Famous Birthdays on April 17

Zdeňka Wiedermannová-Motyčková was a Moravian teacher, journal editor, and women's rights activist. Born into a family of progressive educators, she studied to become a teacher, graduating in 1886. Her Catholic education led her to more conservative values than her family's, but after teaching for several years, she began to recognize the disparities between women and men teachers, as well as those of their students. By 1898, she was publicly calling for equal pay for equal work and campaigning for equal education for boys and girls. In 1902, Wiedermannová founded and became chair of the Moravian Teachers Union, whose focus was to professionalize teaching standards. The following year, she opened a Girls' Academy in Brno, hoping later to include secondary education there. As the Austro-Hungarian Empire provided little funding for girls' education, she held lectures to provide for the operating costs of the academy. Finally in 1908, she successfully established the first girls' secondary school in Moravia.

Joseph Francis Alaskey III was an American actor and comedian. He was one of Mel Blanc's successors at the Warner Bros. Animation studio until his death. He alternated with Jeff Bergman, Greg Burson, Jim Cummings, Bob Bergen, Maurice LaMarche, Billy West and Eric Bauza in voicing Warner Bros. cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester, Tweety, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepé Le Pew, Marvin the Martian, Speedy Gonzales, Taz, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, among many others. He also voiced Plucky Duck on Tiny Toon Adventures from 1990 to 1995. Alaskey was the second actor to voice Grandpa Lou Pickles on Nickelodeon's Rugrats. He would later reprise his role in the spin-off series All Grown Up!. In 2004, he won a Daytime Emmy Award for voicing the title role in the animated series Duck Dodgers.

Adrian Constantine Anson, nicknamed "Cap", "Pop", and, early in his career, "Baby" and "The Marshalltown Infant", was an American professional baseball player who played a record 27 consecutive major-league seasons. Anson was regarded as one of the greatest players of his era and one of the first superstars of the game. He spent most of his career with the National League's Chicago franchise, serving as the club's manager, first baseman and, later in his tenure, minority owner. He led the team to six pennants from 1876 to 1886. Anson was one of baseball's first great hitters, and probably the first to tally over 3,000 career hits. In addition to being a star player, he innovated managerial tactics such as signals between players and the rotation of pitchers.

Claire Jayne Sweeney is an English actress, singer, and television personality. Known for her portrayal of Lindsey Corkhill on Channel 4's Brookside, she also played Roxie Hart in Chicago and starred in touring productions of Guys and Dolls (2006), Tell Me on a Sunday (2011), Legally Blonde (2011), and Educating Rita (2012). She was a panellist on ITV's Loose Women between 2003 and 2005, and presented 60 Minute Makeover from 2004 to 2006. Her debut album, Claire, reached number 15 on the UK Albums Chart in 2002. Sweeney has also portrayed Cassie Plummer on the ITV soap opera Coronation Street from 2023 to 2026. Her other credits include Candy Cabs (2011), Scarborough (2019), and The Good Ship Murder (2023–2024).

Donald Christopher Barber was an English jazz musician, best known as a bandleader and trombonist. He helped many musicians with their careers and had a UK top twenty trad jazz hit with "Petite Fleur" in 1959. These musicians included the blues singer Ottilie Patterson, who was at one time his wife, and Lonnie Donegan, whose appearances with Barber triggered the skiffle craze of the mid-1950s and who had his first transatlantic hit, "Rock Island Line", while with Barber's band. He provided an audience for Donegan and, later, Alexis Korner, and sponsored African-American blues musicians to visit Britain, making Barber a significant figure in launching the British rhythm and blues and "beat boom" of the 1960s.

Andrea Gritti was the Doge of the Venetian Republic from 1523 to 1538, following a distinguished diplomatic and military career. He started out as a successful merchant in Constantinople and transitioned into the position of Bailo, a diplomatic role. Gritti was arrested for espionage but was spared execution thanks to his good relationship with the Ottoman vizier. After being freed from imprisonment, he returned to Venice and began his political career. When the War of the League of Cambrai broke out, despite his lack of experience, Gritti was given a leadership role in the Venetian military, where he excelled. After the war, he was elected doge, and he held that post until his death.

Ian Donald Jones is a former New Zealand rugby union player. He played 79 tests for the All Blacks. He is one of New Zealand's most capped locks and formed one of the most famous lock pairings in international rugby, often partnered with Robin Brooke in the All Blacks from 1992 to 1998. What Jones lacked in size he more than made up for in skill, Jones was picked over physically intimidating locks such as Mark Cooksley who was the tallest All Black ever. Jones made his All Black debut Saturday, 16 June 1990 v Scotland at Dunedin. At the time he was 23 years, 60 days old.

Sirima Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike, commonly known as Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was a Sri Lankan stateswoman who thrice served as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1960 to 1965, from 1970 to 1977, and from 1994 to 2000. She was the first woman in the world to be democratically elected prime minister in 1960. A chairperson of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) from 1960 to 1994, she pursued socialist economic policies and promoted Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. Bandaranaike was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and later served as chairperson of the organisation from 1976 to 1977, becoming the first woman to lead the organisation.

Augustus Edward Hough Love FRS, often known as A. E. H. Love, was an English mathematical physicist famous for research on elasticity. He also studied wave propagation. He won the Adams Prize in 1911 for his work on the structure of the Earth in Some Problems of Geodynamics, in which he developed a mathematical model of surface waves known as Love waves. Love also contributed to the theory of tidal locking and introduced the parameters known as Love numbers, used in problems related to Earth tides, the tidal deformation of the solid Earth due to the gravitational attraction of the Moon and Sun.

Nicholas Peter John Hornby is an English writer. He is best known for his memoir Fever Pitch (1992) and novels High Fidelity (1995) and About a Boy (1998), all of which were adapted into feature films. Hornby's work frequently touches upon music, sport, and the aimless and obsessive natures of his protagonists. His books have sold more than 5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. In a 2004 poll for the BBC, Hornby was named the 29th most influential person in British culture. He has received two Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay nominations for An Education (2009), and Brooklyn (2015).

Deshabandu Muttiah Muralitharan is a Sri Lankan cricket coach, businessman and former professional cricketer. Averaging over six wickets per Test match, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport. He is the only bowler to take 800 Test wickets and more than 530 One Day International (ODI) wickets. As of 2026, he has taken more wickets in international cricket than any other bowler. Muralitharan was a part of the Sri Lankan team that won the 1996 Cricket World Cup and the team which was joint-winners with India of the 2002 ICC Champions Trophy.

Major Warren Frederick Martin Clemens was a British-Australian colonial administrator and military officer. In late 1941 and early 1942, while serving as a District Officer in the Solomon Islands, he helped prepare the area for eventual resistance to Japanese occupation. His additional duties as a coastwatcher alerted the Allies to Japanese plans to build an airstrip on Guadalcanal. This resulted in Allied carrier raids and eventually a landing by United States forces and the beginning of the epic struggle in the Solomons. Clemens then directly served the U.S. Marines in coordinating intelligence on Japanese activities.

Eliza Acton was an English food writer and poet who produced one of Britain's first cookery books aimed at the domestic reader, Modern Cookery for Private Families. The book introduced the now-universal practice of listing ingredients and giving suggested cooking times for each recipe. It included the first recipes in English for Brussels sprouts and for spaghetti. It also contains the first recipe for what Acton called "Christmas pudding"; the dish was normally called plum pudding, recipes for which had appeared previously, although Acton was the first to put the name and recipe together.

William McCreery Ramsey was an American-German jazz and pop singer, journalist and actor famous for his German-language hits. He returned to Germany a year after he had served compulsory military service with the U.S. Air Force there. Active as a singer of jazz and pop already as a soldier, he made a career in different fields of musical entertainment. He sang and recorded German schlager, also German-language cover versions of English hits, jazz and swing. He appeared in films and television series, and ran popular series on radio and television as presenter.

Ronald H. Miller was professor of the Religion Department at Lake Forest College in Illinois. Miller earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Religions from Northwestern University, and a B.S and M.A from St. Louis University. He was a co-founder and co-director of Common Ground, an active adult education group for interfaith study and dialogue founded in 1975. Miller was vice-president of the Interreligious Engagement Project 21 and board member at Hands-of-Peace, an organization that brings American, and Palestinian and Israeli teenagers from the Middle East together for a two-week program in the United States. Miller lectured at countless churches, temples, mosques and centers across the country and wrote books aimed at a popular audience that convey contemporary issues in New Testament studies as well as in spirituality and philosophy.

Giovanni Battista Riccioli was an Italian astronomer and a Catholic priest in the Jesuit order. He is known, among other things, for his experiments with pendulums and with falling bodies, for his discussion of 126 arguments concerning the motion of the Earth, and for introducing the current scheme of lunar nomenclature. He is also widely known for discovering the first double star. He argued that the rotation of the Earth should reveal itself because on a rotating Earth, the ground moves at different speeds at different latitudes.

Richard Allen Epstein is an American legal scholar known for his writings on torts, contracts, property rights, law and economics, classical liberalism, and libertarianism. He is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at New York University and the director of its Classical Liberal Institute. He is also a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a senior lecturer and the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Chicago.

Paraskevi "Voula" Papachristou is a Greek triple jumper and long jumper. She won two gold medals at the European Athletics U23 Championships and took the third place at the 2016 World indoor Championships. She was removed from the Greek team for the 2012 London Olympics by the Greek Olympic Committee after making a racist comment online. At the 2016 Summer Olympics' final in Rio de Janeiro, she took the 8th place. In 2018 she was the European Champion in Berlin with a jump of 14,60 metres.

Kerry Wendell Thornley was an American author. He is known as the co-founder of Discordianism, in which context he is usually known as Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst or simply Lord Omar. He and Hill authored the religion's text Principia Discordia, Or, How I Found Goddess, and What I Did to Her When I Found Her. Thornley also was known for his 1962 manuscript The Idle Warriors, which was inspired by the activities of his acquaintance Lee Harvey Oswald before the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy John Victor, known professionally as Vikram, is an Indian actor and playback singer who predominantly works in Tamil cinema. One of the highest paid actors, he is also among the most decorated actors in Indian cinema, with laurels including nine Filmfare Awards South, a National Film Award, four Tamil Nadu State Film Awards and the Kalaimamani Award from the Government of Tamil Nadu. Based on the earnings of Indian celebrities, Vikram was included in the Forbes India Celebrity 100 list for 2016 and 2018.

Kenneth Stephen Daneyko is a Canadian former professional ice hockey defenceman. He played his entire career with the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League (NHL), winning three Stanley Cup championships with the team. He has been nicknamed "Mr. Devil" by Devils fans, as he currently holds both the franchise record for games played as a Devil with 1,283 games and in penalty minutes with 2,516. Daneyko now provides colour analysis alongside Don La Greca during broadcasts of Devils games on MSG Sportsnet.

Frederik Reesen Magle is a Danish composer, concert organist, and pianist. He writes contemporary classical music as well as fusion of classical music and other genres. His compositions include orchestral works, cantatas, chamber music, and solo works, including several compositions commissioned by the Danish royal family. Magle has gained a reputation as an organ virtuoso, and as a composer and performing artist who does not refrain from venturing into more experimental projects – often with improvisation – bordering jazz, electronica, and other non-classical genres.

Samuel Chase was a Founding Father of the United States, signer of the Continental Association and United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of Maryland, and Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. In 1804, Chase was impeached by the House of Representatives on grounds of letting his partisan leanings affect his court decisions, but was acquitted the following year by the Senate and remained in office. He is the only United States Supreme Court Justice to have ever been impeached.

Dwane Lyndon Casey is an American retired basketball coach who most recently served as the head coach of the Detroit Pistons before transitioning to a front office position with the team. He is a former NCAA basketball player and coach, having played and coached NCAA basketball for over a decade before moving on to the NBA. He was previously the head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Toronto Raptors, with whom he won the NBA Coach of the Year Award in 2018.

Joseph Jacob Foss was a United States Marine Corps Major and a leading Marine fighter ace in World War II. He received the Medal of Honor in recognition of his role in air combat during the Guadalcanal campaign. In postwar years, he was an Air National Guard Brigadier General, served as the 20th governor of South Dakota (1955–1959), president of the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) and the first commissioner of the American Football League. He also was a television broadcaster.

William Rufus Day was an American diplomat and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1903 to 1922. Prior to his service on the Supreme Court, Day served as United States Secretary of State during the administration of President William McKinley. He also served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the United States Circuit Courts for the Sixth Circuit.

Curtis Woodhouse is an English former professional footballer turned professional boxer and football manager, most recently in charge of Marske United. Woodhouse played football as a central midfielder, and competed as a light-welterweight boxer. He is the former British light-welterweight champion. His career in the Football League spanned across nine seasons, earning four caps for the England under-21 football team. Woodhouse's professional boxing record stands at 29 fights 22 wins, 13 of which are by knock-out, and 7 defeats.

Aleksander Klumberg was an Estonian decathlete. He represented Estonia in several events at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, and won the bronze medal in the decathlon at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. In 1922, he became the first official world record holder in the decathlon. Arrested by the Soviet occupation authorities during World War II, Klumberg was deported from Estonia, imprisoned in a Russian Gulag camp from 1945 to 1954, and deported to Siberia in 1954–1955.

Paul Frank Nicholls is a British National Hunt horse trainer with stables at Ditcheat, Somerset. A relatively successful jump jockey, Nicholls has become the leading National Hunt trainer of his generation in Britain, finishing the 2007–08 season with 155 winners and a record £4 million in prize money. As of April 2023, he has trained over 3,500 winners, won the 2012 Grand National, four Cheltenham Gold Cups and has been crowned British jump racing Champion Trainer fourteen times.

Pete Shelley was an English singer, songwriter and guitarist. He formed early punk band Buzzcocks with Howard Devoto in 1976, and became the lead singer and guitarist in 1977 when Devoto left. The group released their biggest hit "Ever Fallen in Love " in 1978. The band broke up in 1981 and reformed at the end of the decade. Shelley also had a solo career; his song "Homosapien" charted in Australasia and Canada in 1981 and 1982.

Pekka Antero Vasala is a retired Finnish middle-distance athlete who won an Olympic gold medal in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Vasala had a brilliant three-month period in 1972 when he won an Olympic gold medal at 1,500 meters and set a new European record in the 800 meters running 1:44.5. The time was only 0.2 seconds off the world record. His Olympic gold would be his only major international medal. He retired in 1974.

Victoria Caroline, Lady Beckham, is an English fashion designer, singer, and television personality. She rose to prominence in the 1990s as a member of the pop group the Spice Girls, in which she was nicknamed Posh Spice. After the Spice Girls disbanded in 2000, Beckham signed with Virgin Records to release her debut solo album Victoria Beckham, which produced two UK Top 10 singles. Beckham has also become an internationally recognised style icon and fashion designer.

Daniel Hensel is a German composer, VJ, musicologist and music theorist. He is known as a composer of expressive works of all musical genres whose works can be dedicated to "a thread of a tradition leading from Schubert via Mahler to Hensel's teacher Schedl in presence.[...]" His style contains all kinds of material, such as traditional tonal or harmonic as well as noise and electronic material. His works are published by Musikverlag Doblinger in Vienna.

Josif Pančić was a Serbian botanist, physician, professor and academic. Born in the First French Empire, in present-day Croatia, he earned his medical degree in Hungary before moving to Serbia. He extensively documented the flora of Serbia, and is credited with having classified many species of plants which were unknown to the botanical community at that time. Pančić is credited with discovering the Serbian spruce. He is regarded as the father of Serbian botany.

Jung Whee-in, known as Whee In or Wheein, is a South Korean singer. She rose to prominence in 2014, as a member of the Korean girl group Mamamoo. In 2017, her song "Anymore" with Jung Key, topped the Gaon Charts. In April 2018, she made her debut as a solo artist with her digital single "Easy", peaking at number three in South Korea. In September 2019, Wheein released her first single album Soar.

Pierre Guité is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player who played 377 games in the World Hockey Association. He played for the Quebec Nordiques, Michigan Stags, Baltimore Blades, Cincinnati Stingers and Edmonton Oilers. He was traded from the Nordiques to the financially troubled Stags, along with Michel Rouleau and Alain Caron, for Marc Tardif, just weeks before the Stags folded and the league took over the team, moving it to Baltimore.

Luke Mitchell (born 17 April 1985) is an Australian actor. He attended the Film and Television Studio International, and won the role of Chris Knight in Neighbours in 2008. Mitchell appeared as Will in the third season of H2O: Just Add Water in 2009. He starred as Romeo Smith in Home and Away from 2009 to 2013. The role saw Mitchell win the Most Popular New Male Talent Logie Award in 2010.

Barnaby Thomas Gerard Joyce is an Australian politician who served as the deputy prime minister of Australia and the leader of the National Party from 2016 to 2018 and from 2021 to 2022. Now a member of One Nation, he has been the member of parliament (MP) for the New South Wales division of New England since 2013. Joyce previously held various ministerial positions in the Abbott, Turnbull, and Morrison governments.

Elizabeth Clark Phair is an American singer-songwriter and musician. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Phair was raised primarily in the Chicago area. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1990, she attempted to start a musical career in San Francisco; however, she returned to her home in Chicago, where she began self-releasing audio cassettes under the name Girly-Sound. The tapes led to a recording contract with the independent record label Matador Records.

Takahiro Moriuchi , known professionally as Taka, is a Japanese singer and musician who is the lead vocalist of the Japanese rock band One Ok Rock. Moriuchi is the band's main lyricist and composer. In 2017, Kerrang! magazine placed him at number 27 on their list of the "50 Greatest Rockstars in the World". He was also listed by Rock Sound magazine as one of "50 Most Influential Figures in Rock".

Helene Spilling Ødegaard is a Norwegian professional dancer. She is best known for her appearances on Skal vi danse, the Norwegian edition of Dancing with the Stars, and was the winner of the 17th season in 2021. During her competitive dancing career, she won the Norwegian dance championship 17 times, and represented Norway in European and world tournaments. Spilling is the founder and owner of The Zone Dance Studio in Oslo.

Jennifer Anne Garner is an American actress. Born in Houston, Texas and raised in Charleston, West Virginia, Garner studied theater at Denison University and began acting as an understudy for the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York City. She had a starring role on the Fox teen drama series Time of Your Life (1999–2000) and supporting roles in the films Pearl Harbor (2001) and Catch Me If You Can (2002).

Air Chief Marshal Sir Neville Patrick McNamara, was a senior commander of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). He served as Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), the RAAF's highest-ranking position, from 1979 until 1982, and as Chief of the Defence Force Staff (CDFS), Australia's top military role at the time, from 1982 until 1984. He was the second RAAF officer to hold the rank of air chief marshal.

Željko Ražnatović, better known as Arkan, was a Serbian warlord, mobster and head of the Serb Volunteer Guard during the Yugoslav Wars, considered one of the most feared and effective paramilitary forces during the wars. His paramilitary unit was responsible for numerous crimes in Eastern Bosnia, including murder, pillaging, rape and ethnic cleansings. Arkan was one of the most feared, celebrated and iconic figures in Serbia during his time.

Jason Phillip Randall White is a Scottish former rugby union footballer. He was a utility forward who played in the second or back row of the scrum – lock, flanker, or number eight. White played at club level for Glasgow Caledonians ; the French Top 14 side ASM Clermont Auvergne; and English Premiership side Sale Sharks. He won 77 caps playing for Scotland, captaining the side on 19 occasions.

Fabián Vargas is a Colombian former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. He spent most of his professional career playing for América de Cali and Boca Juniors, making more than 100 appearances for both clubs. He also played for Internacional, Almería, AEK Athens, Independiente, Barcelona SC, Millonarios, and La Equidad. At international level, he played for the Colombia national team 41 times and also captained the side.

Hanna Helena Pakarinen is a Finnish pop and pop-rock singer who rose to fame as the winner of the first series of the Finnish singing competition Idols in 2004. Since then, she has represented Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2007 in her homeland, and has sold over 91,000 certified records in Finland, which places her among the top 50 best-selling female soloists in her home country.

Benny Frank Barnes is an American real estate magnate, politician, and crisis manager who served as the speaker of the Texas House of Representatives from 1965 to 1969 and as the 36th lieutenant governor of Texas from 1969 to 1973. He was a vice-chair and top fundraiser of John Kerry's presidential campaign. Barnes was also one of only eight persons who raised over $500,000 for Kerry.

Dnyaneshwar Chandrashekhar Agashe was an Indian businessman, cricketer, cricket administrator, and philanthropist. He founded the Suvarna Sahakari Bank in 1969, and served as its managing director from its inception until his death. From 1970 to 1978, he served as the joint managing director of the Brihan Maharashtra Sugar Syndicate Ltd. with his brother, and then as the company's sole managing director from 1978 until his death.

David Jack Farber was an American professor of computer science, noted for his major contributions to programming languages and computer networking and was a distinguished professor and co-director of Cyber Civilization Research Center at Keio University in Japan. Farber was widely known as a mentor who maintained a global list of contacts in the high technology field, often connecting people with problems that needed solving.

Andrea Marcato is an Italian rugby union coach and former international player. He won 16 caps for Italy and played in the 2008 and 2009 Six Nations Championships. After the end of his playing career, he began coaching as the head coach of Petrarca Rugby, a position held from 2017 to 2024; since then, Marcato has been assistant coach of the U-20 Italian national team.

John Pierpont Morgan Sr. was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known as JPMorgan Chase & Co., he was the driving force behind a wave of industrial consolidations in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century.

Joan Lorring was an American actress and singer known for her work in film and theatre. For her role as Bessy Watty in The Corn Is Green (1945), Lorring was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Lorring also originated the role of Marie Buckholder in Come Back, Little Sheba on Broadway in 1950, for which she won a Donaldson Award.

Henry Ian Cusick is a Peruvian-Scottish actor of television, film, and theatre and a television director best known as Desmond Hume in Lost, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. He also starred as Jesus in The Gospel of John, Stephen Finch on Scandal, Marcus Kane on The 100, Dr. Jonas Lear in The Passage, and Russell "Russ" Taylor on MacGyver.

George Adamski was an American author who became widely known in ufology circles, and to some degree in popular culture, after he displayed numerous photographs in the 1940s and 1950s that he said were of alien spacecraft, claimed to have met with friendly Nordic alien or "Space Brothers", and claimed to have taken flights with them to the Moon and other planets.

Margot Honecker was an East German politician and influential member of the country's Communist government until 1989. From 1963 until 1989, she was Minister of National Education of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). She was married to Erich Honecker, leader of East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party from 1971 to 1989 and concurrently from 1976 to 1989 the country's head of state.

James Last was a German composer and big band leader of the James Last Orchestra. Initially a jazz bassist, his trademark "happy music" made his numerous albums best-sellers in Germany and the United Kingdom, with 65 of his albums reaching the charts in the UK alone. His composition "Happy Heart" became an international success in interpretations by Andy Williams and Petula Clark.

Ronald William Wycherley, known professionally as Billy Fury, was an English musician. An early star of rock and roll, he spent 332 weeks on the UK singles chart. His hit singles include "Wondrous Place", "Halfway to Paradise" and "Jealousy". Fury also maintained a film career, notably playing rock performers in Play It Cool in 1962 and That'll Be the Day in 1973.

Jan Hammer is a Czech-American musician, composer, and record producer. He rose to prominence while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra during the early 1970s, as well as with his film scores for television and film including "Miami Vice Theme" and "Crockett's Theme", from the 1980s television program Miami Vice. He has continued to work as both a musical performer and producer.

Eric Lamaze is a Canadian showjumper and Olympic champion. He won individual gold and team silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, riding Hickstead. Lamaze has won three Olympic medals, as well as four Pan American Games medals and one World Equestrian Games bronze. He is considered one of Canada's best showjumpers. He is currently banned from participating in equestrian activities until 2027.

Donald Richie was an American author, journalist, and film critic. He was known for writing about the Japanese people, the culture of Japan, and especially Japanese cinema. Although he considered himself primarily a film historian, Richie also directed a number of experimental films, the first when he was 17. He was awarded the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun in 2005.

William Franklin Holden was an American actor. He was an Academy Award and Primetime Emmy Award winner, and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. He was named one of the "Top 10 Stars of the Year" six times, and appeared as 25th on the American Film Institute's list of 25 greatest male stars of Classical Hollywood cinema.

Lela Rochon Fuqua is an American actress. She is best known for her starring role as Robin Stokes in the 1995 romantic drama film Waiting to Exhale. Rochon also had roles in the films Harlem Nights (1989), Boomerang (1992), The Chamber (1996), Gang Related (1997), Knock Off (1998), Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998), and Any Given Sunday (1999).

Alain Émile Louis Marie Poher was a French politician who served as president of the Senate from 1968 to 1992 and as acting president of France in 1969 and 1974. Poher was affiliated with the Popular Republican Movement (MRP) until 1966 and later with the Democratic Centre (CD) and Centre of Social Democrats (CSD), which he joined in 1976.

Anders Börje Salming was a Swedish Sámi ice hockey player. He was a defenceman who played professionally for 23 seasons, for the clubs Brynäs IF, Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, and AIK. He spent 16 seasons with the Maple Leafs, who retired his number 21 in 2016. Salming holds several Maple Leafs records, including the most assists.

Olivia Hussey was a British actress. The daughter of Argentine singer Osvaldo Ribó and Englishwoman Alma Joy Hussey, Hussey was born in Buenos Aires and spent most of her early life in her mother's native England. She aspired to become an actress at a young age and studied drama at London's Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts.

Alexander Joy Cartwright Jr. was a founding member of the New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club in the 1840s. Although he was an inductee of the Baseball Hall of Fame and he was sometimes referred to as a "father of baseball", the importance of his role in the development of the game may have been exaggerated.

Tyron Lakent Woodley is an American professional mixed martial artist and professional boxer. He is a former UFC Welterweight Champion who defended his title four times. A professional since 2009, Woodley also competed at Strikeforce and was an NCAA Division I collegiate wrestler for the Missouri Tigers, becoming a two-time All-American and Big 12 Conference champion.

Edouard Wyss-Dunant was a Swiss physician and alpinist. He had a distinguished career in medicine, both in his own country and abroad. He published a number of treatises in his professional capacity and was the author of several mountaineering books. He is best known for his leadership of the Swiss Expedition to Everest of 1952.

Melvin Tyler Storer was an American shipfitter, navy diver and welder who served in the United States Navy Reserve on the USS West Virginia and USS Yarnall. He was aboard the USS California during the Attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II and was reported lost in action before being found as a survivor.

Norman Julius "Boomer" Esiason is an American former National Football League (NFL) quarterback. He played college football for the Maryland Terrapins and was selected in the second round of the 1984 NFL draft by the Cincinnati Bengals, where he spent 10 seasons. Esiason was also a member of the New York Jets and Arizona Cardinals.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is a French former professional tennis player. He was ranked as high as world No. 5 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), which he achieved in February 2012. Tsonga won 18 singles titles on the ATP Tour, including two Masters 1000 titles, and reached a major final at the 2008 Australian Open.

Artur Schnabel was an Austrian-born classical pianist, composer and pedagogue. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura. Among the 20th century's most respected and important pianists, his playing displayed marked vitality, profundity and spirituality in the Austro-German classics, particularly the works of Beethoven, Schubert and Mozart.

Phillip Terry Henderson was an American basketball player. He was best known for his collegiate career at Duke University, where he led the Blue Devils to three consecutive NCAA Final Four appearances. He was a second round pick of the Dallas Mavericks in the 1990 NBA draft, but never played in the NBA.

Pedro Gutiérrez de Valdivia or Valdiva was a Spanish conquistador and the first Governor of Colonial Chile. After having served with the Spanish army in Italy and Flanders, he was sent to South America in 1535, where he served as a soldier under the Pizarro brothers in Peru, gradually rising in power.

Tsuneo Matsudaira was a Japanese diplomat and politician who served as the first President of the House of Councillors from 1947 to 1949. He previously served as Ambassador to the United States from 1924 to 1928, to Britain from 1929 to 1936, and Minister of the Imperial Household from 1936 to 1945.

Lars Mikael Åkerfeldt is a Swedish musician. He is the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter for the progressive metal band Opeth. A former vocalist for the death metal supergroup Bloodbath, he was also the guitarist for the "one-off" band Steel, and a member of the collaboration Storm Corrosion with Steven Wilson.

Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius was a German botanist and explorer. Between 1817 and 1820, he traveled 10,000 km through Brazil while collecting botanical specimens. In 1840 he became the founding editor of Flora Brasiliensis, a comprehensive flora of Brazil, which was not completed until 1906, 62 years after his death.

Jo Jin-ho, commonly known by the mononym Jinho, is a South Korean singer, songwriter, composer, vocal coach and member of South Korean boy group Pentagon under Cube Entertainment. In 2023, he participated in the JTBC singing competition program Phantom Singer 4, where his quartet Crezl ultimately placed third and officially debuted.

Maximilian I, occasionally called the Great, a member of the House of Wittelsbach, ruled as Duke of Bavaria from 1597. His reign was marked by the Thirty Years' War during which his title was elevated to that of prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire at the 1623 Diet of Regensburg.

John Ford was an English playwright and poet of the Jacobean and Caroline eras born in Ilsington in Devon, England. His plays deal mainly with the conflict between passion and conscience. Although remembered primarily as a playwright, he also wrote a number of poems on themes of love and morality.

Edward Stillingfleet was an English Christian theologian and scholar. Considered an outstanding preacher as well as a strong polemical writer defending Anglicanism, Stillingfleet was known as "the beauty of holiness" for his good looks in the pulpit, and was called by John Hough "the ablest man of his time".

María Isabel Anita Carmen de Jesús Vargas Lizano, known professionally as Chavela Vargas, was a Costa Rican and Mexican singer, songwriter and actress. She gained widespread recognition for her distinctive interpretations of Mexican rancheras. However, her impact extends beyond this genre, encompassing various styles within popular Latin American music.

Rachel Anne Notley is a Canadian lawyer and former politician who was the 17th premier of Alberta from 2015 to 2019 and leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party (NDP) from 2014 to 2024. Notley was the member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Edmonton-Strathcona from 2008 to 2024.

Reginald Noble, better known by his stage name Redman, is an American rapper and record producer. He rose to fame in the early 1990s as an artist on Def Jam Recordings. He is widely considered as one of the greatest rappers of all time within the hip hop culture.

Heidi Alexander is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Transport since November 2024. A member of the Labour Party, she has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Swindon South since 2024. Previously she was the MP for Lewisham East from 2010 to 2018.

Yang Hong-seok, better known by the mononym Hongseok, is a South Korean singer and actor. He debuted as a vocalist of the group boy band Pentagon in October 2016. Aside from group activities as singer, he has debuted as an actor in the Korean movie, The Love That's Left.

Caitlin Anne Parker is an Australian amateur boxer, who became the first female boxer from Australia to win an Olympic medal when she took bronze at the 2024 Paris Games. Parker has also won silver and bronze medals at two Commonwealth Games and bronze at the 2014 Youth Olympics.

Charles Anthony "Buster" Williams is an American jazz bassist. Williams is known for his membership in pianist Herbie Hancock's early 1970s group, as well as working with guitarist Larry Coryell, the Thelonious Monk repertory band Sphere and as the accompanist of choice for many singers, including Nancy Wilson.

Thornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and for the plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a U.S. National Book Award for the novel The Eighth Day.

Solomon Joseph Hemus was an American professional baseball infielder, manager, and coach, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies. Hemus is one of a select group of big league players to have held a dual role as a player-manager.

Christopher Peter Thompson is a British former long-distance runner, who won the silver medal in the 10,000 metres at the 2010 European Athletics Championships in Barcelona, on 27 July 2010 behind his compatriot Mo Farah. He competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics and the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Avriel Benjamin Kaplan is an American singer-songwriter. He is known for being the former vocal bass of the a cappella group Pentatonix from 2011 to 2017. As a part of the group, he released five studio albums, won three Grammy Awards, and sold over six million albums.

Wenceslao Moreno Centeno, known professionally as Señor Wences, was a Spanish ventriloquist and comedian. His popularity grew with his frequent television appearances on CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show during the 1950s and 1960s. Later, he became popular with another generation of fans on The Muppet Show.

Donald Kirshner was an American music publisher, music consultant, rock music producer, talent manager, and songwriter. Dubbed "the Man with the Golden Ear" by Time, he was best known for managing songwriting talent as well as successful pop groups including the Monkees, Kansas, and the Archies.

Lance Taylor, known professionally as Afrika Bambaataa, was an American disc jockey, rapper and record producer. He was notable for releasing a series of genre-defining electro tracks in the 1980s that influenced the development of hip-hop culture. Bambaataa was one of the originators of breakbeat DJing.

Ryan Neil Raburn is an American former professional baseball outfielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians, Colorado Rockies and Washington Nationals. While primarily an outfielder, he played every position except for catcher and shortstop during his career.

Romain David Jeremie Grosjean is a French and Swiss racing driver, who competes in the IndyCar Series for Dale Coyne. Grosjean competed under the French flag in Formula One between 2009 and 2020, and the IndyCar Series from 2021 to 2024 and in 2026.

Lorna Katie Fitzgerald is a British actress from Northampton. Her most notable role to date is that of Abi Branning in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. Since leaving EastEnders in January 2018, Fitzgerald has developed her acting career on the stage and in movies.

Antonio Eromonsele Nordby Nusa is a Norwegian professional footballer who plays as a winger or attacking midfielder for Bundesliga club RB Leipzig and the Norway national team. He has been described by many as one of the most exciting young prospects in world football.

Lindsay Gordon Anderson was an English filmmaker, theatre director, critic, and actor. He was considered a leading light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave, and a principal exponent of kitchen sink realism on both the stage and screen.

Collin McKinney was an American surveyor, merchant, politician, and lay preacher. He is best known as a figure in the Texas Revolution, as one of the five individuals who drafted the Texas Declaration of Independence and the oldest person to sign it.

Clare Mary Francis MBE is a British novelist who in her first career as a yachtswoman has twice sailed across the Atlantic on her own. She was the first woman to skipper a successful boat on the Whitbread Around the World race.

Ferdinand Karl Piëch was an Austrian business magnate, engineer, and executive who held the positions of chairman of the executive board (Vorstandsvorsitzender) of the Volkswagen Group from 1993 to 2002, and chairman of the supervisory board (Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender) from 2002 to 2015.

Agostino Vallini is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church. He has been a cardinal since 2006. From 2008 to 2017, he served as Vicar General of Rome. He is also the Archpriest emeritus of the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran.

Thomas Hazlehurst was known nationally as "the Chapel Builder" and more locally as "the Prince of Methodism" or "the Prince of the Wesleyans". He was given these titles because of his generosity in paying wholly or largely for the building of some 12 chapels and three schools in the area of Runcorn, Widnes and the villages in north Cheshire. His father, also called Thomas, had founded a profitable soap and alkali manufacturing business, Hazlehurst & Sons, in Runcorn in 1816.

Riccardo Gabriele Patrese is an Italian former racing driver, who competed in Formula One from 1977 to 1993. Patrese was runner-up in the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in 1992 with Williams, and won six Grands Prix across 17 seasons.

Baroness Karen Christentze von Blixen-Finecke was a Danish author who wrote in Danish and English. She is also known under her pen names Isak Dinesen, used in English-speaking countries; Tania Blixen, used in German-speaking countries; Osceola, and Pierre Andrézel.

Marquis Deon Grissom is an American former professional baseball center fielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Montreal Expos, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Brewers, Los Angeles Dodgers, and San Francisco Giants between 1989 and 2005.

Suppapong Udomkaewkanjana, nicknamed Saint, is a Thai actor, producer and host. He gained fame through his role as Pete (Pichaya) in the 2018 TV series Love by Chance and as Tutor in the TV series Why R U? (2020).

Maurice Rouvier was a French statesman of the "Opportunist" faction, who twice served as the Prime Minister of France. He is best known for his financial policies and his unpopular policies designed to avoid a rupture with Germany.

Harry Reasoner was an American journalist for CBS and ABC News. He is known for his adroit use of language as a television commentator and as one of the original hosts of the news magazine 60 Minutes.

Sean Bean is an English actor. Recognised for his work in both film and television, he has received various accolades including three BAFTA TV Awards, a Critics' Choice Award, an Actor Award and an International Emmy Award.

Eric Peter Brewer is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player who was a defenceman for sixteen seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) from 2000 to 2015. He is an NHL All-Star and Olympic gold medalist.

Frederick Morgan Taylor was an American hurdler and the first athlete to win three Olympic medals in the 400 m hurdles. He was the flag bearer for the United States at his last Olympics in 1932.

Michael IX Palaiologos or Palaeologus was Byzantine emperor together with his father, Andronikos II Palaiologos, from 1294 until his death. Andronikos II and Michael IX ruled as equal co-rulers, both using the title autokrator.

Dheeran Chinnamalai was a chieftain who ruled the odanilai region of the present day western Tamil Nadu. He fought against the British East India Company, was later captured and hanged by the British.

Ernest Henry Starling was a British physiologist who contributed many fundamental ideas to this subject. These ideas were important parts of the British contribution to physiology, which at that time led the world.

Tsutomu Wakamatsu is a Japanese former baseball player, coach, and manager for the Yakult Swallows in Nippon Professional Baseball. He batted left-handed, and threw right-handed. His number 1 is honoured by the Swallows.

Helenio Herrera Gavilán was an Argentine and naturalised French football player and manager. He is best remembered for his success with the Inter Milan team known as Grande Inter in the 1960s.

Arumugam Thiagarajah was a Sri Lankan Tamil teacher, politician and Member of Parliament. He died in May 1981, a day after being shot and injured an attack by a militant Tamil group.

Jed Carlson Lowrie is an American former professional baseball infielder. He played 14 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Boston Red Sox, Houston Astros, Oakland Athletics, and New York Mets.

Shin Ryu-jin, known mononymously as Ryujin, is a South Korean rapper, singer, dancer and actress. She is a member of the South Korean girl group Itzy, formed by JYP Entertainment in 2019.

René Anis Moawad was a Lebanese politician who served as the 9th president of Lebanon for seventeen days, from 5 to 22 November 1989, before his assassination by unknown assailants.

Yuichi Nishimura is a Japanese football referee. He has refereed in the Japanese J. League Division 1 since 1999 and has been a full international referee for FIFA since 2004.

Marguerite Bourgeoys, CND, was a French religious sister and founder of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal in the colony of New France, now part of Québec, Canada.

Gary David Bennett Jr. is an American former professional baseball catcher, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for several teams, from 1995 to 1996 and 1998 to 2008.

Kimberly Elise Trammel is an American actress. She made her feature-film debut in Set It Off (1996), and later received critical acclaim for her performance in Beloved (1998).

Bradley Keith Boyes is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player, who spent thirteen seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of seven different teams.

Taksin the Great or the King of Thonburi was a Thai Chinese general who became the only King of Thonburi that ruled Siam from 1767 to 1782.

Malcolm Wilde Browne was an American journalist and photographer, best known for his award-winning photograph of the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức in 1963.

Lagle Parek is an Estonian politician. She served as the Minister of the Interior in the first post-soviet government, led by the Prime Minister Mart Laar.

Pablo Sebastián Álvarez Valeira is an Argentine former football player, who played as a defender. He also holds a Spanish passport in accordance with his descent.

Violette Dorange is a French offshore professional sailor. She is an offshore sailor having competed extensively in the Figaro class before progressing to the IMOCA 60.

Julia Ledóchowska, USAHJ, in religion Maria Ursula of Jesus, was a Polish Catholic religious sister who founded the Ursulines of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus.

Nisargadatta Maharaj (pronounced [nisəɾgəd̪ɑːt̪t̪ə məɦaːɾaːd͡ʒ] ; was an Indian guru of nonduality, belonging to the Inchagiri Sampradaya, a lineage of teachers from the Navnath Sampradaya.

Arthur William Lake was an American actor known best for bringing Dagwood Bumstead, the bumbling husband of Blondie, to life in film, radio, and television.

Patricia Rooney Mara is an American actress. Her accolades include nominations for two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a British Academy Film Award.

General Sir John Chalmers McColl, is a retired senior British Army officer and a past Lieutenant Governor of Jersey. McColl previously served as Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe from 2007 to 2011.

Henry David Erskine, 10th Earl of Buchan,, styled Lord Auchterhouse until 1745, was a Scottish peer.

Nicolas François, known as François de Neufchâteau, was a French statesman, poet, and agricultural scientist.

Aleksander Tõnisson VR I/1 was an Estonian military commander during the Estonian War of Independence.

Emil Edwin "Judge" Fuchs was a German-born American baseball owner and executive.

Ferdinand Friedrich Hermann Nielebock, known as Herms Niel, was a German composer of military songs and marches.

Gregor Piatigorsky was a Ukrainian-born Russian and American cellist.

Nicolas Nabokov was a Russian-born composer, writer, and cultural figure. He became a U.S. citizen in 1939.

Louis Jean Heydt was an American character actor in film, television, and theatre, most frequently seen in hapless, ineffectual, or fall-guy roles.

Evangelos Averoff-Tossizza was a Greek politician, leader of the New Democracy party (1981–1984), member of parliament, and author.

Hervé Bazin was a French writer, whose best-known novels covered semi-autobiographical topics of teenage rebellion and dysfunctional families.

Lester Rodney was an American journalist who helped break down the color barrier in baseball as sports writer for the Daily Worker.

Marta Eggerth was a Hungarian-American actress and singer from "The Silver Age of Operetta".

Mahn Win Maung was an Anglo-Burmese politician who served as the third president of Burma.

Edmonde Charles-Roux was a French writer.

Gianni Raimondi was an Italian lyric tenor, particularly associated with the Italian repertory.

Joseph Gerald George McNeil was a professional ice hockey goaltender who won three Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens between 1947 and 1956.

Urs Paul Rolf Wild was a Swiss chemist. He became known for his pioneering works in single molecule detection.

Anja Silja Regina Langwagen is a German operatic soprano.

John Michael McCririck was an English horse racing pundit, television personality and journalist.

Michael Andrew Sembello is an American singer, guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter, composer and producer.

Roderick George Toombs, known by his ring name "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, was a Canadian professional wrestler and actor.

Maynard James Keenan is an American musician who is the vocalist of the rock bands Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer.

Theophalus Curtis Ratliff is an American former professional basketball player who played 16 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Travis Matthew Roy was an American college ice hockey player, author and philanthropist.

Maurice Andre Wignall is a Jamaican hurdling athlete.

Chad Hedrick is an American inline speed skater and ice speed skater. He was born in Spring, Texas.

Monika Bergmann-Schmuderer is a retired German alpine skier and gold medal winner at FIS Alpine World Ski Championships.

Marija Šestak is a Serbian-born Slovenian triple jumper.

Nicholas James Kobasew is a Canadian former professional ice hockey right winger who played eleven seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL).

Stanislav Mikhailovich Chistov is a Russian former professional ice hockey player.

Raffaele Palladino is an Italian professional football coach and former player who is currently the head coach of Serie A club Bologna.

Lachlan Maranta is a professional Rugby league footballer who plays on the wing for the Wynnum Manly Seagulls in the Queensland Cup.

Alanna Goldie is a Canadian Olympic fencer.

Anna Odine Strøm is a Norwegian ski jumper. She won two gold medals and one silver medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics.