Famous Birthdays on February 6

Richard Paul Astley is an English singer, songwriter, radio DJ and podcaster. He gained fame through his association with the production trio Stock Aitken Waterman, releasing the 1987 album Whenever You Need Somebody, which sold 15 million copies worldwide and was certified platinum by both the BPI and the RIAA. His debut single "Never Gonna Give You Up" was a No. 1 hit in more than 25 countries, winning the 1988 Brit Award for Best British Single. The song also stayed at the top of the UK chart for five weeks in 1987 and was the best-selling single of that year. His 1988 single "Together Forever" also topped the US Billboard Hot 100 and was one of his eight songs to reach the UK Singles Chart top 10.

Shanthakumaran Nair Sreesanth is an Indian former cricketer and film actor who played all formats of the game for his country. He is a right-arm fast-medium-pace bowler and a right-handed tail-ender batsman. In first class cricket, he played for Kerala. In the Indian Premier League (IPL) he played for the Rajasthan Royals. He became the first Kerala Ranji player to play Twenty20 cricket for India. Sreesanth was initially banned for life after spot-fixing in the 2013 IPL, however, the ban was reduced to seven years in August 2019. In 2018, he participated in the popular reality show, Bigg Boss and became the runner up. In 2020 he was selected for the Kerala cricket team and resumed his career in national cricket. In March 2022, Sreesanth announced his retirement from domestic cricket. Sreesanth was a member of the Indian team that won both the 2007 T20 World Cup and the 2011 Cricket World Cup, where in the 2007 final, he took the winning catch.

Mary Douglas Leakey, FBA was a British paleoanthropologist who discovered the first fossilised Proconsul skull, an extinct ape believed to be ancestral to humans. She also discovered the robust Zinjanthropus skull at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, eastern Africa. For much of her career she worked with her husband, Louis Leakey, at Olduvai Gorge, where they uncovered fossils of ancient hominines and the earliest hominins, as well as the stone tools produced by the latter group. Mary Leakey developed a system for classifying the stone tools found at Olduvai. She discovered the Laetoli footprints, and at the Laetoli site she discovered hominin fossils that were more than 3.75 million years old.

Edward Geary Lansdale was a United States Air Force officer until retiring in 1963 as a major general before continuing his work with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Lansdale was a pioneer in clandestine operations and psychological warfare. In the early 1950s, Lansdale played a significant role in suppressing the Hukbalahap rebellion in the Philippines. In 1954, he moved to Saigon and started the Saigon Military Mission, a covert intelligence operation that was created to sow dissension in North Vietnam. Lansdale believed the United States could win guerrilla wars by studying the enemy's psychology, an approach that notionally won the approval of the presidential administrations of both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson but largely would not be implemented due to bureaucratic opposition.

Robert Marion La Follette Jr. was an American politician who served as United States senator from Wisconsin from 1925 to 1947. A member of the La Follette family, he was often referred to by the nickname "Young Bob" to distinguish him from his father, Robert M. "Fighting Bob" La Follette, who had served as a U.S. senator and governor of Wisconsin. Robert Jr., along with his brother Philip La Follette, carried on their father's legacy of progressive politics and founded the Wisconsin Progressive Party. Robert Jr. was the last major Progressive Party politician in the U.S. Senate, ending in 1946 when the party disbanded. La Follette was defeated in the 1946 Republican Senate primary by Joseph McCarthy.

Denis Mostyn Norden was an English comedy writer and television presenter. After an early career working in cinemas, he began scriptwriting during the Second World War. From 1948 to 1959, he co-wrote the BBC Radio comedy programme Take It from Here with Frank Muir. Muir and Norden remained associated for more than 50 years, appearing regularly together on the radio panel programmes My Word! and My Music after they stopped collaborating on scripts. He also wrote scripts for Hollywood films. He presented television programmes on ITV for many years, including the nostalgia quiz Looks Familiar and blooper shows It'll be Alright on the Night and Laughter File.

Kimberly Lynn Zmeskal Burdette is an American retired artistic gymnast turned gymnastics coach and the 1991 World All-Around champion. A member of the silver medal-winning U.S. team from the 1991 World Championships, she was the first American woman to win the all-around title at the World Championships, as well as the first to win a world championship medal of any color in the all-around. A three-time United States national all-around champion (1990–92), Zmeskal was also the 1992 world champion on both balance beam and floor exercise, and was a member of the bronze medal-winning U.S. team at the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, the first U.S. team medal won at a fully attended Olympic Games. She also posted the highest optional all-around score in the qualification round in Barcelona.

Magnús Guðmundsson was an Icelandic politician. He graduated in laws from the University of Copenhagen in 1907. Magnus was a member of Althingi for his constituency in North west Iceland from 1916 till the day of his death in 1937. He served as prime minister of Iceland for 15 days, from 23 June to 8 July 1926 following the death of Jón Magnússon. Magnus is the shortest serving prime minister in Icelandic history. Magnus was a member of the now defunct Conservative Party (Íhaldsflokkurinn). He was the Minister of Industrial Affairs in the presiding Government of Jón Magnússon from 1924 to 1927. Prior to that he had served as Minister of Finance of Iceland from 1920 to 1922. He was a founding member of the Independence Party and served as a minister of Justice in the first government that the Independence Party participated in, from 1932 to 1934.

Scott M. Gordon is an American professional ice hockey coach and former professional goaltender. He is currently the head coach for the Waterloo Black Hawks of the United States Hockey League (USHL). He previously served as the head coach of the NHL's New York Islanders from 2008 to 2010 and the head coach of the National Hockey League's Philadelphia Flyers in the 2018–19 season, and, as well as the head coach of the Providence Bruins and Lehigh Valley Phantoms of the American Hockey League (AHL) between 2002 and 2021. Before coaching he played 23 games in the NHL with the Quebec Nordiques during the 1989–90 and 1990–91 seasons, and in the minor leagues from 1986 to 1994. Internationally he played for the American national team at the 1992 Winter Olympics and the 1991 World Championships. Gordon was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, but grew up in Easton, Massachusetts.

Girolamo Benivieni was a Florentine poet and a musician. His father was a notary in Florence. He suffered poor health most of his life, which prevented him from taking a more stable job. He was a leading member of the Medicean Academy, a society devoted to literary study. He was a friend of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), whom he met for the first time in 1479; it was Pico della Mirandola who encouraged him to study Neoplatonism. In the late 1480s, he and Pico della Mirandola became students of Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498). In 1496, he translated the teachings of Savonarola from Italian to Latin. After he began following Savonarola, he rejected his earlier poetry and attempted to write more spiritually. He participated in Savonarola's Bonfire of the Vanities, and documented the destruction of art worth "several thousand ducats".

Geo Bogza was a Romanian avant-garde theorist, poet, and journalist, known for his left-wing and communist political convictions. As a young man in the interwar period, he was known as a rebel and was one of the most influential Romanian Surrealists. Several of his controversial poems twice led to his imprisonment on grounds of obscenity, and saw him partake in the conflict between young and old Romanian writers, as well as in the confrontation between the avant-garde and the far right. At a later stage, Bogza won acclaim for his many and accomplished reportage pieces, being one of the first to cultivate the genre in Romanian literature, and using it as a venue for social criticism.

Lothar-Günther Buchheim was a German author, painter, and wartime journalist under the Nazi regime. In World War II he served as a war correspondent aboard ships and U-boats. He is best known for his 1973 antiwar novel Das Boot, based on his experiences during the war, which became an international bestseller and was adapted as the 1981 Oscar-nominated film of the same name. His artworks, collected in a gallery on the banks of the Starnberger See, range from heavily decorated cars to a variety of mannequins seated or standing as if themselves visitors to the gallery, thus challenging the division between visitor and art work.

Natalie Maria Cole was an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She was the daughter of singer and jazz pianist Nat King Cole. She rose to prominence in the mid-1970s, with the release of her debut album Inseparable (1975), along with the song "This Will Be ", and the album's title track. Its success led to her receiving the Grammy Award for Best New Artist at the 18th Annual Grammy Awards, for which she became the first African-American recipient as well as the first R&B act to win the award. The singles "Sophisticated Lady" (1976), "I've Got Love on My Mind", and "Our Love" (1977) followed.

Antoine Domonick Wright is an American former professional basketball player. He attended preparatory school at Lawrence Academy at Groton; in 2002, he led the Spartans to an Independent School League basketball championship. After his junior year at Texas A&M University, he was selected 15th overall in the 2005 NBA draft by the Nets, the highest pick from the Big 12 Conference that year and in Texas A&M University history until Acie Law was drafted 11th in the 2007 NBA Draft. Wright played his first five seasons of professional basketball in the NBA. He has since played overseas and in the NBA D-League.

Irmgard Keun was a German novelist. Noted for her portrayals of the life of women, she is described as "often reduced to the bold sexuality of her writing, [yet] a significant author of the late Weimar period and die Neue Sachlichkeit." She was born into an affluent family and was given the autonomy to explore her passions. After her attempts at acting ended at the age of 16, Keun began working as a writer after years of working in Hamburg and Greifswald. Her books were banned by Nazi authorities but gained recognition during the final years of her life.

Robert Nesta Marley was a Jamaican reggae singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Considered one of the pioneers of the genre, he was renowned for his distinctive vocal and songwriting style. Marley increased the visibility of Jamaican music worldwide and became a global figure in popular culture. He became known as a Rastafarian icon, and he infused his music with a sense of spirituality. Marley is also considered a global symbol of Jamaican music, culture and identity and was controversial in his outspoken support for democratic social reforms. Marley also supported the legalisation of cannabis and advocated for pan-Africanism.

Thomas John Brokaw is an American author and retired network television journalist. He first served as the co-anchor of The Today Show from 1976 to 1981 with Jane Pauley, then as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News for 22 years (1982–2004). In the previous decade he served as a weekend anchor for the program from 1973 to 1976. He is the only person to have hosted all three major NBC News programs: The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and, briefly, Meet the Press. He formerly held a special correspondent post for NBC News.

William Ambrose Wright was an English footballer who played as a centre-back. He spent his entire club career at Wolverhampton Wanderers. The first footballer in the world to earn 100 international caps, Wright also held the record for longest unbroken run in competitive international football, with 70 consecutive appearances, although that was surpassed by Andoni Zubizarreta's 86 consecutive appearances for Spain (1985–94). He also made a total of 105 appearances for England, captaining them a record 90 times, including during their campaigns at the 1950, 1954 and 1958 World Cup.

Malcolm "Cam" Cameron is an American football coach who was most recently the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach of the LSU Tigers football program. Cameron attended Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and played quarterback for the school. Cameron began his coaching career in the NCAA with the Michigan Wolverines. After that he switched to the National Football League (NFL), where he was offensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens and the San Diego Chargers and head coach for the Miami Dolphins, coaching them to a 1–15 record in his only season.