Did you know about Joan Bennett
Beginning her career on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 films from the era of silent films, well into the sound era.
Famous Birthdays on February 27
February 27 has 240 recorded notable births across history, from 272 to 2002. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.
1910 — Joan Bennett
American actress (died 1990)
By thisDay.info Editorial Team · — Wikipedia
Famous Birthdays
240 source records
272 – 2002
Pisces
Today in history
Major events on February 27
See what else happened on this day in history.
- 1963 The Dominican Republic receives its first democratically elected president, Juan Bosch, since the end of the dictatorship led by Rafael Trujillo. Source
- 1962 Vietnam War: Two dissident Republic of Vietnam Air Force pilots bomb the Independence Palace in Saigon in a failed attempt to assassinate South Vietnam President Ngô Đình Diệm. Source
Did you know about Franchot Tone
Franchot Tone was a leading man in the 1930s and early 1940s, and at the height of his career was known for his gentlemanly sophisticate roles, with supporting roles by the 1950s.
Did you know about Ten
Ten debuted with the South Korean boy band under SM Entertainment, NCT, in 2016 as part of its first sub-unit, NCT U. Since 2019, he has been active mainly as a member of NCT's China-based unit WayV and the South Korean supergroup SuperM.
Did you know about Meyers Leonard
After spending his first seven seasons with the Trail Blazers, he was traded to the Miami Heat in the 2019 off-season.
Did you know about Raymond Berry
The Colts won consecutive NFL championships, including the 1958 NFL Championship Game—known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played"—in which Berry caught 12 passes for 178 yards and a touchdown.
More major people born on February 27
Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.
1905
Franchot Tone
American actor, singer, and producer (died 1968)
Stanislaus Pascal Franchot Tone was an American actor, producer, and director of stage, film and television. He was a leading man in the 1930s and early 1940s, and at the height of his career was known for his gentlemanly sophisticate roles, with supporting roles by the 1950s. His acting crossed many genres including pre-Code romantic leads to noir layered roles and World War I films. He appeared as a guest star in episodes of several golden age television series, including The Twilight Zone and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour while continuing to act and produce in the theater and movies throughout the 1960s.
1996
Ten
Thai singer and dancer
Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul, known professionally as Ten, is a Thai singer and dancer. He debuted with the South Korean boy band under SM Entertainment, NCT, in 2016 as part of its first sub-unit, NCT U. Since 2019, he has been active mainly as a member of NCT's China-based unit WayV and the South Korean supergroup SuperM. Ten has also released several solo singles through the SM Station project: "Dream in a Dream" (2017), "New Heroes" (2018), "Paint Me Naked" (2021), and "Birthday" (2022). He made his solo debut in February 2024 with his eponymous extended play.
1992
Meyers Leonard
American basketball player
Meyers Patrick Leonard is an American former professional basketball player. He played college basketball for the Illinois Fighting Illini before being selected by the Portland Trail Blazers with the 11th overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft. After spending his first seven seasons with the Trail Blazers, he was traded to the Miami Heat in the 2019 off-season. He reached the NBA Finals with the Heat in 2020. No NBA player who is at least 7 ft 0 in (2.13 m) has a career three point shot field goal percentage of 40%, but Leonard is one of the few that has one over 39%.
1933
Raymond Berry
American football player and coach (died 2026)
Raymond Emmett Berry Jr. was an American professional football player and coach in the National Football League (NFL). He played as a split end for the Baltimore Colts from 1955 to 1967, and after several assistant coaching positions, was head coach of the New England Patriots from 1984 to 1989. With the Colts, Berry led the NFL in receptions and receiving yards three times and in receiving touchdowns twice, and was invited to six Pro Bowls. The Colts won consecutive NFL championships, including the 1958 NFL Championship Game—known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played"—in which Berry caught 12 passes for 178 yards and a touchdown. He retired as the all-time NFL leader in both receptions and receiving yardage.
1919
Johnny Pesky
American baseball player and manager (died 2012)
John Michael Pesky, nicknamed "the Needle" and "Mr. Red Sox", was an American professional baseball player, manager and coach in Major League Baseball (MLB). He was a shortstop and third baseman during a ten-year major league playing career, appearing in 1,270 games played in 1942 and from 1946 to 1954 for three teams. He missed the 1943–45 seasons while serving in World War II. Pesky was associated with the Boston Red Sox for 61 of his 73 years in baseball—from 1940 through June 3, 1952, 1961 through 1964, and from 1969 until his death. Pesky also managed the Red Sox from 1963 to 1964, and in September 1980.
1848
Hubert Parry
English composer and historian (died 1918)
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet, was an English composer, teacher and historian of music. Born in Richmond Hill, Bournemouth, Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the choral song "Jerusalem", his 1902 setting for the coronation anthem "I was glad", the choral and orchestral ode Blest Pair of Sirens, and the hymn tune "Repton", which sets the words "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind". His orchestral works include five symphonies and a set of Symphonic Variations. He also composed the music for Ode to Newfoundland, the national anthem for the Dominion of Newfoundland.
1913
Irwin Shaw
American author and screenwriter (died 1984)
Irwin Shaw was an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best known for two of his novels: The Young Lions (1948), about the fate of three soldiers during World War II, which was made into a film of the same name starring Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift, and Rich Man, Poor Man (1970), about the fate of two brothers and a sister in the post-World War II decades, which in 1976 was made into a popular miniseries starring Peter Strauss, Nick Nolte, and Susan Blakely.
1944
Graeme Pollock
South African cricketer and coach
Robert Graeme Pollock is a South African former cricketer who played for Transvaal and Eastern Province. A member of a famous cricketing family, Pollock is widely regarded as one of South Africa's greatest ever cricketers, and as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. Despite Pollock's international career being cut short at the age of 26 by the sporting boycott of South Africa, and all but one of his 23 Test matches being against England and Australia, the leading cricket nations of the day, he broke a number of records. His completed career Test match batting average of 60.97 remains the third best behind Sir Don Bradman and Adam Voges.
1953
Gavin Esler
Scottish journalist and author
Gavin William James Esler is a Scottish journalist, television presenter and author. He was a main presenter on BBC Two's flagship political analysis programme, Newsnight, from January 2003 until January 2014, and presenter of BBC News at Five on the BBC News Channel. From 2014 to 2023 he served as the Chancellor of the University of Kent. On 11 March 2017, Esler confirmed via his Twitter profile that he would be leaving the BBC at the end of the month to concentrate on his writing activities. He returned to the BBC later that year as host of Talking Books.
1930
Paul von Ragué Schleyer
American chemist and academic (died 2014)
Paul von Ragué Schleyer was an American physical organic chemist whose research is cited with great frequency. A 1997 survey indicated that Dr. Schleyer was, at the time, the world's third most cited chemist, with over 1100 technical papers produced. He was Eugene Higgins Professor of Chemistry at Princeton University, professor and co-director of the Institute for Organic Chemistry at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg in Germany, and later Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. He published twelve books in the fields of lithium chemistry, ab initio molecular orbital theory and carbonium ions. He was past president of the World Association of Theoretically Oriented Chemists, a fellow of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science and editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Computational Chemistry.
1981
Élodie Ouédraogo
Belgian sprinter
Élodie Ouédraogo is a retired Belgian sprinter of Burkinabé descent, who specializes in the 200 metres and 400 m hurdles. An Olympic gold medalist, her personal best time in the 200 m is 23.11 seconds, achieved in July 2004 in Brussels, while her personal best in the 400 m hurdles is 55.20, achieved at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Ouédraogo is also the joint third-fastest Belgian woman after Kim Gevaert and Olivia Borlée and equalling Nancy Callaerts with her best 100 metres time of 11.40. Her 200 metres best ranks her fourth amongst Belgian women after Gevaert, Borlée and Hanna Mariën. Her 400 m hurdles best places her as the second-fastest Belgian woman over the distance, after Ann Mercken.
1926
David H. Hubel
Canadian-American neurophysiologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2013)
David Hunter Hubel was an American Canadian neurophysiologist noted for his studies of the structure and function of the visual cortex. He was co-recipient with Torsten Wiesel of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for their discoveries concerning information processing in the visual system. For much of his career, Hubel worked as the Professor of Neurobiology at Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Medical School. In 1978, Hubel and Wiesel were awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University. In 1983, Hubel received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
1982
Pat Richards
Australian rugby league player
Pat Richards is a former professional rugby league footballer. An Ireland international winger, he played in the National Rugby League for Sydney clubs the Parramatta Eels and the Wests Tigers, with whom he won the 2005 NRL Premiership, and the Wigan Warriors and the Catalans Dragons in the Super League, winning the 2010 and 2013 Super League Grand Finals with the former. While in Super League, Richards won the Man of Steel award in 2010 and is the highest overseas points-scorer in the competition's history. He is a cousin of UFC superstar Conor McGregor.
1987
Valeriy Andriytsev
Ukrainian wrestler
Valerii Oleksandrovych Andriitsev is a male freestyle wrestler from Ukraine. He won the silver medal in the Men's freestyle 96 kg at 2012 Summer Olympics. He won the silver in the 2012 European Wrestling Championships. At the 2014 World Wrestling Championships he took the bronze medal after winning a rematch against American Jake Varner, who beat him in the gold medal match at the 2012 Olympics. In June 2015, he earned bronze at the inaugural European Games for Ukraine in wrestling, more specifically, in the men's freestyle in the - 97 kg division.
1951
Steve Harley
English singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2024)
Stephen Malcolm Ronald Nice, known by his stage name Steve Harley, was an English singer-songwriter and frontman of the rock group Cockney Rebel. The band achieved five UK hit albums, including The Psychomodo (1974) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1975), and six UK hit singles in the mid-1970s, including "Judy Teen", "Mr. Soft", and the number one "Make Me Smile ". Harley later scored a further three UK hit singles as a solo artist, most notably with "The Phantom of the Opera", a duet with Sarah Brightman, in 1986.
1944
Roger Scruton
English philosopher and writer (died 2020)
Sir Roger Vernon Scruton was an English philosopher, writer, and social critic who specialised in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of conservative views. The founding-editor of The Salisbury Review, a conservative political journal, Scruton wrote over 50 books on architecture, art, philosophy, politics, religion, among other topics. Scruton was also Chairman of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission for the United Kingdom government from 2019 to 2020. His views on classical architecture and beauty are still promoted via his foundation, while his political stances remain influential.
1903
Hans Rohrbach
German mathematician (died 1993)
Hans Rohrbach was a German mathematician. He worked both as an algebraist and a number theorist and later worked as cryptanalyst at Pers Z S, the German Foreign Office cipher bureau, during World War II. He was latterly known as the person who broke the American diplomatic O-2 cypher, a variant of the M-138-A strip cipher during 1943. Rohrbach wrote a report on the breaking of the strip cypher when he was captured by TICOM, the allied effort to roundup and seize captured German intelligence people and material.
1961
James Worthy
American basketball player and sportscaster
James Ager Worthy is an American former professional basketball player. Nicknamed "Big Game James", he played his entire 12-year professional career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Worthy was a seven-time NBA All-Star, a two-time All-NBA Team member who won three NBA championships and was voted the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1988. He was named to both the NBA's 50th and 75th anniversary teams. Worthy has been regarded by many as one of the greatest small forwards in NBA history.
1630
Roche Braziliano
Dutch pirate (died 1671)
Roche Braziliano was a Dutch pirate from the city of Groningen. His piratical career lasted from 1654 until his death in 1681. He was first made famous in Alexandre Exquemelin's 1678 book The Buccaneers of America; Exquemelin did not know Braziliano's real name, but historians have argued his probable real name was Gerrit Gerritszoon and that he and his parents had moved to Dutch Brazil. He is known as "Roche Braziliano", which in English translates to "Rock the Brazilian", due to his long exile in Brazil.