Famous Birthdays on July 25

Illeana Hesselberg, known professionally as Illeana Douglas, is an American actress and filmmaker. Following her screen debut with a small part in Hello Again (1987), she went on to appear in a variety of mainstream and independent features throughout the 1990s, such as Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), Alive (1993), To Die For (1995), Grace of My Heart (1996), Chasing Amy, Picture Perfect, Happy, Texas; Message in a Bottle; and Stir of Echoes. Her other credits include The Next Best Thing (2000), Ghost World (2001), Dummy (2002), Factory Girl (2006), She's Funny That Way (2014), and Return to Sender (2015).

Rosalind Elsie Franklin was an English chemist and X-ray crystallographer. Her work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite. Although her works on coal and viruses were appreciated in her lifetime, Franklin's contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA were largely unrecognised during her life, for which Franklin has been variously referred to as the "wronged heroine", the "dark lady of DNA", the "forgotten heroine", a "feminist icon", and the "Sylvia Plath of molecular biology". James Watson believed that, had she not died, ideally, Franklin would have been awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

James I was King of Scots from 1406 to 1437. The youngest of three sons, he was born in Dunfermline Abbey to King Robert III and his wife Annabella Drummond. His older brother David, Duke of Rothesay died under suspicious circumstances while being detained by their uncle, Robert, Duke of Albany. His other brother, Robert, died young. Fears for James's safety grew through the winter of 1405/6 and plans were made to send him to France. In February 1406, James was forced to take refuge in the castle of the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth after his escort was attacked by supporters of Archibald, 4th Earl of Douglas. He remained there until mid-March, when he boarded a vessel bound for France. On 22 March, English pirates captured the ship and delivered the prince to Henry IV of England. The ailing Robert III died on 4 April, and the 11-year-old James, now the uncrowned King of Scotland, would not regain his freedom for another eighteen years.

Alvin Mentian Kamara is an American professional football running back for the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Tennessee Volunteers after transferring from Hutchinson Community College and was selected by the Saints in the third round of the 2017 NFL draft. Kamara was named the NFL Rookie of the Year in 2017, was named a Pro Bowler in his first five NFL seasons, and is a two-time second-team All-Pro. In 2020, Kamara became the second player in NFL history to score six rushing touchdowns and 36 points in a single game. Four years later, he became the Saints' all-time rushing leader.

Henry Knox was an American military officer, politician, bookseller, and a Founding Father of the United States. Knox, born in Boston, became a senior general of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, serving as chief of artillery in all of George Washington's campaigns. Following the war, he oversaw the War Department under the Articles of Confederation from 1785 to 1789. Washington appointed him the nation's first secretary of war, a position which he held from 1789 to 1794. He is well known today as the eponym of Fort Knox in Kentucky, which is often conflated with the adjacent United States Bullion Depository.

Nathaniel Thurmond was an American professional basketball player who spent the majority of his 14-year career in the National Basketball Association (NBA) with the Golden State Warriors franchise. He played the center and power forward positions. Thurmond was a seven-time All-Star and the first player in NBA history to record an official quadruple-double. In 1965, he grabbed 42 rebounds in a game; only Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell recorded more rebounds in an NBA game. Thurmond was named a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1985, one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History, and part of the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021.

Jesús Cristóbal Martínez Rodriguez is a Mexican professional wrestler who is best known as El Zorro. His gimmick started out very similar to the fictional character Zorro complete with mask, but in recent years it has evolved and the mask has been eliminated. He is best known for his work in the Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA) promotion in Mexico, where he is a former AAA Mega Champion. He has in the past worked both in Europe, Japan and made a few brief appearances for the World Wrestling Federation show WWF Super Astros. He was the "Deputy leader" of the La Legión Extranjera faction headed by Konnan. In December 2012, Martínez was repackaged as La Parka Negra, the storyline nemesis of La Parka. He returned as El Zorro in October 2013, before departing the company in February 2017.

Alexei Vladimir "Alex" Filippenko is an American astrophysicist and professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. Filippenko graduated from Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California. He received a Bachelor of Arts in physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1979 and a Ph.D. in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology in 1984, where he was a Hertz Foundation Fellow. He was a postdoctoral Miller Fellow at Berkeley from 1984 to 1986 and was appointed to Berkeley's faculty in 1986. In 1996 and 2005, he was a Miller Research Professor, and he is currently a Senior Miller Fellow. His research focuses on supernovae and active galaxies at optical, ultraviolet, and near-infrared wavelengths, as well as on black holes, gamma-ray bursts, and the expansion of the Universe.

Mohammed ″Mod″ Helmy was an Egyptian-German physician who was recognized by Israel as one of the Righteous Among the Nations in 2013, with his name being listed at Yad Vashem in the city of Jerusalem. Born in Sudan, he moved to Berlin to study medicine and was later involved in saving many Jews from being exterminated by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. After World War II he was finally allowed to marry his love Emmi. In 2013 Helmy was the first Arab to be recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations; his nephews were summoned by Yad Vashem to receive the honour on his behalf, but were reluctant to do so because of the Arab–Israeli conflict, though they eventually attended the ceremony at the German foreign ministry.

Justice Howard is an American photographer whose work includes shooting erotica, pin-up and celebrities. Her work has appeared in over 50 hardcover books and in thousands of magazines including Vogue Paris, Esquire, Easyriders, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, People, In Touch Weekly, Skin Two, and a 25-page spread in Bound by Ink, as well as being displayed in over 60 art gallery exhibits and numerous museum shows. She has also been featured in DankLook's "On Women in Black and White Fine Art Photography." Her photography features themes of female empowerment, freedom, and inner strength. She was previously a model before "graduating to photography" and training under a German master photographer. Her work has been compared to that of Annie Leibovitz and Herb Ritts.

Mark James Hunter is a British Liberal Democrat politician and former leader of Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council who became Member of Parliament (MP) for Cheadle at a 2005 by-election. At the 2015 general election, Hunter lost his seat to Mary Robinson of the Conservative Party. Hunter then returned to Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, and served as the leader of from 19 May 2022 to 21 May 2025. As leader he was also a member of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and was the combined authority's portfolio holder for Children and Young People. He has continued to serve as Councillor for Cheadle Hulme South.

William Eric Bowes was an English professional cricketer active from 1929 to 1947 who played in 372 first-class matches as a right arm fast bowler and a right-handed tail end batsman. He took 1,639 wickets with a best performance of nine for 121 and completed ten wickets in a match 27 times. He scored 1,531 runs with a highest score of 43* and is one of very few major players whose career total of wickets taken exceeded his career total of runs scored. He did not rate himself as a fielder but he nevertheless held 138 catches.

Eric Hoffer was an American philosopher and social critic. A moderate with an atypical working-class background, Hoffer wrote ten books over his career and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983. His first book, The True Believer (1951), was widely recognized as a classic, receiving critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen, although Hoffer believed that The Ordeal of Change (1963) was his finest work. The Eric Hoffer Book Award is an international literary prize established in his honor. The University of California, Berkeley awards an annual literary prize named jointly for Hoffer.

Robert Bruce Zoellick is an American lawyer and government official who was the 11th president of the World Bank Group from 2007 to 2012. He was previously chairman of international advisors at Goldman Sachs from 2006 to 2007, United States Deputy Secretary of State from 2005 to 2006, and U.S. Trade Representative from 2001 to 2005. Prior to those posts, from 1985 to 2001, he served in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and the presidential campaign of George W. Bush, in addition to positions in various think tanks and academia.

Frank Julian Sprague was an American inventor who contributed to the development of the electric motor, electric railways, and electric elevators. His contributions were especially important in promoting urban development by increasing the size cities could reasonably attain and by allowing greater concentration of business in commercial sections. He became known as the "father of electric traction". Demonstrating an aptitude for science and mathematics, Sprague secured an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1874 and, after graduation in 1878 and 2 years at sea, resigned to pursue his career in electrical engineering.

Andrew Cowper Lawson was a Scots-born Canadian geologist who became professor of geology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was the editor and co-author of the 1908 report on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake which became known as the "Lawson Report". He was also the first person to identify and name the San Andreas Fault in 1895, and after the 1906 quake, the first to delineate the entire length of the San Andreas Fault which previously had been noted only in the San Francisco Bay Area. He also named the Franciscan Complex.

Annastacia Palaszczuk is an Australian politician who served as the 39th premier of Queensland from 2015 to 2023. She held office as the leader of the Queensland branch of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 2012 until her resignation, and was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland (MLA) for the division of Inala from 2006 to 2023. Palaszczuk is the fifth-most-tenured premier in Queensland state history and the first woman to win the premiership from opposition, she also presided over the first majority female cabinet in Australian state and federal history.

Elizabeth MacKintosh, known by the pen name Josephine Tey, was a Scottish author. She is known for her Inspector Alan Grant series, which started with The Man in the Queue (1929). Her 1951 novel The Daughter of Time, from the same series, a detective work investigating the death of the Princes in the Tower, was chosen by the Crime Writers' Association in 1990 as the greatest crime novel of all time. Her first play Richard of Bordeaux, written under another pseudonym, Gordon Daviot, starred John Gielgud in its successful West End run.

Douglas Dean Drabek is an American former professional baseball pitcher, and a current minor league baseball coach. He is the pitching coach for the Reno Aces, the Triple-A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball (MLB). He played in MLB for the New York Yankees, Pittsburgh Pirates, Houston Astros, Chicago White Sox and Baltimore Orioles between 1986 and 1998. Drabek batted and threw right-handed. Known for his fluid pitching motion and sound mechanics, he won the National League Cy Young Award in 1990. Drabek was an MLB All-Star in 1994.