Famous Birthdays on October 14

Péter Nádas was a Hungarian writer, playwright and essayist. He was widely acclaimed for surrealist and challenging novels and autobiographical accounts. He was considered the most significant figures in contemporary Hungarian prose. Susan Sontag described his most A Book of Memories as “the greatest novel written in our time. In 1967, he emerged on the literary scene with an anthology of short stories titled The Bible. Parallel Stories, a 1,100-page trilogy published in 2005, has been termed a monumental novel. His two volume memoir titled Shimmering Details, published in 2017, is also a collosal work that captures a life alongside vital pieces of Europe's history. He was frequently recommended for Nobel Prize in Literature. His last work Halott barátaim, was published in early November 2025.

Edward Estlin Cummings, commonly known as e e cummings or E. E. Cummings, was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. During World War I, he worked as an ambulance driver and was imprisoned in an internment camp, which provided the basis for his novel The Enormous Room (1922). The following year he published his first collection of poetry, Tulips and Chimneys, which showed his early experiments with grammar and typography. He wrote four plays, the most successful of which were HIM (1927) and Santa Claus: A Morality (1946). He wrote EIMI (1933), a travelog of the Soviet Union, and delivered the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in poetry, published as i—six nonlectures (1953). Fairy Tales (1965), a collection of short stories, was published posthumously.

Tillakaratne Mudiyanselage Dilshan, commonly known as TM Dilshan is a former Sri Lankan cricketer and former captain of the Sri Lanka national cricket team. He is often regarded as the best rated Sri Lankan player in run-chases in ODI history and one of the most innovative players of all time. He was the top run scorer in the 2011 Cricket World Cup with 500 runs, and scored a century against England in the quarter-final. Dilshan is considered to be a rare example of a cricketer with notable skills in all aspects of the game, who can bat, bowl, field and keep wicket. He is an aggressive right-hand batsman who invented the scoop, which has come to be known as the Dilscoop, a shot that hits the ball over the keeper. Apart from being an opening batsman, he is also a capable off-break bowler. Energetic in the field, he usually fielded at the point region. He was part of the Sri Lankan team that won the 2014 ICC World Twenty20.

Jerry Michael Glanville is an American football coach. He is the current defensive coordinator of the San Antonio Toros of the Continental Football League. He played football at Northern Michigan University in the early 1960s, and is a former NASCAR driver and owner, and sportscaster. He served as head coach of the Houston Oilers from 1986 to 1990 and the Atlanta Falcons from 1990 to 1994, compiling a career National Football League (NFL) record of 63–73. From 2007 to 2009, he was the head football coach at Portland State University, tallying a mark of 9–24. Glanville has worked as an analyst on HBO's Inside the NFL, CBS's The NFL Today/NFL on CBS and Fox's coverage of the NFL. He has also raced on the Automobile Racing Club of America circuit. Glanville also briefly served as a consultant and liaison for the United Football League in 2011.

Saeed Ajmal SI is a Pakistani cricket coach and former cricketer who played all forms of the game. He is a right-arm off-spin bowler who bats right handed. At domestic level in Pakistan he represented Faisalabad, with whom he won the 2005 ABN-AMRO Twenty-20 Cup; Khan Research Laboratories; and Islamabad. Ajmal made his One Day International debut for Pakistan in July 2008 at the age of 30, and a year later played his first Test. In 2009, he was reported for having a suspect bowling action, but after being cleared he helped Pakistan win the 2009 ICC World Twenty20. Ajmal played for Worcestershire as an overseas player in English domestic cricket in 2011. From November 2011 to December 2014, Ajmal was ranked by the International Cricket Council as the number one bowler in ODIs. He reached the same ranking in T20Is from October to December 2012, while his highest Test ranking was second between January and July of the same year. He is one of four Test bowlers who made their debut after the age of thirty to take more than 100 test wickets, along with Clarrie Grimmett, Dilip Doshi and Ryan Harris.

Collier "P. J." Brown Jr. is an American former professional basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The 6 ft 11 in (2.11 m), 239 lb (108 kg) center/power forward was selected out of Louisiana Tech University by the New Jersey Nets with the 29th overall pick in the 1992 NBA draft, but began his NBA career only in the 1993–94 season. He was voted into the NBA All-Defensive Second Team three times, in 1997, 1999 and 2001, and won the NBA Sportsmanship Award in 2004. He attended Winnfield Senior High School in Winnfield, Louisiana, where he played for the Winnfield Tigers, and has played professionally for the Nets, Miami Heat, Charlotte Hornets, New Orleans Hornets, Chicago Bulls and Boston Celtics. Brown retired from the NBA after winning an NBA championship with the Celtics in 2008.

Mohand Amezian ben Ameziane Saïl was an Algerian anarchist and anti-colonial activist. Born in Kabylia, he was largely self-taught and became an atheist and an anarchist after moving to Metropolitan France. After World War I, he joined the French anarchist movement and began agitating for Algerian independence. He was arrested and imprisoned several times during the 1930s, due to his anti-colonialist, anti-militarist and anti-fascist activism. He volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War and served in the Durruti Column until he was wounded and forced to return to France. After the Nazi occupation of France, he was interned in a concentration camp, but escaped and joined the French Resistance. With the liberation of France, he resumed his agitation for Algerian independence, calling for a social revolution to overthrow the French colonial empire. In his writings, he depicted native Kabyles as having their own libertarian and egalitarian tradition, and proposed the establishment of a non-hierarchical and secular society in an independent Algeria. He continued his activism up until his death, one year before the Algerian War of Independence broke out.

Przemysł II was the Duke of Poznań from 1257–1279, of Greater Poland from 1279 to 1296, of Kraków from 1290 to 1291, and Gdańsk Pomerania (Pomerelia) from 1294 to 1296, and then King of Poland from 1295 until his death. After a long period of Polish high dukes and two nominal kings, he was the first to obtain the hereditary title of king, and thus to return Poland to the rank of kingdom. A member of the Greater Poland branch of the House of Piast as the only son of Duke Przemysł I and the Silesian Princess Elisabeth, he was born posthumously; for this reason he was brought up at the court of his uncle Bolesław the Pious and received his own district to rule, the Duchy of Poznań in 1273. Six years later, after the death of his uncle, he also obtained the Duchy of Kalisz.

Lois Lenore Lenski Covey was a Newbery Medal-winning author and illustrator of picture books and children's literature. Beginning in 1927 with her first books, Skipping Village and Jack Horner's Pie: A Book of Nursery Rhymes, Lenski published 98 books, including several posthumously. Her work includes children's picture books and illustrated chapter books, songbooks, poetry, short stories, her 1972 autobiography, Journey into Childhood, and essays about books and children's literature. Her best-known bodies of work include the "Mr. Small" series of picture books (1934–62); her "Historical" series of novels, including the Newbery Honor-winning titles Phebe Fairchild: Her Book (1936) and Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison (1941); and her "Regional" series, including Newbery Medal-winning Strawberry Girl (1945) and Children's Book Award-winning Judy's Journey (1947).

Roger Taylor MBE is a British former tennis player, born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. He achieved success at several Grand Slam tournaments, reaching the quarter-finals of the French Open in 1973, the semi-finals of Wimbledon during the same year and winning back to back US Open men's doubles titles in 1971 and 1972. He also enjoyed particular success in 1970, again reaching the semi-finals of Wimbledon, where he achieved a big upset win over defending champion Rod Laver en route, and the semi-finals of the Australian Open. Taylor also reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon in 1967. His career-high ATP ranking was 11 in its early listings in 1973; earlier unofficial year-end listings ranked him joint-7th (amateur) for 1967 and 8th (open) for 1970.

Jodocus Hondius was a Flemish engraver and cartographer. He is sometimes called Jodocus Hondius the Elder to distinguish him from his son Jodocus Hondius II. Hondius is best known for his early maps of the New World and Europe, for re-establishing the reputation of the work of Gerardus Mercator, and for his portraits of Francis Drake. He inherited and republished the plates of Mercator, thus reviving his legacy, also making sure to include independent revisions to his work. One of the notable figures in the Golden Age of Dutch cartography, he helped establish Amsterdam as the centre of cartography in Europe in the 17th century.

Joseph Start, nicknamed "Old Reliable", was one of the most durable regulars of baseball's earliest era, and one of the top first basemen of his time. He began his playing career in 1859, before the formation of organized leagues and before ballplayers received payment for their services. He continued to play regularly until 1886, when he was 43. Start's career spanned countless innovations that transformed the game in fundamental ways, but he adjusted and continued to play at a high level for almost three decades. Baseball historian Bill Ryczek said that Start "was the last of the pre–Civil War players to hang up his cleats."

Melba Joyce Montgomery was an American country music singer and songwriter. She was known for a series of duet recordings made with George Jones, Gene Pitney, and Charlie Louvin. She was also a solo artist, having reached the top of the country charts in 1974 with the song, "No Charge". Born in Tennessee but raised in Alabama, Montgomery had a musical upbringing. Along with her two brothers, she placed in a talent contest which brought her to the attention of Roy Acuff. For several years, she toured the country as part of his band until she signed with United Artists Records in 1963.

Arthur Louis Shamsky, nicknamed "Sham" and "Smasher", is an American former Major League Baseball player. He played right field, left field, and first base from 1965 to 1972 for the Cincinnati Reds, New York Mets, Chicago Cubs, and Oakland Athletics. He tied a major league record by homering in four consecutive at bats in 1966. He was an integral player on the 1969 World Series Champion Miracle Mets, batting .300 with 14 home runs while platooning, and then hitting .412 in the post-season batting cleanup and .368 overall. In 2007, he was the manager of the Modi'in Miracle of the Israel Baseball League.

John Robert Wooden was an American basketball coach and player. Nicknamed "the Wizard of Westwood", he won ten National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) national championships in a 12-year period as head coach for the UCLA Bruins, including a record seven in a row. No other team has won more than four in a row in Division I college men's or women's basketball. Within this period, his teams won an NCAA men's basketball record 88 consecutive games. Wooden won the prestigious Henry Iba Award as national coach of the year a record seven times and won the Associated Press award five times.

Evelio Bellaflor Javier was a Filipino lawyer and politician. He served as governor of the province of Antique and was an opponent of the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos. His assassination on February 11, 1986, was one of the causes of the People Power Revolution that overthrew Marcos. Evelio Javier's brother, Exequiel Javier, served as congressman from 1987 to 1998 and from 2001 to 2010 and governor from 1998 to 2001, and 2010 to 2015. In 2018, Javier was identified as a Motu Proprio human rights violations victim of the Martial Law Era by the Human Rights Victims Claims Board.

Stephen Cram, is a British retired track and field athlete. Along with fellow Britons Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett, he was one of the world's dominant middle-distance runners during the 1980s. Nicknamed "The Jarrow Arrow", after his home town, Cram set world records in the 1,500 m, 2,000 m, and the mile during a 19-day period in the summer of 1985. He was the first man to run 1,500 m under 3 minutes and 30 seconds. He won the 1,500 m gold medal at the 1983 World Championships and the 1,500 m silver medal at the 1984 Olympic Games.

Sophia was Electress of Hanover from 1692 to 1698 as the consort of Prince-Elector Ernest Augustus. She was later the heiress presumptive to the thrones of England, and Ireland under the Act of Settlement 1701, as she was the granddaughter of King James VI and I. Sophia died less than two months before she would have become Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Consequently, her son George succeeded her first cousin once removed, Queen Anne, to the British throne. The succession to the throne has since been composed entirely of, and legally defined as, Sophia's legitimate Protestant descendants.

William Edwards Deming was an American business theorist, composer, economist, industrial engineer, management consultant, statistician, and writer. Educated initially as an electrical engineer and later specializing in mathematical physics, he helped develop the sampling techniques still used by the United States Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He is also known as the father of the quality movement, known as "Lean manufacturing" today, and was hugely influential in post-WWII Japan, credited with revolutionizing Japan's industry and making it one of the most dominant economies in the world. He is best known for his theories of management.