Famous Birthdays on October 5

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. Tyson studied at Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia University. From 1991 to 1994, he was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University. In 1994, he joined the Hayden Planetarium as a staff scientist and the Princeton faculty as a visiting research scientist and lecturer. In 1996, he became director of the planetarium and oversaw its $210 million reconstruction project, which was completed in 2000. Since 1996, he has been the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. The center is part of the American Museum of Natural History, where Tyson founded the Department of Astrophysics in 1997 and has been a research associate in the department since 2003.

Barry Layne Switzer is an American former college and professional football coach. He served for 16 years as head football coach at the University of Oklahoma and four years as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL). He won three national championships at Oklahoma, and led the Cowboys to win Super Bowl XXX. He has one of the highest winning percentages of any college football coach in history, and is the second of only three head coaches to win both a college football national championship and a Super Bowl: the others are his Cowboys predecessor Jimmy Johnson and Pete Carroll with the Seattle Seahawks.

Philipp Mainländer was a German philosopher and poet. Born Philipp Batz, he later changed his name to "Mainländer" in homage to his hometown, Offenbach am Main. Mainländer is best known for his pessimistic philosophy, deeply influenced by Arthur Schopenhauer. In his central work, The Philosophy of Redemption, Mainländer argued that non-existence is preferable to existence, positing that the universe originated from a primordial divine fragmentation that God committed cosmic suicide by shattering himself into the time-bound, fragmented physical matter Mainländer believed that every thing in life, matter, and celestial bodies is the decaying corpse of this original entity driven by a cosmic “will to die” and is steadily progressing toward absolute nothingness. Driven by his philosophical conviction that individual annihilation aligns with the universe's ultimate goal, Mainländer hanged himself on April 1, 1876, the day after the publication of his masterwork, believing it was the literal and ultimate fulfillment of his own philosophy.

Sean Michael Carroll is an American theoretical physicist who specializes in quantum mechanics, cosmology, and the philosophy of science. He is the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He was formerly a research professor at the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) department of physics. He also is currently an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and he has been a contributor to the physics blog Cosmic Variance, where he has published in scientific journals such as Nature as well as other publications, including The New York Times, Sky & Telescope, and New Scientist. He is known for his atheism, his vocal critique of theism and defense of naturalism. He is considered a prolific public speaker and science popularizer. In 2007, Carroll was named NSF Distinguished Lecturer by the National Science Foundation.

Charlotte d'Éon de Beaumont, usually known as the Chevalière d'Éon or the Chevalier d'Éon, was a French diplomat, spy, and soldier. D'Éon fought in the Seven Years' War, and spied for France while in Russia and England. Assigned male at birth, D'Éon had androgynous physical characteristics and natural abilities as a mimic and spy. She appeared publicly as a man and pursued masculine occupations for the first half of her life, except for when she successfully infiltrated the court of Empress Elizabeth of Russia by presenting as a woman. Starting in 1777, d'Éon lived as a woman and was officially recognised as such by King Louis XVI.

Patrick Jacques Roy is a Canadian professional ice hockey coach, executive, and former player who most recently was the head coach for the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League (NHL). Roy was hailed in sports media as "king of goaltenders" and was named one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players in history in 2017. Nicknamed "Saint Patrick", he split his playing career in the National Hockey League (NHL) between the Montreal Canadiens, with whom he played for 11 years, and the Colorado Avalanche, with whom he played for eight years. Roy won the Stanley Cup four times during his career, two with each franchise.

Louis II was Duke of Anjou and Count of Provence from 1384 to 1417; he claimed the Kingdom of Naples, but only ruled parts of the kingdom from 1390 to 1399. His father, Louis I of Anjou—the founder of the House of Valois-Anjou—was a younger son of King John II of France and the adopted son of Queen Joanna I of Naples. When his father died during a military campaign in Naples in 1384, Louis II was still a child. He inherited Anjou from his father, but his mother, Marie of Blois, could not convince his uncles, John, Duke of Berry and Philip II, Duke of Burgundy, to continue her husband's war for Naples. The Provençal nobles and towns refused to acknowledge Louis II as their lawful ruler, but Marie of Blois persuaded them one after another to swear fealty to him between 1385 and 1387.

William Francis Unsoeld was an American mountaineer who was a member of the first American expedition to summit Mount Everest. The American Mount Everest Expedition was led by Norman Dyhrenfurth, and included Unsoeld, Jim Whittaker, Lute Jerstad, Barry Bishop and Tom Hornbein. Whittaker, with Sherpa Nawang Gombu, reached the summit on May 1, 1963. Unsoeld, Hornbein, Bishop and Jerstad reached the top on May 22, 1963. Unsoeld and Hornbein's climb was the first ascent from the peak's west ridge, and the first major traverse of a Himalayan peak. His subsequent activities included working as a U.S. Forest Service smokejumper, Peace Corps director in Nepal, speaker for Outward Bound, faculty member at Oregon State University and The Evergreen State College and mountaineering guide. He died on Mount Rainier in an avalanche.

William Karnet Willis was an American professional football player who was a middle guard and guard for eight seasons with the Cleveland Browns of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and the National Football League (NFL). Known for his quickness and strength despite his small stature, Willis was one of the dominant defensive football players of the 1940s and early 1950s. He was named an All-Pro in every season of his career and reached the NFL's Pro Bowl in three of the four seasons he played in the league. His techniques and style of play were emulated by other teams, and his versatility as a pass-rusher and coverage man influenced the development of the modern-day linebacker position. When he retired, Cleveland coach Paul Brown called him "one of the outstanding linemen in the history of professional football".

Brandan Keith Wright is a retired American professional basketball player who last played for the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Growing up in Tennessee, Wright fast became a standout at his high school Brentwood Academy, earning three "Mr. Basketball" titles, a feat no player at any level had ever done in Tennessee. After leading his high school team to four consecutive state championships, Wright was eventually recruited by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's basketball team. In his lone season as a Tar Heel, Wright was named the Atlantic Coast Conference Rookie of the Year, and earned All-ACC Second Team honors. In the 2007 NBA draft, Wright was chosen eighth overall by the Charlotte Bobcats, and in a draft-night trade was dealt to the Golden State Warriors for guard Jason Richardson.

Thomas Albert Roberts is an American television journalist who served as a news anchor for MSNBC, a cable-news channel. He ended his seven-year stint anchoring MSNBC Live, the daytime news platform of NBC News, on weekends from 5-7pm ET. Before that he was anchor of Way Too Early and a contributor to Morning Joe. He was also an NBC News correspondent and a fill-in anchor on Today and NBC Nightly News. On November 18, 2017, it was announced that Roberts had decided to leave MSNBC for other endeavors. On August 14, 2020, it was announced that Roberts will be the host of season four of DailyMailTV.

Korina Maria Baluyut Sanchez-Roxas is a Filipino broadcast journalist, television news anchor, senior field reporter, magazine show host, radio anchor, newspaper columnist and musician. She served as chief correspondent for the Integrated News and Current Affairs Division of ABS-CBN airing on TV Channel 2, AM Radio Station DZMM and cable TV network ABS-CBN News Channel. She also has a regular column in The Philippine Star entitled That Does It, as well as a Tagalog column entitled K Ka Lang in its sister newspaper, Pilipino Star Ngayon. Sanchez currently serves as an anchor of Bilyonaryo News Channel and CLTV36's flagship Tagalog language newscast, Agenda.

Avraham "Bren" Adan was an Israeli major-general and author. Prior to Israel's independence, he served with the Palmach, an elite formation within the Haganah paramilitary force of the Yishuv community in British Mandatory Palestine. Adan fought under the Haganah and later under the newly formed Israel Defense Forces during the First Arab–Israeli War, and was photographed while raising the Israeli Ink Flag at the site of what is now Eilat to mark the end of the war. He served with the Israel Defense Forces from 1948 to 1977, and fought in all of the major Arab–Israeli wars that occurred during that period.

Christopher Beltram Hernandez "J. J." Yeley is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes part-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 44 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for NY Racing Team, and part-time in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series, driving the No. 42 Chevrolet Camaro SS for Young's Motorsports, the No. 5 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Hettinger Racing, and the No. 38 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for RSS Racing. He has previously competed in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, what is now the ARCA Menards Series, the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, as well as the IndyCar Series.

Brian O'Nolan, whose pen names included Flann O'Brien, was an Irish Civil Service official, novelist, playwright and satirist, who is now considered a major figure in twentieth-century Irish literature. Born in Strabane, County Tyrone, he is regarded as a key figure in modernist and postmodern literature. His four English-language novels, At Swim-Two-Birds (1939), The Hard Life (1961), The Dalkey Archive (1964) and The Third Policeman (1967), were published under the pen name Flann O'Brien. His many satirical columns in The Irish Times and an Irish-language novel, An Béal Bocht (1941), were written under the name Myles na gCopaleen.

Kenneth Douglas Taylor was a Canadian diplomat, educator and businessman, best known for his role in the 1979 covert operation called the "Canadian Caper" when he was the Canadian ambassador to Iran. With the cooperation of the American Central Intelligence Agency, Taylor helped six Americans escape from Iran during the Iran hostage crisis by procuring Canadian passports for the Americans to deceive the Iranian Revolutionary guard by posing as a Canadian film crew scouting locations. Before the escape, the six Americans spent several weeks hiding in the homes of Taylor and another Canadian diplomat, John Sheardown.

John Alton was an American cinematographer of Hungarian-Austrian origin. Alton photographed some of the most famous films noir of the classic period and won an Academy Award for the cinematography of An American in Paris (1951), becoming the first Hungarian-born person to do so in the cinematography category. He also worked as a director during the Golden Age of Argentine cinema. His work has been honored at film festivals in Vienna, Japan, Argentina, Telluride, and San Francisco, as well as in retrospectives at the American Museum of the Moving Image and the Pacific Film Archives.

Louise Perkins Fitzhugh was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. Fitzhugh is best known for her 1964 novel Harriet The Spy, about an adolescent girl who to keeps a journal recording the foibles of her friends, classmates, and captivating strangers. The novel was later adapted into a live action film in 1996. The sequel novel, The Long Secret, was published in 1965, and its follow-up book, Sport, was published posthumously in 1979. Fitzhugh also wrote Nobody's Family Is Going to Change, which was later adapted into a short film and a Broadway musical.

Elda Emma Anderson was an American physicist and health researcher. During World War II, she worked on the Manhattan Project at Princeton University and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she prepared the first sample of pure uranium-235 at the laboratory. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, she became professor of physics at Milwaukee-Downer College in 1929. After the war, she became interested in health physics. She worked in the Health Physics Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and established the professional certification agency known as the American Board of Health Physics.