Famous Birthdays on September 16

Fan Bingbing is a Chinese actress. After gaining recognition for the costume drama My Fair Princess (1998–1999), Fan's breakthrough came with Feng Xiaogang's film Cell Phone (2003), which won her the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress. She followed with television series such as The Proud Twins (2004), Eight Heroes (2006), and The Empress of China (2014) while collaborating with Li Yu on art-house films such as Lost in Beijing (2007), Buddha Mountain (2011), Double Xposure (2012), and Ever Since We Love (2015). She reunited with Feng in I Am Not Madame Bovary (2016), which won her the Silver Shell for Best Actress and the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actress. Fan's international credits include My Way (2011), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), The 355 (2022), Ice Road: Vengeance (2025), and Mother Bhumi (2025), for which she won the Golden Horse Award for Best Leading Actress.

Elgin Gay Baylor was an American professional basketball player, coach, and executive. He played 14 seasons as a forward in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Minneapolis/Los Angeles Lakers. Baylor was a gifted shooter, a strong rebounder, and an accomplished passer, who was best known for his trademark hanging jump shot. The No. 1 draft pick in 1958, NBA Rookie of the Year in 1959, 11-time NBA All-Star, and a 10-time member of the All-NBA first team, Baylor is regarded as one of the game's greatest ever players. In 1977, Baylor was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In 1996, Baylor was named as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. In October 2021, Baylor was again honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team. Baylor is the leader for most career rebounds in Lakers franchise history with 11,463.

Dame Julia Catherine Donaldson is a British writer and playwright, and the 2011–2013 Children's Laureate. She is best known for her popular rhyming stories for children, especially those illustrated by Axel Scheffler, which include The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom, Stick Man, and Superworm. She originally wrote songs for children's television but has concentrated on writing books since the words of one of her songs, "A Squash and a Squeeze", were made into a children's book in 1993. Of her 184 published works, 64 are widely available in bookshops. The remaining 120 are intended for school use and include her Songbirds phonic reading scheme, which is part of the Oxford University Press's Oxford Reading Tree. In January 2025, Donaldson became Britain's best-selling author, surpassing J.K. Rowling by some 600,000 sales.

Prince Mikhail Illarionovich Golenishchev-Kutuzov-Smolensky was a field marshal of the Russian Empire. He served as a military officer and a diplomat under the reign of three Romanov monarchs: Empress Catherine II, and Emperors Paul I and Alexander I. Kutuzov was shot in the head twice while fighting the Turks and survived the serious injuries seemingly against all odds. He defeated Napoleon as commander-in-chief using attrition warfare in the Patriotic War of 1812. For the Battle of Krasnoi against Napoleon, Kutuzov received the victory title of Smolensky to add to his surname; the word Smolensky literally means "of Smolensk". Alexander I, the incumbent Tsar during Napoleon's invasion, would write that he would be remembered amongst Europe's most famous commanders and that Russia would never forget his worthiness.

Robert Harold Schuller was an American Christian televangelist, pastor, motivational speaker, and author. Over five decades, Schuller pastored his church in Garden Grove, California starting in 1955. The weekly broadcast of Hour of Power television program followed began in 1970, and he led until his retirement in 2006. His grandson, Bobby Schuller, carries on the Hour of Power, which has aired for over fifty years. During his time as a minister, Schuller oversaw the construction of two churches in Garden Grove, California. The first church built under his tenure was the Garden Grove Community Church chapel which seated 500, and the second was the much larger Crystal Cathedral, which has a capacity of 2,200.

Korla Pandit, was an American exotica musician, composer, pianist, and organist. Redd was an African-American man from Missouri who moved to California in the 1940s. After getting involved in show business, Redd became known as "Korla Pandit" and claimed to be a French-Indian musician from New Delhi, India. A pathbreaking musical performer in the early days of television, Redd is known for Korla Pandit's Adventures In Music; the show was the first all-music program on television. He also performed live and on radio and made various film appearances, becoming known as the "Godfather of Exotica". Both publicly and privately, Redd maintained the Korla Pandit persona and continued to pass as a native of India until the end of his life.

Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke was a British Tory politician and philosopher. He was a leader of the Tories, and supported the Church of England politically despite his antireligious views and opposition to theology. Bolingbroke supported the Jacobite rebellion of 1715, which sought to overthrow the new king George I. Escaping to France, he became foreign minister for the Jacobite pretender James Francis Edward Stuart. He was attainted for treason but reversed course and was allowed to return to England in 1723. According to Ruth Mack, "Bolingbroke is best known for his party politics, including the ideological history he disseminated in The Craftsman (1726–1735) by adopting the formerly Whig theory of the Ancient Constitution and giving it new life as an anti-Walpole Tory principle."

Alexander Nikolayevich Vinokourov is a Kazakhstani former professional road bicycle racer and the current general manager of UCI WorldTeam XDS Astana Team. As a competitor, his achievements include two bronze medals at the World Championships, four stage wins in the Tour de France, four in the Vuelta a España plus the overall title in 2006, two Liège–Bastogne–Liège monuments, one Amstel Gold Race, and the gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics Men's Road Race. Vinokourov is a past national champion of Kazakhstan, and a dual-medalist at the Summer Olympics. In 2007, he received a two-year ban from cycling for blood doping. In 2019, he was accused of race fixing by prosecutors in Liège but was later cleared of the charges.

Michael James Stewart is an English former cricketer, coach and administrator. A right-handed batsman, Stewart's international career was hampered by illness that curtailed his first overseas tour – serving as vice-captain in India in 1963–64 – and he made only eight Test appearances in all, scoring two half-centuries. His domestic career for Surrey spanned eighteen years, in which he scored over 26,000 first-class runs with forty-nine centuries. He made a century on debut for his county, against Pakistan, and went on to break the then-world record number of catches in a match in 1957 with his strong fielding. He captained Surrey between 1963 and 1972, winning the County Championship in 1971. After retiring, he became a manager at the club and later for England until 1992. He then worked for the ECB until 1997. He was the coach of the English squad which finished as runners-up at the 1987 Cricket World Cup.

Brian Kendall Sims is an American politician, activist and attorney. A Democrat, he was a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for the 182nd district from 2013 until 2022. Sims is also a lawyer and advocate for LGBT civil rights. Sims became the first openly gay elected state legislator in Pennsylvania history. He won re-election on November 6, 2018. He was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania in 2022, finishing in second place behind Austin Davis with 25% of the vote. Since leaving public office in 2022, Sims served as the managing director of Government Affairs and Public Policy at Out Leadership, on the Board of Trustees of the Tyler Clementi Foundation, and as CEO of Agenda PAC.

Ursula Martius Franklin was a Canadian metallurgist, activist, research physicist, author, and educator who taught at the University of Toronto for more than 40 years. Franklin is best known for her writings on the political and social effects of technology. She was the author of The Real World of Technology, which is based on her 1989 Massey Lectures; The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map, a collection of her papers, interviews, and talks; and Ursula Franklin Speaks: Thoughts and Afterthoughts, containing 22 of her speeches and five interviews between 1986 and 2012. Franklin was a practising Quaker and actively worked on behalf of pacifist and feminist causes. She wrote and spoke extensively about the futility of war and the connection between peace and social justice. Franklin received numerous honours and awards, including the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case for promoting the equality of girls and women in Canada and the Pearson Medal of Peace for her work in advancing human rights. In 2012, she was inducted into the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame. A Toronto high school, Ursula Franklin Academy, as well as Ursula Franklin Street on the University of Toronto's St. George campus, have been named in her honor.

Henry V, also called Henry of Monmouth, was King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine from 1413 until his death in 1422. His victory at Agincourt in 1415 and his conquest of Normandy gave England the upper hand in the Hundred Years' War and led, by the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, to his recognition as heir and regent of France. This was the high-water mark of the English cause in the war. Celebrated in William Shakespeare's Henriad as one of the greatest warrior-kings of medieval England, Henry was also a forceful ruler at home, restoring public order, working closely with Parliament, and enforcing a strict religious orthodoxy.

James Jerome Hill was an American railway entrepreneur. He was the chief executive officer of a family of lines headed by the Great Northern Railway, which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains and the Pacific Northwest. Because of the size of this region of the United States and the economic dominance exerted by the Hill lines, Hill became known during his lifetime as "The Empire Builder", and died in 1916 with a fortune of about $63 million, or about $1.3 to 1.7 billion today. His former home, James J. Hill House, is now a museum in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Emperor Yuan of Liang, personal name Xiao Yi (蕭繹), courtesy name Shicheng (世誠), childhood name Qifu (七符), was an emperor of the Chinese Liang dynasty. After his father Emperor Wu and brother Emperor Jianwen were successively taken hostage and controlled by the rebel general Hou Jing, Xiao Yi was largely viewed as the de facto leader of Liang, and after defeating Hou in 552 declared himself emperor. In 554, after offending Yuwen Tai, the paramount general of rival Western Wei, Western Wei forces descended on and captured his capital Jiangling, executing him and instead declaring his nephew Xiao Cha the Emperor of Liang.

The Daoguang Emperor, also known by his temple name Emperor Xuanzong of Qing, personal name Minning, was the seventh emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the sixth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign was marked by "external disaster and internal rebellion". These include the First Opium War and the beginning of the Taiping Rebellion which nearly brought down the dynasty. The historian Jonathan Spence characterizes the Daoguang Emperor as a "well meaning but ineffective man" who promoted officials who "presented a purist view even if they had nothing to say about the domestic and foreign problems surrounding the dynasty".

Kyla Alissa Pratt is an American actress. She is best known for providing the voice of Penny Proud in the first Disney Channel animated series, The Proud Family, its 2005 film adaptation and its revival The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, and for portraying Breanna Latrice Barnes in UPN's One on One. She is also known for playing Maya Dolittle in the Dr. Dolittle franchise reboot from 1998 to 2009. From 2012 to 2014, she appeared in the series Let's Stay Together. She was formerly a part of VH1's Black Ink Crew: Compton and the cast of Call Me Kat on Fox.

Marie Vieux-Chauvet was a Haitian novelist, playwright, and short story writer. Her novels are considered by translator Myriam J. A. Chancy to be "by far the best-known works by a Haitian woman novelist". Born in Port-au-Prince, Chauvet grew up during the United States occupation of Haiti. She began writing at the age of 10 and attended the Annex of the Upper School for Teachers, receiving her certificate in 1933. During the late 1940s, she wrote several plays, and during the 1950s, she wrote her first three novels. She became involved with the literary collective Haïti Littéraire during the early 1960s.

John Carl Hendricks, known professionally as Jon Hendricks, was an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists, such as the big-band arrangements of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. He is considered one of the best practitioners of scat singing, which involves vocal jazz soloing. Jazz critic and historian Leonard Feather called him the "Poet Laureate of Jazz", while Time dubbed him the "James Joyce of Jive". Al Jarreau called him "pound-for-pound the best jazz singer on the planet—maybe that's ever been".

Travis Michael Wall is an American dancer, instructor, and choreographer specializing in contemporary and jazz dance styles. He rose to international attention in 2006 as a competitor on the second season of the Fox television show So You Think You Can Dance. Wall received ten Primetime Emmy Award nominations for choreography between 2011 and 2020, winning in 2015 and 2017 for his work on So You Think You Can Dance. In 2012, he starred in the Oxygen reality show All the Right Moves, where he, Teddy Forance, Nick Lazzarini and Kyle Robinson launched their own dance company called Shaping Sound.