked by music critics at The Guardian in 2019 as the third-best piece of the 21st century. Even his compositions that were not written for the stage often showed a theatrical approach. A performance of his saxophone concerto Panic during the BBC's Last Night of the Proms caused "national notoriety". He received many international awards and honorary degrees.

---

Eva Krížiková, Czech actress (died 2020)

Eva Krížiková was a Slovak film and stage actress, often celebrated as one of the greatest entertainers ever in her country of origin and The First Lady of Slovak Humor, respectively. Apart from her cinematic achievements, her name was credited in over five hundred productions made for television.

---

Risto Jarva, Finnish director and producer (died 1977)

Risto Antero Jarva was a Finnish filmmaker.

---

15/07/1933

Guido Crepax, Italian author and illustrator (died 2003)

Guido Crepax, was an Italian comics artist. He is most famous for his character Valentina, created in 1965 and very representative of the spirit of the 1960s. The Valentina series of books and strips became noted for Crepax's sophisticated drawing, and for the psychedelic, dreamlike storylines, generally involving a strong dose of eroticism. His work was often politically motivated too, inspired by his Communist convictions. A film based on his work called Baba Yaga, featuring the character Valentina, was made in 1973.

---

M. T. Vasudevan Nair, Indian author and screenwriter (died 2024)

Madath Thekkepaattu Vasudevan Narayanan Nair was an Indian author, lecturer, screenplay writer, filmmaker and literary statesman. He was a prolific and versatile writer in modern Malayalam literature, and was one of the masters of post-Independence Indian literature. Randamoozham, which retells the story of the Mahabharata from the point of view of Bhimasena, is widely credited as his masterpiece.

---

15/07/1932

Ed Litzenberger, Canadian ice hockey player (died 2010)

Edward Charles John "Eddie" Litzenberger was a Canadian ice hockey right winger from Neudorf, Saskatchewan. Litzenberger was "donated" to the Chicago Black Hawks by the Montreal Canadiens in his first year in the National Hockey League (NHL). At the time the Black Hawks were struggling to survive as a franchise, and the league governors decided to help the team remain viable.

---

15/07/1931

Clive Cussler, American archaeologist and author (died 2020)

Clive Eric Cussler was an American adventure novelist and underwater explorer. His thriller novels, many featuring the character Dirk Pitt, have been listed on The New York Times fiction best-seller list more than 20 times. Cussler was the founder and chairman of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), which has discovered more than 60 shipwreck sites and numerous other notable underwater wrecks. He was the sole author or main author of more than 80 books. He often placed himself into his books as himself.

---

Joanna Merlin, American actress and casting director (died 2023)

Joanna Merlin was an American actress and casting director who worked with Stephen Sondheim and starred in the original Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof. She wrote two acting guides and was a faculty member of New York University's graduate acting program. From 2000 to 2011, she was known for her recurring role on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as Judge Lena Petrovsky.

---

Jacques-Yvan Morin, Canadian lawyer and politician, Deputy Premier of Quebec (died 2023)

Jacques-Yvan Morin was a Canadian law professor and politician in Quebec. Morin graduated from the McGill University Faculty of Law with a BCL in 1953, where he was the founder of the McGill Law Journal. He taught international and constitutional law at Université de Montréal from 1958 until 1973. He was deputy director of the Canadian Yearbook of International Law from 1963 to 1973 and founded the Quebec Journal of International Law in 1984.

---

15/07/1930

Jacques Derrida, Algerian-French philosopher and academic (died 2004)

Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in a number of his texts, and which was developed through close readings of the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology. He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy although he distanced himself from post-structuralism and disavowed the word "postmodernity".

---

Richard Garneau, Canadian journalist and sportscaster (died 2013)

Richard Garneau, was a Canadian sports journalist and writer in Quebec.

---

Stephen Smale, American mathematician and computer scientist

Stephen Smale is an American mathematician, known for his research in topology, dynamical systems and mathematical economics. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1966 and spent more than three decades on the mathematics faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he currently is Professor Emeritus, with research interests in algorithms, numerical analysis and global analysis.

---

Einosuke Akiya, Japanese Buddhist leader

Einosuke Akiya is a Japanese Buddhist leader. He was the fifth president of Soka Gakkai from 18 July 1981 to 9 November 2006. After his resignation from that position, he became the chairman of the Supreme Leader Meeting of Soka Gakkai in November 2006. He also had responsibilities in many Soka Gakkai's satellites (supreme advisor of Sōka University, honorary director of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, and president of Soka Gakkai International.

---

15/07/1929

Charles Anthony, American tenor and actor (died 2012)

Charles Anthony Caruso, better known by his stage name of Charles Anthony, was an American actor and tenor noted for his portrayal of comprimario characters in opera. Anthony had the distinction of appearing in more performances at the Metropolitan Opera than any other performer. He celebrated his fiftieth anniversary with the company in 2004, and gave his farewell in the role of the aged Emperor Altoum in Turandot, at the Met, on January 28, 2010.

---

Francis Bebey, Cameroonian-French guitarist (died 2001)

Francis Bebey was a Cameroonian musicologist, writer, composer, and broadcaster.

---

Ian Stewart, Scottish racing driver (died 2017)

Ian Macpherson McCallum Stewart was a British racing driver from Scotland.

---

15/07/1928

Carl Woese, American microbiologist and biophysicist (died 2012)

Carl Richard Woese was an American microbiologist and biophysicist. Woese is famous for defining the Archaea in 1977 through a pioneering phylogenetic taxonomy of 16S ribosomal RNA, a technique that has revolutionized microbiology. He also originated the RNA world hypothesis in 1967, although not by that name. Woese held the Stanley O. Ikenberry Chair and was professor of microbiology at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign.

---

Viramachaneni Vimla Devi, Indian parliamentarian (died 1967)

Dr. Veeramachaneni Vimala Devi was an Indian parliamentarian. She was elected to the 3rd Lok Sabha from Eluru constituency as a member of Communist Party of India in 1962.

---

15/07/1927

Nan Martin, American actress (died 2010)

Nan Martin was an American actress and comedian who starred in movies and on television.

---

Carmen Zapata, American actress (died 2014)

Carmen Margarita Zapata often referred to as "The First Lady of the Hispanic Theater" was an American actress best known for her role in the PBS bilingual children's program Villa Alegre. Zapata was also the co-founder and director of the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts in Los Angeles. Zapata took an active part in the Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Zapata was born in New York City to Julio Zapata, a Mexican immigrant, and Ramona Roca, an Argentine immigrant.

---

Håkon Brusveen, Norwegian cross-country skier (died 2021)

Håkon Brusveen was a Norwegian cross-country skier. He competed in the individual 15 km and 4 × 10 km relay events at the 1956 and 1960 Olympics and won two medals in 1960: a gold in the 15 km and a silver in the relay; in 1956 he placed fifth and fourth, respectively. In 1958 he was awarded the Holmenkollen medal, and in 1960 the Morgenbladet Gold Medal. A freelance sports broadcaster for NRK for 35 years, he was a pioneering color commentator of cross-country skiing events.

---

15/07/1926

Driss Chraïbi, Moroccan-French journalist and author (died 2007)

Driss Chraïbi was a Moroccan author whose novels deal with colonialism, culture clashes, generational conflict and the treatment of women and are often perceived as semi-autobiographical.

---

Leopoldo Galtieri, Argentinian general and politician, 44th President of Argentina (died 2003)

Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri Castelli was an Argentine military officer who held power as the de facto President of Argentina from December 1981 to June 1982. Galtieri ruled as a military dictator during the National Reorganization Process as leader of the Third Junta with Jorge Anaya and Basilio Lami Dozo.

---

Raymond Gosling, English physicist and academic (died 2015)

Raymond George Gosling was a British scientist. While a PhD student at King's College, London he worked under the supervision of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin. The crystallographic experiments of Franklin and Gosling, together with others by Wilkins, produced data that helped James Watson and Francis Crick to infer the structure of DNA.

---

Sir John Graham, 4th Baronet, English diplomat (died 2019)

Sir John Alexander Noble Graham, 4th Baronet, was a British diplomat who was ambassador to Iraq, Iran and NATO.

---

15/07/1925

Philip Carey, American actor (died 2009)

Philip Carey was an American actor, well-known for playing the role of Asa Buchanan on the soap opera One Life to Live for nearly three decades.

---

Taylor Hardwick, American architect, designed Haydon Burns Library and Friendship Fountain Park (died 2014)

Taylor Hardwick was an American architect, interior designer, filmmaker, and educator who designed hundreds of buildings throughout northeast Florida, predominantly in and near the city of Jacksonville.

---

D. A. Pennebaker, American documentary filmmaker (died 2019)

Donn Alan Pennebaker was an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of direct cinema. Performing arts and politics were his primary subjects. In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award. The Independent called Pennebaker "arguably the pre-eminent chronicler of Sixties counterculture".

---

Evan Hultman, American politician (died 2025)

Evan "Curly" Hultman was an American politician and attorney in the state of Iowa. He served as Attorney General of Iowa from 1961 to 1965, as a Republican. He was major general in the United States Army Reserve and served in the Army during World War II. He attended the University of Iowa, earning a B.A. in 1949, and J.D. in 1952. Hultman died on February 16, 2025, at the age of 99.

---

Antony Carbone, American actor (died 2020)

Antony Carbone was an Italian-American movie and television actor.

---

Pandel Savic, American football player (died 2018)

Pandel Savic was an American football player, starting at quarterback for two years with the Ohio State Buckeyes. He originated from the village of Dragoš, then in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

---

15/07/1924

Jeremiah Denton, American admiral and politician (died 2014)

Jeremiah Andrew Denton Jr. was an American politician and United States Navy two-star admiral who served as a U.S. senator representing Alabama from 1981 to 1987. He was the first Republican to be popularly elected to a Senate seat in Alabama.

---

Marianne Bernadotte, Swedish actress and philanthropist (died 2025)

Gullan Marianne, Princess Bernadotte, Countess of Wisborg, also known as Princess Marianne Bernadotte, was a Swedish actress, fashion icon, and philanthropist who in 1961 married Sigvard Bernadotte, the second son of Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden and was officially included in the Swedish royal family.

---

15/07/1922

Leon M. Lederman, American physicist and mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2018)

Leon Max Lederman was an American experimental physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988, along with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger, for research on neutrinos. He also received the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1982, along with Martin Lewis Perl, for research on quarks and leptons. Lederman was director emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois. He founded the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, in Aurora, Illinois in 1986, where he was resident scholar emeritus from 2012 until his death in 2018.

---

Jean-Pierre Richard, French writer (died 2019)

Jean-Pierre Richard was a French literary critic.

---

15/07/1921

Henri Colpi, Swiss-French director and screenwriter (died 2006)

Henri Colpi was a French film editor and film director.

---

Robert Bruce Merrifield, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2006)

Robert Bruce Merrifield was an American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1984 for the invention of solid phase peptide synthesis.

---

15/07/1919

Fritz Langanke, German lieutenant (died 2012)

The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and its variants were the highest awards in the military and paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany during World War II. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded for a wide range of reasons and across all ranks, from a senior commander for skilled leadership of his troops in battle to a low-ranking soldier for a single act of extreme gallantry. A total of 7,321 awards were made between its first presentation on 30 September 1939 and its last bestowal on 17 June 1945. This number is based on the analysis and acceptance of the order commission of the Association of Knight's Cross Recipients (AKCR). Presentations were made to members of the three military branches of the Wehrmacht—the Heer (Army), Kriegsmarine (Navy) and Luftwaffe —as well as the Waffen-SS, the Reichsarbeitsdienst and the Volkssturm. There were also 43 recipients in the military forces of allies of the Third Reich.

---

Iris Murdoch, Anglo-Irish British novelist and philosopher (died 1999)

Dame Jean Iris Murdoch was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her first published novel, Under the Net (1954), was selected in 1998 as one of Modern Library's 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Her 1978 novel The Sea, The Sea won the Booker Prize. In 1987, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to literature. In 2008, The Times ranked Murdoch twelfth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

---

15/07/1918

Bertram Brockhouse, Canadian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2003)

Bertram Neville Brockhouse, was a Canadian physicist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter", in particular "for the development of neutron spectroscopy".

---

Brenda Milner, English-Canadian neuropsychologist and academic

Brenda Milner is a British-Canadian neuropsychologist who has contributed extensively to the research literature on various topics in the field of clinical neuropsychology. Milner is a professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University and a professor of Psychology at the Montreal Neurological Institute. As of 2020, she holds more than 25 honorary degrees and she continued to work in her nineties. Her work covers many aspects of neuropsychology including her lifelong interest in the involvement of the temporal lobes in episodic memory. She is sometimes referred to as one of the founders of neuropsychology and has been essential in its development. She received the Balzan Prize for Cognitive Neuroscience in 2009, and the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience, together with John O'Keefe, and Marcus E. Raichle, in 2014. She turned 100 in July 2018.

---

15/07/1917

Robert Conquest, English-American historian, poet, and academic (died 2015)

George Robert Acworth Conquest was a British and American historian, poet, and novelist. He was one of the West’s leading Sovietologists during the Cold War and was influential to both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Conquest was also affiliated with the anticommunist Information Research Department, within the British Foreign Affairs Office.

---

Joan Roberts, American actress and singer (died 2012)

Joan Roberts was an American actress, most famous for creating the role of Laurey in the original Broadway production of Oklahoma! in 1943.

---

Nur Muhammad Taraki, Afghan journalist and politician (died 1979)

Nur Muhammad Taraki was an Afghan communist politician, revolutionary, journalist and writer. He was a founding member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) who served as its General Secretary from 1965 to 1979 and Chairman of the Revolutionary Council from 1978 to 1979.

---

15/07/1916

Sumner Gerard, American politician and diplomat (died 2005)

Sumner Gerard Jr. MBE was an American businessman, politician, and diplomat. Born in New York to a prominent family, Gerard attended Groton School and Trinity College, Cambridge. After serving in the army, navy, and Marine Corps during World War II, he moved to Montana and became involved in business, including mining and ranching, and politics.

---

15/07/1915

Albert Ghiorso, American chemist and academic (died 2010)

Albert Ghiorso was an American nuclear scientist and co-discoverer of a record 12 chemical elements on the periodic table. His research career spanned six decades, from the early 1940s to the late 1990s.

---

Kashmir Singh Katoch, Indian army officer (died 2007)

Lieutenant General Kashmir Singh Katoch, MC was an Indian Army General and military adviser to the Maharaja Hari Singh of Jammu and Kashmir, officiating as the Chief of Staff of the State Forces during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. He later served as the Vice Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army.

---

15/07/1914

Birabongse Bhanudej, Thai racing driver and sailor, member of the Thai royal family (died 1985)

Prince Birabongse Bhanudej Bhanubandh, commonly known as Prince Bira of Siam or simply Prince Bira, was a member of the Thai royal family. Bira was also a racing driver, sailor and pilot, who competed in Formula One from 1950 to 1954 and at four editions of the Summer Olympics between 1956 and 1972.

---

Akhtar Hameed Khan, Pakistani economist, scholar, and activist (died 1999)

Akhter Hameed Khan was a Pakistani-Bangladeshi development practitioner and social scientist. He promoted participatory rural development in West Pakistan, East Pakistan and other developing countries, and widely advocated community participation in development. His particular contribution was the establishment of a comprehensive project for rural development, the Comilla Model (1959). It earned him the Ramon Magsaysay Award from the Philippines and an honorary Doctorate of law from Michigan State University.

---

Howard Vernon, Swiss-French actor (died 1996)

Mario Walter Lippert, better known by his stage name Howard Vernon, was a Swiss-German actor and photographer. He had an extensive career in French cinema which spanned nearly 200 productions over 55 years, between 1945 and 2000. He was best known for his close association with cult filmmaker Jesús Franco, appearing in 40 of the director’s films, beginning with the titular character in The Awful Dr. Orloff (1962).

---

15/07/1913

Cowboy Copas, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1963)

Lloyd Estel Copas, known by his stage name Cowboy Copas, was an American country music singer. He was popular from the 1940s until his death in the 1963 plane crash that also killed country stars Patsy Cline and Hawkshaw Hawkins. Copas was a member of the Grand Ole Opry.

---

Hammond Innes, English journalist and author (died 1998)

Ralph Hammond Innes was a British novelist who wrote over 30 novels, as well as works for children and travel books.

---

Abraham Sutzkever, Russian poet and author (died 2010)

Abraham Sutzkever was an acclaimed Yiddish poet. The New York Times wrote that Sutzkever was "the greatest poet of the Holocaust."

---

15/07/1911

Edward Shackleton, Baron Shackleton, English geographer and politician, Secretary of State for Air (died 1994)

Edward Arthur Alexander Shackleton, Baron Shackleton was a British geographer, Royal Air Force officer and Labour Party politician.

---

15/07/1909

Jean Hamburger, French physician and surgeon (died 1992)

Jean Hamburger was a French physician, surgeon and essayist. He is particularly known for his contribution to nephrology, and for having performed the first renal transplantation in France in 1952.

---

15/07/1906

R. S. Mugali, Indian poet and academic (died 1993)

Ram Shri Mugali was a Kannada language writer. He was awarded the central Sahitya Akademi in 1956 for his work "Kannada Sahitya Charitre". He was the president of the 44th Kannada Sahitya Sammelana held in Siddganga, in the Tumkur district of Karnataka state, India.

---

Rudolf Uhlenhaut, English-German engineer (died 1989)

Rudolf Uhlenhaut was a British-German engineer, driving engineer for Mercedes-Benz, and the father of Mercedes-Benz 300 SL and 300 SLR. He had a long association with the Mercedes-Benz racing programme of the 1930s and 1950s, and is best known for his road legal Uhlenhaut Coupé version of the 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SLR race car.

---

15/07/1905

Dorothy Fields, American songwriter (died 1974)

Dorothy Fields was an American librettist and lyricist. She wrote more than 400 songs for Broadway musicals and films. Her best-known pieces include "The Way You Look Tonight" (1936), "A Fine Romance" (1936), "On the Sunny Side of the Street" (1930), "Don't Blame Me" (1948), "Pick Yourself Up" (1936), "I'm in the Mood for Love" (1935), "You Couldn't Be Cuter" (1938) and "Big Spender" (1966). Throughout her career, she collaborated with various influential figures in the American musical theater, including Jerome Kern, Cy Coleman, Irving Berlin, Arthur Schwartz, and Jimmy McHugh. Along with Ann Ronell, Dana Suesse, Bernice Petkere, and Kay Swift, she was one of the first successful Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood female songwriters.

---

Anita Farra, Italian actress (died 2008)

Anita Farra was an Italian stage and film actress. She appeared in around forty films during her career, generally in small or supporting roles, such as that in The Siege of the Alcazar (1940). Farra was also a noted voice actor, dubbing foreign films for release in Italy. She made a number of films in Spain.

---

15/07/1904

Rudolf Arnheim, German-American psychologist and author (died 2007)

Rudolf Arnheim was a German-born writer, art and film theorist, and perceptual psychologist. He learned Gestalt psychology from studying under Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler at the University of Berlin and applied it to art.

---

15/07/1903

Walter D. Edmonds, American journalist and author (died 1998)

Walter "Wat" Dumaux Edmonds was an American writer best known for historical novels. One of them, Drums Along the Mohawk (1936), was adapted as a Technicolor feature film in 1939, directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert.

---

K. Kamaraj, Indian journalist and politician (died 1975)

Kumaraswami Kamaraj, popularly known as Kamarajar was an Indian independence activist, politician, social reformer and statesman who served as the Chief Minister of Madras from 13 April 1954 to 2 October 1963. He also served as the president of the Indian National Congress between 1964–1967 and was responsible for the elevation of Lal Bahadur Shastri and later Indira Gandhi to the position of Prime Minister of India, because of which he was widely acknowledged as the "Kingmaker" in Indian politics during the 1960s. Later, he was the founder and president of the Indian National Congress (O).

---

15/07/1902

Jean Rey, Belgian lawyer and politician, 2nd President of the European Commission (died 1983)

Jean Rey was a Belgian Liberal politician who served as the second president of the European Commission from 1967 to 1970. He served as European Commissioner for External Relations from 1958 to 1967. The 1983–1984 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour.

---

15/07/1899

Seán Lemass, Irish soldier and politician, 4th Taoiseach of Ireland (died 1971)

Seán Francis Lemass was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as Taoiseach and Leader of Fianna Fáil from 1959 to 1966. He also served as Tánaiste from 1957 to 1959, 1951 to 1954 and 1945 to 1948, Minister for Industry and Commerce from 1957 to 1959, 1951 to 1954, 1945 to 1949 and 1932 to 1939 and Minister for Supplies from 1939 to 1945. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1924 to 1969.

---

15/07/1894

Tadeusz Sendzimir, Polish-American engineer (died 1989)

Tadeusz Sendzimir was a Polish engineer and inventor of international renown. He held 120 patents in mining and metallurgy, 73 of which were awarded to him in the United States.

---

15/07/1893

Enid Bennett, Australian-American actress (died 1969)

Enid Eulalie Bennett was an Australian silent film actress, mostly active in American film.

---

Dick Rauch, American football player and coach (died 1970)

Richard Harvie Rauch was an American football player and coach. Rauch attended Pennsylvania State University. He was a player-coach for the Boston Bulldogs, New York Yankees and the Maroons over the course of his five-year career. Rauch made his professional debut in the National Football League (NFL) in 1925 with the Pottsville Maroons. He was also the first NFL coach to institute daily practices.

---

15/07/1892

Walter Benjamin, German philosopher and critic (died 1940)

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Jewish mysticism, Western Marxism, and post-Kantianism, he made contributions to the philosophy of history, metaphysics, historical materialism, criticism, and aesthetics, and had an oblique but overwhelmingly influential impact on the resurrection of the Kabbalah by virtue of his life-long epistolary relationship with Gershom Scholem.

---

15/07/1887

Wharton Esherick, American sculptor (died 1970)

Wharton Esherick was an American artist and designer. An artistic polymath, he worked in a wide variety of art media including painting, printmaking, and sculpture. His design works range from architectural interiors to handheld, tactile objects like light pulls and chess pieces. Esherick is best known for his wood furniture, which synthesizes modernist sculptural form with functional craft. His influence was keenly felt within the genre of Postwar studio craft, where he has been called the “father of studio furniture” and the “dean of American craftsmen.” The sculptor and furniture designer Wendell Castle cited Esherick as a formative influence. Castle credited Esherick with demonstrating that "furniture could be a form of sculpture," the "inherent tree characteristics in the utilization of wood," and the "importance of the entire sculptural environment."

---

15/07/1883

Denny Barry Irish Republican died during the 1923 Irish Hunger Strikes (died 1923)

Denis Barry was an Irish Republican who died during the 1923 Irish hunger strikes, shortly after the Irish Civil War.

---

15/07/1880

Enrique Mosca, Argentinian lawyer and politician (died 1950)

Enrique Mosca was an Argentine lawyer and politician prominent in the centrist Radical Civic Union (UCR).

---

15/07/1871

Doppo Kunikida, Japanese journalist, author, and poet (died 1908)

Doppo Kunikida was a Japanese author of novels and romantic poetry during the Meiji period, noted as one of the inventors of Japanese naturalism.

---

15/07/1867

Jean-Baptiste Charcot, French physician and explorer (died 1936)

Jean-Baptiste Étienne Auguste Charcot, better known in France as Commandant Charcot, was a French scientist, medical doctor and polar scientist. His father was the neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893). As a sportsman, he was French rugby XV champion in 1896 and also won a double silver medal in sailing at the 1900 Summer Olympics.

---

15/07/1865

Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, Anglo-Irish businessman and publisher, founded the Amalgamated Press (died 1922)

Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, was a British newspaper and publishing magnate. As owner of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror, he was an early developer of popular journalism, and he exercised vast influence over British popular opinion during the Edwardian era. Lord Beaverbrook said he was "the greatest figure who ever strode down Fleet Street." About the beginning of the 20th century there were increasing attempts to develop popular journalism intended for the working class and tending to emphasize sensational topics. Harmsworth was the main innovator.

---

Wilhelm Wirtinger, Austrian-German mathematician and theorist (died 1945)

Wilhelm Wirtinger was an Austrian mathematician, working in complex analysis, geometry, algebra, number theory, Lie groups, and knot theory.

---

15/07/1864

Marie Tempest, English actress and singer (died 1942)

Dame Mary Susan Etherington, known professionally as Marie Tempest, was an English singer and actress.

---

15/07/1858

Emmeline Pankhurst, English political activist and suffragist (died 1928)

Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist who organised the British suffragette movement and helped women to win the right to vote in Great Britain and Ireland in 1918. In 1999, Time named her as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating that "she shaped an idea of objects for our time" and "shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back". She was widely criticised for her militant tactics, and historians disagree about their effectiveness, but her work is recognised as a crucial element in achieving women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.

---

15/07/1852

Josef Josephi, Polish-born singer and actor (died 1920)

Josef Ichhäuser (1852–1920), known by the stage name Josef Josephi (also spelled Joseffy), was an Austrian Empire-born singer (tenor-baritone) and actor.

---

15/07/1850

Frances Xavier Cabrini, Italian-American nun and saint (died 1917)

Frances Xavier Cabrini, also known as Mother Cabrini, was a prominent Italian-American religious sister in the Catholic Church. She was the first American to be recognized by the Catholic Church as a Saint.

---

15/07/1848

Vilfredo Pareto, Italian economist and sociologist (died 1923)

Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto was an Italian polymath, whose areas of interest included sociology, civil engineering, economics, political science, and philosophy. He made several important contributions to economics, particularly in the study of income distribution and in the analysis of individuals' choices, and was one of the minds behind the Lausanne School of economics. He was also responsible for popularising the use of the term elite in social analysis and contributed to elite theory. He has been described as "one of the last Renaissance scholars. Trained in physics and mathematics, he became a polymath whose genius radiated into nearly all other major fields of knowledge."

---

15/07/1827

W. W. Thayer American lawyer and politician, 6th Governor of Oregon (died 1899)

William Wallace Thayer, was an American Democratic politician active in U.S. states of Idaho and Oregon. Most notably, he served as the sixth governor of Oregon from 1878 to 1882 and Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court from 1888 to 1889.

---

15/07/1817

Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet, English engineer, designed the Forth Bridge (died 1898)

Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet, KCMG, LLD, FRSE was an English civil engineer specialising in the construction of railways and railway infrastructure. In the 1850s and 1860s, he was engineer for the world's first underground railway, London's Metropolitan Railway, built by the "cut-and-cover" method under city streets. In the 1880s, he was chief engineer for the Forth Bridge, which opened in 1890. Fowler's was a long and eminent career, spanning most of the 19th century's railway expansion, and he was engineer, adviser or consultant to many British and foreign railway companies and governments. He was the youngest president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, between 1865 and 1867, and his major works represent a lasting legacy of Victorian engineering.

---

15/07/1812

James Hope-Scott, English lawyer and academic (died 1873)

James Robert Hope-Scott was a British barrister and Tractarian.

---

15/07/1808

Henry Edward Manning, English cardinal (died 1892)

Henry Edward Manning was an English prelate of the Catholic Church, and the second Archbishop of Westminster from 1865 until his death in 1892. He was ordained in the Church of England as a young man, but converted to Catholicism in the aftermath of the Gorham judgement.

---

15/07/1800

Sidney Breese, American jurist and politician (died 1878)

Sidney Breese, a lawyer, soldier, author and jurist born in New York, became an early Illinois pioneer and represented the state in the United States Senate as well as served as Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court and Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, and has been called "father of the Illinois Central Railroad".

---

15/07/1799

Reuben Chapman, American lawyer and politician, 13th Governor of Alabama (died 1882)

Reuben Chapman was an American lawyer and politician. He served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1835 to 1847, and as the 13th governor of Alabama from 1847 to 1849.

---

15/07/1796

Thomas Bulfinch, American mythologist (died 1867)

Thomas Bulfinch was an American author born in Newton, Massachusetts, known best for Bulfinch's Mythology, a posthumous combination of his three volumes of mythologies.

---

15/07/1793

Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps, American educator, author, editor (died 1884)

Almira Lincoln Phelps was an American scientist, educator, author, and editor. Her botany writings influenced more early American women to be botanists, including Eunice Newton Foote and her daughter, Augusta Newton Foote Arnold. Though she primarily wrote about nature, she also wrote novels, essays, and memoirs. The standard author abbreviation A.Phelps is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.

---

15/07/1779

Clement Clarke Moore, American author, poet, and educator (died 1863)

Clement Clarke Moore was an American writer, scholar and real estate developer. He is best known as author of the Christmas poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas", which first named each of Santa Claus's reindeer.

---

15/07/1704

August Gottlieb Spangenberg, German bishop and theologian (died 1792)

August Gottlieb Spangenberg was a German theologian, minister, and bishop of the Moravian Church. As successor to Nicolaus Zinzendorf as bishop of the Moravian Church, he helped develop and lead international Moravian missions in colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania and stabilized Moravian theology and organization.

---

15/07/1638

Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani, Italian violinist and composer (died 1693)

Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani was an Italian composer and violinist. He worked in the court at Innsbruck as a violinist at least between 1656 and 1660. Between 1672 and 1676 he was director of the court music at Innsbruck, which, after the extinction of the Tyrolean Habsburgs, had come under the control of the emperor. Although in publications of 1678 Viviani still described himself as holding this position, it seems more likely that he was in fact in Venice working on his arrangement of Francesco Cavalli’s Scipione affricano and his own opera Astiage, which were both performed in Venice that year. Also that year, Viviani directed an oratorio at the Oratorio di San Marcello in Rome with Arcangelo Corelli and Bernardo Pasquini. He was probably elevated to the nobility in the same year, since he subsequently designated himself ‘Nobile del Sacro Romano Imperio’. Between 1678 and 1679 and 1681 and 1682 he was in Naples as director of a troupe of opera singers, and while he was there he performed some of his own operas and oratorios. In 1686 he was maestro di cappella to the Prince of Bisignano. From January 1687 to December 1692 he was maestro di cappella of Pistoia Cathedral.

---

15/07/1631

Jens Juel, Danish politician and diplomat, Governor-general of Norway (died 1700)

Jens Juel was a Danish diplomat and statesman of great influence at the Danish–Norwegian court. He was created Baron and granted Juellinge in 1672 and also established Juellund in 1694. He was the brother of Admiral Niels Juel.

---

Richard Cumberland, English philosopher (died 1718)

Richard Cumberland was an English philosopher, and Bishop of Peterborough from 1691. In 1672, he published his major work, De legibus naturae, propounding utilitarianism and opposing the egoistic ethics of Thomas Hobbes.

---

15/07/1613

Gu Yanwu, Chinese philologist and geographer (died 1682)

Gu Yanwu (Chinese: 顧炎武; pinyin: Gù Yánwǔ; Wade–Giles: Ku4 Yen2-wu3, 1613 – 1682) was a Chinese historian, philologist, and poet. After failing to advance through the civil service examination system and surviving the upheaval of the Qing conquest of the Ming dynasty, he became an itinerant scholar, traveling across much of China while collecting notes for his work.

---

15/07/1611

Jai Singh I, maharaja of Jaipur (died 1667)

Mirza Raja Jai Singh I was the Kachhwaha ruler of the Kingdom of Amber as well as a senior most general and a high-ranking mansabdar at the imperial court of Mughal Empire. His predecessor was his grand uncle, Mirza Raja Bhau Singh, the younger son of Mirza Raja Man Singh I.

---

15/07/1606

Rembrandt, Dutch painter and etcher (died 1669)

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, known mononymously as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of Western art. It is estimated that Rembrandt's surviving works amount to about three hundred paintings, three hundred etchings, and several hundred drawings.

---

15/07/1600

Jan Cossiers, Flemish painter (died 1671)

Jan Cossiers was a Flemish painter and draughtsman. Cossiers' earliest works were Caravaggesque genre works depicting low life scenes. Later in his career he painted mostly history and religious subjects as well as portraits. Cossiers was one of the leading painters in Antwerp after Rubens' death in 1640 and one of the most original colorists in 17th-century Flanders. He was an accomplished draughtsman who created some sensitive portrait drawings executed in a very varied and fluid manner.

---

15/07/1573

Inigo Jones, English architect, designed the Queen's House (died 1652)

Inigo Jones was an English architect who was the first significant architect in England in the early modern era and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmetry in his buildings. As the most notable architect in England, Jones was the first person to introduce the classical architecture of Rome and the Italian Renaissance to England. He left his mark on London by his design of single buildings, such as the Queen's House which is the first building in England designed in a pure classical style, and the Banqueting House, Whitehall, as well as the layout for Covent Garden square which became a model for future developments in the West End. He made major contributions to stage design by his work as a theatrical designer for several dozen masques, most by royal command and many in collaboration with Ben Jonson.

---

15/07/1478

Barbara Jagiellon, duchess consort of Saxony and Margravine consort of Meissen (died 1534)

Barbara Jagiellon was a princess of the Kingdom of Poland and of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, member of the Jagiellonian dynasty and by marriage Duchess of Saxony.

---

15/07/1471

Eskender, Ethiopian emperor (died 1494)

Eskender was Emperor of Ethiopia and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. His throne name was Constantine II. The son of Emperor Baeda Maryam I by his wife Queen Romna, his early years would see the jostling for power between the nobility and the ecclesiastical elite.

---

15/07/1455

Queen Yun, Korean queen (died 1482)

Deposed Queen Yun of the Haman Yun clan was the second wife of Yi Hyeol, King Seongjong and the mother of Yi Yung, Prince Yeonsan. She was Queen of Joseon from 1476 until her deposition in 1479. She was an 11th generation descendant of General Yun Kwan.

---

15/07/1442

Boček IV of Poděbrady, Bohemian nobleman (died 1496)

Boček IV of Poděbrady, was, by title, the last member of the Bohemian noble family of Poděbrady, who were descended from the Lords of Kunštát.

---

15/07/1359

Antonio Correr, Italian cardinal (died 1445)

Antonio Correr was a Roman Catholic cardinal who was appointed cardinal by his uncle Pope Gregory XII during the period of the Great Western Schism.

---

15/07/1353

Vladimir the Bold, Russian prince (died 1410)

Vladimir Andreyevich the Bold was the most famous prince of Serpukhov. His moniker alludes to his many military exploits in the wars waged by his cousin, Dmitri Donskoi of Moscow. He was son of Andrei Ivanovich (1327–1353), Prince of Novgorod.

---

15/07/1273

Ewostatewos, Ethiopian monk and saint (died 1352)

Ewostatewos was an Ethiopian religious leader of the Orthodox Tewahedo during the early period of the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopian Empire. He was a forceful advocate for the observation of the Sabbath in Christianity. His followers, known as the House of Ewostatewos, have been a historic force in Tewahedo Orthodoxy.

---

15/07/0980

Ichijō, Japanese emperor (died 1011)

Emperor Ichijō was the 66th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession.

---