Born on Friday, 23rd May – Famous Birthdays

23/05/2007

Rayane Messi, French footballer

Rayane Messi Tanfouri is a French footballer who plays as a left winger for Saudi Pro League club Neom, on loan from Strasbourg.

---

23/05/2005

Alexandra Eala, Filipino tennis player

Alexandra Maniego Eala is a Filipino professional tennis player. She has a career-high WTA singles ranking of world No. 29, achieved on March 16, 2026, making her the highest-ranked Filipino in WTA Tour history. Eala is the first Filipino to break into the top 30, have multiple wins over top-10 players and major champions, and reach a tour-level final in the Open Era.

---

23/05/2001

Brennan Johnson, Welsh footballer

Brennan Price Johnson is a professional footballer who plays as a winger or forward for Premier League club Crystal Palace and the Wales national team.

---

23/05/2000

Felipe Drugovich, Brazilian-Italian racing driver

Felipe Drugovich Roncato is a Brazilian racing driver who competes in Formula E for Andretti.

---

Israel Reyes, Mexican footballer

Israel Reyes Romero is a Mexican professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Liga MX club América and the Mexico national team.

---

23/05/1999

James Charles, American internet personality

James Charles Dickinson is an American YouTuber and makeup artist. While working as a local makeup artist in his hometown of Bethlehem, New York, Charles started a YouTube channel, where he began uploading makeup tutorials. In 2016, he became the first male brand ambassador for CoverGirl after a tweet featuring his makeup went viral online.

---

Trinidad Cardona, American singer and songwriter

Trinidad Cardona is an American singer, songwriter and social media personality. He first went viral for his song "Jennifer" released in 2017. His single, "Dinero", peaked at 46 on the Billboard Global 200 after becoming viral on TikTok. In 2022, he released the song "Love Me Back", which went viral on TikTok. His 2022 song, "Hayya Hayya ", was included on the 2022 FIFA World Cup Soundtrack.

---

Sandro Mamukelashvili, Georgian-American basketball player

Alexander "Sandro" Mamukelashvili is a Georgian-American professional basketball player for the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Seton Hall Pirates.

---

23/05/1998

Sérgio Sette Câmara, Brazilian racing driver

Sérgio Santos Sette Câmara Filho is a Brazilian racing driver who currently competes in the 2025 European Le Mans Series with Nielsen Racing. He previously competed in Formula E, having previously raced for Dragon / Penske and ERT Formula E Team. Sette Câmara was part of the Red Bull Junior Team from 2015 to 2017, then again in 2020. In that time, he signed with the McLaren Driver Development Programme in late 2018 to take part in the 2019 season as a development driver.

---

Salwa Eid Naser, Bahraini track and field sprinter

Salwa Eid Naser is a Nigerian-born Bahraini sprinter who specialises in the 400 meter race. She was the 2019 World champion, with the fifth-fastest time in history of 48.14 seconds, becoming the youngest-ever champion in the event and the first woman representing an Asian nation to win it at a World Championships. At the time, the time placed her only behind the contested results of Marita Koch and Jarmila Kratochvílová. At 19, Naser was the 2017 World 400 metre silver medallist. As a member of the Bahraini mixed-gender 4 × 400 m relay team, she also won the 2019 World Championships bronze medal.

---

Luca de la Torre, American soccer player

Lucas Daniel de la Torre is an American professional soccer player who plays as a midfielder for Major League Soccer side Charlotte FC and the United States national team.

---

23/05/1997

Pedro Chirivella, Spanish footballer

Pedro Chirivella Burgos is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a defensive midfielder for Greek Super League club Panathinaikos.

---

Coy Craft, American footballer

Coy Craft is an American former soccer player.

---

Joe Gomez, English footballer

Joseph Dave Gomez is an English professional footballer who plays as a defender for Premier League club Liverpool and the England national team.

---

Maximilian Kilman, English footballer

Maximilian William Kilman is an English professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Premier League club West Ham United.

---

Gustaf Nilsson, Swedish footballer

Håkan Gustaf Nilsson is a Swedish professional footballer who plays as a forward for Belgian Pro League club Club Brugge and the Sweden national team.

---

Sam Timmins, New Zealand basketball player

Samuel Alexander William Timmins is a New Zealand professional basketball player for Chun Lung of the Hong Kong A1 Division Championship. He is also contracted with the Southland Sharks of the New Zealand National Basketball League (NZNBL). He played college basketball for the Washington Huskies. In 2022, he helped the Otago Nuggets win the NZNBL championship.

---

23/05/1996

Katharina Althaus, German ski jumper

Katharina Schmid is a German ski jumper. She is a seven-time world champion, including one individual title and six team titles, as well as a two-time Olympic silver medalist, making her one of the most decorated athletes in the history of ski jumping.

---

Emmanuel Boateng, Ghanaian footballer

Emmanuel Okyere Boateng is a Ghanaian footballer who plays as a striker for Israeli Premier League club Hapoel Tel Aviv and the Ghana national football team.

---

Răzvan Marin, Romanian footballer

Răzvan Gabriel Marin is a Romanian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Super League Greece club AEK Athens and the Romania national team.

---

Çağlar Söyüncü, Turkish footballer

Çağlar Söyüncü is a Turkish professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Süper Lig club Fenerbahçe and the Turkey national team.

---

23/05/1992

Laerte do Vando, Brazilian politician

Laerte Leandro de Araújo Fernandes, better known as Laerte do Vando, is a Brazilian politician serving as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Bahia since 2019. He is the son of Vando.

---

23/05/1991

Aaron Donald, American football player

Aaron Charles Donald is an American former professional football defensive tackle who played 10 seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He spent his entire career playing for the St. Louis / Los Angeles Rams and is widely considered to be one of the greatest defensive players of all time.

---

Lena Meyer-Landrut, German singer-songwriter

Lena Johanna Therese Meyer-Landrut, also known by the mononym Lena, is a German singer. She rose to fame after representing Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 in Oslo, winning the event with the song "Satellite". Both "Satellite" and her debut album My Cassette Player (2010) debuted at number one in Germany and became platinum sellers. With her three entries from the German national final Unser Star für Oslo, Meyer-Landrut set an all-time chart record in her home country by debuting with three songs in the top five of the German Singles Chart. She represented Germany for the second consecutive time in the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 in Düsseldorf with the song "Taken by a Stranger", finishing in tenth place.

---

César Pinares, Chilean footballer

César Ignacio Pinares Tamayo is a Chilean footballer who plays for Primera División club Deportes Limache as a midfielder.

---

23/05/1990

Dan Evans, British tennis player

Daniel Evans is a British professional tennis player. He has been ranked as high as world No. 21 in singles by the ATP, which he achieved on 7 August 2023. He reached a career-high ranking of No. 52 in doubles on 26 April 2021. In 2015, he was part of the winning British Davis Cup team.

---

Kristína Kučová, Slovak tennis player

Kristína Kučová is a former Slovak tennis player. On 12 September 2016, she reached her best singles ranking of world No. 71. On 5 October 2009, she peaked at No. 168 in the WTA doubles rankings. She won one singles title on the WTA Challenger Tour with eleven singles titles and five doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit. She retired at the 2023 Jasmin Open in Monastir.

---

Oliver Venno, Estonian volleyball player

Oliver Venno is an Estonian volleyball player currently playing for Kuwait SC of the Kuwaiti Volleyball League. He mostly plays at the opposite hitter position but has also played at the outside hitter position on numerous occasions.

---

23/05/1989

Ezequiel Schelotto, Italian footballer

Ezequiel Matías Schelotto is an Argentine-Italian footballer who plays for FC Paradiso in the Swiss Promotion League. A versatile player on the right flank, he started his career as a winger and was later converted into a full-back.

---

23/05/1988

Rosanna Crawford, Canadian biathlete

Rosanna Crawford is a Canadian biathlete.

---

Angelo Ogbonna, Italian footballer

Obinze Angelo Ogbonna is an Italian professional footballer who plays as a centre-back. He is currently a free agent.

---

Morgan Pressel, American golfer

Morgan Pressel is an American professional golfer and golf commentator who played on the LPGA Tour. In 2001, as a 12-year-old, she became the youngest player to qualify for the U.S. Women's Open. She was the 2005 American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) Player of the Year, and won the 2006 AJGA Nancy Lopez Award. She turned pro at age 17, and is the youngest-ever winner of a modern LPGA major championship, when at age 18 she won the 2007 Kraft Nabisco Championship and vaulted to a career-high fourth in the world rankings. In early March 2021, she announced she had joined the Golf Channel and NBC Sports to be an analyst and on-course reporter in the 2021 season, while continuing to compete.

---

23/05/1987

Gracie Otto, Australian actress, director, producer, and screenwriter

Gracie Otto is an Australian film and television director.

---

Bray Wyatt, American wrestler (died 2023)

Windham Lawrence Rotunda, better known by his ring name Bray Wyatt, was an American professional wrestler. He was best known for his tenures in WWE from 2009 to 2021 and again from 2022 until his death in 2023.

---

23/05/1986

Ryan Coogler, American film director and screenwriter

Ryan Kyle Coogler is an American filmmaker. His accolades include an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Grammy Award, a Golden Globe Award, four Black Reel Awards, and ten NAACP Image Awards.

---

Alexei Sitnikov, Russian-Azerbaijani figure skater

Alexei Alexandrovich Sitnikov is a former competitive ice dancer. Competing for Azerbaijan with Julia Zlobina, he is the 2013 Golden Spin of Zagreb champion, 2013 Volvo Open Cup champion, 2012 Nebelhorn Trophy silver medalist, and 2013 Winter Universiade silver medalist. They competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics, finishing 12th, and have placed as high as sixth at the European Championships (2014).

---

Alice Tait, Australian swimmer

Alice Mary Tait, is an Australian former swimmer who represented Australia at the 2004 Athens Olympics and the 2008 Beijing Olympics winning two relay gold medals and a bronze.

---

Ruben Zadkovich, Australian footballer

Ruben Anton Zadkovich is an Australian football manager and former player and former head coach of Broadmeadow Magic, Hills United, Perth Glory and Brisbane Roar. He played for six clubs in a career that spanned between England and Australia. Zadkovich was also capped for Australia, representing the Socceroos on three occasions.

---

23/05/1985

Sebastián Fernández, Uruguayan footballer

Sebastián Bruno Fernández Miglierina is a Uruguayan professional footballer who plays as a forward for Danubio.

---

Teymuraz Gabashvili, Russian tennis player

Teymuraz Besikovich Gabashvili is a Russian-Georgian former professional tennis player. He has a career-high singles ranking of World No. 43 achieved on 1 February 2016. He has reached the fourth round of the 2010 and 2015 French Open.

---

Wim Stroetinga, Dutch cyclist

Willem Stroetinga is a Dutch former professional racing cyclist.

---

Ross Wallace, Scottish footballer

Ross Wallace is a Scottish former professional footballer who played as a winger. He played for Celtic, Sunderland, Preston North End, Burnley, Sheffield Wednesday, Fleetwood Town, and once played in a full international match for Scotland. After retiring from professional football, Wallace re–joined Burnley as an assistant coach of the youth team and following a stint as first-team coach at Fleetwood Town, he became the interim head coach of Burnley F.C. Women.

---

23/05/1984

Hugo Almeida, Portuguese footballer

Hugo Miguel Pereira de Almeida is a Portuguese former professional footballer who played as a centre-forward, currently a manager.

---

23/05/1983

Silvio Proto, Belgian-Italian footballer

Silvestro "Silvio" Proto is a Belgian former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper.

---

23/05/1981

Tim Robinson, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter

Tim Robinson is an American comedian, actor, and screenwriter. He first became known as a writer and performer on Saturday Night Live (2012–2016) before gaining wider recognition as the co-creator, co-writer, and star of the comedy series Detroiters (2017–2018), I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (2019–2023) and The Chair Company (2025). He also starred in the A24 comedy film Friendship (2024).

---

23/05/1980

Theofanis Gekas, Greek footballer

Theofanis Gekas is a Greek professional football official, coach and former player who played as a striker.

---

Chris Gethard, American actor, comedian and writer

Christopher Paul Gethard ( GETH-ərd; born May 23, 1980) is an American actor, comedian and writer. He was the host of The Chris Gethard Show, a talk show based in New York City, which aired from 2011 to 2018. He hosts the podcasts Beautiful Stories From Anonymous People and New Jersey is the World.

---

Ben Ross, Australian rugby league player

Benjamin David "Ben" Ross is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 2000s and 2010s. A Queensland State of Origin representative forward, he played in the National Rugby League for the St. George Illawarra Dragons, Penrith Panthers, with whom he won the 2003 NRL Premiership, the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks and the South Sydney Rabbitohs.

---

23/05/1979

Rasual Butler, American basketball player (died 2018)

Rasual Butler was an American professional basketball player. In his 14-year National Basketball Association (NBA) career, he played for the Miami Heat, New Orleans Hornets, Los Angeles Clippers, Chicago Bulls, Toronto Raptors, Indiana Pacers, Washington Wizards and San Antonio Spurs. Butler was born in Philadelphia, and raised in the Point Breeze area of South Philadelphia. After playing college basketball with the La Salle Explorers, he was drafted in the second round of the 2002 NBA draft by the Heat. On January 31, 2018, Butler was behind the wheel when he and his girlfriend, Leah LaBelle, died in a single vehicle car crash in Los Angeles.

---

Brian Campbell, Canadian ice hockey player

Brian Wesley Campbell is a Canadian former professional ice hockey defenceman. He played for the Buffalo Sabres, San Jose Sharks, Chicago Blackhawks and Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League (NHL). He won the Stanley Cup with the Blackhawks in 2010, assisting on the deciding goal.

---

23/05/1978

Scott Raynor, American drummer

Scott William Raynor Jr. is an American former musician best known as a founding member and the original drummer of the band Blink-182. Born in Poway, California, Raynor first approached the drums in his preteens; he joined Blink-182 at only 14 years old, and played with the band for six years. With Raynor, the group recorded their first demo, Buddha (1994), their debut album, Cheshire Cat (1995), as well as the gold-certified Dude Ranch (1997). Raynor was dismissed from the group in 1998, and was replaced by Travis Barker.

---

23/05/1977

Richard Ayoade, British actor, director and writer

Richard Ayoade is a British comedian, actor, writer, director, and presenter. He played the role of socially awkward IT technician Maurice Moss in Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd (2006–2013), for which he won the 2014 BAFTA for Best Male Comedy Performance.

---

Ilia Kulik, Russian figure skater

Ilya Alexandrovich Kulik is a Russian figure skater. He is the 1998 Olympic Champion, the 1995 European Champion, the 1997–1998 Grand Prix Final champion, and the 1995 World Junior champion.

---

23/05/1976

Ricardinho, Brazilian footballer and manager

Ricardo Luis Pozzi Rodrigues, better known as Ricardinho, is a Brazilian football manager and retired footballer.

---

Andy Selva, Sammarinese footballer and manager

Andy Selva is a Sammarinese former footballer who is currently the manager of Campionato Sammarinese club Cosmos. During his playing career he played as a forward and captained the San Marino national team, finishing his career as their record goal scorer.

---

23/05/1974

Jewel, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actress, and poet

Jewel Kilcher is an American singer-songwriter. She has been nominated for four Grammy Awards and has sold over 30 million albums worldwide as of 2024.

---

Manuela Schwesig, German politician, German Federal Minister of Family Affairs

Manuela Schwesig is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party serving as Minister President of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern since 4 July 2017, becoming the first woman to serve in that post. Previously she served as Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth in the third cabinet of Angela Merkel from 2013 to 2017. She was President of the Bundesrat from 1 November 2023 to 31 October 2024.

---

23/05/1973

Maxwell, American singer-songwriter and producer

Gerald Maxwell Rivera, known mononymously as Maxwell, is an American singer-songwriter and record producer. He rose to prominence following the release of his debut studio album Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite (1996), which received widespread acclaim and spawned the hit singles "Ascension " and "Sumthin' Sumthin'". Through the album and its follow ups, Maxwell has been credited—alongside Lauryn Hill, D'Angelo, and Erykah Badu—with popularizing neo soul for mainstream audiences in the late 1990s.

---

23/05/1972

Rubens Barrichello, Brazilian race car driver

Rubens Gonçalves Barrichello is a Brazilian racing driver and broadcaster, who competes in the Stock Car Pro Series for Full Time Sports. Nicknamed "Rubinho", Barrichello competed in Formula One from 1993 to 2011, and twice finished runner-up in the World Drivers' Championship in 2002 and 2004 with Ferrari; he won eleven Grands Prix across nineteen seasons. In stock car racing, Barrichello is a two-time champion of the Stock Car Pro Series in 2014 and 2022 with Full Time Sports.

---

Poppy King, Australian entrepreneur

Poppy Cybele King is an Australian entrepreneur. She is best known for her company Poppy Industries and the range of cosmetics available at Poppy Stores in Australia, during the 1990s.

---

Martin Saggers, English cricketer and umpire

Martin John Saggers is an English county cricket umpire and a retired English cricketer. He played international cricket for the England cricket team, including appearing in three Test matches and spent the majority of his first-class cricket career at Kent County Cricket Club. Saggers was born in King's Lynn in Norfolk.

---

23/05/1971

George Osborne, English journalist and politician, former Chancellor of the Exchequer

George Gideon Oliver Osborne is a British retired politician and newspaper editor who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016 and First Secretary of State from 2015 to 2016 in the Cameron government. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tatton from 2001 to 2017.

---

23/05/1970

Bryan Herta, American race car driver and businessman, co-founded Bryan Herta Autosport

Bryan John Herta is an American race strategist and former race car driver. He currently runs his own team, Bryan Herta Autosport in the NTT IndyCar Series and is the strategist for the #27 Andretti Autosport in the same series. His team won the 2011 Indianapolis 500 with driver Dan Wheldon and the 2016 Indianapolis 500 with driver Alexander Rossi. He is the father and former strategist of IndyCar driver and his son Colton Herta.

---

23/05/1968

Guinevere Turner, American actress and screenwriter

Guinevere Jane Turner is an American actress, screenwriter, and film director. She wrote the films American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page and played the lead role of the dominatrix Tanya Cheex in Preaching to the Perverted. She was a story editor and played recurring character Gabby Deveaux on Showtime's The L Word.

---

23/05/1967

Luís Roberto Alves, Mexican footballer

Luis Roberto Alves dos Santos Gavranić is a Mexican former professional footballer who played as a forward. He is best known as Zague, in honor to his father.

---

Anna Ibrisagic, Swedish politician

Anna Ibrisagic is a Swedish politician for the Moderate Party.

---

Philip Selway, English musician

Philip James Selway is an English musician and the drummer of the rock band Radiohead. He combines rock drumming with electronic percussion. Selway was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Radiohead in 2019.

---

23/05/1966

H. Jon Benjamin, American actor, comedian, writer, and producer

Harry Jon Benjamin is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician. He is known for his voice roles in adult animated series, including Sterling Archer in Archer, Bob Belcher in Bob's Burgers, Ben in Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, Kevin in O'Grady, Carl Graves in Family Guy, Satan in Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil, and Coach McGuirk and Jason Penopolis in Home Movies, starring as the voice of Boy in the film Boy Kills World (2023) and its spin-off video game Super Dragon Punch Force 3 (2024). Benjamin was named 2014's male comedy performer of the year at Vulture's TV Awards for his work in Bob's Burgers and Archer. He also appeared in the 2001 satirical comedy film Wet Hot American Summer; its subsequent 2015 television series, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp; and the final installment of the franchise, the 2017 miniseries Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later.

---

Graeme Hick, Zimbabwean-English cricketer and coach

Graeme Ashley Hick is a Zimbabwean-born former England cricketer who played 65 Test matches and 120 One Day Internationals for England. He was born in Rhodesia, and as a young man played international cricket for Zimbabwe. He played English county cricket for Worcestershire for his entire English domestic career, a period of well over twenty years, and in 2008 surpassed Graham Gooch's record for the most matches in all forms of the game combined. He was a part of the English squad which finished as runners-up at the 1992 Cricket World Cup.

---

Gary Roberts, Canadian ice hockey player and coach

Gary R. Roberts is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player who played 21 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Calgary Flames, Carolina Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs, Florida Panthers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Tampa Bay Lightning. Renowned for his physical fitness during his career, Roberts has become a high performance trainer for players at all levels of the sport.

---

23/05/1965

Manuel Sanchís Hontiyuelo, Spanish footballer

Manuel Sanchís Hontiyuelo is a Spanish former professional footballer who played as a sweeper.

---

Tom Tykwer, German director, producer, screenwriter, and composer

Tom Tykwer is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, and composer. He is best known internationally for directing the thriller films Run Lola Run (1998), Heaven (2002), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), and The International (2009). He collaborated with The Wachowskis as co-director for the science fiction film Cloud Atlas (2012) and the Netflix series Sense8 (2015–2018), and worked on the score for Lana Wachowski's The Matrix Resurrections (2021). Tykwer is also well known as the co-creator of the internationally acclaimed German television series Babylon Berlin (2017–).

---

Melissa McBride, American actress

Melissa Suzanne McBride is an American actress. She made her acting debut in 1993, and went onto appear in Walker, Texas Ranger (1997) and Dawson's Creek (1998). In 2007, she also starred in the film The Mist (2007). Her breakout role was Carol Peletier on the AMC series The Walking Dead (2010–2022), and later the series' spinoff The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (2023–present). She has garnered critical acclaim and received multiple awards and nominations for her role on the show. Originally cast in a minor role, McBride's role expanded over time to a main cast member and, from 2020, she was the second billed cast member in the opening credits of the show, and one of only two cast members to appear in every season.

---

Paul Sironen, Australian rugby league player

Paul Sironen is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer of Finnish descent who was a prominent Second-row forward for the Balmain Tigers during the late 1980s, and early 1990s. He was part of the team that played in successive Grand Finals in 1988 and 1989, and included other representative players Steve "Blocker" Roach, Wayne Pearce, Benny Elias and Garry Jack. He made a number of appearances for both New South Wales in State of Origin, and also for Australia, and has been named as part of the Wests Tigers Team of the Century.

---

23/05/1964

Ruth Metzler, Swiss lawyer and politician

Ruth Metzler is a Swiss politician who served as a Member of the Swiss Federal Council from 1999 to 2003. A member of the Christian Democratic People's Party (CVP/PDC), she headed the Federal Department of Justice and Police.

---

23/05/1963

Viviane Baladi, Swiss mathematician

Viviane Baladi is a mathematician who works as a director of research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in France. Originally Swiss, she has become a naturalized citizen of France. Her research concerns dynamical systems.

---

23/05/1962

Karen Duffy, American actress

Karen "Duff" Duffy is an American writer, model, television personality, and actress. She is a certified hospital chaplain, a former Coney Island Mermaid Queen, and one of People Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful Women" in 1993. In 1995, Duffy was diagnosed with a rare form of the disease sarcoidosis called neurosarcoidosis. Since then, she has written two books about her experience living with chronic pain and is a member of the Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Pain Patients.

---

23/05/1961

Daniele Massaro, Italian footballer and manager

Daniele Emilio Massaro is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a forward.

---

Norrie May-Welby, Scottish Australian gender activist

Norrie, also known by the pseudonym Norrie May-Welby, is a Scottish-Australian transgender person who pursued the legal status of being neither a man nor a woman, between 2010 and 2014. The High Court of Australia ruled in April 2014 that it was in the power of the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages to record in the register that the sex of Norrie was "non-specific".

---

23/05/1960

Linden Ashby, American actor

Clarence Linden Garnett Ashby III is an American actor. On television, he portrayed Brett Cooper on the final two seasons of the Fox soap opera Melrose Place (1997–1999) and Sheriff Noah Stilinski on all six seasons of the MTV supernatural drama Teen Wolf (2011–2017). He is also known for portraying Johnny Cage in the 1995 film Mortal Kombat, an adaptation of the video game franchise of the same name.

---

23/05/1959

Marcella Mesker, Dutch tennis player and sportscaster

Marcella Mesker is a former professional tennis player from the Netherlands.

---

23/05/1958

Mitch Albom, American journalist, author, and screenwriter

Mitchell David Albom is an American author, sports journalist, talk show host and philanthropist. As of 2021, his books are reported to have sold 40 million copies worldwide. Having achieved national recognition as a sports journalist early on in his writing career, Albom turned to writing inspirational stories and themes—a preeminent early one being Tuesdays with Morrie.

---

Drew Carey, American actor, game show host, and entrepreneur

Drew Allison Carey is an American comedian, game show host, and actor. After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps and making a name for himself in stand-up comedy, Carey gained stardom in his own sitcom, The Drew Carey Show, and as host of the American version of the improv comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, both of which aired on ABC. He then appeared in several films, television series, music videos, a made-for-television film, and a computer game. Since 2007, Carey has hosted the game show The Price Is Right on CBS.

---

Lea DeLaria, American actress and singer

Lea DeLaria is an American comedian, actress, and jazz singer. She portrayed Carrie "Big Boo" Black on the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019) and Psychic Madame Delphina on the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live from 1999 to 2011. She also starred in the Broadway productions POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive in 2022 and the 2000 revival of The Rocky Horror Show. She was the first openly gay comic to appear on American television in a 1993 appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show.

---

23/05/1956

Andrea Pazienza, Italian illustrator and painter (died 1988)

Andrea Pazienza was an Italian comics artist and painter.

---

Ursula Plassnik, Austrian politician and diplomat, Foreign Minister of Austria

Ursula Plassnik is an Austrian diplomat and politician. She was Foreign Minister of Austria between October 2004 and December 2008. She has served as the Austrian ambassador to Switzerland from 2016 to 2021.

---

Buck Showalter, American baseball player, coach, and manager

---

23/05/1955

Luka Bloom, Irish singer-songwriter and guitarist

Luka Bloom is an Irish folk singer-songwriter. He is the younger brother of folk singer Christy Moore.

---

23/05/1954

Gerry Armstrong, Northern Irish international footballer

Gerard Joseph Armstrong is a Northern Irish former footballer who played for Tottenham Hotspur.

---

Marvelous Marvin Hagler, American boxer and actor (died 2021)

Marvelous Marvin Hagler was an American professional boxer who competed from 1973 to 1987. He reigned as the undisputed champion of the middleweight division from 1980 to 1987, making twelve successful title defenses, all but one by knockout. Hagler also holds the highest knockout percentage of all undisputed middleweight champions at 78 percent. His undisputed middleweight championship reign of six years and seven months is the second-longest active reign of the 20th century. He holds the record for the sixth longest reign as champion in middleweight history. Nicknamed "The Marv" and annoyed that network announcers often did not refer to him as "Marvelous", Hagler legally changed his name to "Marvelous Marvin Hagler" in 1982.

---

23/05/1952

Martin Parr, English photographer and journalist

Martin Parr was an English documentary photographer and photojournalist. He was known for his photographic projects that take an intimate, satirical and anthropological look at aspects of modern life, in particular documenting the social classes of England, and more broadly the wealth of the Western world.

---

23/05/1951

Anatoly Karpov, Russian chess player

Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov is a Russian and former Soviet chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, ⁣and politician. He was the 12th World Chess Champion from 1975 to 1985, a three-time FIDE World Champion, twice World Chess champion as a member of the USSR team, a six-time winner of Chess Olympiads as a member of the USSR team, and the 1st World Rapid Chess Champion (1988). The International Association of Chess Press awarded him nine Chess Oscars.

---

Antonis Samaras, Greek economist and politician, 185th Prime Minister of Greece

Antonis Samaras is a Greek politician who served as Prime Minister of Greece from 2012 to 2015. A member of the New Democracy party, he was its president from 2009 until 2015. He also founded the Political Spring party, which he led as president from 1993 to 2004, when he returned to New Democracy. He has been Member of the Greek Parliament (MP) for Messenia since 2007, having previously served at the same role from 1977 to 1996. He was also a Member of the European Parliament for Greece from 2004 to 2007. Samaras started his national political career as Minister of Finance in 1989; he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1989 to 1992 and Minister of Culture in 2009. Samaras was expelled from the ruling conservative party in November 2024.

---

23/05/1950

Martin McGuinness, Irish republican and Sinn Féin politician, Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland (died 2017)

James Martin Pacelli McGuinness was an Irish republican politician and statesman for Sinn Féin and a leader within the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) during The Troubles. He was the deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from May 2007 to January 2017.

---

Richard Chase, American serial killer (died 1980)

Richard Trenton Chase was an American serial killer, cannibal and necrophile known as the Vampire of Sacramento, the Dracula Killer and the Vampire Killer, who killed six people between December 1977 and January 1978 in Sacramento, California.

---

23/05/1949

Daniel DiNardo, American cardinal

Daniel Nicholas DiNardo is an American Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Galveston-Houston from 2006 to 2025. He previously served as Coadjutor and later Bishop of Sioux City from 1997 to 2004.

---

Alan García, Peruvian lawyer and politician, twice President of Peru (died 2019)

Alan Gabriel Ludwig García Pérez was a Peruvian politician who served as President of Peru for two non-consecutive terms, from 1985 to 1990 and from 2006 to 2011. He was the second leader of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), and its only member to serve as president. Mentored by the APRA's founder, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, he served in the Constituent Assembly of 1978–1979. Elected to the Peruvian Congress in 1980, he rose to the position of General Secretary of the APRA in 1982, and was elected to the presidency in 1985 in a landslide.

---

23/05/1948

Myriam Boyer, French actress, director, and producer

Myriam Boyer is a French actress. She appeared in more than eighty films and television shows since 1970. At the age of 18, she married Roger Cornillac with whom she had a son, Clovis Cornillac. From 1975 until his death in 1999 she was married to John Berry with whom she had one son, Arny Berry.

---

23/05/1947

Jane Kenyon, American poet and translator (died 1995)

Jane Kenyon was an American poet and translator. Her work is often characterized as simple, spare, and emotionally resonant. Kenyon was the second wife of poet, editor, and critic Donald Hall who made her the subject of many of his poems.

---

23/05/1946

David Graham, Australian golfer

Anthony David Graham, AM is an Australian golfer. Graham turned pro as a teenager and had much success on the Australasian circuits in his youth, winning several tournaments. In 1972, he joined the PGA Tour where he continued with good play, winning several tournaments. This culminated with major tournament wins at the 1979 PGA Championship and 1981 U.S. Open. As a senior, Graham won five times on the Senior PGA Tour.

---

23/05/1945

Padmarajan, Indian director, screenwriter, and author (died 1991)

Padmarajan Padmanabhan Pillai, better known as P. Padmarajan was an Indian film maker, screenwriter and author who was known for his works in Malayalam literature and Malayalam cinema. Considered as one of the greatest directors and screenwriters of all time, he founded a new school of film making in Malayalam cinema, along with Bharathan and K. G. George, in the 1980s.

---

23/05/1944

John Newcombe, Australian tennis player and sportscaster

John David Newcombe AO OBE is an Australian former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the world No. 1 in both men's singles and men's doubles. Newcombe won a combined 26 major titles: seven in singles, a former record 17 in men's doubles, and two in mixed doubles. He also contributed to five Davis Cup titles for Australia during an age when the Davis Cup was deemed as significant as the majors.

---

23/05/1943

Peter Kenilorea, Solomon Islands politician, 1st Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands (died 2016)

Sir Peter Kenilorea was a Solomon Islander politician, officially styled The Rt Hon. Sir Peter Kenilorea as a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. He was the first prime minister of an independent Solomon Islands, from 1978 to 1981, and also served a second term from 1984 to 1986.

---

23/05/1942

Gabriel Liiceanu, Romanian philosopher, author, and academic

Gabriel Liiceanu is a Romanian philosopher.

---

Kovelamudi Raghavendra Rao, Indian director, screenwriter, and choreographer

Kovelamudi Raghavendra Rao is an Indian film director, screenwriter, choreographer, and producer known primarily for his work in Telugu cinema, besides a few Hindi film and Kannada films. Over a career spanning more than four decades, he has directed over a hundred films across various genres, including romantic dramas, romantic comedies, fantasies, melodramas, action thrillers, and biographical dramas. He has received numerous accolades, including the National Film Award, ten state Nandi Awards and ten Filmfare Awards South.

---

23/05/1941

Zalman King, American director, producer, and screenwriter (died 2012)

Zalman King was an American film director, writer, actor and producer. His films are known for incorporating sexuality, and are often categorized as erotica.

---

Rod Thorn, American basketball player, coach, and executive

Rodney King Thorn is an American basketball executive and a former professional player, coach and Olympic Committee Chairman with a career spanning over 50 years. In 2018, Thorn was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

---

23/05/1940

Bjørn Johansen (musician), Norwegian saxophonist (died 2002)

Bjørn John Johansen was a Norwegian jazz musician, known from a number of recordings and international cooperation. He has been one of the most influential Norwegian saxophonists of all time and has been the inspiration for a generations of musicians, among them Jan Garbarek.

---

Gérard Larrousse, French race car driver

Gérard Gilles Marie Armand Larrousse is a former sports car racing, rallying and Formula One driver from France. His greatest success as a driver was winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1973 and 1974, driving a Matra-Simca MS670. After the end of his career as racing car driver, he continued to be involved in Formula One as a team manager for Renault. He later founded and ran his own Formula One team, Larrousse, from 1987 to 1994.

---

Cora Sadosky, Argentinian mathematician and academic (died 2010)

Cora Susana Sadosky de Goldstein was an Argentine mathematician and Professor of Mathematics at Howard University.

---

23/05/1939

Michel Colombier, French-American composer and conductor (died 2004)

Michel Colombier was a French composer, arranger, and conductor.

---

Reinhard Hauff, German director and screenwriter

Reinhard Hauff is a German film director. His works, which were mostly carried out in the late 1960s to early 1990s, are known for their social and political commentary. Stammheim, which is based on the activities of the Red Army Faction won the Golden Bear award at the 36th Berlin International Film Festival in 1986. In 1987, he was a member of the jury at the 37th Berlin International Film Festival. His 1970 film Mathias Kneissl was entered into the 7th Moscow International Film Festival.

---

23/05/1936

Ingeborg Hallstein, German soprano and actress

Ingeborg Hallstein is a German coloratura soprano, known for the purity and range of her voice. She had an international career as a guest singer on the opera houses of Europe and was a member of the Bavarian State Opera from 1961 to 1973. Her signature roles were the Queen of the Night in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte and Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss. She created roles including Scolatella in Henze's König Hirsch.

---

Charles Kimbrough, American actor (died 2023)

Charles Mayberry Kimbrough was an American actor. He was best known for his role as the straight-faced anchorman Jim Dial on Murphy Brown. In 1990, his performance in the role earned him a nomination for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.

---

23/05/1935

Lasse Strömstedt, Swedish author (died 2009)

Folke Lars-Olov Strömstedt, better known as Lasse Strömstedt, was a Swedish writer who wrote of and about his own life in prison and drug abuse. Strömstedt was born in Gävle in 1935. He was a casual laborer whose working life was frequently disrupted by imprisonment. After 1971 he changed his life and became a writer, debater and actor. In 1974, Strömsted published his first novel, Grundbulten, written together with reporter Christer Dahl under the pseudonym Kennet Ahl. Strömstedt was married to Swedish singer and writer Ann-Christine Bärnsten. He died aged 74 of natural causes in Gränna on 4 July 2009.

---

23/05/1934

Robert Moog, electronic engineer and inventor of the Moog synthesizer (died 2005)

Robert Arthur Moog was an American engineer and electronic music pioneer. He was the founder of the synthesizer manufacturer Moog Music and the inventor of the first commercial synthesizer, the Moog synthesizer, which debuted in 1964. In 1970, Moog released a more portable model, the Minimoog, described as the most famous and influential synthesizer in history. Among Moog's honors are a Technical Grammy Award, received in 2002, and an induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

---

23/05/1933

Joan Collins, English actress

Dame Joan Henrietta Collins is an English actress, author and columnist. She is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a People's Choice Award, two Soap Opera Digest Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. In 1983, Collins was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She has been recognised for her philanthropy, particularly her advocacy towards causes relating to children, which has earned her many honours. In 2015, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for her charitable services, presented to her by the Prince of Wales.

---

Ove Fundin, Swedish motorcycle racer

Ove Fundin is a Swedish former professional motorcycle speedway rider. He competed in the Speedway World Championships from 1951 to 1970. Fundin is notable for winning the Speedway World Championship Final five times, a record bettered only by New Zealand's Ivan Mauger and fellow Swede Tony Rickardsson who each won six World Championships. He finished runner-up in the championship 3 times (1957–59) and was third in 1962, 1964 and 1965, meaning that from his first win in 1956 until his last in 1967, Fundin did not finish lower than a podium place in a record eleven World Finals. He was known by the nickname the "Flying Fox" or just "the Fox" because of his red hair. He earned 99 caps for the Sweden national speedway team.

---

23/05/1932

Kevork Ajemian, Syrian-French journalist and author (died 1998)

Kevork Vartani Ajemian (Adjemian) was a prominent Syrian-Armenian writer, journalist, novelist, theorist and public activist, and long-time publisher of the Beirut-based literary, artistic and general publication Spurk. Ajemian was a co-founder of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) military organization.

---

23/05/1931

Barbara Barrie, American actress

Barbara Barrie is an American actress and author.

---

23/05/1930

Friedrich Achleitner, German poet and critic (died 2019)

Friedrich Achleitner was an Austrian poet and architecture critic. As a member of the Wiener Gruppe, he wrote concrete poems and experimental literature. His magnum opus is a multi-volume documentation of 20th-century Austrian architecture. Written over several decades, Achleitner made a personal visit to each building described. He was a professor of the history and theory of architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

---

23/05/1929

Ulla Jacobsson, Swedish-Austrian actress (died 1982)

Ulla Jacobsson was a Swedish actress. She had the lead role in One Summer of Happiness (1951) and played the only female speaking role in the film Zulu (1964).

---

23/05/1928

Rosemary Clooney, American singer and actress (died 2002)

Rosemary Clooney was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the song "Come On-a My House", which was followed by other pop numbers such as "Botch-a-Me", "Mambo Italiano", "Tenderly", "Half as Much", "Hey There", "This Ole House", and "Sway". She also had success as a jazz vocalist.

---

Nigel Davenport, English actor (died 2013)

Arthur Nigel Davenport was an English stage, television and film actor, best known for his film roles as the Duke of Norfolk in A Man for All Seasons, and Lord Birkenhead in Chariots of Fire.

---

Nina Otkalenko, Russian runner (died 2015)

Nina Grigoryevna Otkalenko, née Pletnyova, was a Soviet middle-distance runner. She won a European title in the 800 m at the inaugural 1954 European Athletics Championships and set multiple world records in this event in 1951–54. She missed the 1952 and 1956 Olympics, where women's middle-distance events were not part of the program, and the 1960 Olympics due to an injury.

---

23/05/1926

Basil Salvadore D'Souza, Indian bishop (died 1996)

Basil Salvadore D'Souza was the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mangalore from 22 March 1965 until his death on 5 September 1996. He was the longest-serving bishop in the diocese's history.

---

Joe Slovo, Lithuanian-South African activist and politician (died 1995)

Yossel Mashel "Joe" Slovo was a South African politician and anti-apartheid activist. A Marxist-Leninist, he was a long-time leader and theorist in the South African Communist Party (SACP), a leading member of the African National Congress (ANC), and a commander of the ANC's military wing uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK).

---

Aileen Hernandez, American union organizer and civil rights activist (died 2017)

Aileen Hernandez was an African-American union organizer, civil rights activist, and women's rights activist. She served as the president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) between 1970 and 1971, and was the first woman to serve on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

---

23/05/1925

Joshua Lederberg, American biologist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2008)

Joshua Lederberg was an American molecular biologist known for his work in microbial genetics, artificial intelligence, and the United States space program. He was 33 years old when he won the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering that bacteria can mate and exchange genes work that was conducted alongside his wife Esther who was uncredited for her contributions. He shared the prize with Edward Tatum and George Beadle, who won for their work with genetics.

---

23/05/1924

Karlheinz Deschner, German author and activist (died 2014)

Karl Heinrich Leopold Deschner was a German researcher and writer who achieved public attention in Europe for his trenchant and fiercely critical treatment of Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular, as expressed in several articles and books, culminating in his 10 volume Christianity's Criminal History.

---

23/05/1923

Alicia de Larrocha, Catalan-Spanish pianist (died 2009)

Alicia de Larrocha y de la Calle was a Spanish pianist and composer. She was considered one of the great piano legends of the 20th century. Reuters called her "the greatest Spanish pianist in history", Time "one of the world's most outstanding pianists", and The Guardian "the leading Spanish pianist of her time".

---

Irving Millman, American virologist and microbiologist (died 2012)

Irving Millman was a noted virologist and microbiologist. He was a member of the U.S. Army's Eighth Armored Division during the Second World War, earning a Bronze Star. In 1948, Millman earned a bachelor's degree from the City College of New York. He did his graduate work at the University of Kentucky and Northwestern University's School of Medicine.

---

23/05/1921

Humphrey Lyttelton, British jazz musician and broadcaster (died 2008)

Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton, also known as Humph, was an English jazz musician and broadcaster from the Lyttelton family.

---

23/05/1920

Helen O'Connell, American singer (died 1993)

Helen O'Connell was an American singer, actress, and hostess, described as "the quintessential big band singer of the 1940s".

---

23/05/1919

Robert Bernstein, American author and playwright (died 1988)

Robert Bernstein, sometimes credited as R. Berns, was an American comic book writer, playwright and concert impresario, notable as the founder of the Island Concert Hall recital series which ran for 15 years on Long Island.

---

Ruth Fernández, Puerto Rican contralto and a member of the Puerto Rican Senate (died 2012)

Ruth Fernández was a Puerto Rican contralto and a member of the Puerto Rican Senate. According to the "Comisiones Nacionales para la Celebración del Quinto Centenario" (National Commission for the Celebration of the Fifth Centennial), she is said to be one of three artists whose contributions have helped unite Latin America. The other two artists named were Libertad Lamarque from Argentina and Pedro Vargas from Mexico.

---

Betty Garrett, American actress, singer, and dancer (died 2011)

Betty Garrett was an American actress, comedian, singer and dancer. She originally performed on Broadway, and was then signed to a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She appeared in several musical films, then returned to Broadway and made guest appearances on several television series.

---

23/05/1918

Denis Compton, English cricketer and sportscaster (died 1997)

Denis Charles Scott Compton was an English multi-sportsman. As a cricketer he played in 78 Test matches and spent his whole career with Middlesex. As a footballer, he played as a winger and spent most of his career at Arsenal, where he would win both the top flight and F.A. Cup.

---

23/05/1917

Edward Norton Lorenz, American mathematician and meteorologist (died 2008)

Edward Norton Lorenz was an American mathematician and meteorologist who established the theoretical basis of weather and climate predictability, as well as the basis for computer-aided atmospheric physics and meteorology. He founded modern chaos theory, a branch of mathematics focusing on the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions.

---

23/05/1915

S. Donald Stookey, American physicist and chemist, invented CorningWare (died 2014)

Stanley Donald Stookey was an American inventor. He had 60 patents in his name related to glass and ceramics. His discoveries and inventions have contributed to the development of ceramics, eyeglasses, sunglasses, cookware, defense systems, and electronics.

---

23/05/1914

Harold Hitchcock, English visionary landscape artist (died 2009)

Harold Hitchcock, born Raymond Hitchcock, was an English visionary landscape artist.

---

Celestine Sibley, American journalist and author (died 1999)

Celestine Sibley was an American newspaper reporter, syndicated columnist, and novelist in Atlanta, Georgia, for nearly sixty years.

---

Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth, English economist, journalist, and prominent Catholic layperson (died 1981)

Barbara Mary Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth, was a British economist and writer interested in the problems of developing countries. She urged Western governments to share their prosperity with the rest of the world and in the 1960s turned her attention to environmental questions as well. She was an early advocate of sustainable development before this term became familiar and was well known as a journalist, lecturer and broadcaster. Ward was adviser to policymakers in the UK, United States and elsewhere. She was the founder of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

---

23/05/1912

Jean Françaix, French pianist and composer (died 1997)

Jean René Désiré Françaix was a French neoclassical composer, pianist, and orchestrator known for his prolific output and vibrant style. Françaix composed for various genres, and is particularly known for his chamber works for piano as well as winds.

---

John Payne, American actor (died 1989)

John Howard Payne was an American film actor who is mainly remembered from film noir crime stories and 20th Century Fox musical films, and for his leading roles in Miracle on 34th Street and the NBC Western television series The Restless Gun.

---

23/05/1911

Lou Brouillard, Canadian boxer (died 1984)

Lucien Pierre Brouillard, better known as Lou Brouillard,, was a Canadian professional boxer who held the Undisputed World Welterweight and Undisputed World Middleweight Titles. Statistical boxing website BoxRec ranks Brouillard as the 14th best middleweight of all-time and the 3rd best Canadian boxer ever. During his career he faced the likes of Mickey Walker, Young Corbett III, Jimmy McLarnin, Marcel Thil, and Fred Apostoli. Brouillard was inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 2000 and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2006.

---

Paul Augustin Mayer, German cardinal (died 2010)

Paul Augustin Mayer, OSB was a German Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He held various positions in the Roman Curia from 1971 to 1991.

---

Betty Nuthall, English tennis player (died 1983)

Betty May Nuthall Shoemaker was an English tennis player. Known for her powerful forehand, according to Wallis Myers of The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, Nuthall was ranked in the world's top 10 in 1927, 1929 through 1931, and 1933, reaching a career high of world no. 4 in 1929. In 1930, Nuthall won the women's singles title at the U.S. Championships.

---

23/05/1910

Margaret Wise Brown, American author and educator (died 1952)

Margaret Wise Brown was an American writer of children's books, including Goodnight Moon (1947) and The Runaway Bunny (1942), both illustrated by Clement Hurd. She has been called "the laureate of the nursery" for her achievements. Besides her real name, she also used the noms-de-plume Golden MacDonald for Doubleday and Company, Timothy Hay for Harper & Brothers and Juniper Sage for William R. Scott, Inc.

---

Hugh Casson, English architect and academic (died 1999)

Sir Hugh Maxwell Casson was a British architect, also active as an interior designer, an artist, and a writer and broadcaster on twentieth-century design. He was the director of architecture for the 1951 Festival of Britain. From 1976 to 1984, he was president of the Royal Academy.

---

Scatman Crothers, American actor and comedian (died 1986)

Benjamin Sherman "Scatman" Crothers was an American actor and musician. He is known for playing Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show Chico and the Man, and Dick Hallorann in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). He was also a prolific voice actor who provided the voices of Meadowlark Lemon in the Harlem Globetrotters animated TV series, Jazz the Autobot in The Transformers and The Transformers: The Movie (1986), the title character in Hong Kong Phooey, and Scat Cat in the Disney animated film The Aristocats (1970).

---

Franz Kline, American painter and academic (died 1962)

Franz Kline was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, John Ferren, and Lee Krasner, as well as local poets, dancers, and musicians, came to be known as the informal group, the New York School. Although he explored the same innovations to painting as the other artists in this group, Kline's work is distinct in itself and has been revered since the 1950s.

---

Artie Shaw, American clarinet player, composer, and bandleader (died 2004)

Artie Shaw was an American clarinetist, composer, bandleader, and author of both fiction and non-fiction.

---

23/05/1908

John Bardeen, American physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1991)

John Bardeen was an American physicist. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for their invention of the transistor; and again in 1972 with Leon Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer for their microscopic theory of superconductivity, known as the BCS theory.

---

Hélène Boucher, French pilot (died 1934)

Hélène Boucher was a well-known French pilot in the early 1930s, when she set several women's world speed records and the all-comers record for 1,000 km in 1934. She was killed in an accident in the same year.

---

Tomiko Itooka, Japanese supercentenarian (died 2024)

Tomiko Itooka was a Japanese supercentenarian who was recognized as the world's oldest verified living person in September 2024. She managed her family's textile business during World War II and lived to the age of 116 years and 220 days.

---

Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Swiss author and photographer (died 1942)

Annemarie Minna Renée Schwarzenbach was a Swiss writer, journalist and photographer. Her bisexual mother brought her up in a masculine style, and her androgynous image suited the bohemian Berlin society of the time, in which she indulged enthusiastically. Her anti-fascist campaigning forced her into exile, where she became close to the family of novelist Thomas Mann. She would live much of her life abroad as a photo-journalist, embarking on many lesbian relationships, and experiencing a growing morphine addiction. In America, the young Carson McCullers was infatuated with Schwarzenbach, to whom she dedicated Reflections in a Golden Eye. Schwarzenbach reported on the early events of World War II, but died of a head injury, following a fall.

---

23/05/1900

Hans Frank, German lawyer and politician (died 1946)

Hans Michael Frank was a German Nazi politician, lawyer and convicted war criminal who served as the head of the General Government, an entity created by Germany on part of the German-occupied Polish lands during the Second World War.

---

Franz Leopold Neumann, German lawyer and theorist (died 1954)

Franz Leopold Neumann was a German political activist, Western Marxist theorist, and labor lawyer who became a political scientist in exile and is best known for his theoretical analyses of Nazism. He studied in Germany and the United Kingdom, and spent the last phase of his career in the United States, where he worked for the Office of Strategic Services from 1943 to 1945 writing the Secret Reports on Nazi Germany. During the Second World War, Neumann spied for the Soviet Union under the code-name "Ruff". Together with Ernst Fraenkel and Arnold Bergstraesser, Neumann is considered to be among the founders of modern political science in Germany.

---

23/05/1899

Jeralean Talley, American super-centenarian (died 2015)

Jeralean Talley was an American supercentenarian who was, aged 116 years, 25 days, the world's verified oldest living person. She was previously thought to be the oldest living American, from the death of Elsie Thompson on March 21, 2013, until Gertrude Weaver was verified to be older in July 2014. Upon Weaver's death on April 6, 2015, Talley was recognised as the oldest living person in the world. Talley received letters from U.S. President Barack Obama on her 114th and 116th birthdays acknowledging her status.

---

23/05/1898

Scott O'Dell, American soldier, journalist, and author (died 1989)

Scott O'Dell was an American writer of 26 novels for young people, along with three novels for adults and four nonfiction books. He wrote historical fiction, primarily, including several children's novels about historical California and Mexico. For his contribution as a children's writer he received the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1972, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. He received The University of Southern Mississippi Medallion in 1976 and the Catholic Libraries Association Regina Medal in 1978.

---

Josef Terboven, German soldier and politician (died 1945)

Josef Antonius Heinrich Terboven was a German Nazi Party official and politician who was the long-serving Gauleiter of Gau Essen and the Reichskommissar for Norway during the German occupation.

---

23/05/1897

Jimmie Guthrie, Scottish motorcycle racer (died 1937)

James Guthrie was a Scottish motorcycle racer.

---

23/05/1896

Felix Steiner, Russian-German SS officer (died 1966)

Felix Martin Julius Steiner was a German SS commander during the Nazi era. During World War II, he served in the Waffen-SS, the combat branch of the SS, and commanded several SS divisions and corps. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. Together with Paul Hausser, he contributed significantly to the development and transformation of the Waffen-SS into a combat force made up of volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and un-occupied lands.

---

23/05/1892

Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer, British peer (died 1975)

Albert Edward John Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer,, styled The Honourable Albert Spencer until 1910 and Viscount Althorp from 1910 to 1922, and known less formally as Jack Spencer, was a British peer. He was the paternal grandfather of Diana, Princess of Wales.

---

23/05/1891

Pär Lagerkvist, Swedish novelist, playwright, and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1974)

Pär Fabian Lagerkvist was a Swedish author who received the 1951 Nobel Prize in Literature.

---

23/05/1890

Herbert Marshall, English-American actor and singer (died 1966)

Herbert Brough Falcon Marshall was an English actor of stage, screen, and radio. He starred in many popular and well-regarded Hollywood films in the 1930s and 1940s. After a successful theatrical career in the United Kingdom and North America, he became an in-demand Hollywood leading man, frequently appearing in romantic melodramas and occasional comedies. In his later years, Marshall turned to character acting.

---

23/05/1889

Ernst Niekisch, German educator and politician (died 1967)

Ernst Niekisch was a German writer and political theorist. Initially a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and of the Old Social Democratic Party of Germany (ASPD), he later became a prominent exponent of the National revolutionary branch of the Conservative Revolution and National Bolshevism.

---

23/05/1888

Adriaan Roland Holst, Dutch writer (died 1976)

Adriaan Roland Holst was a Dutch writer, nicknamed the "Prince of Dutch Poets". He was the second winner, in 1948, of the Constantijn Huygens Prize. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961.

---

Zack Wheat, American baseball player and police officer (died 1972)

Zachariah Davis Wheat, nicknamed "Buck", was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a left fielder from 1909 to 1927, most notably as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers who were known as the Robins at that time. After 18 seasons in Brooklyn, he played his final season with the Philadelphia Athletics.

---

23/05/1887

Thoralf Skolem, Norwegian mathematician and theorist (died 1963)

Thoralf Albert Skolem was a Norwegian mathematician who worked in mathematical logic and set theory.

---

Nikolai Vekšin, Estonian-Russian sailor and captain (died 1951)

Nikolai Vekšin was a Russian and Estonian sailor and helmsman of the bronze-medallist Estonian team at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games.

---

C. R. M. F. Cruttwell, English historian (died 1941)

Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell was a British historian and academic who served as dean and later principal of Hertford College, Oxford. His field of expertise was modern European history, his most notable work being A History of the Great War, 1914–18. He is mainly remembered, however, for the vendetta pursued against him by the novelist Evelyn Waugh, in which Waugh showed his distaste for his former tutor by repeatedly using the name "Cruttwell" in his early novels and stories to depict a sequence of unsavoury or ridiculous characters. The prolonged minor humiliation thus inflicted may have contributed to Cruttwell's eventual mental breakdown.

---

23/05/1884

Corrado Gini, Italian sociologist and demographer (died 1965)

Corrado Gini was an Italian statistician, demographer and sociologist who developed the Gini coefficient, a measure of the income inequality in a society. Gini was a proponent of organicism and applied it to nations. Gini was a eugenicist, and prior to and during World War II, he was an advocate of Italian Fascism. Following the war, he founded the Italian Unionist Movement, which advocated for the annexation of Italy by the United States.

---

23/05/1883

Douglas Fairbanks, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1939)

Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. was an American actor and filmmaker best known for being the first actor to play the masked vigilante Zorro and other swashbuckling roles in silent films. One of the biggest stars of the silent era, Fairbanks was referred to as "The King of Hollywood". He was also a founding member of United Artists as well as the Motion Picture Academy and hosted the 1st Academy Awards in 1929.

---

23/05/1882

William Halpenny, Canadian pole vaulter (died 1960)

William Halpenny was a Canadian track and field athlete who competed in the 1912 Summer Olympics. He was born in Prince Edward Island. In 1912, he won a bronze medal in the pole vault event.

---

23/05/1875

Alfred P. Sloan, American businessman and philanthropist (died 1966)

Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr. was an American business executive in the automotive industry. He was a longtime president, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of General Motors (GM). First as a senior executive and later as the head of the company, Sloan presided over the growth of General Motors into one of the largest corporations in the world. During this period, GM spearheaded the adoption of the annual model change, brand architecture, industrial engineering, automotive design (styling), and planned obsolescence within the automobile industry. Such developments forever changed lifestyles and the built environment within America and throughout the world.

---

23/05/1865

Epitácio Pessoa, Brazilian jurist and politician, 11th President of Brazil (died 1942)

Epitácio Lindolfo da Silva Pessoa was a Brazilian politician and jurist who served as the 11th president of Brazil between 1919 and 1922, when Rodrigues Alves was unable to take office due to illness, after being elected in 1918. His government was marked by the beginning of the tenentist movement that would culminate in the Revolution of 1930, which brought Getúlio Vargas to power.

---

23/05/1864

William O'Connor, American fencer (died 1939)

William Scott O'Connor was an American épée and foil fencer who competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics. He won the silver medal in the singlestick competition. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and died in Manhattan.

---

23/05/1863

Władysław Horodecki, Polish architect (died 1930)

Władysław Horodecki was a Polish architect active in the Russian Empire and later in the Second Polish Republic. He is best known for his contributions in the urban development of Kyiv, with buildings such as the House with Chimaeras, the St. Nicholas Roman Catholic Cathedral, the Karaite Kenesa, and the National Art Museum of Ukraine.

---

23/05/1861

József Rippl-Rónai, Hungarian painter (died 1927)

József Rippl-Rónai was a Hungarian painter. He was among the first Hungarian exponents of artistic modernism.

---

23/05/1855

Isabella Ford, English author and activist (died 1924)

Isabella Ormston Ford was an English social reformer, suffragist and writer. She became a public speaker and wrote pamphlets on issues related to socialism, feminism and workers' rights. After becoming concerned with the rights of female mill workers at an early age, Ford became involved with trade union organisation in the 1880s. A member of the National Administrative Council of the Independent Labour Party, she was the first woman recorded as speaking at a Labour Representation Committee conference.

---

23/05/1848

Otto Lilienthal, German pilot and engineer (died 1896)

Karl Wilhelm Otto Lilienthal was a German pioneer of aviation who became known as the "flying man". He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful flights with gliders, therefore making the idea of heavier-than-air aircraft a reality. Newspapers and magazines published photographs of Lilienthal gliding, favourably influencing public and scientific opinion about the possibility of flying machines becoming practical.

---

23/05/1844

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Iranian religious leader (died 1921)

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, born ʻAbbás, was the eldest son of Baháʼu'lláh, founder of the Bahá’í Faith, who designated him to be his successor and head of the Baháʼí Faith from 1892 until 1921. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá was later cited as the last of three "central figures" of the religion, along with Baháʼu'lláh and the Báb, and his writings and authenticated talks are regarded as sources of Baháʼí sacred literature.

---

23/05/1840

George Throssell, Irish-Australian politician, 2nd Premier of Western Australia (died 1910)

George Throssell was the second Premier of Western Australia. He served for just three months, from 15 February to 27 May 1901, during a period of great instability in Western Australian politics.

---

23/05/1838

Amaldus Nielsen, Norwegian painter (died 1932)

Amaldus Clarin Nielsen was a Norwegian painter.

---

23/05/1837

Anatole Mallet, Swiss mechanical engineer and inventor (died 1919)

Jules Theodore Anatole Mallet was a Swiss mechanical engineer, who was the inventor of the first successful compound system for a railway steam locomotive, patented in 1874. He is known for having invented three important forms of compound locomotive.

---

Józef Wieniawski, Polish pianist and composer (died 1912)

Józef Wieniawski was a Polish pianist, composer, conductor and teacher. He was born in Lublin, the younger brother of the famous violinist Henryk Wieniawski. After Franz Liszt, he was the first pianist to publicly perform all the études by Chopin. He appeared with Liszt in recitals in Paris, London, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Brussels, Leipzig and Amsterdam.

---

23/05/1834

Jānis Frīdrihs Baumanis, Latvian architect (died 1891)

Jānis Frīdrihs Baumanis was a Latvian, Baltic German architect. He was the first professional Latvian architect. Baumanis designed the Riga Circus in 1888. He was responsible for a number of important public buildings of eclectic design constructed in the second half of the 19th century in Riga.

---

Carl Bloch, Danish painter and academic (died 1890)

Carl Heinrich Bloch was a Danish painter.

---

23/05/1824

Ambrose Burnside, American general and politician, 30th Governor of Rhode Island (died 1881)

Ambrose Everts Burnside was an American army officer and politician who became a senior Union general in the American Civil War and a three-time governor of Rhode Island, as well as being an inventor and industrialist.

---

23/05/1820

James Buchanan Eads, American engineer, designed the Eads Bridge (died 1887)

James Buchanan Eads was an American civil engineer and inventor. He held more than 50 patents and was known internationally. He designed and built the Eads Bridge over the Mississippi River in St. Louis, which was designated a National Historic Landmark.

---

Lorenzo Sawyer, American lawyer and judge (died 1891)

Lorenzo Sawyer was an American lawyer and judge who was appointed to the Supreme Court of California in 1860 and served as the ninth Chief Justice of California from 1868 to 1870. He served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Circuit Courts for the Ninth Circuit and of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He is best known for handing down the verdict in the case of Woodruff v. North Bloomfield Gravel Mining Company; his verdict is frequently referred to as the "Sawyer Decision."

---

23/05/1817

Manuel Robles Pezuela, Unconstitutional Mexican interim president (died 1862)

Manuel Robles Pezuela was a military engineer, military commander, and eventually interim president of Mexico during a civil war, the Reform War, being waged between conservatives and liberals, in which he served as president of the Conservatives, in opposition to President Benito Juárez, head of the Liberals.

---

23/05/1810

Margaret Fuller, American journalist and critic (died 1850)

Sarah Margaret Fuller, sometimes referred to as Margaret Fuller Ossoli, was an American journalist, editor, critic, translator, and women's rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movement. She was the first American female war correspondent and full-time book reviewer in journalism. Her book Woman in the Nineteenth Century is considered the first major feminist work in the United States.

---

23/05/1800

Rómulo Díaz de la Vega, Mexican general and president (1855) (died 1877)

José María Rómulo Díaz de la Vega Fuentes was a Mexican military officer and politician. As commander of the garrison in Mexico City, he was the de facto president of Mexico in 1855, after the resignation of President Martin Carrera during the revolutionary Plan of Ayutla left a power vacuum.

---

23/05/1795

Charles Barry, English architect, designed the Upper Brook Street Chapel and Halifax Town Hall (died 1860)

Sir Charles Barry FRS RA was an English architect best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens. He is known for his major contribution to the use of Italianate architecture in Britain, especially the use of the Palazzo as basis for the design of country houses, city mansions and public buildings. He also developed the Italian Renaissance garden style for the many gardens he designed around country houses.

---

23/05/1794

Ignaz Moscheles, Czech pianist and composer (died 1870)

Isaac Ignaz Moscheles was a Bohemian piano virtuoso and composer. He was based initially in London and later at Leipzig, where he joined his friend and sometime pupil Felix Mendelssohn as professor of piano in the Conservatory.

---

23/05/1790

Jules Dumont d'Urville, French admiral and explorer (died 1842)

Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville was a French explorer and naval officer who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica. As a botanist and cartographer, he gave his name to several seaweeds, plants and shrubs and to places such as d'Urville Island in New Zealand.

---

James Pradier, French neoclassical sculptor (died 1852)

James Pradier was a Genevan-born French sculptor best known for his work in the neoclassical style.

---

23/05/1789

Franz Schlik, Austrian earl and general (died 1862)

Franz Joseph von Schlik of Bassano and Weisskirchen was a count and general in the Austrian Empire. He was one of the most successful Austrian generals during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.

---

23/05/1741

Andrea Luchesi, Italian organist and composer (died 1801)

Andrea Luca Luchesi was an Italian composer. He knew Mozart and Beethoven.

---

23/05/1734

Franz Mesmer, German physician and astrologer (died 1815)

Franz Anton Mesmer was a German physician with an interest in astronomy. He theorized the existence of a process of natural energy transference occurring between all animate and inanimate objects; this he called "animal magnetism", later referred to as mesmerism. Mesmer's theory attracted a wide following between about 1780 and 1850, and continued to have some influence until the end of the 19th century. In 1843, the Scottish doctor James Braid proposed the term "hypnotism" for a technique derived from animal magnetism; today the word "mesmerism" generally functions as a synonym of "hypnosis". Mesmer also supported the arts, specifically music; he was on friendly terms with Haydn and Mozart.

---

23/05/1730

Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia, Prussian prince and general (died 1813)

Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia was a Prussian prince and general, as well as Herrenmeister of the Bailiwick of Brandenburg of the Order of Saint John. He belonged to the House of Hohenzollern, and was the youngest son of Frederick William I of Prussia by his wife, Queen Sophia Dorothea.

---

23/05/1729

Giuseppe Parini, Italian poet and educator (died 1799)

Giuseppe Parini was an Italian satirist and Neoclassical poet.

---

23/05/1718

William Hunter, Scottish-English anatomist and physician (died 1783)

William Hunter was a Scottish anatomist and physician. He was a leading teacher of anatomy, and the outstanding obstetrician of his day. His guidance and training of his equally famous brother, John Hunter, was also of great importance.

---

23/05/1707

Carl Linnaeus, Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist (died 1778)

Carl Linnaeus, also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy". Many of his writings were in Latin; his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus and, after his 1761 ennoblement, as Carolus a Linné.

---

23/05/1629

William VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, noble of Hesse-Kassel (died 1663)

Wilhelm VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, known as William the Just, was Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel from 1637 to 1663.

---

23/05/1617

Elias Ashmole, English astrologer and politician (died 1692)

Elias Ashmole was an English antiquary, politician, officer of arms, astrologer, freemason and student of alchemy. Ashmole supported the royalist side during the English Civil War, serving in the artillery of Lord Astley's Regiment of Foot. He held the military rank of a captain. At the restoration of Charles II, Ashmole was rewarded with several lucrative offices. In his later years, he collected notes on his life in diary form to serve as source material for a biography. His diary was posthumously published in 1717.

---

23/05/1614

Bertholet Flemalle, Flemish Baroque painter (died 1675)

Bertholet Flemalle, Flemal, or Flamael (1614–1675) was a Liège Baroque painter.

---

23/05/1606

Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz, Spanish mathematician and philosopher (died 1682)

Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz was a Spanish Catholic scholastic philosopher, ecclesiastic, mathematician, polyglot, and writer. He is believed to be a great-grandson of Jan Popel y Lobkowicz.

---

23/05/1586

Paul Siefert, German composer and organist (died 1666)

Paul Siefert was a German composer and organist associated with the North German school.

---

23/05/1330

Gongmin of Goryeo, Korean ruler (died 1374)

Gongmin, also known by his Mongolian name, Bayan Temür, was 31st ruler of Goryeo from 1351 to 1374. He was the second son of King Chungsuk.

---

23/05/1127

Uijong of Goryeo, Korean monarch of the Goryeo dynasty (died 1173)

Uijong, personal name Wang Hyŏn, was the 18th king of the Goryeo dynasty of Korea.

---

23/05/1100

Emperor Qinzong of Song (died 1161)

Emperor Qinzong of Song, personal name Zhao Huan, was the ninth emperor of the Song dynasty of China and the last emperor of the Northern Song dynasty.

---

23/05/1052

Philip I of France (died 1108)

Philip I, called the Amorous, was King of the Franks from 1060 to 1108. His reign of nearly 48 years, like that of most of the early Capetians, was extraordinarily long for the time. The monarchy began a modest recovery from the low it had reached during the reign of his father, Henry I, and he added the Vexin region and the viscountcy of Bourges to his royal domaine.

---

23/05/0675

Perumbidugu Mutharaiyar II, King of Mutharaiyar dynasty, Tamil Nadu, India

Perumbidugu Mutharaiyar, also known as Suvaran Maran and Perarasar Perumbidugu Mutharaiyar, was a king of Thanjavur from the Mutharaiyar dynasty. He ruled over Thanjavur, Trichy, Pudukkottai, Perambalur and Thiruvarur as a feudatory of the Pallava dynasty. He attended the coronation of Nandivarman II.

---

23/05/0635

Kʼinich Kan Bahlam II, Mayan king (died 702)

Kʼinich Kan Bahlam II, also known as Chan Bahlum II, was ajaw of the Maya city-state of Palenque, in what is now the state of Chiapas, Mexico. He acceded to the throne in January, 684, several months after the death of his father and predecessor, Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal and ruled until his death.

---