Famous Birthdays on May 16

May 16 has 213 recorded notable births across history, from 1418 to 2002. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.

David Boreanaz

1969 — David Boreanaz

American actor

By · Wikipedia

Famous Birthdays 213 source records 1418 – 2002 Taurus

Major events on May 16

See what else happened on this day in history.

  1. 2005 Kuwait permits women's suffrage in a 35–23 National Assembly vote. Source
  2. 1812 Imperial Russia signs the Treaty of Bucharest, ending the Russo-Turkish War. The Ottoman Empire cedes Bessarabia to Russia. Source

Did you know about David Boreanaz

David Boreanaz is set to star in a reboot of The Rockford Files in 2027, which he will also serve as a producer.

Did you know about Thomas Brodie-Sangster

As a child actor, he gained recognition for his roles in the commercially successful films Love Actually (2003) and Nanny McPhee (2005).

Did you know about IU

Although her follow-up albums brought mainstream success, it was only after the release of "Good Day", the lead single from her 2010 EP Real, that she achieved national stardom.

Did you know about Tori Spelling

Tori Spelling's first major role was Donna Martin on Beverly Hills, 90210, from 1990 to 2000.

Did you know about Billy Martin

Alfred Manuel "Billy" Martin was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) second baseman and manager, who, in addition to leading other teams, was five times the manager of the New York Yankees.


More major people born on May 16

Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.

1990 Thomas Brodie-Sangster

Thomas Brodie-Sangster

English actor
Thomas Brodie-Sangster is a British actor. As a child actor, he gained recognition for his roles in the commercially successful films Love Actually (2003) and Nanny McPhee (2005). He voiced Ferb in the first four seasons of Phineas and Ferb (2007–2015), and subsequently gained wider attention with his roles as Jake Murray in Accused (2010–2012), Jojen Reed in Game of Thrones (2013–2014) and as Newt in the Maze Runner film series (2014–2018). Continued acclaim ensued with the independent films Nowhere Boy (2009), in which he portrayed Paul McCartney, Bright Star (2009), and Death of a Superhero (2011).
1993 IU

IU

Korean singer-songwriter and actress
Lee Ji-eun, also known by her stage name IU (아이유), is a South Korean singer-songwriter and actress. She signed with LOEN Entertainment in 2007 as a trainee and debuted as a singer at the age of fifteen with the EP Lost and Found (2008). Although her follow-up albums brought mainstream success, it was only after the release of "Good Day", the lead single from her 2010 EP Real, that she achieved national stardom. "Good Day" went on to spend five consecutive weeks at the top of South Korea's Gaon Digital Chart, and in 2019, it was ranked number one on Billboard's "100 Greatest K-Pop Songs of the 2010s" list.
1973 Tori Spelling

Tori Spelling

American actress, reality television personality, and author
Victoria Davey Spelling is an American actress. Her first major role was Donna Martin on Beverly Hills, 90210, from 1990 to 2000. She has appeared in made-for-television films, including A Friend to Die For (1994), A Carol Christmas (2003), The Mistle-Tones (2012), both versions of Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? and The Last Sharknado: It's About Time (2018). She has also starred in several independent films including The House of Yes (1997), Trick (1999), Scary Movie 2 (2001), Cthulhu (2007), Kiss the Bride (2007) and Izzie's Way Home (2016). She reprised her role of Donna Martin in Beverly Hills, 90210's spin-off, BH90210, in 2019.
1928 Billy Martin

Billy Martin

American baseball player and coach (died 1989)
Alfred Manuel "Billy" Martin was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) second baseman and manager, who, in addition to leading other teams, was five times the manager of the New York Yankees. First known as a scrappy infielder who made considerable contributions to the championship Yankee teams of the 1950s, he then built a reputation as a manager who would initially make bad teams good, before ultimately being fired amid dysfunction. In each of his stints with the Yankees he managed them to winning records before being fired by team owner George Steinbrenner or resigning under fire.
1961 Kevin McDonald

Kevin McDonald

Canadian actor and screenwriter
Kevin Hamilton McDonald is a Canadian actor, comedian and writer. He is a member of the comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall, who have appeared together in a number of stage, television and film productions, most notably the 1988–1995 TV series The Kids in the Hall. He played Pastor Dave in That '70s Show, and starred as a co-pilot in the 2011 web comedy series Papillon. He also does voice work in animation, most notably as Agent Wendy Pleakley in the Lilo & Stitch franchise, Waffle in Catscratch, and the Almighty Tallest Purple in Invader Zim.
1801 William H. Seward

William H. Seward

American lawyer and politician, 24th United States Secretary of State (died 1872)
William Henry Seward was an American politician who served as United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869 and earlier served as governor of New York and as a United States senator. A determined opponent of the spread of slavery in the years leading up to the American Civil War, he was prominent in the Republican Party in its formative years and was praised for his work on behalf of the Union as Secretary of State during the Civil War. He also negotiated the treaty for the United States to purchase the Alaska Territory.
1984 Rick Rypien

Rick Rypien

Canadian ice hockey player (died 2011)
Richard Joseph Rypien was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who was a forward for parts of six seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Vancouver Canucks from 2005 to 2011. After a major junior career of four years with the Regina Pats of the Western Hockey League (WHL), he was signed to a professional contract by the minor league Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League (AHL) in 2005. The following season, he signed with the Canucks. He spent six years with the organization, splitting time between the Canucks and Moose, their AHL affiliate. A fourth-line player in the NHL, he was known for his hitting and fighting abilities, though his size was not typical of an enforcer.
1991 Joey Graceffa

Joey Graceffa

American internet celebrity
Joseph Michael Graceffa Jr. is an American YouTuber, vlogger, actor, author, and producer. He runs four active YouTube channels, all named after him. His main channel is dedicated to vlogging, while the second features video gaming content. The third is for daily vlogs, and the fourth is a react channel. His channels have a combined total of more than 2.9 billion views. He was a contestant on the 22nd and 24th seasons of The Amazing Race, and has appeared in a handful of short films as well as creating and hosting Escape the Night, an immersive reality web series, distributed by YouTube via its paid-subscription service YouTube Premium. He appears in all four of the seasons with several other YouTubers, including Liza Koshy, Tyler Oakley, Justine Ezarik, Matthew Patrick, and Rosanna Pansino.
1938 Ivan Sutherland

Ivan Sutherland

American computer scientist and academic
Ivan Edward Sutherland is an American computer scientist, widely regarded as a pioneer of computer graphics. His early work in computer graphics, as well as his teaching with David C. Evans in that subject at the University of Utah in the 1970s, was pioneering in the field. Sutherland, Evans, and their students from that era developed several foundations of modern computer graphics. He received the 1988 ACM Turing Award for the invention of the Sketchpad, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface that has become ubiquitous in personal computers, and his contributions to computer graphics. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, as well as the National Academy of Sciences among many other major awards. In 2012, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology for "pioneering achievements in the development of computer graphics and interactive interfaces".
1876 Fred Conrad Koch

Fred Conrad Koch

American biochemist and endocrinologist (died 1948)
Frederick Conrad Koch was an American biochemist and endocrinologist. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Koch graduated from the University of Illinois in 1899. He was affiliated with the University of Chicago from 1912 to 1941, serving as chairman of the department of biochemistry from 1936 to 1941. He retired as professor emeritus, and was director of biomedical research at Armour and Company. He was known primarily for his work on male sex hormones and testicular function. He served as the 19th president of the Endocrine Society, which in 1957 established the Fred Conrad Koch Lifetime Achievement Award, the society's highest honor.
1954 Dafydd Williams

Dafydd Williams

Canadian physician and astronaut
Dafydd "Dave" Rhys Williams is a Canadian physician, public speaker, CEO, author and retired CSA astronaut. Williams was a mission specialist on two Space Shuttle missions. His first spaceflight, STS-90 in 1998, was a 16-day mission aboard Space Shuttle Columbia dedicated to neuroscience research. His second flight, STS-118 in August 2007, was flown by Space Shuttle Endeavour to the International Space Station. During that mission he performed three spacewalks, becoming the third Canadian to perform a spacewalk and setting a Canadian record for total number of spacewalks. These spacewalks combined for a total duration of 17 hours and 47 minutes.
1991 Ashley Wagner

Ashley Wagner

American figure skater
Ashley Elisabeth Wagner is an American former competitive figure skater. She is the 2016 World silver medalist, a 2014 Olympic bronze medalist in the team event, the 2012 Four Continents champion, a three-time Grand Prix Final medalist, a thirteen-time Grand Prix medalist, and a three-time U.S. national champion. Wagner competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and placed 7th. At the junior level, Wagner is a two-time World Junior bronze medalist, the 2006-07 Junior Grand Prix Final silver medalist, a two-time Junior Grand Prix medalist, and the 2007 U.S. junior bronze medalist.
1898 Kenji Mizoguchi

Kenji Mizoguchi

Japanese director and screenwriter (died 1956)
Kenji Mizoguchi was a Japanese filmmaker who directed roughly one hundred films during his career between 1923 and 1956. His most acclaimed works include The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939), The Life of Oharu (1952), Ugetsu (1953), and Sansho the Bailiff (1954), with the latter three all being awarded at the Venice International Film Festival. A recurring theme of his films was the oppression of women in historical and contemporary Japan. Together with Akira Kurosawa and Yasujirō Ozu, Mizoguchi is seen as a representative of the "golden age" of Japanese cinema.
1920 Martine Carol

Martine Carol

French actress (died 1967)
Martine Carol was a French film actress. She frequently was cast as an elegant blonde seductress. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, she was the leading sex symbol and a top box-office draw of French cinema, and she was considered a French version of America's Marilyn Monroe. One of her more famous roles was as the title character in Lola Montès (1955), directed by Max Ophüls, in a role that required dark hair. However, by late 1956, roles for Carol had become fewer, partly because of the introduction of Brigitte Bardot.
1986 Andy Keogh

Andy Keogh

Irish footballer
Andrew Declan Keogh is an Irish professional footballer who plays as a forward for semi-professional side East Perth FC. Born in Dublin, Keogh played the first several years of his professional career playing for a number of clubs in England, including Wolverhampton Wanderers, for whom he made over 100 appearances. In 2014, Keogh moved to Australia to play for Perth Glory. He left the Glory for one year to play in the Thai Premier League for Ratchaburi before returning in early 2016, and again in 2020, after leaving in 2019, for Al-Qadsiah.
1937 Yvonne Craig

Yvonne Craig

American ballet dancer and actress (died 2015)
Yvonne Joyce Craig was an American actress best known for her role as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl in the 1960s television series Batman. Other notable roles in her career include Dorothy Johnson in the 1963 movie It Happened at the World's Fair, Azalea Tatum in the 1964 movie Kissin' Cousins, and the green-skinned Orion Marta in the Star Trek episode "Whom Gods Destroy" (1969). The Huffington Post called her "a pioneer of female superheroes" for television. Craig was a philanthropist and "an advocate for workers unions, free mammograms, and equal pay for women".
1898 Desanka Maksimović

Desanka Maksimović

Serbian poet and academic (died 1993)
Desanka Maksimović was a Serbian poet, writer and translator. Her first works were published in the literary journal Misao in 1920, while she was studying at the University of Belgrade. Within a few years, her poems appeared in the Serbian Literary Herald, Belgrade's most influential literary publication. In 1925, Maksimović earned a French Government scholarship for a year's study at the University of Paris. Upon her return, she was appointed a professor at Belgrade's elite First High School for Girls, a position she would hold continuously until World War II.
1929 Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich

American poet, essayist, and feminist (died 2012)
Adrienne Cecile Rich was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse". Rich criticized the rigid identities that are sometimes created by feminism, called for feminism that is flexible and open to being transformed, and drew attention to the existing current of solidarity and creativity among women, which she named the "lesbian continuum."
1919 Ramon Margalef

Ramon Margalef

Spanish ecologist and biologist (died 2004)
Ramon Margalef López was a Catalan biologist and ecologist. He was Emeritus Professor of Ecology at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Barcelona. Margalef, one of the most prominent scientists that Spain has produced, worked at the Institute of Applied Biology (1946–1951), and at the Fisheries Research Institute, which he directed during 1966–1967. He created the Department of Ecology of the University of Barcelona, from where he trained a huge number of ecologists, limnologists and oceanographers. In 1967 he became Spain's first professor of ecology.

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