What happened on 31st July?

On this day, 210 notable people were born on 31st July — spanning from 1143 to 2003. From world leaders to artists and scientists, discover who shares this birthday.

31/07/2003

Calvin Ramsay, Scottish footballer

Calvin William Ramsay is a Scottish professional footballer who plays as a right-back for Premier League club Liverpool.

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31/07/2002

João Gomes, Brazilian singer

João Fernando Gomes Valério is a Brazilian singer and songwriter who came to national prominence with his debut album Eu tenho a senha. One song from the album, "Meu Pedaço de Pecado", was the most played song among Brazil's Spotify users as of 1 July 2021, and also appeared in Spotify's Top 50 Global chart the same month.

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Will Penisini, Australian-Tongan rugby league player

Viliami Penisini is a Tonga international rugby league footballer who plays as a centre for the Parramatta Eels in the National Rugby League.

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31/07/2000

Kim Sae-ron, South Korean actress (died 2025)

Kim Sae-ron was a South Korean actress. Kim began her career in 2001 as a child model and transitioned to acting in 2009 with the film A Brand New Life (2009). She gained recognition through The Man from Nowhere (2010), earning herself a Baeksang Arts Awards for Best New Actress nomination. She later starred in the television series Listen to My Heart (2011), The Queen's Classroom (2013), and Hi! School: Love On (2014), along with the film A Girl at My Door (2014). Her first adult lead role was in the series Secret Healer (2016).

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31/07/1998

Rico Rodriguez, American actor

Rico Rodriguez is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Manny Delgado on the ABC sitcom Modern Family (2009–2020). He received several Screen Actors Guild Awards for his performance. He has also appeared in numerous other television shows and movies—both as himself and other characters—before, during, and after the show's run, such as Epic Movie, Endgame, El Americano: The Movie, and Nickelodeon's The Substitute and Unfiltered.

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31/07/1997

Bobbi Althoff, American podcaster and influencer

Bobbi Althoff is an American podcaster and influencer known for her viral interviews with Drake, Lil Yachty, Offset, and other celebrities.

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31/07/1995

Lil Uzi Vert, American hip hop artist

Symere Bysil Woods, known professionally as Lil Uzi Vert, is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. Known for their eclectic fashion style and genre-blending music, they are considered an influential figure in contemporary hip-hop. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, they gained initial recognition following the release of the commercial mixtape Luv Is Rage (2015), which led to a recording contract with Atlantic Records, to whom they signed under DJ Drama's Generation Now imprint.

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31/07/1993

Linus Ullmark, Swedish professional hockey player

Sven Linus Ullmark is a Swedish professional ice hockey player who is a goaltender for the Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey League (NHL).

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31/07/1992

José Fernández, Cuban-American baseball player (died 2016)

José Delfín Fernández Gómez was a Cuban-born American professional baseball right-handed pitcher who played four seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). He was a member of the Miami Marlins from 2013 until his death in 2016. He stood 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighed 243 pounds (110 kg) during his playing career. He was affectionately known as "Niño" to his teammates and fans due to the youthful exuberance with which he played the game.

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Ryan Johansen, Canadian ice hockey player

Ryan Johansen is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. A centre, he played minor hockey in the Greater Vancouver area until joining the junior ranks with the Penticton Vees of the British Columbia Hockey League (BCHL) for one season. In 2009–10, he moved to the major junior level with the Portland Winterhawks of the Western Hockey League (WHL). After his first WHL season, he was selected fourth overall by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2010 NHL entry draft. He would play five seasons with them before being traded to the Nashville Predators for Seth Jones in January 2016. Playing parts of eight seasons with Nashville, he was a key part of seven straight postseason berths for the Predators, including a trip to the 2017 Stanley Cup Finals. Nearing the end of his contract as the Predators declined, he was traded to the Avalanche in the 2023 off-season.

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Kyle Larson, American race car driver

Kyle Miyata Larson is an American professional racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 5 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Hendrick Motorsports and part-time in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series, driving the No. 88 Chevrolet Camaro SS for JR Motorsports.

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31/07/1991

Réka Luca Jani, Hungarian tennis player

Réka Luca Jani is a Hungarian former professional tennis player.

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31/07/1989

Victoria Azarenka, Belarusian tennis player

Victoria Fiodaraŭna Azarenka is a Belarusian professional tennis player. She has been ranked as the world No. 1 in singles by the WTA and held the position for a total of 51 weeks, including as the year-end No. 1 in 2012. Azarenka has won 21 WTA Tour-level singles titles, including two Grand Slams at the 2012 and 2013 Australian Opens, becoming the first Belarusian to win a major singles title.

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31/07/1988

Alex Glenn, New Zealand rugby league player

Alex Glenn is a former professional rugby league footballer who captained and played as a second-row and centre for the Brisbane Broncos in the NRL. He played for both the Cook Islands and New Zealand at international level.

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A. J. Green, American football player

Adriel Jeremiah "A. J." Green is an American former professional football wide receiver who played in the National Football League (NFL) for twelve seasons, primarily with the Cincinnati Bengals. He played college football for the Georgia Bulldogs, earning first-team All-American honors before being selected by the Bengals with the fourth overall pick in the 2011 NFL draft. He is regarded as one of the greatest wide receivers of his era.

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31/07/1987

Michael Bradley, American soccer player

Michael Sheehan Bradley is an American former professional soccer player who is currently the head coach of the New York Red Bulls in Major League Soccer.

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31/07/1986

Evgeni Malkin, Russian ice hockey player

Evgeni Vladimirovich Malkin is a Russian professional ice hockey player who is a centre and alternate captain for the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League (NHL). Nicknamed "Geno", Malkin began his career with his hometown club Metallurg Magnitogorsk, playing for their junior and senior teams. He was then selected second overall in the 2004 NHL entry draft by the Pittsburgh Penguins, though an international transfer dispute delayed the start of his NHL career until 2006. Malkin is widely regarded as one of the greatest players of the modern NHL era and a quintessential piece of the Pittsburgh Penguins' salary cap era success.

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Brian Orakpo, American football player

Brian Ndubisi Orakpo is an American former professional football player who was a linebacker for 10 seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the University of Texas, was recognized as a unanimous All-American, and was selected by the Washington Redskins with the thirteenth overall pick in the 2009 NFL draft. He also played for Tennessee Titans, and was selected to four Pro Bowls.

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31/07/1985

Daniel Ciofani, Italian footballer

Daniel Ciofani is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a forward.

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Rémy Di Gregorio, French cyclist

Rémy Di Gregorio is a French road bicycle racer, who is currently suspended from the sport following a positive in-competition doping test for darbepoetin alfa, a re-engineered form of erythropoietin (EPO). He has previously competed for Française des Jeux (2005–2010), Astana (2011), Cofidis (2012), and Delko–Marseille Provence KTM (2014–2018) in his professional career.

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31/07/1982

Anabel Medina Garrigues, Spanish tennis player

Ana Isabel Medina Garrigues is a Spanish tennis coach and former professional player.

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DeMarcus Ware, American football player

DeMarcus Omar Ware is an American former professional football player in the National Football League (NFL) for twelve seasons. He played college football for the Troy State Trojans as a defensive end. He was selected by the Dallas Cowboys with the 11th overall pick in the first round of the 2005 NFL draft. He switched positions from defensive end to linebacker in the Dallas Cowboy 3-4 defense. After spending nine seasons with the Cowboys, Ware departed in 2013 as the franchise's all-time leader in quarterback sacks with 117. Ware then played three seasons for the Denver Broncos, with whom he won Super Bowl 50 over the Carolina Panthers. After the 2016 season with the Broncos, he announced his retirement from the NFL. In 2017, he signed a one-day contract with Dallas to retire as a Cowboy. In 2018, the Broncos hired Ware as a pass rush consultant. In 2023, Ware was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

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31/07/1981

Titus Bramble, English footballer

Titus Malachi Bramble is an English former professional footballer who played as a centre back.

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Vernon Carey, American football player

Vernon A. Carey Sr. is an American former professional football player who was an offensive tackle for eight seasons with the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League (NFL). He was selected by the Dolphins with the 19th overall pick in the 2004 NFL draft after playing college football for the Miami Hurricanes.

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Paul Whatuira, New Zealand rugby league player

Paul Whatuira is a New Zealand former professional rugby league footballer who last played for the Parramatta Eels in the NRL in 2011. A New Zealand international centre, he won National Rugby League premierships with the Penrith Panthers and Wests Tigers and achieved success with the Huddersfield Giants in the Super League.

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31/07/1980

Mikko Hirvonen, Finnish race car driver

Mikko Hirvonen is a Finnish former rally driver, and a current Rally-Raid driver, who drove in the World Rally Championship. He placed third in the drivers' championship and helped Ford to the manufacturers' title in both 2006 and 2007. In 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012 he finished runner-up to Sébastien Loeb. Hirvonen's co-driver was Jarmo Lehtinen from the 2003 season until his retirement in 2014, Lehtinen had replaced Miikka Anttila who co-drove with Hirvonen in the 2002 season.

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Mils Muliaina, New Zealand rugby player

Junior Malili "Mils" Muliaina is a former professional rugby union player who most recently played for San Francisco Rush in the US PRO Rugby competition. He played primarily as a fullback, though he has also played as a centre and on the wing.

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31/07/1979

Jaco Erasmus, South African-Italian rugby player

Jaco Erasmus is a South African-born Italian rugby union naturalized player. He plays as a flanker.

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J. J. Furmaniak, American baseball player

Jason Joseph "J. J." Furmaniak is an American former professional baseball infielder, who played in the major leagues for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Oakland Athletics.

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Per Krøldrup, Danish footballer

Per Billeskov Krøldrup is a Danish former professional footballer who played as a defender.

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Carlos Marchena, Spanish footballer

Carlos Marchena López is a Spanish former professional footballer. Mainly a central defender with an aggressive approach, he also played as a defensive midfielder.

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B. J. Novak, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter

Benjamin Joseph Manaly Novak is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, author, and producer. He gained traction as a comedian during the early 2000s before becoming an actor for the MTV reality prank show Punk'd (2003).

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31/07/1978

Zac Brown, American country singer-songwriter and guitarist

The Zac Brown Band is an American country music band based in Atlanta, Georgia. The lineup consists of Zac Brown, Jimmy De Martini, John Driskell Hopkins, Coy Bowles, Chris Fryar (drums), Clay Cook, Matt Mangano, Daniel de los Reyes (percussion), and Caroline Jones.

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Will Champion, English drummer (Coldplay)

William Champion is an English musician and songwriter. He is best known as the drummer and percussionist of the rock band Coldplay. Raised in Southampton, he learned to play numerous instruments during his youth, being influenced by Nick Cave, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and traditional Irish folk music. His energetic drumming style is largely focused on the essential elements of the songs and he occasionally takes lead vocal duties on live performances.

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Nick Sorensen, American football player and sportscaster

Nicholas Carl Sorensen is an American professional football coach and former safety who is currently the special teams coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Virginia Tech Hokies.

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Justin Wilson, English race car driver (died 2015)

Justin Boyd Wilson was a British professional open-wheel racing driver who competed in Formula One (F1) in 2003, the Champ Car World Series (CCWS) from 2004 to 2007 and the IndyCar Series from 2008 to 2015. He won the first Formula Palmer Audi (FPA) in 1998, the International Formula 3000 Championship (IF3000) with Nordic Racing in 2001, and co-won the 2012 24 Hours of Daytona for Michael Shank Racing.

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31/07/1976

Joshua Cain, American guitarist and producer

Joshua Allen Cain is a guitarist and record producer from Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is the co-founder and lead guitarist of American pop punk band Motion City Soundtrack. Cain is also a music producer with multiple past projects; comprising an EP for Epitaph-signed band Sing It Loud and two songs from Metro Station's debut album.

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Paulo Wanchope, Costa Rican footballer and manager

Paulo César Wanchope Watson, more commonly known as Paulo Wanchope, is a Costa Rican football coach and former professional footballer who last coached Deportivo Saprissa.

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31/07/1975

Randy Flores, American baseball player and coach

Randy Alan Flores is an American professional baseball executive and former pitcher who is the assistant general manager and director of scouting for the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball (MLB). He played in MLB for the Texas Rangers, Colorado Rockies, Cardinals, and Minnesota Twins.

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Andrew Hall, South African cricketer

Andrew James Hall is a former South African first-class cricketer who played from 1999 until 2011. He played as an all-rounder who bowled fast-medium pace and has been used as both an opening batsman and in the lower order. He was born in Johannesburg in South Africa in 1975 and educated at Hoërskool Alberton in Alberton, Gauteng.

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Gabe Kapler, American baseball player and manager

Gabriel Stefan Kapler, nicknamed "Kap", is an American professional baseball executive and former outfielder and manager who serves as the general manager of the Miami Marlins of Major League Baseball (MLB).

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31/07/1974

Emilia Fox, English actress

Emilia Rose Elizabeth Fox is an English actress and presenter whose career is primarily in British television. Her feature film debut was in Roman Polanski's film The Pianist (2002). Her other motion pictures include the Italian–French–British romance-drama The Soul Keeper (2002), for which she won the Flaiano Film Award for Best Actress; the drama The Republic of Love (2003); the comedy-drama Things to Do Before You're 30 (2005); the black comedy Keeping Mum (2005); the romantic comedy-drama Cashback (2006); the drama Flashbacks of a Fool (2008); the drama Ways to Live Forever (2010); the drama-thriller A Thousand Kisses Deep (2011); and the fantasy-horror drama Dorian Gray (2009).

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Leona Naess, American-English singer-songwriter and guitarist

Leona Kristina Naess is an English singer and songwriter. She released her debut album, Comatised, in March 2000, which produced the single "Charm Attack".

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Jonathan Ogden, American football player

Jonathan Phillip Ogden is an American former professional football player who spent his entire career as an offensive tackle with the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the UCLA Bruins, and was recognized as a unanimous All-American. He was selected by the Ravens with the 4th overall pick in the 1996 NFL draft, making him the first Ravens draft selection in franchise history. He was an 11-time Pro Bowl selection and a nine-time All-Pro. A member of the Ravens team that won Super Bowl XXXV, Ogden is widely considered one of the greatest offensive linemen of all time.

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31/07/1973

Nathan Brown, Australian rugby league player and coach

Nathan Brown is an Australian professional rugby league football coach who is the assistant coach of the Parramatta Eels in the NRL and former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s and 2000s.

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31/07/1971

Gus Frerotte, American football player and coach

Gustave Joseph Frerotte is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL). He was selected by the Washington Redskins in the seventh round of the 1994 NFL draft. He played college football at Tulsa.

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31/07/1970

Ahmad Akbarpour, Iranian author and poet

Ahmad Akbarpour Ahmad Akbarpūr Persian pronunciation: [æhˈmæd(-e) ækbærpuːr], born July 31, 1970, in Chah Varz, Lamerd, Fars province, is a novelist and author of short stories and children's books.

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Ben Chaplin, English actor

Benedict John Greenwood, better known as Ben Chaplin, is a British actor. He is best known for his roles in films, including Feast of July (1995), The Thin Red Line (1998), Lost Souls (2000), Birthday Girl (2001), Murder by Numbers (2002), Stage Beauty (2004), The New World (2005), Me and Orson Welles (2008), London Boulevard (2010), Twixt (2011), The Wipers Times (2013), War Book (2014), Snowden (2016), and September 5 (2024). His TV roles include Soldier Soldier (1991), World Without End (2012) and The Nevers (2021–2023).

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Andrzej Kobylański, Polish footballer and manager

Andrzej Kobylański born 31 July 1970) is a Polish former professional footballer who played as a striker or midfielder. In 2012, he was the assistant manager for Cracovia, and held the role of sporting director for Korona Kielce from 2013 to mid-2014.

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Giorgos Sigalas, Greek basketball player, coach, and sportscaster

Giorgos Sigalas is a Greek retired professional basketball player and is the current head coach for Iraklis of the Greek Basketball League.

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31/07/1969

Antonio Conte, Italian footballer and manager

Antonio Conte is an Italian professional football manager and former player. He has worked in Italy and abroad, with his most recent managerial stint being at Serie A club Napoli. He is widely regarded as one of the best football managers in the world.

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Loren Dean, American actor

Loren Dean is an American actor who has appeared on stage and in feature films, including as the title character in Billy Bathgate, as well as Apollo 13, Rosewood, Space Cowboys, and Ad Astra. He appeared in a recurring role on the television series Bones.

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Kenneth D. Schisler, American lawyer and politician

Kenneth D. Schisler is a former member of the Maryland House of Delegates and former chair of the Maryland Public Service Commission.

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31/07/1968

Saeed-Al-Saffar, Emirati cricketer

Saeed-al-Saffar is an Emirati former cricketer who has represented the UAE at the international level, most notably in the One Day International the Emirates side played against the Netherlands in Lahore in the 1996 Cricket World Cup. He also competed for the UAE in the 1996–97 and 2001 versions of the ICC Trophy, which is the qualifying competition for the World Cup played by non-Test nations.

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Julian Richards, Welsh director and producer

Julian Richards is a Welsh film director. He is associated with the Cool Cymru era of culture and arts in Wales.

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31/07/1967

Tony Massenburg, American basketball player

Tony Arnel Massenburg is an American former professional basketball player. Massenburg was on the active roster of 12 different teams, which was an NBA record shared with Joe Smith, Jim Jackson, Chucky Brown, and Ish Smith; until Ish played with the Denver Nuggets, his 13th team, in the 2022–23 season. In 2005, while on the San Antonio Spurs, Massenburg became the first player in NBA history to win a championship after playing for at least 12 different franchises.

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Tim Wright, Welsh composer

Tim Wright, known professionally as CoLD SToRAGE, is a Welsh video game music composer best known for his work on Wipeout 2097. His compositions for the game drew on 1990s UK big beat and electronic music trends, influenced by artists such as The Chemical Brothers. This style helped define Wipeout 2097's futuristic racing soundtrack and contributed to the popularisation of electronic music in video games. Wright has also contributed to the soundtracks of Shadow of the Beast II, Agony, Lemmings, and Colony Wars.

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31/07/1966

Dean Cain, American actor, producer, and screenwriter

Dean George Cain is an American actor best known for portraying Superman in the 1990s television series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Cain was also the host of Ripley's Believe It or Not! and appeared in the sports drama series Hit the Floor.

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31/07/1965

Scott Brooks, American basketball player and coach

Scott William Brooks is an American professional basketball coach and former player who is an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). As a player, he won an NBA championship with the Houston Rockets in 1994.

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John Laurinaitis, American wrestler and producer

John Hodger Laurinaitis, also known by his former ring name Johnny Ace, is an American retired professional wrestler and business executive.

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Ian Roberts, English-Australian rugby league player and actor

Ian Roberts is a British-born Australian actor and former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1980s and 1990s. A New South Wales State of Origin and Australian international representative forward, he played club football with the South Sydney Rabbitohs, Wigan, Manly Warringah Sea Eagles and North Queensland Cowboys. In 1995 Roberts became the first high-profile Australian sports person and first rugby footballer in the world to come out to the public as gay.

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J. K. Rowling, English author and film producer

Joanne Rowling, better known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author, philanthropist, producer, and screenwriter. She is best known for writing Harry Potter, a seven-volume series about a young wizard which is the best-selling book series in history, with over 600 million copies sold. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction series, under the alias Robert Galbraith.

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31/07/1964

Jim Corr, Irish singer-songwriter and guitarist

James Steven Ignatius Corr is an Irish musician, singer, songwriter and DJ. He is a member of the Irish folk/rock band the Corrs, the other members being his three younger sisters Andrea, Sharon and Caroline.

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Urmas Hepner, Estonian footballer and coach

Urmas Hepner is an Estonian former footballer, who is currently coaching Levadia Tallinn's reserves, as well as working in the club's youth system. In 1992 Hepner was named Estonian Footballer of the Year.

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31/07/1963

Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim), English DJ and musician

Norman Quentin Cook, known professionally as Fatboy Slim, is an English musician and DJ who helped popularise the big beat genre in the 1990s. His music makes extensive use of samples from eclectic genres, combined with pop structures, processed rhythms and "sloganistic" vocals.

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Fergus Henderson, English chef and author

Fergus Henderson is an English chef who founded the restaurant St. John on St John Street in London. He is known for his use of offal and other neglected cuts of meat as a consequence of his philosophy of nose to tail eating. Following in the footsteps of his parents, Brian and Elizabeth Henderson, he trained as an architect at the Architectural Association in London. Most of his dishes are derived from traditional British cuisine and the wines are all French.

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Brian Skrudland, Canadian ice hockey player and coach

Brian Norman Skrudland is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player who played for the Montreal Canadiens, Calgary Flames, Florida Panthers, New York Rangers and Dallas Stars.

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31/07/1962

John Chiang, American lawyer and politician, 31st California State Controller

John Chiang is an American politician who served as the 33rd Treasurer of California from 2015 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 31st Controller of California from 2007 to 2015 and on the California State Board of Equalization from 1997 to 2007.

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Kevin Greene, American football player and coach (died 2020)

Kevin Darwin Greene was an American professional football player who was a linebacker and defensive end for the Los Angeles Rams, Pittsburgh Steelers, Carolina Panthers, and San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) from 1985 through 1999. He had 160 sacks in his career, which ranks third among NFL career sack leaders, and was voted to the NFL 1990s All-Decade Team. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016.

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Wesley Snipes, American actor and producer

Wesley Trent Snipes is an American actor, martial artist, author, and film producer. In a film career spanning more than thirty years, Snipes has appeared in a variety of genres, such as numerous thrillers, dramatic feature films, and comedies, though he is best known for his action films. He was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his work in The Waterdance (1992) and won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his performance in the film One Night Stand (1997). Films in which he has appeared have grossed over $3.6 billion worldwide.

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31/07/1961

Frank Gardner, English captain and journalist

Francis Rolleston Gardner is a British journalist, author and retired British Army Reserve officer. He is currently the BBC's Security Correspondent, and since the September 11 attacks on New York has specialised in covering stories related to the war on terror.

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Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Nigerian banker, royal

Muhammadu Sanusi II, ; born 31 July 1961), known by the religious title Khalifa Sanusi II, is the spiritual leader (khalifa) of the Tijanniyah Sufi order in Nigeria and the emir of the ancient city-state of Kano. He is a member of the Dabo dynasty and the grandson of Muhammadu Sanusi I. He succeeded his great-uncle Ado Bayero to the throne on 8 June 2014, assuming the regnal name Muhammadu Sanusi II. He spent most of his reign advocating for cultural reform in Northern Nigeria. In 2020, he was deposed by Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje and was succeeded by his cousin Aminu Ado Bayero. On 23 May 2024, Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf reinstated Sanusi as emir of Kano.

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31/07/1960

Dale Hunter, Canadian ice hockey player and coach

Dale Robert Hunter is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player and the former head coach of the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League and current co-owner, president, and head coach of the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League. He was born in Petrolia, Ontario, but grew up in nearby (13 km) Oil Springs, Ontario. He is the middle of three Hunter brothers, with older brother Dave and younger brother Mark, to play in the NHL.

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Malcolm Ross, Scottish guitarist and songwriter

Malcolm Ross is a Scottish guitarist. His career started when he played guitar in the Scottish band Josef K. They released a string of singles and an album, The Only Fun in Town, on Postcard Records in the early 1980s.

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31/07/1959

Stanley Jordan, American guitarist, pianist, and songwriter

Stanley Jordan is an American jazz guitarist noted for his playing technique, which involves tapping his fingers on the fretboard of the guitar with both hands.

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Andrew Marr, Scottish journalist and author

Andrew William Stevenson Marr is a Scottish journalist, author, broadcaster and presenter. Beginning his career as a political commentator at The Scotsman, he subsequently edited The Independent newspaper from 1996 to 1998 and was political editor of BBC News from 2000 to 2005.

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Kim Newman, English journalist and author

Kim James Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. He focuses on film history and horror fiction – both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven – and alternative history. He has won the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Guild Award, and the BSFA award.

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31/07/1958

Bill Berry, American drummer and songwriter

William Thomas Berry is an American musician who was the drummer for the alternative rock band R.E.M. Although best known for his economical drumming style, Berry also played other instruments, including guitar, bass guitar and piano, both for songwriting and on R.E.M. albums. In 1995, Berry suffered a ruptured cerebral aneurysm onstage and collapsed. After a successful recovery, he left the music industry two years later to become a farmer, and has since maintained a low profile, making sporadic reunions with R.E.M. and appearing on other artists' recordings. His departure made him the only member of the band not to remain with them during their entire run. Berry eventually returned to the industry in 2022.

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Mark Cuban, American businessman and television personality

Mark Cuban is an American businessman, entrepreneur, and television personality. He is the former principal owner and current minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and co-owner of 2929 Entertainment. From 2012 to 2025, he was one of the "sharks" on the ABC reality television series Shark Tank.

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Suzanne Giraud, French music editor and composer

Suzanne Giraud is a French music educator and composer of contemporary music. Her works are marked by a predilection for percussion, voices and strings; they resonate with her artistic, poetic and architectural inspirations. She has been a member of the Académie Charles Cros since January 2024.

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31/07/1957

Daniel Ash, English singer-songwriter and guitarist

Daniel Gaston Ash is an English musician, songwriter and singer. Daniel Ash was born from a French mother and English father. He was born in England and spent his childhood in Northampton. He became prominent in the late 1970s as the guitarist for the goth rock band Bauhaus, which spawned two related bands led by Ash: Tones on Tail, Love and Rockets and more recently Ashes and Diamonds. He also reunited with bandmate Kevin Haskins to form Poptone, a retrospective of their respective careers, featuring Kevin's daughter Diva Dompe on bass. He has also recorded several solo albums. Several guitarists have listed Ash as an influence, including Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction, Kim Thayil of Soundgarden, Hide of X Japan and John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

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Mark Thompson, English business executive

Sir Mark John Thompson is a British–American media executive who is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ancestry, the largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, and CEO of CNN. He is the former president and CEO of The New York Times Company. From 2004 to 2012, he was Director-General of the BBC, and before that was the Chief Executive of Channel 4. In 2009 Thompson was ranked as the 65th most powerful person in the world by Forbes magazine. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2017.

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31/07/1956

Michael Biehn, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter

Michael Connell Biehn is an American actor, primarily known for his roles in science fiction films directed by James Cameron; as Sgt. Kyle Reese in The Terminator (1984), Cpl. Dwayne Hicks in Aliens (1986), and Lt. Hiram Coffey in The Abyss (1989). His other films include The Fan (1981), The Seventh Sign (1988), Navy SEALs (1990), Tombstone (1993), The Rock (1996), Mojave Moon (1996), Megiddo: The Omega Code 2 (2001), Clockstoppers (2002), and Planet Terror (2007). On television, he has appeared in Hill Street Blues (1984), The Magnificent Seven (1998–2000), and Adventure Inc. (2002–2003). He also provided the voice for Sergeant Rex "Power" Colt in Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.

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Bill Callahan, American football player and coach

William E. Callahan is an American football coach who is the offensive line coach for the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League (NFL). Callahan was the head coach of the Oakland Raiders in 2002 and 2003, leading them to Super Bowl XXXVII, where the Raiders lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He was also the head coach for the Nebraska Cornhuskers from 2004 to 2007 and interim head coach for the Washington Redskins in 2019. Callahan is considered to be one of the best offensive line coaches in the NFL. His son, Brian, was the head coach of the Titans.

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Ron Kuby, American lawyer and radio host

Ronald L. Kuby is an American criminal defense and civil rights attorney. Kuby is also a radio talk show host, and television commentator. He has hosted radio programs on WABC (AM) in New York City and Air America radio.

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Deval Patrick, American lawyer and politician, 71st Governor of Massachusetts

Deval Laurdine Patrick is an American politician who served as the 71st governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015. He was the first African-American governor of Massachusetts and the first Democratic governor of the state since Michael Dukakis left office in 1991. Patrick served from 1994 to 1997 as the United States assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division under President Bill Clinton. He was briefly a candidate for president of the United States in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

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Lynne Rae Perkins, American author and illustrator

Lynne Rae Perkins is an American writer and illustrator of children's books.

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Lynn "Lynja" Yamada Davis, American online celebrity chef (died 2024)

Lynn Yamada Davis, mononymously better known by her online alias Lynja, was an American online celebrity chef known for her viral TikTok and YouTube Shorts videos from 2020 until her death in 2024. Praised for her quick-styled editing and references to popular internet memes, "Cooking with Lynja" accumulated over 13.9 million subscribers on YouTube and over 22 million followers on TikTok as of February 2025.

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31/07/1954

Derek Smith, Canadian ice hockey player

Derek Robert Smith is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player who played in the National Hockey League with the Buffalo Sabres and Detroit Red Wings between 1975 and 1983. He was selected by the Sabres in the 1974 NHL Amateur Draft.

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31/07/1953

Ted Baillieu, Australian architect and politician, 46th Premier of Victoria

Edward Norman Baillieu is a former Australian politician who was Premier of Victoria from 2010 to 2013. He was a Liberal Party member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly from 1999 to 2014, representing the electorate of Hawthorn. He was elected leader of the Liberal Party in opposition in 2006, and served as Premier from 2010 until 2013 after winning the 2010 state election. He resigned as Premier on 6 March 2013, and was succeeded by Denis Napthine.

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Jimmy Cook, South African cricketer and coach

Stephen James Cook is a former South African association footballer and cricketer who played in three cricket Test matches and four One Day Internationals from 1991 to 1993. His son Stephen Cook played for Gauteng and the national side, the Proteas. He holds the unique distinction of having faced the first ball of South Africa's international cricket match since readmission.

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Hugh McDowell, English cellist (died 2018)

Hugh Alexander McDowell was an English cellist and member of the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) and related acts.

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31/07/1952

Chris Ahrens, American ice hockey player

Christopher Alfred Ahrens is an American former professional ice hockey defenseman who played six seasons in the National Hockey League for the Minnesota North Stars, and four games in the WHA with the Edmonton Oilers.

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Alan Autry, American football player, actor, and politician, 23rd Mayor of Fresno, California

Carlos Alan Autry Jr. is an American actor, politician, and former football player. During his brief career in the National Football League, he played as a quarterback and was known as Carlos Brown.

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Helmuts Balderis, Latvian ice hockey player and coach

Helmuts Balderis-Sildedzis is a former Soviet and Latvian professional ice hockey player. He played on the right wing and participated at the 1980 Winter Olympics, where the Soviet team unexpectedly lost to the United States. He played part of a single season in the National Hockey League after being drafted in 1989 by the Minnesota North Stars, becoming the oldest player to be drafted by an NHL team at the age of 36. In 1998, he was inducted into International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame.

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João Barreiros, Portuguese author and critic

João Manuel Rosado Barreiros, also known by the pseudonym José de Barros, is a Portuguese science fiction writer, editor, translator and critic.

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Faye Kellerman, American author

Faye Marder Kellerman is an American writer of mystery novels, in particular the "Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus" series, as well as three nonseries books, The Quality of Mercy, Moon Music, and Straight into Darkness.

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31/07/1951

Evonne Goolagong Cawley, Australian tennis player

Evonne Fay Goolagong Cawley is an Australian former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), and was one of the world's leading players in the 1970s and early 1980s. Goolagong won 86 WTA Tour-level singles titles, including seven singles majors, and 46 doubles titles, including seven doubles majors.

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31/07/1950

Richard Berry, French actor, director, and screenwriter

Richard Berry is a French actor, film director and screenwriter. He has appeared in more than 100 films since 1972. He starred in The Violin Player, which was entered into the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.

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31/07/1949

Mike Jackson, American basketball player

Michael Jackson is an American former professional basketball player. After a collegiate career at the Cal State University Los Angeles where he was an All-Pacific Coast Athletic Association second-team selection in 1972, Jackson was selected in both the 1972 ABA draft and 1972 NBA draft.

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Alan Meale, English journalist and politician

Sir Joseph Alan Meale is a former British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Mansfield from 1987 to 2017. He was the longest-standing MP in Mansfield's history.

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31/07/1948

Russell Morris, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist

Russell Norman Morris is an Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist who had five Australian Top 10 singles during the late 1960s and early 1970s. On 1 July 2008, the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) recognised Morris' status when he was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.

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31/07/1947

Karl Green, English bass player and songwriter

Herman's Hermits are an English pop rock group formed in 1963 in Manchester and fronted by singer Peter Noone. Known for their jaunty beat sound and Noone's often tongue-in-cheek vocal style, the Hermits charted with numerous transatlantic hits in the UK and in America, where they ranked as one of the most successful acts in the Beatles-led British Invasion. Between March and August 1965 in the United States, the group logged twenty-four consecutive weeks in the Top Ten of Billboard's Hot 100 with five singles, including the two number ones "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" and "I'm Henry VIII, I Am".

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Richard Griffiths, English actor (died 2013)

Richard Thomas Griffiths was an English actor. He was known for his portrayals of Vernon Dursley in the Harry Potter films (2001–2011), Uncle Monty in Withnail and I (1987), and Henry Crabbe in Pie in the Sky (1994–1997). He received numerous accolades in his career and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2008.

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Mumtaz, Indian actress

Mumtaz Askari Madhvani, known mononymously as Mumtaz is an Indian actress who worked in Hindi films. Initially starting out as a child actor and later appearing in B-grade films, she established herself as one of the leading and highest-paid actresses of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Known for portraying feisty, vivacious women on screen in romantic and action dramas, Mumtaz is the recipient of a Filmfare Award and was honoured the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.

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Hubert Védrine, French politician, French Minister of Foreign Affairs

Hubert Yves Pierre Védrine is a French retired senior civil servant and politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1997 to 2002. A member of the Socialist Party (PS), he was an advisor and later secretary general at the Élysée under President François Mitterrand. Following his retirement from politics, Védrine became an advisor at Moelis & Company.

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Ian Beck, English children's illustrator and author

Ian Archibald Beck is an English children's illustrator and author. In addition to his numerous children's books, he is also known for his cover illustration on Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album. More than a million copies of his books have been sold worldwide. Beck was Master of the Art Workers' Guild in 1999.

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31/07/1946

Gary Lewis, American pop-rock musician

Gary Lewis is an American musician who was the leader of Gary Lewis & the Playboys.

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31/07/1945

William Weld, American lawyer and politician, 68th Governor of Massachusetts

William Floyd Weld is an American attorney, businessman, author, and politician who served as the 68th governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997. Weld was Gary Johnson’s running mate in the 2016 presidential election for the Libertarian party. Weld also ran for president in 2020.

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31/07/1944

Geraldine Chaplin, American actress and screenwriter

Geraldine Leigh Chaplin is an actress, whose extensive career has included multilingual roles in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and German films. Born in the United States and raised in the United Kingdom and Switzerland, she holds American, British, and Spanish citizenship. She is the daughter of Charlie Chaplin, the first of his eight children with his fourth wife, Oona O'Neill, and thus a granddaughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill.

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Jonathan Dimbleby, English journalist and author

Jonathan Dimbleby is a British presenter of current affairs and political radio and television programmes, author and historian. He is the son of Richard Dimbleby and younger brother of television presenter David Dimbleby.

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Sherry Lansing, American film producer

Sherry Lansing is an American former film studio executive serving as chairwoman of Universal Music Group's board of directors and as a director on the board of Paramount Skydance Corporation. She previously served as chairwoman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, and president of production at 20th Century Fox prior to her retirement. From 1999 to 2022, she was on the University of California Board of Regents.

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Robert C. Merton, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate

Robert Cox Merton is an American economist, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences laureate, and professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is best known for his pioneering contributions to continuous-time finance, particularly the first continuous-time option pricing model, the Black–Scholes–Merton model.

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David Norris, Irish scholar and politician

David Patrick Bernard Norris is an Irish scholar, former independent Senator, and civil rights activist. Internationally, Norris is credited with having "managed, almost single-handedly, to overthrow the anti-homosexuality law which brought about the downfall of Oscar Wilde", a feat he achieved in 1988 after a fourteen-year campaign. He has also been credited with being "almost single-handedly responsible for rehabilitating James Joyce in once disapproving Irish eyes".

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31/07/1943

William Bennett, American journalist and politician, 3rd United States Secretary of Education

William John Bennett is an American conservative politician and political commentator who served as the third United States secretary of education from 1985 to 1988 under President Ronald Reagan. He also held the post of director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under George H. W. Bush.

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Lobo, American singer-songwriter and guitarist

Roland Kent LaVoie, better known by his stage name Lobo, is an American singer-songwriter who was successful in the 1970s, scoring several U.S. Top 10 hits including "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo", "I'd Love You to Want Me", and "Don't Expect Me to Be Your Friend". These three songs, along with "Where Were You When I Was Falling in Love", gave Lobo four chart toppers on the Easy Listening/Hot Adult Contemporary chart.

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31/07/1941

Amarsinh Chaudhary, Indian politician, 8th Chief Minister of Gujarat (died 2004)

Amarsinh Bhilabhai Chaudhary was an Indian politician. He became the first adivasi to serve as the Chief Minister of Gujarat when he took office in 1985.

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31/07/1940

Stanley R. Jaffe, American film producer and director (died 2025)

Stanley Richard Jaffe was an American film producer. His producing credits included Fatal Attraction, The Accused and Kramer vs. Kramer, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture.

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31/07/1939

Steuart Bedford, English pianist and conductor (died 2021)

Steuart John Rudolf Bedford was an English orchestral and opera conductor and pianist.

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Susan Flannery, American actress

Susan Flannery is an American actress and director. She made her screen debut appearing in the 1965 Western film Guns of Diablo and later appeared in some television series. From 1966 to 1975, Flannery starred as Laura Horton on the NBC daytime soap opera, Days of Our Lives for which she received her first Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

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France Nuyen, Vietnamese-French actress

France Nuyen is a French-American actress, model, and psychological counselor. She is known to film audiences for playing romantic leads in South Pacific (1958), Satan Never Sleeps (1962), and A Girl Named Tamiko, and for playing Ying-Ying St. Clair in The Joy Luck Club (1993). She also originated the title role in the Broadway play The World of Suzie Wong, based on the novel of the same name. She is a Theatre World Award winner and Golden Globe Award nominee.

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31/07/1935

Yvon Deschamps, Canadian comedian, actor, and producer

Yvon Deschamps is a Québécois author, actor, comedian and producer best known for his monologues. His social-commentary-tinged humour propelled him to prominence in Quebec popular culture in the 1970s and 1980s. A long time comedian and still active, Deschamps is now perceived the greatest in Quebec history.

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Geoffrey Lewis, American actor and screenwriter (died 2015)

Geoffrey Bond Lewis was an American actor. He appeared in more than 200 films and television shows, and was principally known for his film roles alongside Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford. He often portrayed villains or eccentric characters.

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31/07/1933

Cees Nooteboom, Dutch journalist, author, and poet (died 2026)

Cornelis Johannes Jacobus Maria "Cees" Nooteboom was a Dutch novelist, poet and journalist. After the attention received by his novel Rituals, which won the Pegasus Prize, it was the first of his novels to be translated into an English-language edition, published in 1983 by Louisiana State University Press of the United States. LSU Press published his two earlier novels in English in the following years, as well as other works up until 1990. Harcourt and Grove Press have since published some of his works in English.

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31/07/1932

Ted Cassidy, American actor and screenwriter (died 1979)

Theodore Crawford Cassidy was an American actor. He tended to play unusual characters in offbeat or science-fiction works, such as Star Trek and I Dream of Jeannie, and he played Lurch on The Addams Family TV series of the mid-1960s. He also narrated the intro sequence for the 1977 live-action The Incredible Hulk TV series and provided the growls and roars for the Hulk for the first two seasons before his death, with actor Charles Napier providing the title character's vocals for the remainder of the series.

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John Searle, American philosopher and academic (died 2025)

John Rogers Searle was an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1959 and was Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind and Language and Professor of the Graduate School until June 2019, when his status as professor emeritus was revoked after he was found to have engaged in sexual harassment and retaliation against a former student and employee, in violation of the university's sexual harassment policies.

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31/07/1931

Nick Bollettieri, American tennis player and coach (died 2022)

Nicholas James Bollettieri was an American tennis coach. He pioneered the concept of a tennis boarding school, and helped develop many leading tennis players during the past decades, including Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, Monica Seles, Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova. Bollettieri was also a tour traveling coach, the last time having been for and with Boris Becker for a span of two years.

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Kenny Burrell, American singer-songwriter and guitarist

Kenneth Earl Burrell is an American jazz guitarist, singer and composer known for his work on numerous top jazz labels: Prestige, Blue Note, Verve, CTI, Muse, and Concord. His collaborations with Jimmy Smith were notable, and produced the 1965 Billboard Top Twenty hit Verve album Organ Grinder Swing. Burrell has cited jazz guitarists Charlie Christian, Oscar Moore, and Django Reinhardt as influences, along with blues guitarists T-Bone Walker and Muddy Waters.

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31/07/1929

Lynne Reid Banks, English author (died 2024)

Lynne Reid Banks was a British author of books for children and adults, including The Indian in the Cupboard, which has sold over 15 million copies and has been successfully adapted to film. Her first novel, The L-Shaped Room, published in 1960, was an instant and lasting best seller. It was later made into a movie of the same name and led to two sequels, The Backward Shadow and Two is Lonely. Banks also wrote a biography of the Brontë family, entitled Dark Quartet, and a sequel about Charlotte Brontë, Path to the Silent Country.

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Gilles Carle, Canadian director and screenwriter (died 2009)

Gilles Carle, was a Canadian filmmaker and painter, who was a key figure in the development of a commercial Quebec cinema.

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Don Murray, American actor (died 2024)

Donald Patrick Murray was an American actor, screenwriter, and film director. His debut film role as Bo Decker in Bus Stop (1956), opposite Marilyn Monroe, earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He subsequently had several major leading and supporting roles in films during the 1950s and '60s, including A Hatful of Rain (1957), Shake Hands with the Devil, One Foot in Hell, Advise & Consent, and Baby the Rain Must Fall.

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José Santamaría, Uruguayan footballer and manager (died 2026)

José Emilio Santamaría Iglesias was a professional football player and manager. A central defender, he spent his 18-year club career with Nacional and Real Madrid, winning 12 titles with the latter including four European Cups.

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31/07/1928

Bill Frenzel, American lieutenant and politician (died 2014)

William Eldridge Frenzel was an American politician and businessman who represented Minnesota's 3rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 1991. A member of the Republican Party, Frenzel previously served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 1963 to 1971.

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31/07/1927

Peter Nichols, English author and playwright (died 2019)

Peter Richard Nichols was an English playwright, screenwriter, director and journalist.

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31/07/1926

Bernard Nathanson, American physician and activist (died 2011)

Bernard N. Nathanson was an American physician, abortion rights advocate turned anti-abortion activist, and a prominent figure in the abortion debate in the United States. He was originally a co-founder in 1969 of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL), later renamed National Abortion Rights Action League and the former director of New York City's Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health. He was the narrator for the controversial 1984 anti-abortion film The Silent Scream.

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Hilary Putnam, American mathematician, computer scientist, and philosopher (died 2016)

Hilary Whitehall Putnam was an American philosopher, mathematician, computer scientist, and figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He contributed to the studies of philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science. Outside philosophy, Putnam contributed to mathematics and computer science. Together with Martin Davis he developed the Davis–Putnam algorithm for the Boolean satisfiability problem and he helped demonstrate the unsolvability of Hilbert's tenth problem.

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31/07/1925

Carmel Quinn, Irish singer, actress and writer (died 2021)

Carmel Quinn was an Irish-American entertainer who appeared on Broadway, television and radio after immigrating to the United States in 1954.

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John Swainson, Canadian-American jurist and politician, 42nd Governor of Michigan (died 1994)

John Burley Swainson was a Canadian-American politician and jurist who served as the 42nd governor of Michigan from 1961 to 1963.

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31/07/1924

Jimmy Evert, American tennis player and coach (died 2015)

James Andrew "Jimmy" Evert was an American tennis coach and player. He was the father of Chris Evert, who was one of the world's top women tennis players in the 1970s and 1980s.

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31/07/1923

Ahmet Ertegun, Turkish-American songwriter and producer, founded Atlantic Records (died 2006)

Ahmet Ertegun was a Turkish-American businessman, songwriter, record executive and philanthropist.

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Stephanie Kwolek, American chemist and engineer, invented Kevlar (died 2014)

Stephanie Louise Kwolek was a Polish-American chemist known for inventing Kevlar. Her career at the DuPont company spanned more than 40 years.

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31/07/1922

Hank Bauer, American baseball player and manager (died 2007)

Henry Albert Bauer was an American right fielder and manager in Major League Baseball. He played with the New York Yankees (1948–1959) and Kansas City Athletics (1960–1961); he batted and threw right-handed. He served as the manager of the Athletics in both Kansas City (1961–62) and in Oakland (1969), as well as the Baltimore Orioles (1964–68), guiding the Orioles to the World Series title in 1966. A four-game sweep over the heavily favored Los Angeles Dodgers, it was the first world championship in the franchise's history.

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31/07/1921

Peter Benenson, English lawyer and activist, founded Amnesty International (died 2005)

Peter Benenson was a British barrister, human rights activist and the founder of the human rights group Amnesty International (AI); a global movement of more than 10 million people, currently, and in over 150 countries and territories who campaign to end abuses on human rights and to secure the release of political prisoners.

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Donald Malarkey, American sergeant and author (died 2017)

Donald George Malarkey was an American politician and soldier who served as a non-commissioned officer with Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, in the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army during World War II. Malarkey was portrayed in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers by Scott Grimes.

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Whitney Young, American activist (died 1971)

Whitney Moore Young Jr. was an American civil rights leader. Trained as a social worker, he spent most of his career working to end employment discrimination in the United States and turning the National Urban League from a relatively passive civil rights organization into one that aggressively worked for equitable access to socioeconomic opportunity for the historically disenfranchised. Young was influential in the United States federal government's War on Poverty in the 1960s.

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31/07/1920

James E. Faust, American religious leader, lawyer, and politician (died 2007)

James Esdras Faust was an American religious leader, lawyer, and politician. Faust was Second Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1995 until his death, an LDS Church apostle for 29 years, and a general authority of the church for 35 years.

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31/07/1919

Hemu Adhikari, Indian cricketer (died 2003)

Colonel Hemchandra "Hemu" Ramachandra Adhikari was an Indian cricketer, representing his country both as a player and a coach in a career that spanned three decades. He received the C. K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998, the highest honour bestowed by the BCCI on a former player.

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Curt Gowdy, American sportscaster and actor (died 2006)

Curtis Edward Gowdy was an American sportscaster. He called Boston Red Sox games on radio and TV for 15 years, and then covered many nationally televised sporting events, primarily for NBC Sports and ABC Sports in the 1960s and 1970s. He coined the nickname "The Granddaddy of Them All" for the Rose Bowl Game, taking the moniker from Cheyenne Frontier Days in his native Wyoming.

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Primo Levi, Italian chemist and author (died 1987)

Primo Michele Levi was a Jewish Italian chemist, partisan, Holocaust survivor and writer. He was the author of several books, collections of short stories, essays, poems and one novel. His best-known works include: If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland; and The Periodic Table (1975), a collection of mostly autobiographical short stories, each named after a chemical element which plays a role in each story, which the Royal Institution named the best science book ever written.

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31/07/1918

Paul D. Boyer, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2018)

Paul Delos Boyer was an American biochemist, analytical chemist, and a professor of chemistry at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for research on the "enzymatic mechanism underlying the biosynthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)" with John E. Walker, making Boyer the first Utah-born Nobel laureate; the remainder of the Prize in that year was awarded to Danish chemist Jens Christian Skou for his discovery of the Na+/K+-ATPase.

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Hank Jones, American pianist, composer, and bandleader (died 2010)

Henry Jones Jr. was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer. Critics and musicians have described Jones as eloquent, lyrical, and impeccable. In 1989, The National Endowment for the Arts honored him with the NEA Jazz Masters Award. He was also honored in 2003 with the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) Jazz Living Legend Award. In 2008, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. On April 13, 2009, the University of Hartford presented Jones with an honorary Doctorate of Music for his musical accomplishments.

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Frank Renouf, New Zealand businessman and financier (died 1998)

Sir Francis Henry Renouf was a New Zealand stockbroker and financier.

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31/07/1916

Sibte Hassan, Pakistani journalist, scholar, and activist (died 1986)

Syed Sibt-e-Hasan was an eminent scholar, journalist and political activist of Pakistan. He is regarded as one of the pioneers of Socialism and Marxism in Pakistan, as well as the moving spirit behind the Progressive Writers Association.

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Billy Hitchcock, American baseball player, coach, and manager (died 2006)

William Clyde Hitchcock was an American professional baseball infielder, coach, manager and scout. In Major League Baseball (MLB), he was primarily a third baseman, second baseman and shortstop who appeared in 703 games over nine years with five American League teams. After 18 years as a coach, manager, and scout he became an executive in Minor League Baseball, serving as president of the Double-A Southern League from 1971 to 1980. His older brother, Jimmy Hitchcock, played briefly for the 1938 Boston Bees.

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Bill Todman, American screenwriter and producer (died 1979)

William Selden Todman was an American television producer and personality born in New York City. He produced many of television's longest-running shows with business partner Mark Goodson, with whom he created Goodson-Todman Productions.

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31/07/1914

Paul J. Christiansen, American conductor and composer (died 1997)

Paul Joseph Christiansen was an American choral conductor and composer. As the youngest son of F. Melius Christiansen, he was brought up into the Lutheran Choral Tradition and quickly developed his own style of conducting and composing that furthered the tradition started by his father. He spent the bulk of his career developing The Concordia Choir and conducted the choir from 1937-1986. He is also credited with establishing the Concordia Christmas Concert which is seen yearly by more than 30,000 people.

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Mario Bava, Italian director and screenwriter (died 1980)

Mario Bava was an Italian filmmaker who worked variously as a director, cinematographer, special effects artist and screenwriter. His low-budget genre films, known for their distinctive visual flair and stylish technical ingenuity, feature recurring themes and imagery concerning the conflict between illusion and reality, as well as the destructive capacity of human nature. Widely regarded as a pioneer of Italian genre cinema and one of the most influential and greatest filmmakers of all time, he is popularly referred to as the "Master of Italian Horror" and the "Master of the Macabre".

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Louis de Funès, French actor and screenwriter (died 1983)

Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza was a French actor and comedian. His acting style is remembered for its high-energy performance and his wide range of facial expressions and tics. A considerable part of his best-known acting was directed by Jean Girault.

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31/07/1913

Bryan Hextall, Canadian ice hockey player (died 1984)

Bryan Aldwyn Hextall was a Canadian professional ice hockey forward who played for the New York Rangers in the National Hockey League (NHL). Considered one of the top wingers of the 1940s, he led the NHL in goal scoring twice and in points once. Additionally, he was named a first-team All-Star three times, and a second-team All-Star once.

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31/07/1912

Bill Brown, Australian cricketer (died 2008)

William Alfred Brown, was an Australian cricketer who played 22 Test matches between 1934 and 1948, captaining his country in one Test. A right-handed opening batsman, his partnership with Jack Fingleton in the 1930s is regarded as one of the finest in Australian Test history. After the interruption of World War II, Brown was a member of the team dubbed "The Invincibles", who toured England in 1948 without defeat under the leadership of Don Bradman. In a match in November 1947, Brown was the unwitting victim of the first instance of "Mankading".

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Milton Friedman, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2006)

Milton Friedman was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the complexity of stabilization policy. With George Stigler, Friedman was among the intellectual leaders of the Chicago school of economics, a neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the faculty at the University of Chicago that rejected Keynesianism in favor of monetarism before shifting their focus to new classical macroeconomics in the mid-1970s. Several students, young professors and academics who were recruited or mentored by Friedman at Chicago went on to become leading economists, including Nobel laureates Gary Becker (1992), Robert Fogel (1993), and Robert Lucas Jr. (1995).

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Irv Kupcinet, American football player and journalist (died 2003)

Irving Kupcinet was an American newspaper columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, television talk-show host, and radio personality based in Chicago, Illinois. He was popularly known by the nickname "Kup".

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31/07/1911

George Liberace, American violinist (died 1983)

George Liberace was an American musician and television performer.

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31/07/1909

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Austrian theorist and author (died 1999)

Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn was an Austrian-American nobleman and polymath, whose areas of interest included philosophy, history, political science, economics, linguistics, art and theology. He opposed the ideas of the French Revolution, as well as those of communism and Nazism. Describing himself as a "conservative arch-liberal" or "extreme liberal", Kuehnelt-Leddihn often argued that majority rule in democracies is a threat to individual liberties. He declared himself a monarchist and an enemy of all forms of totalitarianism, although he also supported what he defined as "non-democratic republics", such as Switzerland and the early United States. Kuehnelt-Leddihn cited the U.S. Founding Fathers, Tocqueville, Burckhardt, and Montalembert as the primary influences for his skepticism towards democracy.

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31/07/1904

Brett Halliday, American engineer, surveyor, and author (died 1977)

Brett Halliday is the primary pen name of Davis Dresser, an American mystery and western writer. Halliday is best known for the long-lived series of Michael Shayne mysteries he wrote, and later commissioned others to continue. Dresser also wrote westerns, non-series mysteries, and romances under the names Asa Baker, Matthew Blood, Kathryn Culver, Don Davis, Hal Debrett, Anthony Scott, Peter Field, and Anderson Wayne.

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31/07/1902

Gubby Allen, Australian-English cricketer and soldier (died 1989)

Sir George Oswald Browning "Gubby" Allen CBE was a cricketer who captained England in eleven Test matches. In first-class matches, he played for Middlesex and Cambridge University. A fast bowler and hard-hitting lower-order batsman, Allen later became an influential cricket administrator who held key positions in the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), which effectively ruled English cricket at the time; he also served as chairman of the England selectors.

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31/07/1901

Jean Dubuffet, French painter and sculptor (died 1985)

Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor of the École de Paris. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making. He is perhaps best known for founding the art brut movement, and for the collection of works—Collection de l'art brut—that this movement spawned. Dubuffet enjoyed a prolific art career, both in France and in America, and was featured in many exhibitions throughout his lifetime.

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31/07/1894

Fred Keenor, Welsh footballer (died 1972)

Frederick Charles Keenor was a Welsh professional footballer. He began his career at his hometown side Cardiff City after impressing the club's coaching staff in a trial match in 1912 organised by his former schoolteacher. A hard tackling defender, he appeared sporadically for the team in the Southern Football League before his spell at the club was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. Keenor served in the 17th (Service) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, led by Major Frank Buckley, which became known as the Football Battalion. He fought in the Battle of the Somme, suffering a severe shrapnel wound to his thigh in 1916. He returned to Britain and after a lengthy rehabilitation he ended the war as a physical training instructor, reaching the rank of sergeant. He also appeared as a guest player for Brentford during the war.

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31/07/1892

Herbert W. Armstrong, American evangelist and publisher, founded Worldwide Church of God (died 1986)

Herbert W. Armstrong was an American evangelist who founded the Worldwide Church of God (WCG). An early pioneer of radio and television evangelism, Armstrong preached what he claimed was the comprehensive combination of doctrines in the entire Bible, in the light of the New Covenant scriptures, which he maintained to be the restored true Gospel. These doctrines and teachings have been referred to as Armstrongism by non-adherents.

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Joseph Charbonneau, Canadian archbishop (died 1959)

Joseph Charbonneau was a Canadian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, who served as Archbishop of Montreal from 1940 to 1950.

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31/07/1887

Hans Freyer, German sociologist and philosopher (died 1969)

Johannes "Hans" Freyer was a German sociologist and philosopher of the conservative revolutionary movement.

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31/07/1886

Salvatore Maranzano, Italian-American mob boss (died 1931)

Salvatore Maranzano, nicknamed Little Caesar, was an Italian-American mobster from the town of Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, and an early Cosa Nostra boss who led what later would become the Bonanno crime family in New York City. He instigated the Castellammarese War in 1930 to seize control of the American Mafia, winning the war after the murder of rival faction head Joe Masseria in April 1931. He then briefly became the Mafia's capo di tutti capi and formed the Five Families in New York City but was murdered on September 10, 1931, on the orders of Charles "Lucky" Luciano, who established the Commission, in which families shared power to prevent future turf wars.

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Fred Quimby, American animation producer (died 1965)

Frederick Clinton Quimby was an American animation producer best known for producing the Tom and Jerry cartoon series, for which he won seven Academy Awards for Best Animated Short Films. He was the executive in charge of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio, which included, among others and at various times, animators and directors Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, Tex Avery, Michael Lah, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the creators of Tom and Jerry. MGM's cartoon characters included Droopy, Butch Dog, Barney Bear, and others, and they also released multiple one-shot cartoons.

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31/07/1884

Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, Polish-German economist and politician (died 1945)

Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was a German conservative politician, monarchist, executive, economist, civil servant and opponent of the Nazi regime. He opposed anti-Jewish policies while he held office and was opposed to the Holocaust.

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31/07/1883

Ramón Fonst, Cuban fencer (died 1959)

Ramón Fonst Segundo was a Cuban fencer who competed in the early 20th century. He was one of the greatest world fencers, individual and by team; he was born and died in Havana. He became the first non-European and the only Spanish American to win a title.

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31/07/1880

Premchand, Indian author and playwright (died 1936)

Dhanpat Rai Srivastava, better known as Munshi Premchand based on his pen name Premchand, was an Indian writer famous for his modern Hindustani literature.

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31/07/1877

Louisa Bolus, South African botanist and taxonomist (died 1970)

Harriet Margaret Louisa Bolus née Kensit was a South African botanist and taxonomist, and the longtime curator of the Bolus Herbarium, from 1903. Bolus also has the legacy of authoring more land plant species than any other female scientist, in total naming 1,494 species.

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31/07/1875

Jacques Villon, French painter (died 1963)

Jacques Villon, also known as Gaston Duchamp, was a French Cubist and abstract painter and printmaker.

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31/07/1867

S. S. Kresge, American businessman, founded Kmart (died 1966)

Sebastian Spering Kresge was an American merchant and businessman. He created and owned two chains of department stores: the S. S. Kresge Company, one of the 20th century's largest discount retail organizations, and the Kresge-Newark traditional department store chain. The discounter was renamed the Kmart Corporation in 1977.

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31/07/1860

Mary Vaux Walcott, American painter and illustrator (died 1940)

Mary Morris Vaux Walcott was an American artist and naturalist known for her watercolor paintings of wildflowers. She has been called the "Audubon of Botany."

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31/07/1858

Richard Dixon Oldham, English seismologist and geologist (died 1936)

Richard Dixon Oldham FRS was a British geologist who made the first clear identification of the separate arrivals of P-waves, S-waves and surface waves on seismograms and the first clear evidence that the Earth has a central core.

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Marion Talbot, influential American educator (died 1948)

Marion Talbot was an American educator who served as Dean of Women at the University of Chicago from 1895 to 1925, and an influential leader in the higher education of women in the United States during the early 20th century. In 1882, while still a student, she co-founded the American Association of University Women with her mentor Ellen Swallow Richards. During her long career at the University of Chicago, Talbot fought tenaciously and often successfully to improve support for women students and faculty, and against efforts to restrict equal access to educational opportunities.

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31/07/1854

José Canalejas, Spanish academic and politician, Prime Minister of Spain (died 1912)

José Canalejas y Méndez was a Spanish politician, born in Ferrol, who served as Prime Minister of Spain from 1910 until his assassination in 1912.

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Arthur Barclay, 15th president of Liberia (died 1938)

Arthur Barclay was the 15th president of Liberia from 1904 to 1912.

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31/07/1847

Ignacio Cervantes, Cuban pianist and composer (died 1905)

Ignacio Cervantes Kawanagh was a Cuban pianist and composer. He was influential in the creolization of Cuban music.

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31/07/1843

Peter Rosegger, Austrian poet and author (died 1918)

Peter Rosegger was an Austrian writer and poet from Krieglach in the province of Styria. He was a son of a mountain farmer and grew up in the woodlands and mountains of Alpl. Rosegger went on to become a most prolific poet and author as well as an insightful teacher and visionary.

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31/07/1839

Ignacio Andrade, Venezuelan general and politician, 25th President of Venezuela (died 1925)

Ignacio Andrade Troconis was a military man and politician. He was known as a member of the Liberal yellow party, and served as the president of Venezuela from 1898 until 1899 – his election was declaredly clouded by fraud.

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31/07/1837

William Quantrill, American captain (died 1865)

William Clarke Quantrill was a Confederate guerrilla leader during the American Civil War.

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31/07/1836

Vasily Sleptsov, Russian author and activist (died 1878)

Vasily Alekseyevich Sleptsov, was a Russian writer, playwright, journalist and social reformer.

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31/07/1835

Henri Brisson, French lawyer and politician, 50th Prime Minister of France (died 1912)

Eugène Henri Brisson was a French statesman, who was twice Prime Minister of France, between 1885–1886 and in 1898.

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Paul Du Chaillu, French-American anthropologist and explorer (died 1903)

Paul Belloni Du Chaillu was a French-American traveler, zoologist, and anthropologist. He became famous in the 1860s as the first modern European outsider to confirm the existence of gorillas, and later the Pygmy people of central Africa. He later researched the prehistory of Scandinavia.

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31/07/1826

Juhani Aataminpoika, Finnish serial killer (died 1854)

Juhani Aataminpoika alias Kerpeikkari, was a Finnish serial killer. He killed 12 people in southern Finland between October and November of 1849. He has been characterized as the first serial killer in Finland.

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William S. Clark, American colonel and politician (died 1886)

William Smith Clark was an American professor of chemistry, botany, and zoology; a colonel during the American Civil War; and a leader in agricultural education. Raised and schooled in Easthampton, Massachusetts, Clark spent most of his adult life in Amherst, Massachusetts. He graduated from Amherst College in 1848 and obtained a doctorate in chemistry from Georgia Augusta University in Göttingen in 1852. He then served as professor of chemistry at Amherst College from 1852 to 1867. During the Civil War, he was granted leave from Amherst to serve with the 21st Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, eventually achieving the rank of colonel and the command of that unit.

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31/07/1816

George Henry Thomas, American general (died 1870)

George Henry Thomas was an American general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and one of the principal commanders in the Western Theater. Thomas served in the Mexican–American War, and despite being a Virginian whose home state would join the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, he was a Southern Unionist who chose to remain in the U.S. Army.

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31/07/1803

John Ericsson, Swedish-American engineer, co-designed the USS Princeton and the Novelty Locomotive (died 1889)

John Ericsson was a Swedish-American engineer and inventor. He was active in England and the United States.

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31/07/1800

Friedrich Wöhler, German chemist and academic (died 1882)

Friedrich Wöhler FRS(For) HonFRSE was a German chemist known for his work in both organic and inorganic chemistry, being the first to isolate the chemical elements beryllium and yttrium in pure metallic form. He was the first to prepare several inorganic compounds, including silane and silicon nitride.

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31/07/1796

Jean-Gaspard Deburau, Czech-French actor and mime (died 1846)

Jean-Gaspard Deburau, sometimes erroneously called Debureau, was a Czech-French mime. He performed from 1816 to the year of his death at the Théâtre des Funambules, which was immortalized in Marcel Carné's poetic-realist film Children of Paradise (1945); Deburau appears in the film as a major character. His most famous pantomimic creation was Pierrot—a character that served as the godfather of all the Pierrots of Romantic, Decadent, Symbolist, and early Modernist theater and art.

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31/07/1777

Pedro Ignacio de Castro Barros, Argentine priest and politician (died 1849)

Pedro Ignacio de Castro Barros was an Argentine statesman and priest. He was a representative to the Congress of Tucumán which on 9 July 1816 declared the Independence of Argentina.

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31/07/1759

Ignaz Anton von Indermauer, Austrian nobleman and government official (died 1796)

Ignaz Alois Anton von Indermauer zu Strelburg und Freifeld was an Austrian nobleman from Tyrol who served as the Landvögte and Kreishauptmann of Vorarlberg from 1791 until his death in 1796.

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31/07/1724

Noël François de Wailly, French lexicographer and author (died 1801)

Noël François de Wailly was a French grammarian and lexicographer.

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31/07/1718

John Canton, English physicist and academic (died 1772)

John Canton was a British physicist. He was born in Middle Street Stroud, Gloucestershire, to a weaver, John Canton and Esther. As a schoolboy, he became the first person to determine the latitude of Stroud, while making a sundial. The sundial caught the attention of many, including Dr Henry Miles, a Stroud-born Fellow of the Royal Society. Miles encouraged Canton to leave Gloucestershire to become a trainee teacher for Samuel Watkins, the headmaster of a Nonconformist school in Spital Square, London, with whom he ultimately entered into partnership.

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31/07/1704

Gabriel Cramer, Swiss mathematician and physicist (died 1752)

Gabriel Cramer was a Genevan mathematician.

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31/07/1702

Jean Denis Attiret, French missionary and painter (died 1768)

Jean Denis Attiret was a French Jesuit painter and missionary to Qing China.

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31/07/1686

Charles of France, Duke of Berry (died 1714)

Charles of France, Duke of Berry, was a grandson of Louis XIV of France. Although he was only a grandson of Louis XIV, Berry held the rank of fils de France, rather than petit-fils de France, as the son of the Dauphin, heir apparent to the throne. The Duke of Berry was for seven years (1700–1707) heir presumptive to the throne of Spain, until his elder brother Philip V of Spain fathered a son in 1707.

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31/07/1598

Alessandro Algardi, Italian sculptor (died 1654)

Alessandro Algardi was an Italian high-Baroque sculptor active almost exclusively in Rome. In the latter decades of his life, he was, along with Francesco Borromini and Pietro da Cortona, one of the major rivals of Gian Lorenzo Bernini in Rome. He is now most admired for his portrait busts that have great vivacity and dignity.

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31/07/1595

Philipp Wolfgang, Count of Hanau-Lichtenberg (died 1641)

Philipp Wolfgang was a count of Hanau-Lichtenberg. He ruled the county from 1625 until his death.

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31/07/1527

Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor (died 1576)

Maximilian II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1564 until his death in 1576. A member of the Austrian House of Habsburg, he was crowned King of Bohemia in Prague on 14 May 1562 and elected King of Germany on 24 November 1562. On 8 September 1563, he was crowned King of Hungary and Croatia in the Hungarian capital Pressburg. On 25 July 1564, he succeeded his father Ferdinand I as Holy Roman Emperor.

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31/07/1526

Augustus, Elector of Saxony (died 1586)

Augustus, who called himself Augustus and was popularly known as "Father August" in reference to his paternal rule, was Elector of Saxony from 1553 until his death. He belonged to the Albertine branch of the House of Wettin, succeeding his brother Maurice, who had fallen in the Battle of Sievershausen without leaving a male heir.

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31/07/1396

Philip III, Duke of Burgundy (died 1467)

Philip III, also known as Philip the Good, was Duke of Burgundy from 1419 until his death in 1467. He was a member of a cadet line of the House of Valois, to which all 15th-century kings of France belonged. During his reign, the Burgundian State reached the apex of its prosperity and prestige, and became a leading centre of the arts.

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31/07/1143

Emperor Nijō of Japan (died 1165)

Emperor Nijō was the 78th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. His reign spanned the years from 1158 through 1165.

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