Friday, 1st May 2026 in Rome

On this day, 190 notable people were born on 1st May — spanning from 1218 to 2006. From world leaders to artists and scientists, discover who shares this birthday.

01/05/2006

Lewis Miley, English footballer

Lewis Miley is an English professional footballer who plays mainly as a midfielder for Premier League club Newcastle United and the England under-21 national team. Mainly a central midfielder, he can also be deployed as a defensive midfielder or right full back.

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01/05/2005

Linda Fruhvirtová, Czech tennis player

Linda Fruhvirtová is a Czech professional tennis player. On 26 June 2023, she reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 49. She peaked at No. 187 in the WTA doubles rankings in October 2023. She won her first singles title at the 2022 Chennai Open.

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01/05/2004

Charli D'Amelio, American social media influencer and dancer

Charli Grace D'Amelio is an American social media personality and dancer. She was a competitive dancer for over a decade before she came to prominence in late 2019, when she began posting dance videos on the video-sharing platform TikTok and joined The Hype House that same year. D'Amelio quickly amassed a large following and subsequently became the most-followed creator on the platform from March 2020 to June 2022. With over 156 million followers, she is the second most-followed person on TikTok as of 2025.

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01/05/2003

Lizzy Greene, American actress

Elizabeth Anne Greene is an American actress, known for her titular role as Dawn Harper in the Nickelodeon sitcom Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn from 2014 to 2018. She has starred as Sophie Dixon in the ABC family drama A Million Little Things from 2018 to 2023.

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01/05/2002

Chet Holmgren, American basketball player

Chet Thomas Holmgren is an American professional basketball player for the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball Association (NBA). A consensus five-star recruit and the top-ranked player of the 2021 class, he played college basketball for the Gonzaga Bulldogs and was drafted second overall by the Thunder in the 2022 NBA draft. After missing the 2022–23 season due to an offseason injury, Holmgren returned to earn NBA All-Rookie First Team honors in 2024. In his second season, his team won the 2025 NBA Finals. Holmgren was selected as an All-Star for the first time in 2026. Holmgren stands 7 ft 1 in (2.16 m) and plays the center and power forward positions.

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01/05/2000

Rema, Nigerian singer-songwriter and rapper

Divine Joshua Ikubor, known professionally as Rema, is a Nigerian singer-songwriter and rapper. He gained recognition with his 2019 song "Dumebi". That same year, he signed with D'Prince's record label, Jonzing World. He achieved international recognition with his 2022 single "Calm Down", which spawned a remix with American singer Selena Gomez that peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100. The song also led the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart for a record-setting 58 weeks.

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01/05/1999

YNW Melly, American rapper

Jamell Maurice Demons, known professionally by his stage name YNW Melly, is an American rapper and singer. He rose to fame in 2018 following the release of his single "Murder on My Mind", a trap song that explores homicidal ideation. His commercial breakthrough, its release garnered him further attention after he was charged with the double-murder of two fellow rappers in the "YNW" collective the following year, resulting in an ongoing legal battle and incarceration. Prior to this, "Murder on My Mind" peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and led him to sign with 300 Entertainment. The label released his debut commercial mixtape I Am You (2018), which was met with positive critical reception along with its follow-up, We All Shine (2019).

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Tiffany Stratton, American wrestler

Jessica Lynn Woynilko is an American professional wrestler and former gymnast. As of August 2021, she is signed to WWE, where she performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Tiffany Stratton and is the current WWE Women's United States Champion in her first reign. She is a former one-time WWE Women's Champion, one-time NXT Women's Champion, and the winner of the 2024 Women's Money in the Bank.

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01/05/1997

Miles Sanders, American football player

Miles Adam Sanders, nicknamed "Boobie Miles", is an American professional football running back and kick returner. He was selected by the Philadelphia Eagles in the second round of the 2019 NFL draft after playing college football for the Penn State Nittany Lions.

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01/05/1996

William Nylander, Canadian-Swedish ice hockey player

William Andrew Michael Junior Nylander Altelius is a Swedish professional ice hockey player who is a forward and alternate captain for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL). Nicknamed "Willy Styles", he is known for his offensive flair and speed.

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01/05/1992

Madeline Brewer, American actress

Madeline Kathryn Brewer is an American actress. She is known for recurring roles in the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black (2013) and Hemlock Grove (2014–2015), and for her starring roles as Janine Lindo in the Hulu series The Handmaid's Tale (2017–2025) and Brontë in the Netflix series You (2025). For The Handmaid's Tale, she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series at the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards in 2021.

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Hani, South Korean singer and actress

Ahn Hee-yeon, known professionally as Hani (하니), is a South Korean singer and actress. She is known as a member of the South Korean girl group EXID and its subgroup, SoljiHani. She has appeared on television as a host on Weekly Idol and a cast member on Off to School, Crime Scene and A Style for You.

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Bradley Roby, American football player

Bradley Roby is an American former professional football player who was a cornerback in the National Football League (NFL). He was selected by the Denver Broncos in the first round of the 2014 NFL draft. He played college football for the Ohio State Buckeyes. He has also played for the Houston Texans and the New Orleans Saints.

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01/05/1991

Marcus Stroman, American baseball player

Marcus Earl Stroman is an American professional baseball pitcher who is a free agent. He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Toronto Blue Jays, New York Mets, Chicago Cubs, and New York Yankees. Stroman's height is listed at 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m), making him one of only six pitchers shorter than 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) to make a start at the MLB level in the 21st century.

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01/05/1990

Scooter Gennett, American baseball player

Ryan Joseph "Scooter" Gennett is an American former professional baseball second baseman. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Milwaukee Brewers, Cincinnati Reds, and San Francisco Giants. On June 6, 2017, he became the 17th player in major league history to hit four home runs in a single game.

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Caitlin Stasey, Australian actress

Caitlin Jean Stasey is an Australian actress and singer. She is known for her role as Rachel Kinski in Neighbours. Previously she played Francesca Thomas in The Sleepover Club, although her breakthrough film role came in Tomorrow, When the War Began, a 2010 film adaptation of the teen novel of the same name in which she played lead protagonist Ellie Linton. She also played Lady Kenna in the CW series Reign from 2013 to 2015 and had a recurring role in the ABC2 series Please Like Me from 2013 to 2016. In 2017, Stasey starred as Ada on the Fox television drama APB, which was cancelled after one season in May 2017. In 2020, she starred in the short film Laura Hasn't Slept and had a brief role as the same character in the feature film version Smile (2022).

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01/05/1989

Victoria Monét, American singer-songwriter

Victoria Monét McCants is an American singer-songwriter. First gaining recognition for her songwriting work, Monét pursued a recording career with the release of a series of extended plays (EPs); her fifth, Jaguar (2020) was met with critical acclaim. Her debut studio album, Jaguar II (2023) became her commercial breakthrough and was supported by the hit single "On My Mama", which peaked within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 and earned a Grammy Award nomination for Record of the Year. The nomination was among seven she received at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, from which she won Best New Artist, Best R&B Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.

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01/05/1988

Anushka Sharma, Indian actress and film producer

Anushka Sharma is an Indian film producer and former actress who works in Hindi films. She has won many awards including Filmfare Awards and IIFA Awards. Sharma has appeared in Forbes India's Celebrity 100 in the 2010s and was featured by Forbes Asia in their 30 Under 30 list of 2018.

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01/05/1987

Leonardo Bonucci, Italian footballer

Leonardo Bonucci is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a centre-back. Considered one of the best defenders of his generation, he was known for his technique, ball-playing skills, tackling and his ability to play in either a three or four-man defence.

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Amir Johnson, American basketball player

Amir Jalla Johnson is an American professional basketball coach and former player who is a player development coach for the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He has previously played for the Detroit Pistons, the team that selected Johnson in the second round of the 2005 NBA draft, as well as the Toronto Raptors, Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers.

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Shahar Pe'er, Israeli tennis player

Shahar Pe'er is an Israeli retired tennis player.

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01/05/1986

Christian Benítez, Ecuadorian footballer (died 2013)

Christian Rogelio Benítez Betancourt was an Ecuadorian professional footballer who played as a striker.

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Jesse Klaver, Dutch politician

Jesse Feras Klaver is a Dutch politician who has served as leader of GroenLinks–PvdA in the House of Representatives since 2025, a member of the House of Representatives since 2010 and Leader of GroenLinks since 2015. Prior to this, he chaired the youth union of the Christian National Trade Union Federation from 2009 to 2010.

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01/05/1984

David Backes, American ice hockey player

David Anthony Backes is an American former professional ice hockey forward. He played for fifteen seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the St. Louis Blues, Boston Bruins and Anaheim Ducks. Backes was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but grew up in Spring Lake Park, Minnesota.

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01/05/1983

Alain Bernard, French swimmer

Alain Bernard is a French former swimmer from Aubagne, Bouches-du-Rhône.

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Park Hae-jin, South Korean actor

Park Hae-jin is a South Korean actor. He is best known for his supporting roles in dramas My Love from the Star (2013) and Doctor Stranger (2014), and his leading roles in Bad Guys (2014), Cheese in the Trap (2016), Man to Man (2017), Forest (2020), Kkondae Intern (2020), From Now On, Showtime! (2022), and The Killing Vote (2023).

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Craig Williams, American wrestler

Craig Williams, better known by his ring name, Human Tornado, is an American semi-retired professional wrestler. His character was that of a 1970s blaxploitation street pimp.

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01/05/1982

Beto, Portuguese footballer

António Alberto Bastos Pimparel, known as Beto, is a Portuguese former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper.

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Jamie Dornan, Northern Irish model and actor

James Peter Maxwell Dornan is an actor, model, and musician from Northern Ireland. His accolades include two Irish Film and Television Awards, in addition to nominations for a BAFTA Television Award and a Golden Globe Award. He has been ranked as one of the "25 Biggest Male Models of All Time" by Vogue, as well as named one of Ireland's greatest film actors by The Irish Times.

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Tommy Robredo, Spanish tennis player

Tomás Robredo Garcés is a Spanish former professional tennis player. His career-high singles ranking was world No. 5, which he reached in August 2006 as a result of winning the Hamburg Masters earlier in the year. Robredo reached the quarterfinals at seven singles major tournaments. He was also a three-time semifinalist at the US Open men's doubles tournament, and a semifinalist at the Australian Open in mixed doubles.

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Darijo Srna, Croatian footballer

Darijo Srna is a Croatian former professional footballer and current director of football of Ukrainian Premier League club Shakhtar Donetsk. During most of his career he played as a right wing-back.

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Katya Zamolodchikova, American drag queen

Brian Joseph McCook, known by his drag persona Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova or Katya, is an American drag queen, actor, author, recording artist, podcaster, and comedian. Katya is best known for placing fifth on the seventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race (2015) and placing as a runner-up on the second season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (2016). He is also known for appearing in the World of Wonder web series UNHhhh (2016–2023) and the Viceland series The Trixie & Katya Show (2017–2018) with co-host and fellow season 7 alum Trixie Mattel. Trixie and Katya often appear together as a popular comedy duo. Katya is a Daytime Emmy Award nominee.

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01/05/1981

Alexander Hleb, Belarusian footballer

Aliaksandr Paulavich Hleb, commonly referred to in English as Alexander Hleb, is a Belarusian former professional footballer.

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Wes Welker, American football player and coach

Wesley Carter Welker is an American professional football coach and former wide receiver who is an offensive assistant for the Washington Commanders of the National Football League (NFL). He played in the NFL for 12 seasons, most notably with the New England Patriots, and holds the NFL record for most receptions by an undrafted player. Welker played college football for the Texas Tech Red Raiders, winning the Mosi Tatupu Award and receiving first-team All-Big 12 honors as a senior.

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01/05/1980

Jan Heylen, Belgian race car driver

Jan Heylen is a Belgian racing driver, based out of Tampa, Florida.

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Jay Reatard, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2010)

James Lee Lindsey Jr., known professionally as Jay Reatard, was an American rock musician from Memphis, Tennessee. He was signed to Matador Records. He released recordings as a solo artist and as a member of the Reatards and Lost Sounds.

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01/05/1979

Mauro Bergamasco, Italian rugby player

Mauro Bergamasco is an Italian former rugby union player who last played for Zebre. He predominantly played as an open-side flanker, although his versatility meant that he had also played a number of international games on the wing, and started at scrum-half in an infamously error-prone performance. He was considered to be one of Italy's best players in his preferred position.

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01/05/1978

James Badge Dale, American actor

James Badge Dale is an American actor. Frequently cast as law enforcement and military characters, he is known for his roles as Chase Edmunds in 24, Robert Leckie in The Pacific, Trooper Barrigan in The Departed, Luke Lewenden in The Grey, Eric Savin in Iron Man 3, and Tyrone S. "Rone" Woods in 13 Hours.

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Michael Russell, American tennis player

Michael Craig Russell is an American former professional tennis player, and tennis coach. He reached a career-high singles ranking of World No. 60 in August 2007. His 23 United States Tennis Association (USTA) Pro Circuit singles titles were the all-time record, as of November 2013. That month he became the American No. 3.

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01/05/1976

James Murray, American comedian

James Stephen "Murr" Murray, is an American improvisational comedian, author, and actor. He is a member of The Tenderloins, a comedy troupe also consisting of Brian Quinn, Sal Vulcano, and formerly Joe Gatto. Along with Quinn and Vulcano, he stars in the television series Impractical Jokers, which premiered in 2011 on TruTV.

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01/05/1975

Marc-Vivien Foé, Cameroonian footballer (died 2003)

Marc-Vivien Foé was a Cameroonian professional footballer, who played as a defensive midfielder.

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Nina Hossain, English journalist

Nina Hossain is a British journalist and presenter employed by ITN as the lead presenter of the ITV Lunchtime News.

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Alexey Smertin, Russian international footballer

Aleksey Gennadyevich Smertin is a Russian football official and a former player. He was a fairly versatile player and was able to play in defence as well as midfield. He works in the Russian Football Union in two positions - "director of regional policies and international relations" and "anti-discrimination and anti-racism officer".

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01/05/1973

Curtis Martin, American football player

Curtis James Martin Jr. is an American former professional football running back who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons with the New England Patriots and New York Jets. He spent his first three NFL seasons with the Patriots, who selected him in the third round of the 1995 NFL draft, and was named NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year. Martin joined the Jets in 1998, where he spent eight seasons. At the conclusion of his career, he was selected to five Pro Bowls and one first-team All-Pro. He was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2012. He is sixth all-time in total NFL rushing yards.

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Oliver Neuville, German footballer

Oliver Patric Neuville is a German former footballer who played as a striker.

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01/05/1972

Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Yemeni terrorist

Ramzi Mohammed Abdullah bin al-Shibh is a Yemeni terrorist who served as al-Qaeda's communications officer. He has been detained by the United States in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp (NSGB) since 2006. He was a "key facilitator" of the September 11 attacks in 2001.

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Julie Benz, American actress

Julie Benz is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Darla on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (1997–2004), and as Rita Bennett on Dexter (2006–2010), for which she won the 2006 Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress and the 2009 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress.

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01/05/1971

Ethan Albright, American football player

Lawrence Ethan Albright is an American former professional football long snapper who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 16 seasons. Nicknamed "the Red Snapper", he spent the majority of his career with the Washington Redskins.

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Stuart Appleby, Australian golfer

Stuart Appleby is an Australian professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour Champions. He was a nine-time winner on the PGA Tour.

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Ajith Kumar, Indian actor and race car driver

Ajith Kumar Subramaniam is an Indian actor who works predominantly in Tamil cinema. To date, he has starred in over 63 films, and won four Vijay Awards, three Cinema Express Awards, three Filmfare Awards South and three Tamil Nadu State Film Awards. In addition to his acting career, Ajith is an occasional racing driver and participated in the MRF Racing series (2010) and having competed in circuits around India in places such as Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi. He is one among very few Indians to race in the international arena and in Formula championships. Based on the annual earnings of Indian celebrities, he was included in the Forbes India Celebrity 100 list three times.

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01/05/1970

Bernard Butler, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer

Bernard Joseph Butler is an English musician, songwriter and record producer. He is best known for being the guitarist for the band Suede from 1989 to 1994, appearing on the albums Suede (1993) and Dog Man Star (1994). He would leave the band midway through the recording of the latter.

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01/05/1969

Wes Anderson, American director, producer, and screenwriter

Wesley Wales Anderson is an American filmmaker. His films are known for themes of grief, loss of innocence, and dysfunctional families. Due to his films' eccentricity, distinctive visual and narrative styles, and frequent use of ensemble casts, critics have described Anderson as an auteur. He has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and nominations for four Golden Globe Awards. Three of his films appeared in BBC Culture's 2016 poll of the greatest films since 2000.

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Mary Lou McDonald, Irish politician

Mary Louise McDonald is an Irish politician who has served as Leader of the Opposition in Ireland since June 2020, as President of Sinn Féin since February 2018, and as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Central constituency since 2011. She previously served as vice president of Sinn Féin from 2009 to 2018 and as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Dublin constituency from 2004 to 2009.

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Billy Owens, American basketball player

Billy Eugene Owens is an American former professional basketball player who played for several teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for Syracuse, where he was an All-American and the 1991 Big East Conference Player of the Year. Born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Owens played for Carlisle High School.

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01/05/1968

Oliver Bierhoff, German footballer

Oliver Bierhoff is a German association football official and former player who played as a striker. He has previously served as the technical director of the Germany national team. A tall, strong and prolific goalscorer, Bierhoff was mostly renowned for his excellent abilities in the air, and as a target man, being able to deliver pin-point headers towards goal.

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D'arcy Wretzky, American bass player and singer

D'arcy Wretzky is an American musician. She was the original bassist of the alternative rock band the Smashing Pumpkins and is credited on their first six studio albums. She left the band in 1999. She has also been a member of Catherine and performed with Filter.

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01/05/1967

Tim McGraw, American singer-songwriter and actor

Samuel Timothy McGraw is an American country singer and actor. He has released 17 studio albums. 10 of those albums have reached number one on the Top Country Albums charts, with his 1994 breakthrough album Not a Moment Too Soon being the top country album of 1994. In total, McGraw's albums have produced 65 singles, 25 of which have reached number one on the Hot Country Songs or Country Airplay charts.

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01/05/1966

Olaf Thon, German footballer and manager

Olaf Thon is a German former professional football player and coach.

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01/05/1964

Yvonne van Gennip, Dutch speed skater

Yvonne Maria Therèse van Gennip is one of the most successful female Dutch all-round speed skaters. Her main success dates from the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, where she unexpectedly won three gold medals. She was the most successful athlete at the 1988 Winter Olympics, along with Matti Nykänen of Finland.

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01/05/1962

Maia Morgenstern, Romanian actress

Maia Emilia Ninel Morgenstern is a Romanian film and stage actress. Internationally, she is best known for portraying the Blessed Virgin Mary in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. In Romania, she has been nationally known since her role as Nela in the 1992 film Balanța, known in the United States as The Oak, set during the waning days of Communist Romania. She received a star on the Romanian Walk of Fame in Bucharest on 1 May 2011. In 2007, she was described by Florin Mitu of AMOS News as "a symbol of Romanian theater and film".

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01/05/1961

Clint Malarchuk, Canadian ice hockey player and coach

Clint Malarchuk is a Canadian former professional ice hockey goaltender who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) between 1981 and 1992. He has been a coach for four NHL teams and two minor league teams, most recently the Calgary Flames. He was born in Grande Prairie, Alberta, raised in Edmonton, Alberta, and lives in Alberta and Nevada.

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Marilyn Milian, American judge

Marilyn Milian, known professionally as Judge Milian, is an American television personality, lecturer, retired Florida Circuit Court judge and court-show arbitrator. For 22 seasons from March 12, 2001 to July 21, 2023, Milian starred in the American courtroom television series The People's Court, replacing Jerry Sheindlin. Justice for the People with Judge Milian, where Milian hears cases presented by actors improvising as litigants, premiered in autumn 2023.

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01/05/1959

Yasmina Reza, French actress and playwright

Yasmina Reza is a French playwright, actress, novelist and screenwriter best known for her plays 'Art' and God of Carnage. Many of her brief satiric plays have reflected on contemporary middle-class issues. The 2011 black comedy film Carnage, directed by Roman Polanski, was based on Reza's Tony Award-winning 2006 play God of Carnage.

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01/05/1957

Rick Darling, Australian cricketer

Warrick Maxwell Darling, known as Rick Darling, is a former Australian Test cricketer.

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Uberto Pasolini, Italian banker, director, and producer

Count Uberto Pasolini Dall'Onda is an Italian film producer, director, and former investment banker known for producing the 1997 film The Full Monty and directing and producing the 2008 film Machan and the 2013 film Still Life.

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01/05/1955

Alex Cunningham, Scottish politician

Alexander Cunningham is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Stockton North from 2010 to 2024. A member of the Labour Party, he was Shadow Minister for Courts and Sentencing.

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Martin O'Donnell, American composer

Martin O'Donnell is an American composer, audio director, and sound designer best known for his work on video game developer Bungie's titles, such as the Myth series, Oni, the Halo series, and Destiny. O'Donnell collaborated with Michael Salvatori for all of the scores; he has also directed voice talent and sound design for the Halo trilogy.

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01/05/1954

Ray Parker Jr., American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer

Ray Erskine Parker Jr. is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and record producer. As a solo performer, he wrote and performed the theme song for the 1984 film Ghostbusters and also sounds from the animated series The Real Ghostbusters. Previously, Parker achieved a US top-5 hit in 1982 with "The Other Woman". He also performed with his band, Raydio, and with Barry White in the Love Unlimited Orchestra.

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Joel Rosenberg, Canadian-American author and activist (died 2011)

Joel Rosenberg was a Canadian American science fiction and fantasy author best known for his long-running Guardians of the Flame series. Rosenberg was also a gun rights activist. He was the oldest brother of Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg.

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01/05/1952

Richard Blundell, English economist and academic

Sir Richard William Blundell CBE FBA is a British economist and econometrician.

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01/05/1951

Gordon Greenidge, Barbadian cricketer and coach

Sir Cuthbert Gordon Greenidge is a Barbadian retired cricketer who represented the West Indies in Test and One Day International (ODI) teams for 17 years, as well as Barbados and Hampshire in first-class cricket. Greenidge is regarded worldwide as one of the greatest and most destructive opening batsmen in cricket history. In 2009, Greenidge was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. He was a member of the squads which won the World Cups in 1975, 1979 and runners-up in 1983.

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Sally Mann, American photographer

Sally Mann is an American photographer known for making large format black and white photographs of people and places in her immediate surroundings: her children, husband, and rural landscapes, as well as self-portraits.

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01/05/1950

Danny McGrain, Scottish footballer and coach

Daniel Fergus McGrain is a Scottish former professional footballer, who played for Celtic, Hamilton Academical and the Scotland national team as a right back. McGrain is regarded as one of Scotland's greatest players and throughout the 1970s and 80s was one of the best full backs in world football; sports writer Hugh McIlvanney commented, "Anybody who saw him at his best had the unmistakable impression of watching a great player, probably one who had no superior anywhere in the world."

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01/05/1949

Tim Hodgkinson, English saxophonist, clarinet player, and composer

Timothy George Hodgkinson is an English experimental music composer and performer, principally on reeds, lap steel guitar, and keyboards. He first became known as one of the core members of the British avant-rock group Henry Cow, which he formed with Fred Frith in 1968. After the demise of Henry Cow, he participated in numerous bands and projects, eventually concentrating on composing contemporary music and performing as an improviser.

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01/05/1948

Patricia Hill Collins, American sociologist and scholar

Patricia Hill Collins is an American academic specializing in race, class, and gender. She is a distinguished university professor of sociology emerita at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also the former head of the Department of African-American Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Collins was elected president of the American Sociological Association (ASA), and served in 2009 as the 100th president of the association – the first African-American woman to hold this position.

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01/05/1946

Joanna Lumley, English actress, voice-over artist, author, and activist

Dame Joanna Lamond Lumley is a British actress, presenter, author, television producer, activist and former model. She has won two BAFTA TV Awards for her role as Patsy Stone in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous (1992–2012) and was nominated for the 2011 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for the Broadway revival of La Bête. In 2013, she received the Special Recognition Award at the National Television Awards and in 2017 she was honoured with the BAFTA Fellowship award.

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John Woo, Hong Kong director, producer, and screenwriter

John Woo Yu-sen is a Hong Kong filmmaker, known as a highly influential figure in the action film genre. The recipient of various accolades, including a Hong Kong Film Award for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Editing, as well as a Golden Horse Award, an Asia Pacific Screen Award and a Saturn Award, he is regarded as a pioneer of heroic bloodshed films and the gun fu genre in Hong Kong action cinema. He is known for his highly chaotic "bullet ballet" action sequences, stylized imagery, Mexican standoffs, frequent use of slow motion and allusions to wuxia, film noir and Western cinema.

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01/05/1945

Rita Coolidge, American singer-songwriter

Rita Coolidge is an American recording artist. During the 1970s and 1980s, her songs were on Billboard magazine's pop, country, adult contemporary, and jazz charts, and she won two Grammy Awards with fellow musician and then-husband Kris Kristofferson. Her recordings include "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher", "We're All Alone", "I'd Rather Leave While I'm in Love" and the theme song for the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy: "All Time High".

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01/05/1939

Judy Collins, American singer-songwriter and guitarist

Judith Marjorie Collins is an American singer-songwriter and musician with a career spanning nearly seven decades. An Academy Award-nominated documentary director and a Grammy Award-winning recording artist, she is known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records, for her social activism, and for the clarity of her voice. Her discography consists of 36 studio albums, nine live albums, numerous compilation albums, four holiday albums, and 21 singles.

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01/05/1937

Una Stubbs, English actress and dancer (died 2021)

Una Stubbs was an English actress, television personality, and dancer who appeared on British television, in the theatre, and occasionally in films. She became known after appearing in the film Summer Holiday (1963) and later played Rita Rawlins in the BBC sitcoms Till Death Us Do Part (1965–1975) and In Sickness and in Health (1985–1992). Her other television roles include Aunt Sally in Worzel Gummidge (1979–1981) and Miss Bat in The Worst Witch (1998–2001). She also appeared as Sherlock Holmes's landlady Mrs. Hudson in the BAFTA-winning television series Sherlock (2010–2017) where she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Crime Thriller Awards.

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01/05/1934

Laura Betti, Italian actress (died 2004)

Laura Betti was an Italian actress known particularly for her work with directors Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Bernardo Bertolucci. She had a long friendship with Pasolini and made a documentary about him in 2001.

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Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Mexican politician

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano is a Mexican politician and civil engineer. A prominent social-democrat and the son of 51st president of Mexico Lázaro Cárdenas, he is a former Head of Government of Mexico City and a founder of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). He ran for the presidency of Mexico three times, and his loss in the 1988 Mexican general election to Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari had long been considered the result of electoral fraud perpetrated by the ruling PRI, later acknowledged by Miguel de la Madrid, the incumbent president at the time of the election. He previously served as a Senator, having been elected in 1976 to represent the state of Michoacán and also as the Governor of Michoacán from 1980 to 1986.

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Shirley Horn, American singer and pianist (died 2005)

Shirley Valerie Horn was an American jazz singer and pianist. She collaborated with many jazz musicians including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Toots Thielemans, Ron Carter, Carmen McRae, Wynton Marsalis and others. She was most noted for her ability to accompany herself with nearly incomparable independence and ability on the piano while singing, something described by arranger Johnny Mandel as "like having two heads", and for her rich, lush voice, a smoky contralto, which was described by noted producer and arranger Quincy Jones as "like clothing, as she seduces you with her voice".

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01/05/1932

S. M. Krishna, Indian politician and statesman, Minister of External Affairs, 10th Chief Minister of Karnataka, 19th Governor of Maharashtra (died 2024)

Somanahalli Mallaiah Krishna was an Indian politician who served as Minister of External Affairs of India from 2009 to October 2012. He was the 10th Chief Minister of Karnataka from 1999 to 2004 and the 19th Governor of Maharashtra from 2004 to 2008. S. M. Krishna served as the Speaker of the Karnataka Vidhana Soudha from December 1989 to January 1993. He was also a Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha member from 1971 to 2014. He is widely credited with putting Bengaluru on the world map by building the foundation for it to become the IT Hub that it is today during his tenure as Chief Minister. In 2023, Krishna was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award of India.

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Sandy Woodward, English admiral (died 2013)

Admiral Sir John Forster "Sandy" Woodward was a senior Royal Navy officer who commanded the Task Force of the Falklands War.

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01/05/1930

Ollie Matson, American sprinter and football player (died 2011)

Ollie Genoa Matson II was an American Olympic medal winning sprinter and professional football player. He played as a halfback and return specialist in the National Football League (NFL) from 1952 to 1966 primarily for the Chicago Cardinals and the Los Angeles Rams. He played college football for the San Francisco Dons and was selected by the Cardinals in the first round of the 1952 NFL draft.

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Richard Riordan, American lieutenant and politician, 39th Mayor of Los Angeles and publisher (died 2023)

Richard Joseph Riordan was an American businessman, investor, military commander, philanthropist, and politician. A decorated Korean War veteran and a member of the Republican Party, Riordan served as the 39th mayor of Los Angeles from 1993 to 2001; he remains the most recent Republican to hold that office. He ran for governor in the 2002 California gubernatorial election, losing the Republican primary. After politics, he resumed his business career, specializing in private equity.

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Little Walter Jacobs, American blues harp player and singer (died 1968)

Marion Walter Jacobs, known as Little Walter, was an American blues musician, singer, and songwriter. His revolutionary approach to the harmonica had a strong impact on the succeeding generations, earning him comparisons to such seminal artists as Django Reinhardt, Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix. His virtuosity and musical innovations fundamentally altered many listeners' expectations of what was possible on blues harmonica. He was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, the first and, to date, only artist to be inducted specifically as a harmonica player.

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01/05/1929

Ralf Dahrendorf, German-English sociologist and politician (died 2009)

Ralf Gustav Dahrendorf, Baron Dahrendorf, was a German-British sociologist, philosopher, political scientist and liberal politician. A class conflict theorist, Dahrendorf was a leading expert on explaining and analysing class divisions in modern society. Dahrendorf wrote multiple articles and books, his most notable being Class and Conflict in Industrial Society (1959) and Essays in the Theory of Society (1968).

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Sonny Ramadhin, Trinidadian cricketer (died 2022)

Sonny Ramadhin, CM was a West Indian cricketer, and was a dominant bowler of the 1950s. He was the first of many West Indian cricketers of Indian origin, and was one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1951. He is most famous for his performance in the West Indies' 1950 tour of England, which was immortalised in the song "Victory Calypso". He was also well known for his ability to turn the ball both ways and he was also largely known for using three short-legs along with close in fielders on the off-side during his playing days in order to exert more pressure on the batsmen. He was referred to as "a small neat man whose shirt-sleeves were always buttoned at the wrist". He was the last surviving member of the 1950 West Indies team that secured the West Indies' first-ever Test series win in England.

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01/05/1928

Sonny James, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2016)

James Hugh Loden, known professionally as Sonny James, was an American country music singer and songwriter best known for his 1957 hit, "Young Love", topping both the Billboard Hot Country and Disk Jockey singles charts. Dubbed the "Southern Gentleman" for his congenial manner, his greatest success came from ballads about the trials of love. James had 72 country and pop charted releases from 1953 to 1983, including an unprecedented five-year streak of 16 straight Billboard Hot Country number-one singles among his 26 Billboard Hot Country number-one hits. From 1964 to 1976, James placed 21 of his albums in the top 10 of Billboard Top Country Albums. James was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1961 and co-hosted the first Country Music Association Awards show in 1967. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2007.

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01/05/1927

Greta Andersen, Danish swimmer (died 2023)

Greta Marie Andersen was a Danish swimmer who won a gold and a silver medal in 100 m freestyle events at the 1948 Summer Olympics. In the mid-1950s she moved to the United States, where she set several world records in marathon swimming in the distances up to 50 miles.

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Bernard Vukas, Yugoslav-Croatian footballer (died 1983)

Bernard Vukas was a Croatian footballer who played for Yugoslavia.

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Albert Zafy, Malagasy politician, 3rd President of Madagascar (died 2017)

Albert Zafy was a Malagasy politician and educator who served as the fourth president of Madagascar from 1993 to 1996. In 1988, he founded the National Union for Democracy and Development (UNDD).

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01/05/1926

Peter Lax, Hungarian-American mathematician and academic (died 2025)

Peter David Lax was a Hungarian-born American mathematician and Abel Prize laureate working in the areas of pure and applied mathematics.

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01/05/1925

Chuck Bednarik, American lieutenant and football player (died 2015)

Charles Philip Bednarik, nicknamed "Concrete Charlie", was an American professional football linebacker and center who played in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Penn Quakers, and was selected with the first overall pick of the 1949 NFL draft by the Philadelphia Eagles, where he played his entire 14-year NFL career from 1949 through 1962. Bednarik is ranked one of the hardest hitting tacklers in NFL history, and was one of the league's last two-way players.

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Scott Carpenter, American commander, pilot, and astronaut (died 2013)

Malcolm Scott Carpenter was an American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, astronaut, and aquanaut. He was one of the Mercury Seven astronauts selected for NASA's Project Mercury in April 1959. Carpenter was the second American to orbit the Earth and the fourth American in space, after Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and Glenn.

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01/05/1924

Evelyn Boyd Granville, American mathematician, computer scientist, and academic (died 2023)

Evelyn Boyd Granville was an American mathematician and computer scientist. She was the second African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics from an American university; she earned it in 1949 from Yale University. She graduated from Smith College in 1945. She performed pioneering work in the field of computing.

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Terry Southern, American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter (died 1995)

Terry Southern was an American novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and university lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style. Part of the Paris postwar literary movement in the 1950s and a companion to Beat writers in Greenwich Village, Southern was also at the center of Swinging London in the 1960s and helped to change the style and substance of American films in the 1970s. He briefly wrote for Saturday Night Live in the 1980s.

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01/05/1923

Joseph Heller, American novelist, short story writer, and playwright (died 1999)

Joseph Heller was an American author of novels, short stories, plays, and screenplays. His best-known work is his debut novel Catch-22 (1961), a satire on war and bureaucracy, whose title has become a synonym for an absurd or contradictory choice. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature at least twice, in 1972 and 1975.

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Marcel Rayman, Polish soldier (died 1944)

Marcel Rajman was a Polish Jew and volunteer fighter in the FTP-MOI group of French Resistance fighters during World War II. He was also the head of "Stalingrad", a highly active militant group.

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01/05/1921

Vladimir Colin, Romanian journalist and author (died 1991)

Vladimir Colin was a Romanian short story writer and novelist. One of the most important fantasy and science fiction authors in Romanian literature, whose main works are known on several continents, he was also a noted poet, essayist, translator, journalist and comic book author. After he and his spouse at the time Nina Cassian rallied with the left-wing literary circle Orizont during the late 1940s, Colin started his career as a communist and socialist realist writer. During the early years of the Romanian Communist regime, he was assigned offices in the censorship and propaganda apparatus. His 1951 novel Soarele răsare în Deltă was an early representative of local socialist realist school, but earned Colin much criticism from the cultural establishment of the day, for what it perceived as ideological mistakes.

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01/05/1919

Manna Dey, Indian singer and composer (died 2013)

Prabodh Chandra Dey, known professionally as Manna Dey, was an Indian playback singer, music director, and musician. With a strong foundation in classical music, he is widely regarded as one of the most versatile and celebrated vocalists in the Hindi film industry. He is also credited with bringing Indian classical music into mainstream Hindi cinema.

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Mohammed Karim Lamrani, Moroccan businessman and politician, 7th Prime Minister of Morocco (died 2018)

Mohammed Karim Lamrani was a Moroccan politician who was the Prime Minister of Morocco for three separate terms.

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Dan O'Herlihy, Irish actor (died 2005)

Daniel Peter O'Herlihy was an Irish actor. His best-known roles included his Oscar-nominated portrayal of the title character in Luis Buñuel's Robinson Crusoe (1954), Brigadier General Warren A. Black in Fail Safe (1964), Marshal Ney in Waterloo (1970), Conal Cochran in Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), Grig in The Last Starfighter (1984), "The Old Man" in RoboCop (1987) and its 1990 sequel, and Andrew Packard in the television series Twin Peaks (1990–91).

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01/05/1918

Jack Paar, American comedian, author and talk show host (died 2004)

Jack Harold Paar was an American talk show host, writer, radio and television comedian, and film actor. He was the second host of The Tonight Show from 1957 to 1962. Time magazine's obituary of Paar reported wryly, "His fans would remember him as the fellow who split talk show history into two eras: Before Paar and Below Paar."

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01/05/1917

John Beradino, American baseball player and actor (died 1996)

John Beradino was an American Major League Baseball infielder and actor. Known as Johnny Berardino during his baseball career, he was also credited during his acting career as John Berardino, John Baradino, John Barardino or John Barradino.

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Ulric Cross, Trinidadian navigator, judge, and diplomat (died 2013)

Philip Louis Ulric Cross was a Trinidadian jurist, diplomat and Royal Air Force (RAF) navigator, recognised as possibly the most decorated West Indian of World War II. He is credited with helping to prevent some two hundred bombers from being shot down in a raid over Germany in 1943. He subsequently studied law at London's Middle Temple, and went on to fulfil a distinguished international career as a jurist across Africa and within Trinidad and Tobago. He also served as a diplomat for Trinidad and Tobago to the United Kingdom.

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Danielle Darrieux, French actress and singer (died 2017)

Danielle Yvonne Marie Antoinette Darrieux was a French actress of stage, television and film, as well as a singer and dancer.

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01/05/1916

Glenn Ford, Canadian-American actor and producer (died 2006)

Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford, known as Glenn Ford, was a Canadian-born American actor. He was most prominent during Hollywood's Golden Age as one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, and had a career that lasted more than 50 years.

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01/05/1915

Hanns Martin Schleyer, German business executive (died 1977)

Hans "Hanns" Martin Schleyer was a German business executive, employer and industry representative, Nazi SS officer, and lobbyist. He served as president of two powerful commercial organizations: the Confederation of German Employers' Associations and the Federation of German Industries.

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01/05/1913

Louis Nye, American actor (died 2005)

Louis Nye was an American comedic actor. He is best known for his work on multiple television, film and radio programs.

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01/05/1912

Otto Kretschmer, German admiral (died 1998)

Otto Kretschmer was a German naval officer and submariner in World War II and the Cold War.

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01/05/1910

Raya Dunayevskaya, Ukrainian-American philosopher and activist (died 1987)

Raya Dunayevskaya, later Rae Spiegel, also known by the pseudonym Freddie Forest, was the American founder of the philosophy of Marxist humanism in the United States. At one time Leon Trotsky's secretary, she later split with him and ultimately founded the organization News and Letters Committees and was its leader until her death.

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J. Allen Hynek, American astronomer and ufologist (died 1986)

Josef Allen Hynek was an American astronomer, professor, and ufologist. He is perhaps best remembered for his UFO research. Hynek acted as scientific advisor to UFO studies undertaken by the U.S. Air Force under three projects: Project Sign (1947–1949), Project Grudge (1949–1951) and Project Blue Book (1952–1969). In later years, he conducted his own independent UFO research, developing the "Close Encounter" classification system. He was among the first people to conduct scientific analysis of reports and especially of trace evidence purportedly left by UFOs.

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01/05/1909

Endel Puusepp, Estonian-Soviet military pilot and politician (died 1996)

Endel Karlovich Puusepp was a Soviet bomber pilot of Estonian origin who completed over 30 nighttime strategic bombing campaigns during World War II. He was a recipient of the Hero of the Soviet Union award for flying a high-ranking delegation over the front line from Moscow to Washington, D.C., and back to negotiate the opening of the Western Front.

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Yiannis Ritsos, Greek poet and playwright (died 1990)

Yiannis Ritsos was a Greek poet and communist and an active member of the Greek Resistance during World War II. While he disliked being regarded as a political poet, he has been called "the great poet of the Greek left".

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01/05/1908

Giovannino Guareschi, Italian journalist and author (died 1968)

Giovannino Oliviero Giuseppe Guareschi was an Italian journalist, cartoonist and humorist whose best known creation is the priest Don Camillo.

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Morris Kline, American mathematician and academic (died 1992)

Morris Kline was a professor of mathematics who wrote extensively on the history, philosophy, and teaching of that subject. He was also a popularizer of mathematics.

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01/05/1907

Kate Smith, American singer and actress (died 1986)

Kathryn Elizabeth Smith was an American contralto. Referred to as The First Lady of Radio, Smith became well known for her renditions of "God Bless America" and "When the Moon Comes over the Mountain". She began to use the descriptor The Songbird of the South in the late 1920s, while performing on the stage. This term was also used by other southern vocalists of that era; however, as the Washington D.C. Sunday Star noted, Smith was not really southern—born in Virginia, she had spent nearly all of her life in the D.C. area. But as Smith became nationally known, she became more identified with the term. By early 1929, she was being referred to that way on a regular basis: a version of the term, using "from" rather than "of," was seen in newspaper advertisements that promoted her stage performances. "Songbird of the South" was used when she appeared on the NBC Radio Network in April. Then, in the summer of that year, she starred in a Vitaphone short feature entitled "Songbird of the South," in which she sang two of her hit songs,"Bless You Sister" and "Carolina Moon."

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01/05/1906

Horst Schumann, German SS officer and physician (died 1983)

Horst Schumann was an SS-Sturmbannführer (major) and medical doctor who conducted sterilization and castration experiments at Auschwitz and was particularly interested in the mass sterilization of Jews by means of X-rays. Hors d'atteinte, a book by Frédéric Couderc, published in France by Les Escales and Pocket, reveals the extent of Schumann's crimes and his life as a fugitive in Africa.

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01/05/1905

Henry Koster, German-American director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1988)

Henry Koster was a German-born film director. He was the husband of actress Peggy Moran.

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01/05/1901

Sterling Allen Brown, American poet, academic, and critic (died 1989)

Sterling Allen Brown was an American professor, folklorist, poet, and literary critic. He chiefly studied black culture of the southern United States and was a professor at Howard University for most of his career. Brown was the first poet laureate of the District of Columbia.

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Antal Szerb, Hungarian scholar and author (died 1945)

Antal Szerb was a noted Hungarian scholar and writer. He is generally considered to be one of the most important Hungarian writers of the 20th century.

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01/05/1900

Ignazio Silone, Italian journalist and politician (died 1978)

Secondino Tranquilli, best known by the pseudonym Ignazio Silone, was an Italian politician and writer. He became famous during World War II for his anti-fascist novels. Considered among the most well-known and read Italian intellectuals in Europe and in the world, his most famous novel, Fontamara, became emblematic for its denunciation of the condition of poverty, injustice, and social oppression of the lower classes, and has been translated into numerous languages. From 1946 to the 1970s, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature at least 13 times.

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Aleksander Wat, Polish poet and writer (died 1967)

Aleksander Wat was the pen name of Aleksander Chwat, a Polish poet, writer, art theoretician, and memoirist. He was one of the precursors of the Polish futurism movement in the early 1920s and is considered one of the most important Polish writers of the mid-20th century. In 1959, he emigrated to France and in 1963 relocated to the United States, where he worked at the Center for Slavic and East European Studies of the University of California, Berkeley.

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01/05/1898

Alfred Schmidt, Estonian weightlifter (died 1972)

Alfred Schmidt was an Estonian featherweight weightlifter who won a silver medal at the 1920 Summer Olympics.

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01/05/1896

Herbert Backe, German agronomist and politician (died 1947)

Herbert Friedrich Wilhelm Backe was a German politician and SS-Obergruppenführer who served as State Secretary and Reichsminister in the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture. He was a doctrinaire racial ideologue, a long-time associate of Richard Walther Darré and a personal friend of Reinhard Heydrich. He developed and implemented the Hunger Plan that envisioned death by starvation of tens of millions of Slavic and Jewish "useless eaters" following Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union.

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Mark W. Clark, American general (died 1984)

Mark Wayne Clark was a United States Army officer who fought in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. He was the youngest four-star general in the U.S. Army during World War II.

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J. Lawton Collins, American general (died 1987)

Joseph Lawton Collins was a senior United States Army officer. During World War II, he served in both the Pacific and European Theaters of Operations, one of a few senior American commanders to do so. He was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the Korean War.

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01/05/1895

May Hollinworth, Australian theatre producer and director (died 1968)

May Hollinworth was an Australian theatre producer and director, former radio actress, and founder of the Metropolitan Theatre in Sydney. The daughter of a theatrical producer, she was introduced to the theatre at a young age. She graduated with a science degree, and worked in the chemistry department of the University of Sydney, before being appointed as director of the Sydney University Dramatic Society, a post she held from 1929 until 1943

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Nikolai Yezhov, Soviet secret police official, head of the NKVD (died 1940)

Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, also spelt Ezhov, was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938, at the height of the Great Purge. Yezhov organized mass arrests, torture, and executions during the Great Purge, but he fell out of favor with Joseph Stalin and was arrested, subsequently admitting in a confession to a range of anti-Soviet activity including "unfounded arrests" during the Great Purge. He was executed in 1940 along with others who were blamed for the Great Purge.

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01/05/1891

Lillian Estelle Fisher, American historian of Spanish America (died 1988)

Lillian Estelle Fisher was one of the first women to earn a doctorate in Latin American history in the U.S. She published important works on Spanish colonial administration; a biography of Manuel Abad y Queipo, reform bishop-elect of Michoacan; and a monograph on the Tupac Amaru rebellion in Peru. As distinguished colonial Latin American historian John J. TePaske put it in 1968, "At least three generations of graduate students have studied the works of Lillian Estelle Fisher." Fisher is included as an example of sexual/gender discrimination in the historical profession.

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01/05/1890

Clelia Lollini, Italian physician (died 1963 or 1964)

Clelia Lollini was an Italian medical doctor. She helped to found the Medical Women's International Federation and the Italian Women's Medical Association.

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01/05/1887

Alan Cunningham, Anglo-Irish general and diplomat, High Commissioners for Palestine and Transjordan (died 1983)

Sir Alan Gordon Cunningham,, was a senior officer of the British Army noted for his victories over Italian forces in the East African Campaign during the Second World War. He then commanded Eighth Army in the desert campaign, but was relieved of command during the Crusader battle against Erwin Rommel. Later he served as the seventh and last High Commissioner of Palestine. He was the younger brother of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Cunningham of Hyndhope.

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01/05/1885

Clément Pansaers, Belgian poet (died 1922)

Clément Pansaers was the main proponent of the Dada movement in Belgium.

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Ralph Stackpole, American sculptor and painter (died 1973)

Ralph Ward Stackpole was an American sculptor, painter, muralist, etcher and art educator, San Francisco's leading artist during the 1920s and 1930s. Stackpole was involved in the art and causes of social realism, especially during the Great Depression, when he was part of the Public Works of Art Project, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration, and the Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture. Stackpole was responsible for recommending that architect Timothy L. Pflueger bring Mexican muralist Diego Rivera to San Francisco to work on the San Francisco Stock Exchange and its attached office tower in 1930–31. His son Peter Stackpole became a well-known photojournalist.

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01/05/1884

Francis Curzon, 5th Earl Howe, English race car driver and politician (died 1964)

Francis Richard Henry Penn Curzon, 5th Earl Howe, styled Viscount Curzon from 1900 to 1929, was a British naval officer, Member of Parliament, and racing driver and promoter. In the 1918 UK general election he won the Battersea South seat as the candidate of the Conservative Party, which he held until 1929. While in Parliament he took up motor racing, and later won the 1931 24 Hours of Le Mans race. He ascended to the House of Lords in 1929, succeeding his father as the 5th Earl Howe. In 1928, he co-founded the British Racing Drivers' Club with Dudley Benjafield and served as its president until his death in 1964.

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01/05/1881

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French priest, palaeontologist, and philosopher (died 1955)

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. was a French Jesuit priest, scientist, paleontologist, philosopher, mystic, and teacher. Teilhard de Chardin investigated the theory of evolution from a perspective influenced by Henri Bergson and Christian mysticism, writing multiple scientific and religious works on the subject. His mainstream scientific achievements include his paleontological research in China, taking part in the discovery of the significant Peking Man fossils from the Zhoukoudian cave complex near Beijing. His more speculative ideas, sometimes criticized as pseudoscientific, have included a vitalist conception of the Omega Point. Along with Vladimir Vernadsky, he contributed to the development of the concept of the noosphere.

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01/05/1875

Dave Hall, American runner (died 1972)

David Connolly Hall was an American track athlete, track and basketball coach, and university professor. He served as the head basketball coach at University of Oklahoma from 1907 to 1908 and at University of Washington from 1908 to 1910.

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01/05/1874

Romaine Brooks, American-French painter and illustrator (died 1970)

Romaine Brooks was an American painter who worked mostly in Paris and Capri. She specialized in portraiture and used a subdued tonal palette keyed to the color gray. Brooks ignored contemporary artistic trends such as Cubism and Fauvism, drawing on her own original aesthetic inspired by the works of Charles Conder, Walter Sickert, and James McNeill Whistler. Her subjects ranged from anonymous models to titled aristocrats. She is best known for her images of women in androgynous or masculine dress, including her self-portrait of 1923, which is her most widely reproduced work.

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Paul Van Asbroeck, Belgian target shooter (died 1959)

Paul Van Asbroeck was a Belgian sport shooter who competed in the early 20th century in rifle and pistol shooting. He competed at the 1900 Olympics in Paris and won a bronze medal in the military rifle 3 positions category. However the medal was tied with Norwegian Ole Ostmo.

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01/05/1872

Hugo Alfvén, Swedish composer, conductor, violinist, and painter (died 1960)

Hugo Emil Alfvén was a Swedish composer, conductor, violinist, and painter. Alfvén was one of Sweden's principal composers. His "Swedish Rhapsody”, written when he was 31, is still one of the best-known pieces of Swedish music. After extensive European travels to develop his musical skills, Alfvén taught composition, before conducting choirs and orchestras. In 1954, he made the first Swedish classical stereo recordings. Hugo Alfvén’s extensive musical archive is held at Uppsala University, where he was music director for twenty-nine years.

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Sidónio Pais, Portuguese soldier and politician, 4th President of Portugal (died 1918)

Sidónio Bernardino Cardoso da Silva Pais nicknamed "the President-King", was the president of Portugal, serving in 1918. A Portuguese politician, military officer, and diplomat he served as prime minister, minister of war and minister of foreign affairs from 1917 to 1918, minister of finance from 1911 to 1912, and minister of commerce and public works in 1911. His time in politics turned him into one of the most divisive figures in modern Portuguese history, having been referred to by writer Fernando Pessoa as the "President-King", a description that stuck in later years and symbolizes his regime. He is the only Portuguese president to have been assassinated, and the 3rd Portuguese head of state to die a violent death.

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01/05/1871

Seakle Greijdanus, Dutch theologian and scholar (died 1948)

Seakle Greijdanus was a Reformed theologian in the Netherlands, who first served in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and later in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (Liberated).

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Emiliano Chamorro Vargas, President of Nicaragua (died 1966)

Emiliano Chamorro Vargas was a Nicaraguan military figure and politician who served as President of Nicaragua from 1 January 1917 to 1 January 1921. He was a member of the Conservative Party.

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01/05/1864

Anna Jarvis, American founder of Mother's Day (died 1948)

Anna Maria Jarvis was the founder of Mother's Day in the United States. Her mother had frequently expressed a desire to establish such a holiday, and after her mother's death, Jarvis led the movement for the commemoration. However, as the years passed, Jarvis grew disenchanted with the growing commercialization of the observation and even attempted to have Mother's Day rescinded. By the early 1940s, she had become infirm, and was placed in a sanatorium by friends and associates where she died on November 24, 1948. A legend exists that a portion of her medical bills were paid for by florists.

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01/05/1862

Marcel Prévost, French novelist and playwright (died 1941)

Marcel Prévost was a French author and dramatist.

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01/05/1859

Jacqueline Comerre-Paton, French painter and sculptor (died 1955)

Jacqueline Comerre, née Paton was a French painter and sculptor, and the wife of the painter Léon-François Comerre (1850–1916).

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01/05/1857

Theo van Gogh, Dutch art dealer (died 1891)

Theodorus van Gogh was a Dutch art dealer and a younger brother of Vincent van Gogh. His support of his older brother's artistic ambitions and well-being allowed Vincent to devote himself entirely to painting. As an art dealer, Van Gogh played a crucial role in introducing contemporary French art to the public.

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01/05/1855

Cecilia Beaux, American painter and academic (died 1942)

Eliza Cecilia Beaux was an American artist and the first woman to teach art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Known for her elegant and sensitive portraits of friends, relatives, and Gilded Age patrons, Beaux painted many famous subjects including First Lady Edith Roosevelt, Admiral Sir David Beatty and Georges Clemenceau.

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01/05/1853

Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin, Ukrainian-American journalist, actor, and playwright (died 1909)

Jacob Michailovitch Gordin was a Russian-American playwright active in the early years of Yiddish theater. He is known for introducing realism and naturalism into Yiddish theater.

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01/05/1852

Calamity Jane, American frontierswoman and professional scout (died 1903)

Martha Jane Canary, better known as Calamity Jane, was an American frontierswoman, sharpshooter and storyteller. In addition to many exploits, she was known for being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok. Late in her life, she appeared in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition. She is said to have exhibited compassion to others, especially to the sick and needy. This facet of her character contrasted with her daredevil ways and helped to make her a celebrated frontier figure. She was also known for her habit of wearing men's attire.

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Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish neuroscientist and pathologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1934)

Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a Spanish neuroscientist, pathologist, and histologist specialising in neuroanatomy, and the central nervous system. He and Camillo Golgi received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906. Ramón y Cajal was the first Spaniard to win a scientific Nobel Prize. His original investigations of the microscopic structure of the brain made him a pioneer of modern neuroscience.

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01/05/1850

Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (died 1942)

Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, was the seventh child and third son of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He served as Governor General of Canada, the tenth since Canadian Confederation and the only British prince to do so.

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01/05/1848

Adelsteen Normann, Norwegian painter (died 1919)

Eilert Adelsteen Normann was a Norwegian painter who worked in Berlin. He was a noted painter of landscapes of Norway. Normann was the artist who invited Edvard Munch to Berlin, where he painted The Scream. Normann's fjord paintings are credited with making the Norwegian fjords a more popular tourist destination.

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01/05/1847

Henry Demarest Lloyd, American journalist and politician (died 1903)

Henry Demarest Lloyd was an American journalist and political activist who was a prominent muckraker during the Progressive Era. He is best known for his exposés of Standard Oil which were written before Ida Tarbell's series for McClure's on the same topic.

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01/05/1846

James C. Corrigan, Canadian-American businessman (died 1908)

James C. Corrigan was a Canadian-American businessman active in the shipping, petroleum refining, iron ore mining and selling, and steel manufacturing industries. He made and lost fortunes in the shipping and refining industries, and was known as "one of the group of men who made Cleveland".

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01/05/1831

Emily Stowe, Canadian physician and activist (died 1903)

Emily Howard Stowe was a Canadian physician who was the first female physician to practise in Canada, the second licensed female physician in Canada and an activist for women's rights and suffrage. Stowe helped found the women's suffrage movement in Canada and campaigned for the country's first medical college for women.

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01/05/1830

Guido Gezelle, Belgian priest and poet (died 1899)

Guido Pieter Theodorus Josephus Gezelle was an influential writer and poet and a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium. He is famous for the use of the West Flemish dialect, but he also wrote in other languages like Dutch, English, French, German, Latin and Greek.

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01/05/1829

José de Alencar, Brazilian author and playwright (died 1877)

José Martiniano de Alencar was a Brazilian lawyer, politician, orator, novelist and dramatist. He is considered to be one of the most famous and influential Brazilian Romantic novelists of the 19th century, and a major exponent of the literary tradition known as "Indianism". Sometimes he signed his works with the pen name Erasmo. He was patron of the 23rd chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

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Frederick Sandys, English painter and illustrator (died 1904)

Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys, 1 May 1829 – 25 June 1904, usually known as Frederick Sandys, was a British painter, illustrator, and draughtsman, associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. He was also associated with the Norwich School of painters.

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01/05/1827

Jules Breton, French painter (died 1906)

Jules Adolphe Aimé Louis Breton was a 19th-century French naturalist painter. His paintings are heavily influenced by the French countryside and his absorption of traditional methods of painting helped make him one of the primary transmitters of the beauty and idyllic vision of rural existence.

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01/05/1825

Johann Jakob Balmer, Swiss mathematician and physicist (died 1898)

Johann Jakob Balmer was a Swiss mathematician best known for his work in physics, the Balmer series of hydrogen atom.

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George Inness, American painter and educator (died 1894)

George Inness was an American landscape painter.

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01/05/1824

Alexander William Williamson, English chemist and academic (died 1904)

Alexander William Williamson FRS FRSE PCS MRIA was an English chemist. He is best known today for the Williamson ether synthesis.

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01/05/1821

Henry Ayers, English-Australian politician, 8th Premier of South Australia (died 1897)

Sir Henry Ayers was the eighth Premier of South Australia, serving a record five times between 1863 and 1873.

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01/05/1811

Andreas Laskaratos, Greek satirical poet and writer (died 1901)

Andreas Laskaratos was a satirical poet and writer from the Ionian island of Cefalonia, representative of the Heptanese school. He was excommunicated by the Greek Orthodox Church because his satire targeted many of the church's prominent members.

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01/05/1803

James Clarence Mangan, Irish poet and author (died 1849)

James Clarence Mangan, born James Mangan, was an Irish poet. He freely translated works from German, Turkish, Persian, Arabic, and Irish, with his translations of Goethe gaining special interest. Starting around 1840, and with increasing frequency after the Great Famine began, he wrote patriotic poems, such as A Vision of Connaught in the Thirteenth Century. Mangan was troubled, eccentric, and an alcoholic. He died early from cholera, amid the continuing dire conditions of the Famine. After his death, Mangan was hailed as Ireland's first national poet and admired by writers such as James Joyce and William Butler Yeats.

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01/05/1783

Phoebe Hinsdale Brown, American hymnwriter (died 1861)

Phoebe Hinsdale Brown was one of the first notable American woman hymnwriters. She was a frequent contributor to the periodical press. Brown was the first American woman to write a hymn of wide popularity, "I love to steal awhile away".

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01/05/1780

Tabitha Moffatt Brown, officially designated as the “Mother of Oregon” (died 1858)

Tabitha Moffatt Brown was an American pioneer colonist who traveled the Oregon Trail to the Oregon Country. There she assisted in the founding of Tualatin Academy, which would grow to become Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. Brown was honored in 1987 by the Oregon Legislature as the "Mother of Oregon."

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01/05/1769

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Irish-English field marshal and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1852)

Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington was a British Army officer and statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures in Britain during the early 19th century, twice serving as Prime Minister. He was one of the British commanders who ended the Anglo-Mysore wars by defeating Tipu Sultan in 1799, and among those who ended the Napoleonic Wars in a Coalition victory when the Seventh Coalition defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

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01/05/1764

Benjamin Henry Latrobe, English-American architect, designed the United States Capitol (died 1820)

Benjamin Henry Boneval Latrobe was a British-American neoclassical architect who immigrated to the United States. He was one of the first formally trained, professional architects arriving in the newly independent United States, drawing on influences from his travels in Italy, as well as British and French Neoclassical architects such as Claude Nicolas Ledoux. In his thirties, he immigrated to the new United States and designed the United States Capitol, on "Capitol Hill" in Washington, D.C., as well as the Old Baltimore Cathedral or The Baltimore Basilica,. It is the first Cathedral constructed in the United States for any Christian denomination. Latrobe also designed the largest structure in America at the time, the "Merchants' Exchange" in Baltimore. With extensive balconied atriums through the wings and a large central rotunda under a low dome which dominated the city, it was completed in 1820 after five years of work and endured into the early twentieth century.

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01/05/1751

Judith Sargent Murray, American poet and playwright (died 1820)

Judith Sargent Stevens Murray was an early American advocate for women's rights, an essay writer, playwright, poet, and letter writer. She was one of the first American proponents of the idea of the equality of the sexes so that women, like men, had the capability of intellectual accomplishment and should be able to achieve economic independence.

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01/05/1735

Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen, Dutch admiral and philanthropist (died 1819)

Lieutenant-Admiral Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen, Count of Doggerbank was a Dutch naval officer who served in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War and French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Having had a good scientific education, Van Kinsbergen was a proponent of fleet modernization and wrote several books about naval organization, discipline and tactics.

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01/05/1730

Joshua Rowley, English admiral (died 1790)

Vice-Admiral Sir Joshua Rowley, 1st Baronet was a Royal Navy officer who was the fourth son of Admiral Sir William Rowley. Sir Joshua was from an ancient English family, originating in Staffordshire (England) and was born on 1 May 1734. Rowley served with distinction in a number of battles throughout his career and was highly praised by his contemporaries. Unfortunately whilst his career was often active he did not have the opportunity to command any significant engagements and always followed rather than led. His achievements have therefore been eclipsed by his contemporaries such as Keppel, Hawke, Howe and Rodney. Rowley however remains one of the stalwart commanders of the wooden walls that kept Britain safe for so long.

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01/05/1672

Joseph Addison, English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician (died 1719)

Joseph Addison was a British writer and politician. He was the eldest son of Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend Richard Steele, with whom he founded The Spectator magazine. His simple prose style marked the end of the mannerisms and conventional classical images of the 17th century. Addison is also famous for his play Cato, a Tragedy, written in 1712.

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01/05/1602

William Lilly, English astrologer (died 1681)

William Lilly was a seventeenth century English astrologer. He is described as having been a genius at something "that modern mainstream opinion has since decided cannot be done at all" having developed his stature as the most important astrologer in England through his social and political connections as well as going on to have an indelible impact on the future course of Western astrological tradition.

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01/05/1594

John Haynes, English-American politician, 1st Governor of the Colony of Connecticut (died 1653)

John Haynes, also sometimes spelled Haines, was a colonial magistrate and one of the founders of the Connecticut Colony. He served one term as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was the first governor of Connecticut, ultimately serving eight separate terms. Although Colonial Connecticut prohibited Governors from serving consecutive terms at the time, "John Haynes was so popular with the colonists that he served alternately as governor and often as deputy governor from 1639 to his death in 1653."

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01/05/1591

Johann Adam Schall von Bell, German missionary and astronomer (died 1666)

Johann Adam Schall von Bell was a German Jesuit, astronomer and instrument-maker. He spent most of his life as a missionary in China and became an adviser to the Shunzhi Emperor of the Qing dynasty.

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01/05/1585

Sophia Olelkovich Radziwill, Belarusian saint (died 1612)

Zofia Radziwiłł, also Zofia of Słuck is a Polish-Lithuanian Orthodox Christian saint. She was the last descendant of the Olelkowicz–Słucki family – princes of Slutsk and Kopyl – who were descended from Lithuanian Grand Duke Algirdas. She was canonized by the Orthodox Church in 1983. The church of St. Sophia of Slutsk in Minsk is named in her honour.

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01/05/1582

Marco da Gagliano, Italian composer (died 1643)

Marco da Gagliano was an Italian composer of the early Baroque era. He was important in the early history of opera and the development of the solo and concerted madrigal.

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01/05/1579

Wolphert Gerretse, Dutch-American farmer, co-founded New Netherland (died 1662)

Wolfert Gerritse Van Couwenhoven, also known as Wolphert Gerretse van Kouwenhoven and Wolphert Gerretsen, was an original patentee, director of bouweries (farms), and founder of the New Netherland colony.

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01/05/1545

Franciscus Junius, French theologian (died 1602)

Franciscus Junius the Elder was a Reformed scholar, Protestant reformer and theologian. Born in Bourges in central France, he initially studied law, but later decided to study theology in Geneva under John Calvin and Theodore Beza. He became a minister in Antwerp, but was forced to flee to Heidelberg in 1567. He wrote a translation of the Bible into Latin with Emmanuel Tremellius, and his Treatise on True Theology was an often used text in Reformed scholasticism.

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01/05/1527

Johannes Stadius, German astronomer, astrologer, mathematician (died 1579)

Johannes Stadius or Estadius, was a Flemish astronomer, astrologer, and mathematician. He was one of the important late 16th-century makers of ephemerides, which gave the positions of astronomical objects in the sky at a given time or times.

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01/05/1488

Sidonie of Bavaria, eldest daughter of Duke Albrecht IV of Bavaria-Munich (died 1505)

Sidonie of Bavaria was a member of the House of Wittelsbach. She was the eldest daughter of Duke Albert IV of Bavaria-Munich and his wife Kunigunde of Austria. She died later as a bride of the Elector Palatine Louis V.

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01/05/1326

Rinchinbal Khan, Mongolian emperor (died 1332)

Rinchinbal, also known by his temple name as the Emperor Ningzong of Yuan, was a son of Kuśala who was briefly installed to the throne of the Yuan dynasty, but as a young boy he died within two months after being installed to the throne. Apart from Emperor of China, he is also considered the 14th Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, although it was only nominal due to the division of the empire.

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01/05/1285

Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel, English politician (died 1326)

Edmund Fitzalan, 2nd Earl of Arundel, was an English nobleman prominent in the conflict between King Edward II and his barons. His father, Richard Fitzalan, 1st Earl of Arundel, died in 1302, while Edmund was still a minor. He, therefore, became a ward of John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, and married Warenne's granddaughter, Alice. In 1306 he was styled Earl of Arundel, and served under Edward I in the Scottish Wars, for which he was richly rewarded.

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01/05/1218

John I, Count of Hainaut (died 1257)

John of Avesnes was the count of Hainaut from 1246 to his death.

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Rudolf I of Germany (died 1291)

Rudolf of Habsburg (1 May 1218 – 15 July 1291) was a German nobleman and the first member of the House of Habsburg to become King of the Romans, reigning from 1273 until his death. Born into a relatively minor noble family, Rudolf succeeded his father as Count of Habsburg in 1240, gradually expanding his power through military campaigns, political alliances, and the construction of key fortresses such as Neuhabsburg Castle. His marriage to Gertrude of Hohenberg further strengthened his position among the Swabian nobility. During the turbulent period of the Great Interregnum, Rudolf distinguished himself both as a formidable military leader—participating in regional conflicts and even joining the Prussian Crusade in 1254—and as a restorer of order, often intervening against robber barons and feuding nobles. Despite facing excommunication due to disputes with the Church, Rudolf ultimately reconciled with ecclesiastical authorities and built a reputation for fairness and pragmatism. In 1273, he was elected King of the Romans, ending decades of imperial vacancy and division. As king, Rudolf reasserted imperial authority in Germany, notably defeating King Ottokar II of Bohemia and securing Habsburg control over Austria, Styria, and Carinthia. His reign laid the foundations for the rise of the Habsburg dynasty, which would become one of the most influential royal houses in European history. Rudolf died in 1291, leaving a legacy of restored stability and dynastic ambition within the Holy Roman Empire.

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