Births

Wilhelm Kükenthal, deutscher Zoologe

Daniel Edward Howard

Daniel Edward Howard served as the 16th President of Liberia from 1912 to 1920, governing during World War I when the country — founded by freed American slaves — maintained neutrality before eventually declaring war on Germany. His presidency navigated the delicate balance between Americo-Liberian political elites and indigenous African populations.

Josef Andergassen, österreichischer Kunsttischler, Altarbauer und Bildhauer

Henry Head, britischer Neurologe

Jesse Reno, US-amerikanischer Ingenieur

Helene Richter, österreichische Anglistin, Holocaustopfer

1862

Ludwig Aub, deutscher Buchhändler, Schriftsteller, Graphologe und Hellseher

1863

Leona May Peirce, amerikanische Mathematikerin

1865

Gus Kempis

Gus Kempis was born in 1865 and played cricket for Griqualand West and Western Province in South Africa's early domestic competition, with enough ability to be selected for the first South African touring team to England in 1894. He died in 1890, four years before that tour, at 25. The records are thin. South African cricket in the 1880s was a white colonial sport played on rough grounds with inconsistent conditions. What Kempis managed to do in that context was enough that the selectors remembered his name. He didn't live to make the trip.

1866

Rodulfo Figueroa, poeta y médico mexicano (f.

Rodulfo Figueroa, poeta y médico mexicano (f. 1899).

1866

Anna Blos, deutsche Politikerin, Abgeordnete der Weimarer Nationalversammlung

1867

Jake Beckley

Jake Beckley was born in Hannibal, Missouri in 1867 and played first base for 20 seasons in the major leagues — quietly, without championships or dramatic moments, accumulating 2,934 career hits. He's in the Hall of Fame. His career totals were recognized only in retrospect; he wasn't famous during his playing days. Hannibal was also Mark Twain's hometown, which seems like the kind of detail that would make a good story. Beckley was 51 years older than Twain's death. Their paths probably crossed somewhere. Nobody wrote it down.

1867

Valerius De Saedeleer, peintre belge († 16 septembre 1941).

1868

Joseph Oppenhoff, deutscher Jurist

1868

Master C. V. V.

Master C.V.V. — Canchupati Venkata Rao — was a theosophist and yogi from Kumbhakonam who claimed to have developed a method of yoga he called Taraka Raja Yoga, which he said could accelerate spiritual development without requiring ascetic renunciation. He gathered followers in the early twentieth century and reportedly entered a state of suspended animation, dying in 1922. His followers in Andhra Pradesh continue to this day, maintaining his meditation technique and commemorating his death anniversary as a significant spiritual event.

1869

Evelyn Sharp, escritora y sufragista británica (f.

Evelyn Sharp, escritora y sufragista británica (f. 1955).

1870

Sir Harry Lauder

Harry Lauder was born in Portobello, Edinburgh in 1870, the son of a potter, and became the most commercially successful music hall entertainer of his era. He played the Scottish stereotype — kilts, bagpipes, exaggerated accent — and did it with enough skill that audiences on both sides of the Atlantic paid generously for the performance. He was the first British artist to sell a million records. During World War I, he toured frontline units to perform for troops. His son was killed in 1916. He kept touring. He was knighted in 1919.

1870

Oscar Ameringer, deutsch-US-amerikanischer Tischler, Musiker, Redakteur und Politiker

1870

Harry Lauder

He performed for King George V in kilts he designed himself, but Harry Lauder's most grueling stage was grief. When his only son died in World War I, Lauder walked onstage the next night anyway — and wrote "Keep Right On to the End of the Road" in that same week of mourning. The song became a comfort anthem across Britain. He was the first artist to sell a million records. And that cheerful Scotsman persona? He never broke character. Not once.

1871

William Holman

William Holman emigrated from England to Australia and became the 19th Premier of New South Wales, serving during World War I. Originally a Labor politician, he was expelled from the party over the conscription crisis of 1916 and finished his career as a Nationalist — a political transformation that mirrored the deep divisions the war created in Australian society.

1871

Enrique Molina Garmendia, filósofo y educador chileno (f.

Enrique Molina Garmendia, filósofo y educador chileno (f. 1964).

1872

Anton Baumstark junior, deutscher Orientalist und Liturgiewissenschaftler

1872

Benedikt Schmittmann, deutscher Sozialwissenschaftler

1872

Otto Erler, deutscher Dramatiker

1873

Martha Goldberg, deutsche, sozial engagierte Frau und jüdisches NS-Opfer der Reichspogromnacht

1873

Carlos Domingo Fernández, militar argentino (f.

Carlos Domingo Fernández, militar argentino (f. 1915).

1873

Dámaso Berenguer, militar y político español (f.

Dámaso Berenguer, militar y político español (f. 1953).

1874

Patrick Philbin, britischer Tauzieher

1875

Siegfried Grzymisch, deutscher Bezirksrabbiner

1876

Otto Gröger, Schweizer Sprachwissenschaftler

1876

John Scaddan

John Scaddan served as the 10th Premier of Western Australia, leading a Labor government during the early 1910s when the state was booming from gold mining and agricultural expansion. He was one of Western Australia's youngest premiers and governed during a period of rapid infrastructure development in the state's remote interior.

1876

Giovanni Giuriati

Giovanni Giuriati served as secretary of the Italian Fascist Party and held multiple ministerial positions under Mussolini. A lawyer and World War I veteran, he represented the technocratic wing of Italian fascism before falling out of favor with the regime's more radical elements.

1877

Dame Laura Knight

Dame Laura Knight was the first woman elected to the Royal Academy of Arts since its founding in 1768, breaking a 158-year barrier in British art. She painted circus performers, ballet dancers, and wartime factory workers with a vivid realism that captured working-class life, and was the only woman appointed as an official war artist during World War II. She also painted at the Nuremberg Trials, documenting the accused from the courtroom gallery.

1878

Robert Aumüller, deutscher Manager

1879

Alfred Kienast, Schweizer Mathematiker und Hochschullehrer

1879

Mario Sáenz, bogado, escritor y político argentino (f.

Mario Sáenz, bogado, escritor y político argentino (f. 1943).

1880

Francisco Moreno Zuleta, político español (f.

Francisco Moreno Zuleta, político español (f. 1963).

1880

Werner von Fritsch, deutscher Offizier

1880

Eleonore Noll-Hasenclever, deutsche Alpinistin

1881

Guy de Pourtalès, escritor franco-suizo (f.

Guy de Pourtalès, escritor franco-suizo (f. 1941).

1881

Wenzel Hablik, pintor alemán (f.

Wenzel Hablik, pintor alemán (f. 1934).

1882

Leonhard Adler, österreichisch-deutscher Ingenieur, Politiker und Arbeiterpriester

1882

Alfred Richard Meyer, deutscher Schriftsteller

1883

Sofie Christmann, deutsche Politikerin

1883

René Schickele, écrivain, essayiste et traducteur alsacien († 31 janvier 1940).

1884

Henri Cornet

Henri Cornet was born in Desvres, France in 1884 and won the 1904 Tour de France — the second edition ever held — at age 19. He's still the youngest rider ever to win the Tour. He won it because the five riders who finished ahead of him were all disqualified for taking cars and trains over parts of the route. Cornet hadn't cheated. He'd been fifth on the road and fourth on the time sheet. He became the winner two months after the race ended, once the investigation concluded. He never won again. He died in 1941.

1884

Béla Balázs

Bela Balazs was a Hungarian poet, film theorist, and critic whose book Theory of the Film (1945) became foundational reading in cinema studies. He was among the first intellectuals to argue that cinema was a legitimate art form with its own unique language, distinct from theater and literature.

1886

Emma Streit, deutsche Malerin

1887

Albert M. Greenfield

Albert M. Greenfield emigrated from Ukraine as a child and built a real estate empire in Philadelphia, becoming one of the city's most powerful businessmen and philanthropists. He served on FDR's National Recovery Administration and wielded enormous political influence in Pennsylvania for decades.

1887

Ernst Rattenhuber, deutscher Politiker

Taher Saifuddin

Taher Saifuddin guided the Dawoodi Bohra community for over half a century as their 51st Da'i al-Mutlaq. By establishing strong educational institutions and modernizing community governance, he transformed the sect’s social structure and solidified its religious identity across India. His leadership defined the contemporary administrative framework that still governs the Bohra faith today.

Heinrich Pellenz, deutscher Unternehmer

Henriette Alice McCrea-Metcalf, escritora estadounidense (f.

Henriette Alice McCrea-Metcalf, escritora estadounidense (f. 1981).

Betty Brice, actriz estadounidense (f.

Betty Brice, actriz estadounidense (f. 1935).

1889

William Keighley, cineasta estadounidense (f.

William Keighley, cineasta estadounidense (f. 1984).

1889

Ludwig Anschütz, deutscher Chemiker und Professor

1890

Erich Weinert escritor y militante comunista alemán (f.

Erich Weinert escritor y militante comunista alemán (f. 1953).

1890

Dolf Luque

Dolf Luque was born in Havana in 1890 and became the first Latin American player to star in the major leagues — not as a novelty, but as a genuine ace. He led the National League in wins, winning percentage, and ERA in 1923, going 27-8. He pitched in the major leagues for 20 seasons. He faced racial hostility throughout — opposing players, managers, the press. He fought back, sometimes literally. He later pitched in Cuba through his 50s. He was still throwing effectively at an age when most athletes have been retired for two decades.

1890

Albert Wigand, deutscher Zeichner, Collagist und Maler

José del Carmen Sánchez Magallanes, revolucionario mexicano (f.

José del Carmen Sánchez Magallanes, revolucionario mexicano (f. 1941).

Max Thomas, deutscher Arzt, SS-General, General der Polizei, Einsatzgruppenleiter

Margit Makay

Margit Makay was a leading lady of Hungarian theater and cinema for over four decades, starring in films from the silent era through the 1960s. She was one of the most decorated actresses in Hungarian cultural life, receiving the Kossuth Prize for her contributions to the performing arts.

Otto Haupt, deutscher Architekt, Kunstgewerbler und Hochschullehrer

1892

Martha Schmidtmann, deutsche Medizinerin

1892

Johanna Bordewijk-Roepman, niederländische Komponistin

1893

Herman A. Affel, US-amerikanischer Elektrotechniker, Miterfinder des Koaxialkabels

1893

Fritz Gause

Fritz Gause served as the long-time curator of Konigsberg's city museum and wrote the definitive multi-volume history of the East Prussian capital. His work became an essential reference for understanding a city that was almost entirely destroyed in World War II and rebuilt as Kaliningrad.

1894

Carlos Luz, jornalista, advogado e político brasileiro, 19.° presidente do Brasil (m.

Carlos Luz, jornalista, advogado e político brasileiro, 19.° presidente do Brasil (m. 1961).

1895

Line Marsa, cantante y artista de circo francesa, madre de Édith Piaf (f.

Line Marsa, cantante y artista de circo francesa, madre de Édith Piaf (f. 1945).

1895

Domingo Dominguín (Domingo González Mateos dit), matador espagnol († 21 août 1958).

1896

Aldo Morandi, militar italiano (f.

Aldo Morandi, militar italiano (f. 1975).

Adolf Heusinger, deutscher General

Erich Bloch, deutscher Jurist, Literaturwissenschaftler, Journalist, Landwirt und Schriftsteller

Ray Farquharson, médico canadiense (f.

Ray Farquharson, médico canadiense (f. 1965).

John Wilhelm Hagberg, periodista, cantante y actor sueco (f.

John Wilhelm Hagberg, periodista, cantante y actor sueco (f. 1970).

Anbara Salam Khalidi, escritora y traductora y feminista libanesa (f.

Anbara Salam Khalidi, escritora y traductora y feminista libanesa (f. 1986).

Juan Orol, cineasta mexicano (f.

Juan Orol, cineasta mexicano (f. 1988).

Rudolf Kellerhals, Schweizer Jurist

Edith Dettmann, deutsche Malerin

Paul Delmas-Marsalet, psychiatre et neurologue français († juillet 1977).

Ernesto Maserati

Ernesto Maserati was one of the founding brothers of the Maserati automobile company, contributing his engineering skills to the racing cars that made the brand famous on European circuits in the 1930s. He and his brothers built the trident-logoed marque from a Bologna workshop into a competitor for Alfa Romeo and Ferrari.

Pedro Chiarante, dirigente sindical y político argentino (f.

Pedro Chiarante, dirigente sindical y político argentino (f. 1973).

Albert Le Bail, französischer Politiker

1899

Walter Rafelsberger, österreichischer SS-Führer und Staatskommissar

1899

Ezra Taft Benson

Benson served as Secretary of Agriculture under Eisenhower and spent most of his two terms fighting against farm subsidies that farmers wanted. Eisenhower kept him in the job despite the political cost because Benson was the most committed free-market ideologue in the cabinet. He later became president of the LDS Church at 86 and served until 94. His most quoted address is 'Beware of Pride,' delivered in 1989. Millions of copies distributed. He was known for two completely different things in two completely different worlds, and excelled at both.

1899

René Lafon, lingüista vascofrancés (f.

René Lafon, lingüista vascofrancés (f. 1974).

1900s 689

Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

She turned down a king — twice. Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon rejected George VI's older brother before settling into royal life, and she never quite let anyone forget she'd chosen it on her own terms. When the Blitz leveled working-class London, she refused to leave Buckingham Palace, telling crowds she could finally look the East End in the face. She lived to 101, outlasting her husband by fifty years. Behind her is the monarchy's most photographed smile — and one of its most unbreakable spines.

Nabi Tajima, supercentenaria japonesa (f.

Nabi Tajima, supercentenaria japonesa (f. 2018).

Mamerto Figueroa, político chileno (f.

Mamerto Figueroa, político chileno (f. 1974).

Anneliese Würtz, deutsche Schauspielerin und Synchronsprecherin

Arturo Umberto Illia, presidente argentino (f.

Arturo Umberto Illia, presidente argentino (f. 1983).

Joseph Savina, ébéniste et sculpteur français († 24 décembre 1983).

Juan Manuel Molina Mateo, militante anarcosindicalista español (f.

Juan Manuel Molina Mateo, militante anarcosindicalista español (f. 1984).

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901, in New Orleans — though he spent decades believing he was born on July 4, 1900, possibly because he liked the symmetry of sharing a birthday with America. The real date was confirmed by researchers in the 1980s. He learned cornet at a waifs' home, played on Mississippi riverboats, moved to Chicago at 22, and made recordings in the mid-1920s that define what jazz became. The Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions — improvised, barely rehearsed, recorded in a day — contain solos nobody had heard before because nobody had played like that before. He turned the jazz trumpet into a solo instrument. He also sang 'What a Wonderful World' in 1967, which was initially a flop in America and a hit in Britain, and eventually became one of the most-played songs in history.

Clarence Passailaigue

Clarence Passailaigue was born in Jamaica in 1901 and made one appearance in Test cricket for the West Indies in 1929-30 — a tour of England that marked the West Indies' early days as a Test nation. He also set a world record in first-class cricket that still stands: 344 for a fifth-wicket partnership, scored with George Headley during the 1931-32 tour of Jamaica. Headley was the superstar; Passailaigue was the man at the other end. His name is attached to a record that will almost certainly never be broken. He died in 1972.

Renato Angiolillo, italienischer Journalist, Politiker und Filmregisseur

1902

Bill Hallahan

He walked 159 batters in 1930 — leading the National League — yet still won 15 games that year. Bill Hallahan's arm was electric and wildly unpredictable, earning him the nickname "Wild Bill" before he'd thrown a single World Series pitch. But when October came, he delivered. He struck out six in the 1931 Series as the Cardinals beat the Athletics. Born in Binghamton, New York, he peaked fast and faded by 35. The wildest pitcher on the staff was somehow the one they trusted most when it mattered.

1902

Robert Mazaud, französischer Automobilrennfahrer

1902

Hela Gruel, deutsche Schauspielerin

Hans-Christoph Seebohm, político y ministro alemán (f.

Hans-Christoph Seebohm, político y ministro alemán (f. 1967).

Mário de Miranda Vilas-Boas, bispo brasileiro (m.

Mário de Miranda Vilas-Boas, bispo brasileiro (m. 1968).

Bruno Gleitze, deutscher Wirtschaftswissenschaftler, Hochschullehrer und Politiker

Teresa de Marzo, pionera de la aviación brasileña (f.

Teresa de Marzo, pionera de la aviación brasileña (f. 1986).

Helen Kane

Helen Kane popularized the phrase "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" in her 1928 hit "I Wanna Be Loved by You," directly inspiring Max Fleischer's creation of the cartoon character Betty Boop. She sued Fleischer Studios for using her likeness but lost the case — one of the earliest celebrity image-rights disputes in entertainment law.

Helen Kane, actriz y cantante estadounidense (f.

Helen Kane, actriz y cantante estadounidense (f. 1966).

Max Fourny, französischer Verleger, Kunstsammler und Automobilrennfahrer

Witold Gombrowicz

Gombrowicz was on a ship to Argentina in August 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. He never went back. Spent 24 years in Buenos Aires in near-poverty, playing chess in cafes, writing in obscurity. Ferdydurke, his first novel — published in Poland in 1937, full of ideas about immaturity and performance and the masks people wear — took decades to reach European audiences. By the time Paris discovered him in the 1960s he was 60 years old and had missed everything. He won the International Publishers Prize in 1967, a year before he died.

Joe Tate

Joe Tate was a Villa man through and through. Born in West Bromwich in 1904, he played nearly 300 games for Aston Villa as a right-back during the late 1920s and '30s — the sort of stalwart defender who never made headlines but never missed a tackle either. He went on to manage several clubs after hanging up his boots. Died in 1973. The kind of career football used to produce: no transfer fees, no agents, just thirty years in the game.

Christian-Jaque, cineasta francés (f.

Christian-Jaque, cineasta francés (f. 1994).

Juracy Magalhães, militar y político brasileño (f.

Juracy Magalhães, militar y político brasileño (f. 2001).

Martin Gauger, jurista y pacifista alemán (f.

Martin Gauger, jurista y pacifista alemán (f. 1941).

Zofia Czajkowska, música y directora de orquesta polaca (f.

Zofia Czajkowska, música y directora de orquesta polaca (f. 1978).

Abeid Karume

He started life as a ferry boat worker hauling passengers across the Zanzibar channel — no formal education, no political connections, nothing. But Karume built the Afro-Shirazi Party from dockworkers and fishermen, then rode a 1964 revolution to power in a single bloody night. He ruled with an iron grip, nationalizing land, expelling Arab elites, and merging Zanzibar into Tanzania. In April 1972, assassins shot him dead at a card game. He left behind a union that still shapes East African politics today.

Julius Madritsch, österreichischer Judenretter, Gerechter unter den Völkern

Marie José of Belgium

Marie Jose of Belgium became the last Queen of Italy through her 1930 marriage to Crown Prince Umberto II, but reigned for only 35 days before the 1946 referendum abolished the Italian monarchy. Known as the "May Queen" for her brief tenure, she spent the rest of her life in exile in Switzerland and became a respected historian of the House of Savoy.

Eugen Schuhmacher

Eugen Schuhmacher was born in Stuttgart in 1906 and became a zoologist who bridged science and mass media — writing popular books about wildlife, producing wildlife documentaries, and directing the Nuremberg Zoo after World War II. In 1950s and 1960s Germany, the wildlife documentary was a form for reaching large audiences with scientific content, and Schuhmacher worked it seriously. He died in 1973. The genre he helped establish in German media was still growing after he left it.

Marie-José of Belgium

Marie-José of Belgium was born in 1906, the youngest child of Albert I. She married Crown Prince Umberto of Italy in 1930 — a diplomatic marriage that neither party seems to have found satisfying. When Umberto briefly became king in May 1946, she was queen for 34 days before Italy voted in a referendum to become a republic and the monarchy was abolished. Thirty-four days. The title came too late and lasted too briefly to mean anything. She spent the next 55 years in exile, mostly in Switzerland. She died in 2001 at 94.

María José de Bélgica, aristócrata belga, esposa del rey italiano Humberto II (f.

María José de Bélgica, aristócrata belga, esposa del rey italiano Humberto II (f. 2001).

Hans Max von Aufseß, deutscher Schriftsteller

1907

Erik Amburger, deutscher Osteuropahistoriker

1907

Hanna Kobylinski, dänische Historikerin

1907

Altina Schinasi, escultora, cineasta, empresaria, diseñadora e inventora estadounidense (f.

Altina Schinasi, escultora, cineasta, empresaria, diseñadora e inventora estadounidense (f. 1999).

1908

Kurt Eichhorn

He conducted over 3,000 performances at the Munich State Opera alone — but Kurt Eichhorn built his reputation not in grand concert halls, but through recordings almost nobody heard live. Born in Munich in 1908, he became the go-to conductor for Carl Orff's works, premiering several pieces the composer trusted to almost no one else. Orff called him indispensable. When Eichhorn died in 1994, those recordings — Carmina Burana chief among them — remained the benchmark versions that music students still study today.

1908

Wilhelm Keilmann, deutscher Pianist, Kapellmeister und Komponist

1908

Gertraud Herzger von Harlessem, deutsche Künstlerin und Vertreterin der Klassischen Moderne

Otto Steiger, Schweizer Schriftsteller

Saunders MacLane, matemático estadounidense (f.

Saunders MacLane, matemático estadounidense (f. 2005).

Roberto Burle Marx, arquitecto brasileño (f.

Roberto Burle Marx, arquitecto brasileño (f. 1994).

Eva Kemlein, deutsche Fotografin

Otto Steiger, ingeniero suizo (f.

Otto Steiger, ingeniero suizo (f. 1923).

Saunders Mac Lane

He co-invented an entire branch of mathematics — category theory — that most mathematicians initially dismissed as "abstract nonsense." Mac Lane and Samuel Eilenberg sketched the framework in 1945, originally just as a tool to organize algebraic topology. But it quietly spread everywhere: computer science, physics, logic. He taught at Chicago for decades, shaping generations. Published his landmark textbook *Categories for the Working Mathematician* at age 62. And the phrase "abstract nonsense"? Mathematicians eventually reclaimed it as a compliment.

Glenn Cunningham

Glenn Cunningham was born in Elkhart, Kansas in 1909. When he was eight years old, a schoolhouse fire burned his legs so severely that doctors considered amputation. He kept them. He also couldn't walk without pain for years. He walked anyway, then ran. He became one of the greatest middle-distance runners of the 1930s — NCAA mile champion, world record holder at 1,500 meters, silver medalist at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He ran 12 sub-four-minute indoor miles before anyone had done it outdoors. His legs had been called permanently damaged. They won him the Sullivan Award.

Anita Page

She received more fan mail than any other actress at MGM — including Greta Garbo. Anita Page, born in 1910, was getting 10,000 letters a week at her peak, including marriage proposals from Benito Mussolini. She didn't take him up on it. Her career evaporated by the mid-1930s, partly because she refused producer advances. She walked away from Hollywood entirely. But she came back — making indie films into her nineties, still sharp, still working. The girl who outranked Garbo died at 98, largely forgotten by the industry that once couldn't get enough of her.

William Schuman

William Schuman was born in New York City in 1910 and won the first Pulitzer Prize in Music ever awarded, in 1943, for his Secular Cantata No. 2, A Free Song. He also ran the Juilliard School for seventeen years and transformed it from a conservatory into one of the world's premier music institutions. Then he ran Lincoln Center during its construction years. He composed ten symphonies. The administrative work was real and consequential — the institutions he built trained generations of American musicians — but the compositions came first and lasted.

Albert Debille, französischer Automobilrennfahrer

Hedda Sterne

Hedda Sterne was the only woman in the famous 1951 Life magazine photograph of the "Irascibles" — 15 Abstract Expressionist artists who protested the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Though overshadowed by Pollock and de Kooning in that group, she outlived them all and continued painting into her 90s, working across styles from surrealism to abstraction.

Bruno Coquatrix, administrateur français, directeur de l’Olympia de 1954 à 1979 († 1er avril 1979).

Selina Chönz, Schweizer Autorin

1911

Siegfried Lauffer, deutscher Althistoriker

Rocke Robertson, médecin et gestionnaire universitaire canadien († 8 février 1998).

David Raksin

David Raksin composed the haunting theme for the 1944 film noir Laura, a melody so distinctive that it became the second-most recorded film theme after "Stardust" with over 400 versions. He also taught film composition at USC for decades, mentoring the next generation of Hollywood composers.

Aleksandr Danilovich Aleksandrov

He climbed mountains and rewrote geometry — sometimes in the same week. Aleksandr Aleksandrov spent decades at Leningrad State University reshaping how mathematicians understood curved surfaces, developing intrinsic geometry of convex bodies that cracked problems Cauchy had left unsolved for over a century. But he also summited actual Caucasus peaks for fun. Not metaphorically. Real mountains. His theoretical work eventually fed into modern physics and cosmology. He left behind a geometry where the rules bend — literally — to fit the shape of the universe.

Raoul Wallenberg

Raoul Wallenberg was born in Stockholm in 1912 into one of Sweden's most prominent banking families. In July 1944, he arrived in Budapest as a Swedish diplomat with one purpose: save Hungarian Jews from deportation to Auschwitz. He issued protective passports, rented buildings and declared them Swedish territory, bribed officials, and personally walked into deportation lines to pull people out. He saved an estimated 15,000 to 35,000 lives. Soviet forces arrested him in January 1945. He was never released. The Soviet government said he died in 1947. His actual fate remains unconfirmed.

Virgilio Piñera, escritor cubano (f.

Virgilio Piñera, escritor cubano (f. 1979).

Daniel Aaron, escritor y académico estadounidense (f.

Daniel Aaron, escritor y académico estadounidense (f. 2016).

Karl August Bettermann, deutscher Jurist

Johann Niemann

Johann Niemann was an SS officer who served as deputy commandant at the Sobibor extermination camp, where approximately 250,000 Jews were murdered. He was killed by prisoners during the Sobibor uprising of October 1943 — one of the only successful revolts at a Nazi death camp.

Ilse Totzke, música alemana (f.

Ilse Totzke, música alemana (f. 1987).

Jean Saint-Fort Paillard, jinete francés (f.

Jean Saint-Fort Paillard, jinete francés (f. 1990).

Noboru Nakamura, director de cine y guionistas japonés (f.

Noboru Nakamura, director de cine y guionistas japonés (f. 1981).

Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe, sociólogo francés (f.

Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe, sociólogo francés (f. 1998).

Robert Hayden

Robert Hayden was born in Detroit in 1913 and grew up in a poor neighborhood called Paradise Valley, raised by foster parents after his birth mother gave him up. He spent his career writing poetry that engaged Black American history with formal precision — sonnets, dramatic monologues, precise historical research. His poem "Middle Passage," about the slave trade, took twenty years of revision. He was the first Black American appointed as Library of Congress Poet Laureate, in 1976. Critics during the 1960s Black Arts Movement accused him of not being political enough. He kept writing exactly what he was writing.

André Verdet, peintre, sculpteur, poète et céramiste français († 19 décembre 2004).

Wesley Addy

Wesley Addy was a classically trained American actor who worked on Broadway and in Hollywood for five decades, appearing in films like "Network" and "The Big Knife." He was a versatile character actor who could play aristocrats and authority figures with equal conviction, though he never became a household name.

Adrian Quist, australischer Tennisspieler

Neil Colville, joueur de hockey sur glace professionnel canadien († 26 décembre 1987).

Edward N. Hall, US-amerikanischer General, Ingenieur und Initiator des US-Raketenprogramms Minuteman

Helly Möslein, österreichische Kabarettistin

Carl Apfel, co-entrepreneur américain de textile, cofondateur et dirigeant de Old World Weavers († 1er août 2015).

Loni Nest, deutsche Schauspielerin

Domingo Mania, actor argentino (f.

Domingo Mania, actor argentino (f. 1981).

Warren Avis

Warren Avis was born in 1915 and served as a USAF officer in World War II, where he noticed that airport car rental operations were inadequate. In 1946, he opened a rental counter at Willow Run Airport in Michigan — one of the first airport-based car rental businesses. He sold the company in 1954 for $8 million. Avis Rent a Car became the second-largest car rental company in the world, known primarily for its advertising line: "We're number two. We try harder." Warren Avis had sold it before that line was written. He died in 2007.

Gerhild Diesner, österreichische Malerin

Heinz Lanker, deutscher Schauspieler

Lucien Cliche, homme politique québécois († 2 juin 2005).

Donald Edgar Tewes, político, abogado, militar y empresario estadounidense (f.

Donald Edgar Tewes, político, abogado, militar y empresario estadounidense (f. 2012).

Franz Mandl, österreichischer Fußballspieler

Liv Rockefeller (no) (alias Liv Coucheron(-)Torp & Liv Heyerdahl), première épouse de l'aventurier norvégien du Kon-T…

Liv Rockefeller (no) (alias Liv Coucheron(-)Torp & Liv Heyerdahl), première épouse de l'aventurier norvégien du Kon-Tiki Thor Heyerdahl († 14 avril 1969).

1917

Karl Wlaschek, österreichischer Unternehmer

1917

John Fitch

John Fitch survived the 1955 Le Mans disaster — the worst accident in motorsport history, which killed 83 spectators — and became a pioneering advocate for automotive safety. He invented the Fitch Barrier, the sand-filled barrels now standard on highways worldwide, which has saved an estimated 17,000 lives.

Yoshifumi Tajima, actor japonés (f.

Yoshifumi Tajima, actor japonés (f. 2009).

Iceberg Slim

Iceberg Slim — born Robert Beck — spent 25 years as a pimp before he went to prison for the last time at 42 and decided he was done. He got out, moved to Los Angeles, and wrote Pimp: The Story of My Life in 1967. He had no publisher. He sold it himself. It sold a million copies without mainstream review coverage. The writing was direct, cold, specific — everything that literary fiction wasn't. Ice-T named himself after Iceberg Slim. Iceberg Slim never got a major review in his lifetime. His books have sold over six million copies since.

Claus Holm, deutscher Schauspieler

Hans Abich, deutscher Filmproduzent und Rundfunkpublizist

Brian Crozier

Brian Crozier was a Cold War journalist and intelligence-connected author who wrote extensively about communism, insurgency, and espionage. His autobiography revealed close ties to MI6 and the CIA, making him one of the most controversial figures at the intersection of journalism and Western intelligence operations.

Iceberg Slim, proxeneta y escritor afroamericano (f.

Iceberg Slim, proxeneta y escritor afroamericano (f. 1992).

1919

Douta Seck, acteur sénégalais († 5 novembre 1991).

1919

Emmy Lopes Dias, niederländische Schauspielerin

1919

Michel Déon

Michel Deon was a French novelist and member of the Academie francaise who lived most of his life in Ireland and Greece as a self-imposed exile. His novels, including The Ponies of Doolin and The Taxi Mauve, drew on his expatriate life to explore themes of displacement and cultural identity.

1920

Wilson Fittipaldi, automobilista, empresário e radialista brasileiro (m.

Wilson Fittipaldi, automobilista, empresário e radialista brasileiro (m. 2013).

1920

Rudolf Rolfs, deutscher Satiriker und Theaterleiter

1920

Helen Thomas

Helen Thomas was born in Winchester, Kentucky in 1920 and spent 57 years as a White House correspondent — first for United Press International, later for Hearst. She covered every president from Kennedy to Obama. For decades she held the front-row center seat in the White House briefing room, a position maintained by custom and seniority. She resigned in 2010 after making antisemitic remarks. The career before that statement was remarkable: a Lebanese-American woman from Winchester, Kentucky, occupying the most prominent press seat in American government for half a century.

1921

Herb Ellis

Herb Ellis was a jazz guitarist whose clean, swinging tone made him a perfect foil in the Oscar Peterson Trio during the 1950s. His partnership with Peterson and bassist Ray Brown set the gold standard for jazz guitar trio playing, and his later collaborations with Joe Pass produced some of the finest guitar duet recordings in jazz.

1921

Messias Pereira Donato, escritor, filósofo e jurista brasileiro (m.

Messias Pereira Donato, escritor, filósofo e jurista brasileiro (m. 2015).

1921

Maurice Richard

Richard scored 50 goals in 50 games in 1944-45. The NHL didn't think it was possible. He did it. The record stood for 36 years. He was suspended by NHL president Clarence Campbell in 1955 for attacking an official — suspended for the rest of the playoffs, the season over, with Montreal in first place. The night Campbell appeared at the Forum to watch Game 1 of the playoffs, a riot started. Montreal fans tore up the city. The Richard Riot. The suspension probably cost Montreal the Stanley Cup that year. Richard cried when Campbell announced it.

Luis Aponte Martínez

Luis Aponte Martinez became Puerto Rico's first native-born Cardinal when Pope Paul VI elevated him in 1973. He led the Archdiocese of San Juan for over two decades, guiding the Catholic Church through a period of rapid social change on the island.

Heinz Alt, deutscher Komponist, Opfer des NS-Regimes

Georg Auer, österreichischer Journalist

Martel Wiegand, deutsche Hochschullehrerin, Illustratorin und Objektkünstlerin

Mayme Agnew Clayton

Mayme Agnew Clayton built the largest private collection of African American rare books, films, and artifacts in the United States — over 30,000 books, 9,000 films, and thousands of documents she amassed over 50 years. Working as a librarian in Los Angeles, she rescued materials that mainstream institutions ignored, preserving a record of Black cultural history that might otherwise have been lost.

Franz Karl Stanzel, österreichischer Anglist und Literaturwissenschaftler

Reg Grundy

Reg Grundy was born in Sydney in 1923 and built one of the largest independent television production companies in the world. He started producing radio quiz shows in Australia in the 1950s, moved to television, and eventually operated in twenty-five countries. His company made Neighbours — the Australian soap opera that launched Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan — and sold it internationally. He sold the Grundy Organisation to Pearson in 1995 for around $400 million. He spent most of his later decades in Bermuda, Monaco, and London. He died in 2016 at 92.

Mushtaq Ahmad Yusufi

Born in Agra in 1923, Mushtaq Ahmad Yusufi spent decades as a senior banker — running institutions, managing balance sheets — while secretly writing the funniest Urdu prose of the 20th century. His collections weren't dashed off quickly. *Chiragh Talay* took years. *Aab-e Gum* took decades. He published just four books across his entire lifetime, each one treated like a goldsmith's final piece. Readers waited years between them and felt grateful anyway. He proved that scarcity, not volume, is what makes a reader cherish every single word.

Reg Grundy, australischer Unternehmer

Erik Ågren, finnlandschwedischer Schriftsteller und Dichter

Domingo Álvarez Ruiz de Viñaspre, médico y político español (f.

Domingo Álvarez Ruiz de Viñaspre, médico y político español (f. 2012).

Martin M. Atalla, ingeniero y empresario egipcio-estadounidense (f.

Martin M. Atalla, ingeniero y empresario egipcio-estadounidense (f. 2009).

Enrique Gallegos Venero, militar y político peruano.

Antonio Maccanico, político italiano (f.

Antonio Maccanico, político italiano (f. 2013).

Hilda Suárez, actriz argentina (f.

Hilda Suárez, actriz argentina (f. 2006).

György Szabad, político e historiador húngaro (f.

György Szabad, político e historiador húngaro (f. 2015).

Dom Um Romão, brasilianischer Schlagzeuger und Perkussionist

1925

Kurt Vogelsang, deutscher Politiker, MdB

1925

Renato Olivieri, italienischer Kriminalautor

Perry Moss

Perry Moss coached football at multiple college levels and briefly in the NFL, where he served as an assistant. His career spanned the postwar era of American football, working in both the professional and collegiate game during the sport's rapid growth.

Catherine Paysan, écrivaine française († 22 avril 2020).

George Irving Bell

George Irving Bell was a Los Alamos physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project before pivoting to mathematical biology, helping pioneer computational approaches to cell biology and immunology. He also climbed peaks across four continents, making first ascents in the Himalayas and Andes alongside his scientific career.

Werner Koch, deutscher Schriftsteller

Julio Alfredo Egea, poeta español (f.

Julio Alfredo Egea, poeta español (f. 2018).

Jess Thomas, tenor estadounidense (f.

Jess Thomas, tenor estadounidense (f. 1993).

Brigitte Stoll, deutsche Politikerin, MdL

Jess Thomas

Jess Thomas was born in Hot Springs, South Dakota in 1927 and became one of the leading heldentenors of his era — the heavy dramatic tenor voice required for Wagner's most demanding roles. He spent most of his career in German opera houses, primarily in Munich and Bayreuth, where the Wagner tradition was maintained most carefully. He sang Siegfried, Tristan, Parsifal. American-born singers in German repertoire faced particular scrutiny from European critics. Thomas survived it. He died in 1993. His recordings document a voice built for the largest stages and the hardest parts.

Jean Yoyotte, egiptólogo francês (m.

Jean Yoyotte, egiptólogo francês (m. 2009).

Cäcilie Albrecht, deutsche Unternehmerin (Aldi Nord und Trader Joe’s)

Angie E. Brooks, liberianische Diplomatin und Juristin

Gerard Damiano

Gerard Damiano directed Deep Throat (1972), the adult film that became a cultural phenomenon and sparked a national debate about obscenity, free speech, and censorship. The film grossed an estimated million (though figures are disputed) and its cultural impact extended far beyond the adult industry into mainstream American discourse.

Flóra Kádár, actrice hongroise († 3 janvier 2003).

Udham Singh, joueur indien de hockey sur gazon († 23 mars 2000).

Vera Yurasova, física rusa (f.

Vera Yurasova, física rusa (f. 2023).

Alberto Carlos Lucena, militar argentino.

Christian Goethals, automobilista belga (m.

Christian Goethals, automobilista belga (m. 2003).

Christian Goethals

Christian Goethals was born in Brussels in 1928 and raced sports cars in the 1950s — Le Mans, Spa, Nürburgring. He competed at the highest level of endurance racing during the era when such racing was genuinely dangerous: open cockpits, minimal safety equipment, circuits with trees and lampposts at the edges. He finished fifth in class at Le Mans in 1956. He survived the decade. He raced into the 1960s and retired. He died in 2003 at 74. The names from that era of motorsport deserve more than footnotes.

Nadežka Mosusova

Nadezka Mosusova is a Serbian composer whose work spans orchestral, chamber, and vocal music, drawing on Serbian folk traditions and modernist techniques. She has been a significant figure in Belgrade's musical life, contributing to the development of contemporary Serbian classical music.

Clarke Reed

Clarke Reed was a Mississippi Republican Party chairman who helped build the modern GOP in the Deep South during the 1960s and 1970s, playing a key role in the Southern strategy that realigned American politics. His influence at the 1976 Republican convention, where he initially backed Reagan before switching to Ford, demonstrated the power brokers who shaped the party behind the scenes.

1929

André Sanac, joueur de rugby à XV français († 5 février 2015).

1929

Kishore Kumar

He refused to sing for films unless he was paid in cash — sometimes mid-session, before recording a single note. Kishore Kumar was born in Khandwa, a small Central Provinces town, on August 4, 1929, and never trained formally in music. Not one lesson. He taught himself by mimicking K.L. Saigal records. That untrained voice went on to record over 2,500 songs across five decades. He died mid-career in 1987. The man who faked laryngitis to dodge unwanted work left behind the most-hummed voice in Hindi cinema's history.

1929

Vellore G. Ramabhadran

Vellore G. Ramabhadran was a master mridangam player from Tamil Nadu who accompanied some of Carnatic music's greatest vocalists and instrumentalists over a career spanning several decades. The mridangam is the primary percussion instrument in South Indian classical music, and Ramabhadran was considered among its finest practitioners.

Enrico Castellani, pintor italiano (f.

Enrico Castellani, pintor italiano (f. 2017).

Götz Friedrich, director de orquesta y músico alemán (f.

Götz Friedrich, director de orquesta y músico alemán (f. 2000).

Jeanne Carmen, actriz y modelo estadounidense (f.

Jeanne Carmen, actriz y modelo estadounidense (f. 2007).

Carlfriedrich Claus, deutscher Grafiker und Lyriker

Hans Dahlberg, actor sueco (f.

Hans Dahlberg, actor sueco (f. 2019).

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was born in Mashhad, Iran in 1930. He's spent most of his adult life in Najaf, Iraq, and is considered the most influential Shia religious authority in the world — the source of guidance for tens of millions of Shia Muslims from Iraq to Lebanon to India. After the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Sistani consistently called for political participation over armed resistance and pushed for democratic elections. His influence helped shape Iraq's post-Saddam political order. He operates entirely from religious authority, holding no political office.

Ali al-Sistani

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is the most influential Shia cleric in Iraq, whose pronouncements have shaped the country's politics since the 2003 U.S. invasion. His 2014 fatwa calling Iraqis to arms against ISIS mobilized hundreds of thousands of fighters, and his insistence on democratic elections helped prevent Iraq from becoming an Iranian-style theocracy.

Ernie Richardson (en), joueur de curling canadien.

Viktor Lukas, deutscher Organist und Hochschullehrer

Paul Avrich, US-amerikanischer Historiker

Naren Tamhane

Naren Tamhane was born in Bombay in 1931 and played five Tests for India as a wicket-keeper in the 1950s. He was technically accomplished but played during an era when India's Test results were modest and squad selection often inconsistent. He was also a firstclass cricketer for Bombay for over a decade, playing in an era when domestic cricket in India ran seriously despite minimal television coverage. He died in 2002. Five Tests doesn't fully describe a career — the first-class record was considerably longer.

Guillermo Mordillo, humorista gráfico argentino (f.

Guillermo Mordillo, humorista gráfico argentino (f. 2019).

Sabine Thalbach, deutsche Schauspielerin

Hubert Barbier, évêque catholique français, archevêque émérite de Bourges.

Frances E. Allen

Frances Allen became the first woman to win the Turing Award — computing's highest honor — in 2006, recognized for her work on compiler optimization that made software run dramatically faster on IBM's supercomputers. She spent her entire 45-year career at IBM Research, developing techniques that transformed how programs are translated into machine code.

Hans-Jürgen Fröhlich, deutscher Schriftsteller

Liang Congjie

Liang Congjie founded Friends of Nature in 1994, China's first legally registered environmental NGO, at a time when challenging government development policies carried real personal risk. The grandson of reformist intellectual Liang Qichao, he channeled his family's tradition of public service into environmental activism that opened space for China's green movement.

Lucie Favier, historienne et archiviste française († 1er mai 2003).

Joe Leonard, piloto de automovilismo y motociclismo estadounidense (f.

Joe Leonard, piloto de automovilismo y motociclismo estadounidense (f. 2017).

1933

Sonny Simmons, US-amerikanischer Jazzmusiker

1933

Lothar Knörzer, deutscher Leichtathlet, Olympiamedaillengewinner

Allan Murdmaa

Allan Murdmaa was one of the leading architects of Soviet-era Estonia, designing modernist buildings that pushed the boundaries of what was permitted under socialist realism. His work helped Tallinn maintain a more Western-oriented architectural identity than most Soviet cities.

Abhay Chhajlani, periodista indio (f.

Abhay Chhajlani, periodista indio (f. 2023).

Andrea Bodó, ungarische Turnerin

Dallas Green

Dallas Green managed the Philadelphia Phillies to their first World Series championship in 1980, ending a 97-year title drought for the franchise. He later served as general manager of the Chicago Cubs and was known for his gruff, demanding management style that clashed with players but produced results.

Carol Arthur

Carol Arthur acted in several Mel Brooks films including Blazing Saddles and History of the World, Part I — fitting, since she was married to Brooks' longtime collaborator Dom DeLuise. She also produced and appeared in comedy projects throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Hans-Walter Eigenbrodt

Hans-Walter Eigenbrodt played and later coached in the German football system, spending his career in the country's lower professional divisions. He was part of the postwar generation of German footballers who rebuilt the sport's grassroots infrastructure.

María Eugenia Ríos, actriz mexicana.

María Eugenia Ríos, actriz mexicana. (f. 2024).

Michael J. Noonan

Michael J. Noonan transitioned from a life of farming in County Limerick to the center of Irish governance, eventually serving as the 25th Minister of Defence. His tenure helped modernize the Irish Defence Forces, ensuring they maintained operational readiness during a period of shifting geopolitical demands in the late 20th century.

Mani Matter, Schweizer Mundart-Liedermacher und Jurist

Claude Ballot-Léna, französischer Automobilrennfahrer

Giorgos Zographos

Giorgos Zographos was a popular Greek singer and actor whose career spanned the golden age of Greek laiko music and cinema in the 1960s and 1970s. He appeared in dozens of Greek films and recorded songs that remain standards of the genre.

Joaquim Roriz, político brasileiro (m.

Joaquim Roriz, político brasileiro (m. 2018).

Assia Djebar, escritora y crítica literaria argelina (f.

Assia Djebar, escritora y crítica literaria argelina (f. 2015).

Assia Djebar

She wrote in French — the colonizer's tongue — about Algerian women who'd been silenced for centuries, and she never stopped wrestling with that contradiction. Born Fatima-Zohra Imalayen in Cherchell in 1936, she hid behind the pen name Assia Djebar her entire career. She was the first North African woman elected to the Académie française, in 2005. Her films gave faces and voices to women who'd never been filmed before. She left behind novels that still ask uncomfortable questions about who gets to tell a story — and in whose language.

Jean-Pierre Spiero, réalisateur français de télévision († 13 février 2012).

Annelie Drummond-Hay, jinete británica (f.

Annelie Drummond-Hay, jinete británica (f. 2022).

Yvonne Reynders, belgische Radrennfahrerin

Richard Lee Armstrong, kanadischer Geologe und Geochemiker

David Bedford

He studied under Luigi Nono in Venice and later arranged strings for Roy Harper and Mike Oldfield — a classical composer who didn't flinch at rock. Bedford wrote pieces for schoolchildren using unconventional instructions, asking them to improvise, shout, even breathe as music. His 1973 work *Star's End* blended electronics with a full orchestra. But the real twist: he spent decades as a postman while composing. He died in 2011, leaving behind scores that still puzzle and delight performers who encounter them cold.

Thierry Roland, commentateur sportif français († 16 juin 2012).

Burk Uzzle, photographe américain.

Bernd Wiesemann, deutscher Komponist und Pianist, Musikpädagoge und Konzeptkünstler

Hayes Jones, athlète américain spécialiste du 110 m haies.

Ellen Schrecker

Ellen Schrecker was born in 1938 and became one of the leading historians of McCarthyism — her 1986 book No Ivory Tower documented the impact of anti-communist purges on American universities, and her 1998 Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America remains a standard reference. She taught at Yeshiva University for decades. Her argument, sustained across her career, was that McCarthyism was not an aberration but a product of institutional cowardice — that universities and employers did most of the damage before congressional committees did any.

Jack Cunningham

Jack Cunningham served as Minister for the Cabinet Office under Tony Blair, acting as a political enforcer tasked with improving government efficiency. Known as "Minister for the Today Programme" for his media management skills, he played a key backroom role in New Labour's first term.

Mapita Cortés, actriz puertorriqueña-mexicana (f.

Mapita Cortés, actriz puertorriqueña-mexicana (f. 2006).

Velho Milongueiro, cantor e compositor brasileiro (m.2023).

Frankie Ford

Frankie Ford's "Sea Cruise" was a New Orleans rock and roll classic that reached number 14 on the Billboard charts in 1959, built on a swinging horn arrangement and Ford's exuberant vocal delivery. The song's enduring popularity on oldies radio outlasted his commercial peak by decades — a one-hit wonder whose single refused to stop playing.

Piper Pimienta, cantante colombiano (f.

Piper Pimienta, cantante colombiano (f. 1998).

Frank Vincent

He played so many mob heavies that real mobsters would stop him on the street to say he'd gotten it right. Frank Vincent spent years doing construction before acting found him — he was already past 35 when his screen career clicked. Then came Billy Batts in *Goodfellas*, getting beaten to death by Joe Pesci, a guy he'd worked with in comedy clubs for years. That friendship made the violence feel real. He left behind Phil Leotardo, one of TV's coldest villains, finished off on a Sunday morning outside a gas station.

Timi Yuro

Timi Yuro was born in Chicago in 1940 and sang with a voice that sounded like a much older person's grief. Her 1961 single "Hurt" — a country song recorded as R&B — reached number four on the pop chart. Orchestral, anguished, enormous. Roy Orbison cited her as an influence. Elvis covered "Hurt" in 1976. Yuro's version preceded both. Multiple sclerosis limited her performing career severely from the 1970s onward. She died in 2004. The voice on those early recordings was something that didn't arrive fully explained.

Domingo Monterrosa, militar salvadoreño (f.

Domingo Monterrosa, militar salvadoreño (f. 1984).

Abdurrahman Wahid, indonesischer Staatspräsident

Juan Antonio García Díez, político español, vicepresidente del Gobierno (f.

Juan Antonio García Díez, político español, vicepresidente del Gobierno (f. 1998).

Herwig Nachtmann, österreichischer Verleger

Larry Knechtel

Larry Knechtel anchored the sound of the 1960s as a key member of The Wrecking Crew, the elite studio collective behind hits for The Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel. His versatile bass and keyboard work later defined the soft-rock era as a founding member of Bread, earning him a permanent place in the architecture of American pop music.

Robin Harper

Robin Harper became the first Green Party member elected to any parliament in the United Kingdom when he won a seat in the Scottish Parliament in 1999. He served for 12 years, helping establish the Greens as a credible political force in Scottish politics.

عبد الله المزيني، ممثل سعودي.

Coriún Aharonián

Coriun Aharonian was a Uruguayan composer and musicologist who championed Latin American experimental music and challenged the dominance of European classical traditions. He co-founded the Latin American Music Courses alongside Luigi Nono and spent decades arguing that the continent's musical identity shouldn't be defined by conservatories in Paris or Vienna.

Frances Stewart

Frances Stewart is a development economist at Oxford who has spent decades studying the relationship between horizontal inequalities — disparities between ethnic, religious, or regional groups — and conflict. Her research has influenced international policy on aid, poverty reduction, and conflict prevention.

Abdurrahman Wahid

He was nearly blind when he took office — legally so, after two strokes — yet Indonesia handed him the presidency anyway. Abdurrahman Wahid, born in East Java in 1940 into a family of Islamic scholars, led a nation of 17,000 islands through its most fragile democratic moment. He lasted just 21 months before parliament ousted him in 2001. But he'd already lifted a 32-year ban on public Chinese cultural expression. That single act reshaped daily life for millions of Indonesians overnight.

Andy Smillie

Andy Smillie played professional football in England during the 1960s and 1970s, part of the working-class tradition that defined the English game before the Premier League era transformed it. He competed in the lower divisions, where football remained deeply tied to local identity and community.

Martin Jarvis

He's voiced over 100 audiobooks, but Martin Jarvis's most obsessive role was a schoolboy he first played at 22 — and kept returning to for decades. William Brown, the anarchic hero of Richmal Crompton's *Just William* stories, became his signature across BBC radio adaptations that spanned generations of listeners. Born in Cheltenham in 1941, Jarvis built a career spanning stage, screen, and studio. But it's his voice — precise, warm, endlessly versatile — that outlasts the rest.

Ted Strickland

Ted Strickland was born in Lucasville, Ohio in 1941 and worked as a psychologist and Methodist minister before entering politics. He served in Congress and then as the 68th Governor of Ohio from 2007 to 2011 — one of the few Democrats to hold the governorship in a state that has trended Republican for decades. He lost the 2010 reelection to John Kasich by two points. He ran for Senate in 2016 against Rob Portman and lost by eleven. Ohio Democratic politics spent a generation trying and failing to hold ground. Strickland was in the middle of it.

Cliff Nobles

Cliff Nobles is best remembered for "The Horse," a 1968 instrumental hit that was originally the B-side of "Love Is All Right" — DJs flipped the record and the funky, percussive jam became a Top 5 single. The irony: Nobles was a singer, but his biggest hit was the track where he didn't sing a note.

John Atterbury, actor y compositor británico.

Dominguinhos do Estácio, cantante y compositor brasileño de samba (f.

Dominguinhos do Estácio, cantante y compositor brasileño de samba (f. 2021).

Aníbal Tarabini, futbolista argentino (f.

Aníbal Tarabini, futbolista argentino (f. 1997).

Kaija Mustonen, finnische Eisschnellläuferin

Gunter Thielen, deutscher Vorstandsvorsitzender der Bertelsmann AG

Bernard Barsi, évêque catholique français, archevêque émérite de Monaco († 28 décembre 2022).

Annette Bénéteau-Roux, codirigeante d'une grande entreprise de construction nautique de voiliers de plaisance.

Hannelore Brüning, deutsche Politikerin, MdL

Walter Stürm, Schweizer Ausbrecherkönig

Cleon Jones

Jones was in center field for the 1969 Mets, the team nobody expected to win anything and which won the World Series in five games against the Baltimore Orioles, who were favored by every measure available. He batted .340 in the World Series. He played eight years for the Mets in total and remains part of the mythology of that team, the season when the idea of the impossible became temporarily suspended.

Don S. Davis

Before Stargate SG-1 made him General Hammond, Don Davis spent years as a mime. Trained under Marcel Marceau himself. He'd served in the U.S. Army, earned a master's degree in theater, and painted seriously — not as a hobby, but as a second career. His canvases sold. When he died in 2008 from a heart attack, he left behind thousands of fans who knew his face but had no idea the man behind the general could hold a room without saying a single word.

Don S. Davis, American actor (died 2008)

David Lange

He banned nuclear warships from New Zealand's ports — and Washington was furious. David Lange, born in Otahuhu in 1942, made tiny New Zealand defy its closest ally, triggering a suspension of ANZUS intelligence-sharing in 1986. But few remembered he'd trained as a lawyer defending the poor in Auckland's legal aid courts before politics found him. He won a famous Oxford Union debate arguing against nuclear weapons in 1985. His nuclear-free policy wasn't repealed. It became law permanently in 1987.

Ulrich Lins, historiador y esperantista alemán.

Michael J. McCulley, astronaute américain.

Barbara Saß-Viehweger

Barbara Sass-Viehweger has served as a German politician and civil law notary, working in the legal and legislative systems that shape everyday governance in Germany. Her career spans both law and public service.

Bernd A. Laska, deutscher philosophischer Schriftsteller

Gerd Tenzer, deutscher Manager und Verbandsfunktionär

Vicente Álvarez Areces

Vicente Álvarez Areces transformed the industrial landscape of Asturias by steering the region through the decline of its coal and steel sectors toward a service-based economy. During his three terms as president, he modernized the regional infrastructure and expanded the social welfare network, cementing his influence on contemporary Spanish regional governance.

Bjørn Wirkola

Wirkola won the ski jumping world championship in 1966 and then played professional football for Rosenborg in Norway, which is a combination of athletic careers that has not been replicated. Ski jumping and football use completely different muscle groups, different training philosophies, different competitive calendars. He was excellent at both. Norway did not produce many athletes in the 1960s who could claim two separate international careers.

Georgina Hale

Georgina Hale earned a BAFTA nomination for her role as Vesta Tilley in Ken Russell's The Boyfriend and appeared in multiple Russell films during the 1970s. Her intense screen presence made her a favorite of directors working in the more daring corners of British cinema.

Richard Belzer

He worked as a stand-up comedian so broke that he sometimes slept in his car. Richard Belzer, born in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1944, turned that grinding hustle into Detective John Munch — a character so specific and strange that he crossed into 10 different TV shows, a record no fictional character had matched. Munch appeared on everything from *The Wire* to *Sesame Street*. But Belzer lived the conspiracy theories Munch loved. He wrote three books about them. The character outlasted the man who made him.

Teodomiro Leite de Vasconcelos, écrivain et journaliste mozambicain († 29 janvier 1997)

Tibor Tatai, céiste hongrois, champion olympique.

Orhan Gencebay, türkischer Musiker und Produzent

Bernadine Healy, cardióloga estadounidense (f.

Bernadine Healy, cardióloga estadounidense (f. 2011).

Barbara Wittig, deutsche Politikerin, MdL, MdB

Amjad Islam Amjad

Amjad Islam Amjad is one of Pakistan's most prolific poets and screenwriters, writing scripts for landmark television dramas that defined PTV's golden era. His Urdu poetry and song lyrics are widely recited, and his work shaped the literary sensibility of Pakistani television for generations.

Doudou Ndoye

Doudou Ndoye was born in Dakar in 1944 and became one of Senegal's most prominent lawyers and public intellectuals — serving as a legal advisor to multiple presidents and as a voice in pan-African legal debates. Senegalese law operates in French, within a system that inherited French legal structures while trying to incorporate customary law and Islamic tradition. Ndoye worked across those tensions. He was also involved in the arbitration that settled the Casamance conflict. His career spanned the entire post-independence history of the republic.

Alan Mulally

Alan Mulally turned around Ford Motor Company as CEO from 2006-2014, declining the government bailout that rivals GM and Chrysler accepted during the 2008 financial crisis. His "One Ford" strategy unified the company's global operations and restored profitability, making him one of the most celebrated turnaround CEOs in American corporate history.

Martine de Cortanze, französische Rallye-, Enduro- und Powerboatfahrerin sowie Journalistin und Autorin

Corrado Dal Fabbro, italienischer Bobfahrer

Sabine Kaspereit, deutsche Politikerin, MdB

Zbigniew Łój, polnischer Hockeytorwart

Mario Prosperi, Schweizer Fussballtorhüter

Richard Weize, deutscher Plattenlabelbetreiber

Alfredo Goldschmidt, gran rabino de Colombia.

Guennadi Búrbulis, estadista y político ruso (f.

Guennadi Búrbulis, estadista y político ruso (f. 2022).

Paul McCarthy

Paul McCarthy makes work that makes people uncomfortable. Not mildly. His videos, sculptures, and performances in the 1970s drew on bodily fluids, food products used as props in ways that can't be described plainly, and a relentless assault on American consumer culture through its own imagery. He turned Santa Claus into something grotesque. Hollywood studios got the parody treatment. He's been called offensive. He's been called one of the most important American artists of the last fifty years. Both are probably true.

Frank Hansen, rameur d'aviron norvégien, champion olympique.

Guy Job, réalisateur de télévision français.

Rafig Huseynov, locutor televisivo azerbaiyano (f.

Rafig Huseynov, locutor televisivo azerbaiyano (f. 2017).

Sergio Marqués, político español, presidente del Principado de Asturias entre 1995 y 1999 (f.

Sergio Marqués, político español, presidente del Principado de Asturias entre 1995 y 1999 (f. 2012).

Monika Völlmeke, deutsche Juristin

Günter Ullmann, deutscher Lyriker

Uri Mayer, kanadischer Dirigent und Violinist

Maureen Cox, chanteuse, actrice, mannequin et coiffeuse britannique, première épouse de Ringo Starr († 30 décembre 1994).

Maureen Starkey Tigrett

Maureen Starkey was born in Liverpool in 1946 and married Ringo Starr in 1965. She had three children with him before they divorced in 1975. She then married entrepreneur Isaac Tigrett, co-founder of the Hard Rock Cafe, and moved to the United States. She was diagnosed with leukemia in 1994. All four Beatles visited her. She died in 1994 at 48. Paul McCartney's response — "Isn't it sad, yes" — was widely criticized for its flatness. The Beatles had known Maureen for thirty years. She was one of the original Mersey Beat girls who'd been there from the start.

Faustino Pérez-Manglano, religioso marianista español (f.

Faustino Pérez-Manglano, religioso marianista español (f. 1963).

Aleksei Turovski

Aleksei Turovski is an Estonian zoologist and ethologist known for his popular science communication, making animal behavior accessible to Estonian audiences through books and television. His work bridging academic zoology and public education has made him one of Estonia's most recognized scientists.

Pierre-André Taguieff, filósofo y politólogo francés.

Hubert Ingraham, político bahameño.

Moufida Tlatli, directora de cine tunecina (f.

Moufida Tlatli, directora de cine tunecina (f. 2021).

Klaus Schulze

Klaus Schulze pioneered the expansive, hypnotic soundscapes of Berlin School electronic music through his work with Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel. By trading traditional song structures for long-form synthesizer improvisations, he established the blueprint for modern ambient and trance genres, influencing decades of experimental electronic artists who followed his atmospheric lead.

Marie-France Cubadda, journaliste française et néo-calédonienne un temps présentatrice de J.T.

Marie-France Cubadda, journaliste française et néo-calédonienne un temps présentatrice de J.T. de T.F.1.

Paul Layton (en), musicien et chanteur britannique du groupe The New Seekers.

Johnny Grubb

Grubb played 13 years in the major leagues as a left-handed outfielder with a .278 career batting average, good enough to stay in the league, not good enough to become famous outside the sport. He played for Cleveland, San Diego, Texas, and Detroit. He was on the 1984 World Series champion Detroit Tigers, which gives his career its most prominent footnote. He became a batting coach after retiring.

Ivan Lima, ator, apresentador e diretor teatral brasileiro.

Ciriaco Cano, exfutbolista y entrenador español de fútbol.

Klaus Aktories, deutscher Mediziner und Pharmakologe

Pierre Conesa (prononcé "konéça"), ancien haut fonctionnaire, chef d'entreprise et essayiste français ès géopolitique…

Pierre Conesa (prononcé "konéça"), ancien haut fonctionnaire, chef d'entreprise et essayiste français ès géopolitique souvent invité à ce titre à la télévision.

Giorgio Parisi, físico italiano, Premio Nobel de Física 2021.

Amparo Pamplona, actriz española.

Luigi Serafini, artista italiano.

Josef Kraus, deutscher Lehrer, Präsident des Lehrerverbandes

Iver Schriver, dänischer Fußballspieler

John Riggins

He once fell asleep under a table at a White House dinner — and told Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to "loosen up" first. That was John Riggins. Born in Centralia, Kansas, in 1949, he ran for 166 yards in Super Bowl XVII at age 33, when most backs were already done. His 43-yard touchdown against Miami remains one of the most replayed runs in NFL history. He left behind a Hall of Fame career built almost entirely on refusing to be told what he couldn't do.

Caldwell Jones

Caldwell Jones played 15 NBA seasons as a defensive specialist and shot-blocker, spending his best years with the Philadelphia 76ers alongside Julius Erving and Moses Malone. He was part of the 1983 Sixers championship team that swept the Lakers in the Finals.

Danny Williams, homme politique canadien, 9e premier ministre de Terre-neuve-et-Labrador de 2003 à 2010.

Jacqueline Stedall, britische Mathematikhistorikerin

István Jónyer, ungarischer Tischtennisspieler

Giulia Follina, deutsche Schauspielerin

الشيخة حصة سعد العبد الله الصباح، رئيسة مجلس سيدات الأعمال العرب.

N. Rangaswamy

N. Rangaswamy navigated Puducherry’s complex coalition politics to serve four terms as Chief Minister, becoming the territory's longest-serving head of government. By founding the All India N.R. Congress in 2011, he broke away from established national parties to consolidate regional power and reshape the local legislative landscape through his own political vehicle.

Sapphire (Ramona Lofton dite), romancière et poète américaine.

Edgardo Román, actor colombiano (f.

Edgardo Román, actor colombiano (f. 2022).

Roberto Esposito, filósofo italiano.

Peter Goodfellow

Peter Goodfellow led the team at Oxford that identified the SRY gene on the Y chromosome — the master switch that triggers male sex determination in mammals. The 1990 discovery answered one of genetics' oldest questions and opened new avenues in developmental biology research.

Ulrich Dopatka, deutscher Sachbuchautor

Miroslav Martinjak, kroatischer Organist, Komponist und Kirchenmusiker

Andris Bērziņš, político y primer ministro letón

James Arbuthnot

James Arbuthnot served as a Conservative MP for over 25 years and chaired the House of Commons Defence Select Committee. He became a prominent advocate for the victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal, one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history.

Rino Rappuoli, inmunólogo italiano.

Manolo Fernández, locutor de radio español.

Daniel Bautista, atleta mexicano.

Kristoffer Tabori, US-amerikanischer Bühnenschauspieler

Moya Brennan

Moya Brennan brought the ethereal sounds of traditional Irish music to global audiences as the lead voice of Clannad. By blending Gaelic lyrics with contemporary arrangements, she bridged the gap between ancient folk traditions and modern pop, earning her the title First Lady of Celtic Music.

Gábor Demszky

He ran Budapest for 20 years straight — longer than any mayor in the city's modern history. Gábor Demszky, born in 1952, started as a samizdat publisher in communist Hungary, secretly printing banned books out of his apartment while the secret police watched his door. He got arrested. He kept printing. After the 1989 transition, voters handed him City Hall five consecutive times. But his final term ended in scandal and financial controversy. He left behind a rebuilt city — and a cautionary story about what outlasting your moment costs.

Antonio Tajani, italienischer Politiker

Hiroyuki Usui

Hiroyuki Usui played and later managed in Japanese football (J-League), contributing to the sport's professionalization in the 1990s. His career bridged the transition from the old corporate-sponsored Japan Soccer League to the modern professional era.

Joanie Spina

Joanie Spina was a magician, dancer, and choreographer who served as creative consultant for David Copperfield's television specials and live shows for over 15 years. She was one of the few women working at the top of magic's creative hierarchy, shaping some of the most-watched illusions in television history.

Vini Reilly

Vini Reilly pioneered the ethereal, delay-drenched guitar sound that defined the Factory Records aesthetic. As the creative force behind The Durutti Column, he influenced generations of post-punk and ambient musicians by prioritizing atmospheric texture over traditional rock structures. His delicate, looping compositions remain a blueprint for modern dream pop and shoegaze artists.

Siegfried Balleis, deutscher Kommunalpolitiker, Oberbürgermeister von Erlangen

Rosemberg Cariry, cineasta, escrito e roteirista brasileiro.

Hasse Borg, schwedischer Fußballspieler

Yahya Atan, malaysischer Hockeyspieler

Uwe Wittwer, peintre suisse.

Thierry Bourdon, doubleur vocal et comédien français.

Steve Phillips

Steve Phillips played professional football in England, contributing to the lower-division clubs that form the backbone of English football's vast pyramid system. His career represented the unsung side of the sport, far from the Premier League spotlight.

Gabriel Quadri, político y economista mexicano.

Anatoliy Kinakh

He ran Ukraine's government during one of its most financially strangled years — 2001 to 2002 — when the national debt was crushing and public trust had nearly collapsed. Kinakh wasn't a career politician first. He was a factory engineer who rose through Soviet industrial management before democracy reshuffled everything. As Prime Minister, he pushed economic reforms that stabilized the hryvnia's slide. He later served in parliament across multiple terms, refusing to disappear quietly. An engineer who built policy the same way he'd built machines: piece by piece, under pressure.

François Valéry

Valery is a French-Algerian singer who recorded disco and pop throughout the 1970s and 1980s with more success in France than anywhere else. He placed several singles on the French charts. He has the career profile of someone who survived a music industry that discarded most of its artists, which is itself a kind of achievement.

Andrew Michael Allen, astronaute américain.

Charles Donald Gemar, astronaute américain.

Piers McDonald, homme politique canadien, 5e premier ministre du Yukon de 1996 à 2000.

Mariana Avena, cantante de tango argentina (f.

Mariana Avena, cantante de tango argentina (f. 2016).

Billy Bob Thornton

He wrote *Sling Blade* on napkins and notebook scraps over several years, a story about a gentle man with a broken mind that almost nobody wanted to fund. Miramax finally bit for roughly $1 million. Thornton starred, wrote, and directed — then won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1997. Born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, he'd grown up dirt-poor, terrified of antique furniture. That fear never left. And the guy Hollywood almost ignored ended up teaching it what a Southern voice actually sounds like.

Alberto Gonzales

He grew up sleeping in a two-bedroom house in Humble, Texas — eight kids, no hot water, no telephone. Alberto Gonzales sold soft drinks at Rice University football games just to help his family. Then he got in. He attended the Air Force Academy, then Harvard Law, then climbed to the highest law enforcement office in the country. He was the first Hispanic U.S. Attorney General. His tenure sparked fierce national debates over interrogation memos and surveillance programs that courts and Congress are still sorting out today.

Gerrie Coetzee

Gerrie Coetzee was born in Boksburg, South Africa in 1955 and became the first African boxer to win a world heavyweight title, beating Michael Dokes in 1983. He'd knocked out fighters with his right hand throughout his career — so dependably that the right was called "the Bionic Punch" after he had surgery on it. He lost the title to Greg Page in 1984. South African boxing occupied a strange global position during the apartheid era: some organizations refused to sanction fights there, others participated anyway. Coetzee competed globally regardless. He was good enough that promoters made accommodations.

Dariusz Lipiński

He didn't start in politics — he started in a country that wouldn't let him. Born in 1955 in Poland, Lipiński came of age under communist rule, where independent political ambition meant surveillance, not office. He'd eventually become a deputy in the Sejm, serving multiple terms under the center-right Civic Platform party. Warsaw's parliamentary corridors were a world away from the Poland he was born into. The system he grew up fighting became the system he helped reshape from the inside.

Frederic Glesser, US-amerikanischer Komponist

Hans Hasebos, niederländischer Jazzvibraphonist

Mika Doi, seiyū y cantante japonesa.

Luigi Negri, político italiano.

Zygmunt Solorz-Żak, empresario polaco.

Gerry Cooney

Gerry Cooney was born in Huntington, New York in 1956 and was the most prominent heavyweight contender in the United States in the early 1980s. His June 1982 title fight against Larry Holmes was one of the most hyped bouts since Ali — sold partly on racial terms that both fighters found uncomfortable. Holmes stopped Cooney in the 13th round. Cooney fought professionally until 1990, winning some, losing some, never getting another legitimate title shot. He later founded a support organization for fighters dealing with addiction and mental health after boxing. That work turned out to be the longer project.

Allison Jolly, skipper américaine, championne olympique.

Arto Tunçboyacıyan, türkischer Schlagzeuger und Bandleader

Peter Frey, deutscher Journalist

Stefan Lübbe, deutscher Verleger

Alfred Waibel, piloto de motociclismo alemán.

Dean Fraser, saxofonista jamaiquino de reggae.

Rupert Farley

Rupert Farley is a British actor and voice artist whose work spans film, television, and animation dubbing. He has lent his voice to numerous characters in dubbed anime and animated features, building a career in a part of the industry most audiences never think about.

John Wark

Wark played for Ipswich Town under Bobby Robson during the club's improbable run through the 1980-81 UEFA Cup, scoring 14 goals from midfield — a record for a single UEFA Cup competition that stood for decades. He was the competition's top scorer as a midfielder, which suggests either exceptional positioning or a remarkable run of luck. Probably both. He moved to Liverpool, won nothing notable, returned to Ipswich, and ended his career where he'd had his greatest season.

Brooks D. Simpson

Simpson has spent decades as one of the foremost scholars of Ulysses S. Grant and the Civil War, based at Arizona State University. He wrote the most thorough modern biography of Grant, restoring a reputation that Lost Cause mythology had systematically damaged. Academic historians rarely reach popular audiences but Simpson has, because he writes about Grant with the same directness Grant used in his memoirs.

Olaf Beyer, deutscher Leichtathlet

Valdis Valters

Valdis Valters was Latvian basketball's greatest player of the Soviet era, starring for VEF Riga and earning caps for the USSR national team. After independence, he coached Latvia's national team and became an enduring symbol of the country's basketball-obsessed culture.

Phil Scott, empresario y político estadounidense, Gobernador de Vermont desde 2017.

Andrea Dombois, deutsche Politikerin, MdL, Vizepräsidentin des sächsischen Landtages

Liao Yiwu, escritor, poeta y músico chino.

Mario Tagarinski, ingeniero y político búlgaro.

Edvaldo Oliveira Chaves, futbolista brasileño.

William Orbaugh, guitarrista guatemalteco.

Rosario Marin, política mexicano-estadounidense.

Kym Karath

Karath played Gretl, the youngest Von Trapp child, in The Sound of Music in 1965. She was 6. The film won Best Picture. It has been in continuous distribution ever since. She grew up, appeared in a few other things, and settled into a life that was not acting. The film follows her anyway. Every revival, every broadcast, every anniversary piece includes a photograph of the youngest child in the Von Trapp line, and Karath is in the photograph.

Mary Decker

Mary Decker was born in Bunnvale, New Jersey in 1958 and became one of the best middle-distance runners in American history — world records at 1,500 meters, 3,000 meters, one mile, two miles. She entered the 1984 Olympics as the favorite in the 3,000 meters and fell in the final — tangled with South African-born British runner Zola Budd — and was carried off the track in tears while Budd finished ninth. The image of Decker crying on the infield became one of the defining photographs of the Los Angeles Games. She never won an Olympic medal.

Allison Hedge Coke

Allison Hedge Coke was born in Amarillo, Texas in 1958, of Huron, Métis, Tsalagi, Muscogee, and French Canadian descent. She grew up in North Carolina and spent years in farmwork before finding poetry. Her memoir Blood Run and her collections document Indigenous American experience, labor, and landscape in language that doesn't soften difficulty. She has taught at universities across the United States and edited multiple anthologies of Indigenous writing. She built her literary career outside the conventional pathways, which is itself a kind of subject in her work.

Ian Broudie

Ian Broudie defined the melodic, jangly sound of 1990s Britpop as the mastermind behind The Lightning Seeds. Beyond his own chart-topping hits like Three Lions, he shaped the era’s sonic landscape by producing seminal albums for bands like The Coral and The Zutons, cementing his reputation as a vital architect of modern English guitar music.

Greg Foster, athlète américain spécialiste du 110 m haies, quadruple champion du monde.

Kym Karath, actriz estadounidense.

Silvan Shalom

Born in Gabès, Tunisia, Silvan Shalom arrived in Israel as a child with almost nothing — his family part of the mass Jewish exodus that emptied North Africa's ancient communities. He'd go on to hold nearly every senior cabinet post imaginable: Finance Minister, Foreign Minister, Deputy Prime Minister. But the detail that stops people cold? He once ran for Likud party leadership against Ariel Sharon and lost. That defeat redirected him toward diplomacy, where he spent years negotiating water and peace agreements few remember today.

Brian Voss

Brian Voss won 11 titles on the PBA Tour and was one of professional bowling's most consistent competitors during the 1980s and 1990s. He was inducted into the PBA Hall of Fame, recognized for a career that spanned the era when bowling still commanded significant television audiences.

Anthony Radziwill, schweizerisch-US-amerikanischer Filmemacher und Emmy-Preisträger

René Manzor, réalisateur et scénariste français.

Blanca Andreu, poetisa española.

Jun Hong Lu, educador y líder religioso chino.

Gérard Biard, periodista francés.

Mark Kerry, nageur australien, champion olympique.

Robbin Crosby

Crosby played guitar for Ratt during the band's commercial peak in the mid-1980s, when their videos were on MTV and their albums went platinum. He was 6 foot 5, blond, the tallest person on any stage he stood on. He contracted HIV, kept it private for years, and died in 2002 at 42. His death was not widely covered outside of rock music circles. His playing defined the sound of a specific era of Los Angeles rock that ended before he did.

John Gormley

He grew up in Dublin, became Lord Mayor, and then did something most politicians never dare: he shut down his own party. Gormley led the Irish Green Party through the 2008 financial crash as a junior coalition partner, watching the country's GDP collapse nearly 10% in a single year. When the government fell in 2011, the Greens were virtually wiped out — losing every Dáil seat. But the party rebuilt. Today it governs again. Sometimes, surviving the wreckage is the whole point.

Oswaldo Segura, actor y presentador de televisión ecuatoriano.

Kim Reynolds, política estadounidense, Gobernadora de Iowa desde 2017.

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

He won his own party's leadership vote by just four delegates. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, born in Valladolid in 1960, became Prime Minister after his Socialist Party's surprise 2004 victory — a victory shaped in part by public fury over the Madrid train bombings three days earlier. He immediately withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq, legalized same-sex marriage in 2005 — making Spain only the third country worldwide to do so — and pushed through Spain's first gender-parity cabinet. Four delegates changed everything.

Stefan Kaufmann, musicien allemand.

Mercedes Fernández, política española.

Agostinho Leal, escritor y exmilitar paracaidista portugués.

Park Yeong-Suk, deportista surcoreana.

Tim Winton

Winton grew up in Western Australia and set most of his novels there, a part of the world that literary fiction had not treated seriously as landscape. Cloudstreet is the book that made his reputation — two families sharing a house in Perth from 1943 to 1963, ordinary life with spiritual undercurrents. It won the Miles Franklin Award twice. He won it four times total. He also campaigned publicly for marine conservation off the Australian coast, particularly against shark finning. He kept writing and kept arguing.

Bernard Rose

Rose directed Candyman in 1992, an adaptation of Clive Barker's short story that turned a housing project in Chicago into genuine horror mythology. He shot at Cabrini-Green, which was one of the most dangerous public housing developments in America at the time. The cast includes real residents. The film uses the location's actual history as part of its horror. He also directed Immortal Beloved, the Beethoven film with Gary Oldman. Two completely different films from a director who never settled into a genre.

Dean Malenko

Dean Malenko was born in Tampa, Florida in 1960, the son of a professional wrestler, and became one of the most technically skilled performers in professional wrestling during the 1990s. He worked in Japan extensively before WCW signed him, where his mat-based style — a genuine amateur wrestling background applied to the entertainment format — made him distinct in a roster full of larger, flashier performers. He earned the nickname "The Man of 1,000 Holds." In WWE from 2000, he worked as a road agent behind the scenes after retiring from active competition.

Chuck C. Lopez

Chuck C. Lopez rode thoroughbreds in American racing, competing at tracks across the country as a journeyman jockey. He was part of the large community of professional riders who make a living at regional racetracks without reaching the sport's highest-profile events.

Pascal Nègre, homme d'affaires, dirigeant du secteur de l'industrie musicale, producteur de musique et animateur de r…

Pascal Nègre, homme d'affaires, dirigeant du secteur de l'industrie musicale, producteur de musique et animateur de radio français, ancien président-directeur général d'Universal Music France de 1998 à 2016.

Peter Reichert

Peter Reichert played professional football in Germany, competing in the Bundesliga system. His career was spent in the domestic German league structure during the 1980s and early 1990s.

Ronald Augusto, escritor brasileiro.

Godwin Emefiele, economista nigeriano.

Pumpuang Duangjan, cantante tailandesa (f.

Pumpuang Duangjan, cantante tailandesa (f. 1992).

Lauren Tom, actriz de voz estadounidense.

Lauren Tom

Tom provided the voice of Amy Wong in Futurama across all its iterations from 1999 to 2023 and is one of those voice actors whose face audiences rarely see but whose presence they spent hundreds of hours with. She also played in Friends, as one of the sisters at Chinese restaurant, and in ER. Her theatrical training meant she could shade a line differently on the twentieth take than on the first, which is what animated series require over years of recording.

Barack Obama Born: Future First Black President

Barack Obama's mother was from Kansas. His father was Kenyan, present for two years of his life. He grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, went to Harvard Law, became editor of the law review, and spent years as a community organizer in Chicago's South Side. The 2008 campaign was supposed to be Hillary Clinton's. He won Iowa, which is 91% white, and the calculation changed. He was 47 when he was inaugurated. His father never saw it.

Bart van Wees, niederländischer Physiker

Eddie James

Eddie James was convicted of murder and sex offenses in cases that drew significant media attention. His crimes were part of a pattern of violence that resulted in lengthy imprisonment.

Wolf Lotter, österreichischer Journalist und Autor

Paul Reynolds

He joined A Flock of Seagulls as a teenager, and the band's 1982 debut single "I Ran (So Far Away)" hit the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and made them unlikely synth-pop ambassadors from Liverpool. Reynolds' guitar work cut through the keyboards in ways that surprised critics expecting pure electronic sound. The band won a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental in 1983. He'd later step away from music entirely. But that shimmering guitar line on "I Ran" still shows up in films, commercials, and TV decades later.

Roger Clemens

Clemens struck out 20 batters in a single game in 1986, a record nobody thought was possible. He did it again ten years later, a different game, same number, as if to prove it wasn't a fluke. He won seven Cy Young Awards. Then came the Mitchell Report, 2007 — named, accused of using performance-enhancing drugs. Congressional hearings. Perjury charges. A trial. Acquittal. Three Hall of Fame ballots where he got less than the required vote despite the counting numbers. He sits outside Cooperstown because voters can't decide if what he did before the drugs counts.

Lori Lightfoot, política estadounidense.

Edílson Pereira de Carvalho, ex-árbitro de futebol brasileiro.

1963

Martín Garitano, periodista y político español.

1963

Holger Schneider, deutscher Handballspieler und -trainer

1963

Keith Maurice Ellison

Keith Ellison became the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress in 2006, representing Minnesota's 5th District, and took his oath of office on a Quran once owned by Thomas Jefferson. He later became Minnesota's Attorney General, where he led the prosecution of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd in 2021.

Jörg Urban, deutscher Politiker

Domenec de Guzman, actor español.

Anna Sui

Anna Sui built a fashion empire defined by its eclectic mix of rock 'n' roll, hippie, and vintage aesthetics, showing at New York Fashion Week since 1991. Her signature purple-and-black boutiques and fragrance line made her one of the most commercially successful independent American designers, with a cult following in Asia.

Anna Sui, US-amerikanische Modeschöpferin

Martin Rubin, Schweizer Handballspieler und -trainer

Sebastian Roché, französischer Schauspieler

Anita Protti, Schweizer Leichtathletin

Thomas Müller, österreichischer Kriminalpsychologe, Fallanalytiker und Buchautor

Andreas Mollandin, deutscher Hockeyspieler

Phil Hickey, US-amerikanischer Footballspieler und -trainer

Hanna Katrín Friðriksson, isländische Politikerin

Wolfgang Frank, deutscher Regisseur

Gregor von Bismarck, deutscher Unternehmer und Filmproduzent

Andrew Bartlett

He ran for the Australian Senate six times before finally winning a seat — that kind of stubborn persistence either breaks people or defines them. Andrew Bartlett, born in 1964, became the Democrats' last federal leader before the party collapsed entirely, watching his political home dissolve around him. He'd later return to parliament decades after, this time as a Greens senator. But it's that image that sticks — a man steering a ship everyone else had already abandoned.

Gary King

Gary King was born in 1964 and spent his career as a radio presenter in England, working in commercial radio from the late 1980s onward. He worked at multiple stations across the country — the kind of career that involves relentless networking and adaptation as radio ownership consolidates and formats change. British commercial radio went through several ownership waves in the 1990s and 2000s, and presenters who stayed employed through all of it did so by being good at the job and flexible about what the job required.

Wayne Pacelle

Wayne Pacelle served as CEO of the Humane Society of the United States from 2004 to 2018, growing it into the nation's largest animal protection organization with assets exceeding million. He led campaigns against factory farming, puppy mills, and seal hunting before resigning amid sexual harassment allegations.

Terri Lyne Carrington

Terri Lyne Carrington won three Grammy Awards as a jazz drummer, producer, and bandleader — the first woman to win Best Jazz Instrumental Album. She was a child prodigy who received a full scholarship to Berklee at age 11 and has become one of the most important figures in modern jazz.

Adam Afriyie

Adam Afriyie became the first Black Conservative MP in British history when he was elected for Windsor in 2005. A self-made technology entrepreneur, he has been a prominent voice on science and technology policy in the House of Commons.

Fredrik Reinfeldt

He took Sweden's prime ministership at 41 — the youngest ever — but the real shock came before that. Reinfeldt secretly drafted *The Sleeping People*, a 1993 manifesto arguing his own party had drifted too far right, written while still a student politician nobody'd heard of. He handed it to colleagues. Most ignored it. Eleven years later, he rebuilt the center-right Moderate Party around exactly those ideas, winning the 2006 election and ending twelve years of Social Democratic rule. The outsider's memo became the blueprint.

Konstantin Graudus, deutscher TV- und Filmschauspieler

Terri Lyne Carrington, US-amerikanische Jazzschlagzeugerin, Komponistin und Produzentin

Crystal Chappell, actrice américaine.

Michael Skibbe

Michael Skibbe played for multiple Bundesliga clubs and earned 5 caps for Germany before transitioning into coaching. He managed the Greek national team, Hertha Berlin, and several Turkish clubs, building a coaching career that spanned three countries.

Crystal Chappell

Crystal Chappell played Olivia Spencer on Guiding Light, anchoring one of daytime television's groundbreaking same-sex storylines — the "Otalia" romance that drew over a million YouTube views per episode. She also appeared on Days of Our Lives and Venice: The Series, which she created.

Neus Asensi, actriz española.

Aziza Baroud, política y diplomática chadiana (f.

Aziza Baroud, política y diplomática chadiana (f. 2025).

Vishal Bhardwaj

Vishal Bhardwaj adapted three Shakespeare plays into Hindi films — "Maqbool" (Macbeth), "Omkara" (Othello), and "Haider" (Hamlet) — transplanting them into the worlds of Mumbai gangsters, rural Uttar Pradesh, and conflict-torn Kashmir. He also composes his own film scores, making him one of the few Indian filmmakers who directs, writes, and scores his own work.

Begoña Huertas: escritora y filóloga española.

Dennis Lehane

Lehane grew up in Dorchester and nearly every novel he has written takes place there or nearby. Mystic River came out in 2001 — three boys, one crime, twenty-five years of consequences. Eastwood made it in 2003 and Penn won the Oscar. Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island, The Given Day. He worked on The Wire and Boardwalk Empire. The geography of Boston working-class neighborhoods runs through all of it, not as local color but as a moral landscape where history comes due.

James Tupper

James Tupper appeared in over 30 television series, with recurring roles on Men in Trees and Revenge alongside the ABC network drama A Million Little Things. The Canadian actor built a steady career as a leading man in network television.

1966

Luc Leblanc, ciclista profesional francés.

1966

Kensuke Sasaki

Kensuke Sasaki was born in Iwaki, Fukushima in 1966 and had one of the most successful careers in Japanese professional wrestling — spending years at the top of NJPW, winning multiple heavyweight titles, and competing in high-profile matches against the best foreigners the promotion brought in. He also had a successful MMA career running concurrently, which was unusual. Japanese professional wrestling in the 1990s had a committed audience that distinguished serious technical work from performance; Sasaki's credibility crossed both formats.

Chuck Hogan, escritor y guionista estadounidense.

Wilfried Pallhuber, italienischer Biathlet

Michael Marsh

Michael Marsh was born in Los Angeles in 1967 and ran the 200 meters at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics in 20.01 seconds — a performance good enough to win gold. He also anchored the American 4x100 relay team that set a world record. He was one of the fastest humans alive in August 1992. He didn't make the 1996 Olympic team. The margins in sprinting are small enough that a hamstring tweak or a bad qualifying race can end an Olympic story in one afternoon.

Arsène Mosca, acteur et humoriste français.

Jana Sorgers, rameuse d'aviron allemande, double championne olympique.

Timothy Adams

He stood 6'2" and walked runways in Milan before most people knew his name. Timothy Adams was born in 1967 in Arkansas, but it was New York's Ford Models agency that first turned heads. He'd later trade catwalks for cameras, landing recurring roles in soap operas and primetime dramas throughout the '90s. Not many people cross both industries and stick in either one. But Adams did. He built a career that outlasted trends in both modeling and television — which, in those worlds, is genuinely rare.

Brian Atwood, diseñador de calzado estadounidense de ascendencia mexicana.

Antonio De Carlo, productor, actor y cantautor mexicano.

Marcus Schenkenberg

Schenkenberg appeared on the cover of Italian Vogue in 1993 and became one of the first male models to achieve genuine name recognition outside the fashion industry. He was Swedish, blond, 6 foot 3, and appeared in campaigns for Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss, and Versace through the decade when male supermodels briefly became a category. He transitioned into acting, appearing in films and television, with results that were less dramatic than his modeling career.

Daniel Dae Kim

Kim left Lost after six seasons because ABC wouldn't pay him equally to his white co-stars. He and Grace Park left together. The story became bigger than the show — two Asian-American actors in top-billed roles walking away from a hit over pay equity. He had spent six years as Jin, the Korean husband whose English improved across 121 episodes while the show's mythology got stranger. He moved into producing. He bought rights to a manga and spent years trying to adapt it.

Lee Mack

Lee Mack created and starred in Not Going Out, the BBC sitcom that has run since 2006 — one of the longest-running sitcoms in British television history. His rapid-fire wit also made him a permanent team captain on Would I Lie to You?, where his improvisational comedy regularly goes viral.

Olga Neuwirth, österreichische Komponistin

Victor Schefé, deutscher Schauspieler und Sänger

Tatiana Trouvé, französisch-italienische Künstlerin

Ignacio García Camacho, exciclista español.

Marcus Schenkenberg, modelo sueco.

Lexie Bigham, actor afroestadounidense.

Esther Torrado, socióloga e investigadora española.

Stephan Bodzin, DJ y productor musical alemán.

Vlad Ivanov

Vlad Ivanov became internationally known for his role as the cold, menacing abortionist Mr. Bebe in the Palme d'Or-winning 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007). He has since become Romanian cinema's most exported actor, appearing in multiple Cannes-selected films and Hollywood productions.

Sébastien Demorand, journaliste, critique et juré gastronomique, présentateur et chroniqueur de radio français († 21 …

Sébastien Demorand, journaliste, critique et juré gastronomique, présentateur et chroniqueur de radio français († 21 janvier 2020).

Mark Bickley

Mark Bickley played 257 games for the Adelaide Crows in the AFL, becoming club captain and winning the 1997 and 1998 premierships. He later coached the Crows, staying connected to the club that defined his career.

Michael DeLuise

DeLuise is Dom DeLuise's son, which means he grew up surrounded by comedy professionals. He acted in Stargate SG-1 for several seasons and directed episodes as well, moving into production as his career progressed. He is part of a generation of second-generation Hollywood families who built careers in production and directing after acting provided the entry point.

Troy O'Leary

O'Leary played 10 seasons in the major leagues as an outfielder, notable mainly for a four-year stretch with Boston in the late 1990s when he was a reliable left-handed bat in a lineup built around Nomar Garciaparra and Mo Vaughn. He hit .280 with the Red Sox. He retired quietly and the career numbers are the kind that satisfy without astonishing.

Max Cavalera

Max Cavalera brought the raw intensity of Brazilian street life to global heavy metal as the frontman of Sepultura. By blending thrash speed with tribal percussion, he expanded the genre's sonic boundaries and influenced decades of extreme music. His relentless output through projects like Soulfly and Nailbomb solidified his status as a foundational figure in modern metal.

María Luján Rey, profesora y política argentina.

Diego Latorre, futbolista argentino.

Vlad Ivanov, actor rumano.

Bento Hinoto, guitarrista brasileiro (m.

Bento Hinoto, guitarrista brasileiro (m. 1996).

Orlando Trustfull, niederländischer Fußballspieler

Christian Fischer, deutscher Fußballschiedsrichter

Vladimir Novikov, gymnaste soviétique, champion olympique.

Bret Baier

Bret Baier has anchored Fox News' Special Report since 2009, making him one of the network's longest-serving prime-time hosts. He has moderated Republican presidential primary debates and is generally regarded as one of Fox's more straight-news journalists in a network dominated by opinion programming.

John August

John August was born in Denver in 1970 and became one of the most reliable screenwriters in Hollywood — Charlie's Angels, Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Frankenweenie, all for Tim Burton, plus Go and several others. He also co-hosts the long-running screenwriting podcast Scriptnotes, which has an honest, practical quality unusual for industry media. He's been transparent about his own career in ways that make him useful to people trying to learn the business. Hollywood rewards opacity; August chose the other direction.

Steve House

Steve House made the first alpine-style ascent of the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat in 2005 — the tallest mountain face on Earth at 15,000 feet. The climb, done with Vince Anderson in pure alpine style with no fixed ropes or supplemental oxygen, won the Piolet d'Or and is considered one of the greatest achievements in mountaineering history.

Ron Lester

Ron Lester played the lovable Billy Bob in Varsity Blues (1999), a role defined by his 508-pound frame at the time of filming. He later lost over 300 pounds through gastric bypass surgery but struggled with the health consequences for the rest of his life, dying at 45.

Kate Silverton

Kate Silverton has presented BBC News bulletins and current affairs programs for over two decades, becoming one of the network's most recognizable anchors. She also trained as a children's counselor and wrote a parenting book on childhood emotional development.

سعود بن عبد الله بن محمد بن عبدالرحمن آل سعود، أمير وشاعر سعودي.

Jarrod Donoman

Jarrod Donoman was born in 1970 and works as an American independent filmmaker, primarily in documentary and short film formats. Independent filmmaking in the United States operates almost entirely outside the commercial infrastructure — productions funded through grants, personal savings, and crowdfunding; distribution through festivals and streaming. Donoman has worked in this ecosystem, making films on subjects that wouldn't attract studio interest. The names that don't appear on marquees are sometimes the ones doing the most uncompromised work.

Steve House, montañista estadounidense.

Steven Jack

Steven Jack was born in Port Elizabeth in 1970 and played first-class cricket for Border and Eastern Province, earning a reputation as a pace bowler capable of generating genuine speed on South African pitches. He played through the post-isolation era as South Africa returned to international cricket in 1991. His first-class record was solid enough to attract national attention without producing a Test cap. Many careers in South African cricket during the 1990s followed that pattern — the queue was long after isolation ended and the talent came back all at once.

Hakeem Jeffries, político y abogado estadounidense.

Yolanda Whittaker, rapper e atriz estadunidense.

Sou Fujimoto, arquitecto japonés.

Alfonso Novo, fotógrafo español.

Jeff Gordon

Jeff Gordon was born in Vallejo, California in 1971 and became one of the dominant NASCAR drivers of his era — four Cup Series championships, 93 race wins, the face of the sport's expansion in the 1990s. He drove for Hendrick Motorsports his entire Cup career, which gave him resources most teams couldn't match. Older fans sometimes resented him for it. He was too polished, too corporate, too consistently successful. The people who watched him drive understood what they were seeing: someone who could place a 3,400-pound car within inches of a wall at 190 miles per hour, lap after lap.

Dirk Wolf, deutscher Fußballspieler

Stefan Brogren

Stefan Brogren was born in Toronto in 1972 and spent thirteen years playing "Snake" — Archibald Simpson — on Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High from 1987 to 2000, then returned to the franchise as a director and producer on Degrassi: The Next Generation. Degrassi was unusual in Canadian television — it dealt seriously with drug abuse, teen pregnancy, rape, and HIV in the 1980s when other youth programming wouldn't. Brogren both acted in and helped shape that tradition. He became one of the show's institutional pillars, on-screen and off.

Audrey Azoulay, femme politique française, ministre de la Culture et de la Communication de 2016 à 2017 dans les gouv…

Audrey Azoulay, femme politique française, ministre de la Culture et de la Communication de 2016 à 2017 dans les gouvernements de Manuel Valls et Bernard Cazeneuve.

Juan Carlos Rojas, empresario costarricense.

Predrag Đorđević, futbolista serbio.

Daniel Šarić, futbolista croata.

Michael Grant, US-amerikanischer Boxer

Francisco Javier De Pedro, futbolista español.

Migdalia González, política puertorriqueña.

Yoelbi Quesada, kubanischer Dreispringer

Eva Amaral

Eva Amaral was born in Zaragoza in 1973 and co-founded the Spanish band Amaral with guitarist Juan Aguirre in 1996. They've released nine studio albums and are one of the most commercially successful acts in Spanish-language rock — enormous in Spain, well-known in Latin America, almost invisible in anglophone markets. Her voice is distinctive: broad-ranging, emotionally direct, capable of both intimacy and full-stadium delivery. The fact that Spanish rock of that quality barely registers outside its linguistic market is a function of industry geography, not quality.

Marcos Roberto Silveira Reis

Marcos Roberto Silveira Reis played professional football in Brazil, competing in domestic league competition. He was part of the vast pool of Brazilian professional footballers who compete in the country's multi-tiered league system.

Marek Penksa

Marek Penksa played professional football in Slovakia, competing in the Superliga. His career was spent in the Slovak domestic league system during the country's early post-independence football era.

Xavier Marchand

Xavier Marchand was born in Grenoble in 1973 and competed in swimming for France — his specialty was the 200-meter individual medley, which requires proficiency in all four strokes across different distances. He competed in the 1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney Olympics, finishing fourth in Atlanta. The individual medley rewards versatility over mastery; different bodies produce it differently. Marchand was among the best in the world for a stretch in the late 1990s before Michael Phelps made the event his personal property.

Keenan Milton

Keenan Milton was born in Los Angeles in 1974 and was one of the most technically gifted street skateboarders of the 1990s — smooth, inventive, appearing in Alien Workshop videos that defined the aesthetic of that era's skateboarding. He died in 2001 at 26. The cause was a seizure. He had epilepsy. Skateboarding's video culture means his footage still circulates — there are people who learned to skate watching clips of Milton who were born after he died. The board footage lasted longer than he did.

عمر القزابري، إمام مسجد الحسن الثاني.

Kukín Flores, futbolista peruano.

Kukín Flores, futbolista peruano. (f. 2019).

Dilbert Aguilar, cantante y compositor peruano de cumbia.

Corinne Diacre, französische Fußballspielerin

Kily González

Kily González was born in Santa Fe, Argentina in 1974 and played most of his club career in Europe, primarily at Internazionale and Valencia. He was a winger — quick, capable of delivering crosses and cutting inside. He earned 48 caps for Argentina and competed in two World Cups. South American players in European leagues in the late 1990s often navigated complicated transfer dynamics and adaptation challenges. González stayed long enough at Inter and Valencia to be remembered well by both sets of fans.

Muqtada al-Sadr, clérigo chií y político iraquí.

Fabiano Cezar Viegas, futbolista brasileño.

Justin Keen, britischer Automobilrennfahrer

Daniella van Graas

Daniella van Graas was born in Breda, Netherlands in 1975 and built a career as a model and actress — appearing on the cover of Dutch editions of major fashion magazines and working in American television and film productions. Dutch models working internationally navigate a particular challenge: the Dutch market isn't large enough to sustain a top-tier modeling career, so success requires the US or the UK. Van Graas made the transition, working in commercial and editorial modeling through the late 1990s and 2000s.

Andy Hallett

Andy Hallett was born in Osterville, Massachusetts in 1975 and played Lorne — the green-skinned, empathic demon karaoke host — on Angel from 2000 to 2004. He was a nightclub singer before the casting, which was how he came to Joss Whedon's attention. The character was warm, funny, and genuinely strange — someone in the demon world who just wanted everyone to enjoy themselves. Hallett died in 2009 at 33 of congestive heart failure. He'd been ill for several years. Angel had been off the air for five years by then. The character he'd played outlasted the show.

Jutta Urpilainen

Jutta Urpilainen reshaped Finnish fiscal policy as the first woman to serve as the nation's Minister of Finance. By securing collateral requirements for eurozone bailouts during the sovereign debt crisis, she fundamentally altered how Finland engaged with European Union financial stability mechanisms. She currently serves as the European Commissioner for International Partnerships.

Joe Saenz

Joe Saenz was a member of the Mexican Mafia prison gang who became involved in organized crime in the American Southwest. His story reflects the intersection of incarceration, gang culture, and drug trafficking that has defined much of the region's criminal underworld.

Nikos Liberopoulos

Nikos Liberopoulos played over 300 matches for AEK Athens and earned 48 caps for the Greek national team, scoring goals in Euro 2004 qualifying. He was a technically gifted striker who spent his prime years as one of the Greek Super League's most consistent domestic scorers.

Laure Saint-Raymond, matemática francesa.

1976

Trevor Woodman

Trevor Woodman was a destructive scrummager who won 22 England caps, including starting in the 2003 Rugby World Cup Final victory over Australia. His career was plagued by back injuries that forced his retirement at 28, cutting short what many considered the most promising prop career in English rugby.

1976

Paul Goldstein

Paul Goldstein competed on the ATP Tour as an American professional tennis player, reaching a career-high singles ranking in the top 60. He later became the head coach of Stanford's men's tennis program, transitioning from tour grinder to one of the top college coaches in the country.

1976

Andrew McLeod

Andrew McLeod was born in Alice Springs in 1976 and played 340 games for the Adelaide Crows — one of the longer careers in Australian Rules Football. He won the Norm Smith Medal, given to the best player in the AFL Grand Final, twice: 1997 and 1998, consecutive years when Adelaide won back-to-back premierships. He was an Indigenous Australian player during a period when the AFL was actively reckoning with its history on race. He won the Marcus Clarke Medal in 2008 — the AFL's award for the player who best exemplifies the spirit of the game. He was rarely surpassed in either category.

Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde, político y primer ministro congoleño.

Kazarian

Kazarian (Frankie Kazarian) has wrestled for TNA/Impact, Ring of Honor, and AEW over a career spanning more than two decades. He won the TNA X Division and World Tag Team championships and became known for his versatile in-ring style that adapted across multiple eras of professional wrestling.

Luís Boa Morte

Luís Boa Morte was born in Lisbon in 1977 and played professional football for 20 years across multiple European leagues — Arsenal, Southampton, Fulham, West Ham. He was a winger: quick, direct, capable of scoring and creating. His most productive years came at Fulham, where he spent seven seasons. Portuguese footballers in the Premier League in the late 1990s navigated the language gap and the tactical adjustment simultaneously. He was a steady presence in English football without ever being its biggest name, which is a reasonable career for most people in that industry.

Marek Heinz, futbolista checo.

Frankie Kazarian

Frankie Kazarian was born in Anaheim in 1977 and spent twenty-plus years as a professional wrestler, working in TNA/Impact Wrestling and later in AEW. He's a tag team specialist — his partnerships with Christopher Daniels, as the team Addiction and later as SoCal Uncensored, became one of the defining tag team acts of the 2010s. Tag team wrestling requires a different skill set from singles work: coordination, timing between partners, knowing when to let the other person work. Kazarian and Daniels were among the best at it for a decade.

Marco Brito, futbolista brasileño.

Duane Ludwig

Duane Ludwig combined careers in MMA and kickboxing, compiling a professional record across both disciplines before becoming a sought-after striking coach. He trained UFC champion T.J. Dillashaw and is credited with transforming Dillashaw's striking technique into one of the most dynamic in MMA.

Emmanuelle Boidron, actrice française.

Kurt Busch

Kurt Busch was born in Las Vegas in 1978 and won the NASCAR Cup Series championship in 2004 — one of the closest championships in the sport's history, decided in the final race of the season. He drove for multiple top-tier teams across his career. He was also suspended from NASCAR in 2015 pending an investigation into domestic violence allegations, which were not criminally charged. He returned, won races, and eventually retired in 2022 after sustaining a concussion in a practice crash. The 2004 championship was the number that defined the career.

JD Samson

JD Samson redefined queer performance art as a core member of the electro-punk band Le Tigre. By blending aggressive, lo-fi beats with unapologetic political activism, she dismantled barriers for non-binary artists in the music industry. Her work continues to shape the sound and visibility of the modern LGBTQ+ electronic scene.

Ricardo Serrano

Ricardo Serrano competed as a professional road cyclist in Spain, riding for Spanish teams in domestic and international stage races. He was part of the deep talent pool of Spanish cycling that consistently produces riders for the world's major tours.

Per-Åge Skrøder

Per-Age Skroder played professional ice hockey in Norway's top league and represented the Norwegian national team in international competition. He was part of Norway's efforts to develop competitive hockey talent in a country where winter sports are dominated by skiing and biathlon.

Michail Stifunin

Michail Stifunin was a Russian ice dancer who competed at the international level, representing Russia in ISU competitions. Ice dance has been one of Russia's strongest figure skating disciplines, and he trained within that tradition.

Sandeep Naik

Sandeep Naik is an Indian politician who has been active in Maharashtra state politics. He has held elected positions and worked within the state's political party structures.

Danish Nawaz

Danish Nawaz is a Pakistani actor and director who works in the country's television drama industry. He has appeared in and directed multiple serial dramas, contributing to Pakistan's prolific television production scene.

Siri Nordby

Siri Nordby played over 100 matches for the Norwegian women's national football team, competing in multiple FIFA Women's World Cups and European Championships. She was part of the generation of Norwegian women who made their country a consistent force in international women's football.

Jeremy Adduono

Jeremy Adduono played parts of two NHL seasons with the Florida Panthers before spending the bulk of his career in European leagues and the AHL. He later transitioned to coaching in the OHL, developing young Canadian hockey talent.

Luke Allen

Luke Allen appeared in 33 MLB games across stints with the Colorado Rockies. A corner infielder, he spent most of his career in the minor leagues, part of the large majority of professional baseball players whose big-league time is measured in weeks rather than years.

Victor Marius Beliciu

A Romanian kid fell in love with an instrument almost nobody in Bucharest had ever touched. Victor Marius Beliciu, born in 1978, didn't pick up a guitar or a violin — he chose the sitar, a 18-string classical Indian instrument that takes decades to master and requires retuning for every raga. He'd go on to bridge two musical worlds most people never knew existed side by side. One man, one improbable instrument, quietly proving that geography doesn't decide what music gets inside you.

Mick Cain

Mick Cain appeared in several television series and films in the late 1990s and early 2000s. His acting career included roles that reflected the period's boom in teen and young adult entertainment.

Agnė Eggerth

She ran the 60-meter dash in 7.35 seconds — fast enough to compete at the 1999 European Indoor Championships in Maebashi, Japan, representing a Lithuania still finding its footing a decade after Soviet independence. Eggerth trained through an era when Lithuanian athletics infrastructure was being rebuilt almost from scratch. No inherited facilities, no guaranteed funding. And she ran anyway. Her career stands as proof that elite sprinting didn't wait for perfect conditions — it happened in spite of them.

Ibán Espadas

Iban Espadas played professional football in Spain, competing in the lower divisions of the Spanish league system. His career was spent in the deep pyramid of Spanish football, where hundreds of professionals compete below the La Liga spotlight.

Shaunard Harts

He went undrafted. Every NFL team passed on Shaunard Harts in 2001, but the Pittsburgh Steelers signed him anyway as a free agent — and he stuck. The linebacker out of Wisconsin carved out a five-year NFL career on special teams and depth rosters, the kind of player coaches quietly called indispensable. Born January 15, 1978, in Milwaukee. He never made a Pro Bowl. But the guys who do make Pro Bowls need someone like Harts to survive training camp. That's the job nobody films.

Satoshi Hino

Satoshi Hino has voiced characters in dozens of major anime series, including Sai in Naruto Shippuden and Ainz Ooal Gown in Overlord. Born in San Francisco to Japanese parents, he returned to Japan to build one of the most prolific voice acting careers in the anime industry.

Benet Kaci

Benet Kaci works as both a journalist and singer in Kosovo, straddling the country's media and entertainment industries. His dual career reflects the small-country dynamic where public figures often wear multiple professional hats.

Karine Legault

Karine Legault competed in open water swimming for Canada, specializing in marathon distance events. She represented Canada in international competition, navigating the grueling physical demands of open water racing.

Dominic Boeer, deutscher Schauspieler

Ibán Espadas Zubizarreta, futbolista español.

JD Samson, música estadounidense de la banda Le Tigre.

João Paulo Cuenca, economista, jornalista, cineasta, dramaturgo e crítico de arte brasileiro.

Daniela Chmet, triatleta italiana.

Bo Svensson, dänischer Fußballspieler

Celso Moraes, futbolista brasileño.

Astrid Hochstetter, deutsche Eiskunstläuferin

Robin Peterson

Robin Peterson was born in Port Elizabeth in 1979 and played 23 Tests for South Africa as a left-arm spin bowler — a rare commodity in a team that historically preferred pace. He also represented the Dolphins and Cape Cobras in domestic cricket. South African spin bowling existed in permanent tension with the pitches and the coaching culture, which favored the pace attack. Peterson had enough ability to hold a spot in the national team intermittently, which is its own kind of achievement in a country with that much fast bowling talent.

1980

Benjamin Köhler, deutscher Fußballspieler

1980

Rony Martias, französischer Radrennfahrer

1980

Richard Dawson

Richard Dawson was born in Doncaster in 1980 and played first-class cricket for Yorkshire as an off-spin bowler, eventually captaining the county. He earned seven Test caps for England between 2001 and 2003 — touring in difficult conditions against good teams. He went into coaching after retiring from playing, working with Gloucestershire and the England women's team. Yorkshire cricket has always had an intense internal culture — the arguments about selection and identity run longer than careers. Dawson navigated it.

Benjamin Boukpeti, französisch-togolesischer Kanute

Nelli Aghinjan, armenische Schachspielerin

Malchas Assatiani, georgischer Fußballspieler

Gabriel Fernando Atz, brasilianischer Fußballspieler

Michael Binder, deutscher Handballspieler

Jan Kristiansen, dänischer Fußballspieler

Benjamin Lauth, deutscher Fußballspieler

Meghan Markle

Meghan Markle went from playing Rachel Zane on the legal drama Suits to becoming the Duchess of Sussex when she married Prince Harry in 2018. Their subsequent departure from senior royal duties, move to California, and Oprah interview sent shockwaves through the British monarchy and made them among the most discussed public figures in the world.

Jana Kolukanova

Jana Kolukanova became the first Estonian woman to swim the English Channel in 2007, and has since completed multiple open water marathon swims around the world. Her channel-swimming achievements made her one of Estonia's most accomplished endurance athletes.

Erica Carlson

Erica Carlson is a Swedish actress who has appeared in theater and film productions, working within Sweden's publicly funded arts system. Her career reflects the strong tradition of stage-trained actors in Scandinavian cinema and television.

Meghan Markle Born: Actress Who Reshaped the Monarchy

Meghan Markle transitioned from American actress to the Duchess of Sussex through her 2018 marriage to Prince Harry, becoming the first biracial member of the modern British royal family. Her subsequent departure from royal duties and public advocacy for mental health awareness and racial equity sparked a global conversation about monarchy, media, and identity.

Frédérick Bousquet

Frédérick Bousquet was born in Montpellier in 1981 and set the world record in the 50-meter freestyle in 2009 — 20.94 seconds. That's half the length of a standard pool, flat-out speed. He held the record briefly before it fell. He competed at three Olympic Games for France. The 50-meter freestyle is the sprint event of swimming — no strategy, no breathing technique, just velocity. Bousquet was briefly the fastest human being in a pool. That is a very specific superlative to carry.

Marques Houston

Before he could drive, Marques Houston was already performing on national television. Born August 4, 1981, in Los Angeles, he joined IMx — originally called Immature — at just nine years old, sharing stages with artists twice his age. The group scored a Top 10 R&B hit with "Never Lie" in 1994, when Houston was thirteen. He'd later pivot to acting, landing a recurring role on *Sister Sister*. A kid who grew up entirely in public, he built a career most adults never touch.

Ben Scott

Ben Scott was born in Epsom in 1981 and played first-class cricket for Middlesex and Surrey as a wicket-keeper batsman. He earned one ODI cap for England in 2006. The supply of capable wicket-keepers in English cricket during the mid-2000s was strong enough that a single cap could represent the entirety of an international career. Matt Prior was ahead of him. Scott played domestic cricket well, contributed at county level, and retired without a larger England opportunity arriving. County cricket ran on careers like his.

Abigail Spencer

Spencer appeared in Suits as Rachel Zane for seven seasons, the associate whose storyline drove some of the show's most emotionally direct plotting. She trained at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. After Suits she moved into prestige film — Rectify, This Is Us in guest capacity. She has continued building a career that started later than most and has moved in a steadier direction since.

Manuel Lloret Zaragozi, ciclista español.

Simone Del Nero, futbolista italiano.

Jamie Croft, actor australiano.

Florian Silbereisen, cantante y presentador de televisión alemán.

Abigail Spencer, actriz estadounidense.

Turki Al-Sheikh, militar y promotor deportivo árabe.

Daisuke Tsuji, actor japonés-estadounidense.

Saša Đorđević, futbolista serbio (f.

Saša Đorđević, futbolista serbio (f. 2025).

Luca Antonini, italienischer Fußballspieler

Rubinho

Rubinho (Rubens Fernando Moedim) played as a goalkeeper in Brazilian football, competing in the country's Serie A and lower divisions. He was part of the competitive pool of Brazilian keepers who contend for starting positions across the nation's multi-tiered professional system.

David Mendes da Silva, niederländischer Fußballspieler

Rubinho, brasilianischer Fußballspieler

Melanie Wichterich, deutsche Schauspielerin

David Galán Galindo, cineasta y guionista español.

Jendrik Meyer, deutscher Handballspieler

Öykü Gürman, türkische Filmschauspielerin und Sängerin

Patrick Wolf, deutscher Sänger

Nathaniel Buzolic

Nathaniel Buzolic is best known for playing Kol Mikaelson in The Vampire Diaries and its spin-off The Originals, becoming a fan favorite in the CW's interconnected supernatural universe. The Australian actor built a strong following through the convention circuit that surrounds these cult television franchises.

Greta Gerwig

Greta Gerwig evolved from mumblecore indie actress to one of Hollywood's most successful directors, with Lady Bird (2017) earning five Oscar nominations and Barbie (2023) grossing over .4 billion worldwide. She became only the second woman to direct a billion-dollar film, reshaping what mainstream studio filmmaking looks like.

Rasmik Wardanjan, armenischer Billardspieler

Benjamin Donegan, judoca australiano.

Nathaniel Buzolic, actor australiano.

Daniel Theorin, footballeur suédois.

Ben Zucker, deutscher Sänger

Terry Campese

Terry Campese was a halfback for the Canberra Raiders in Australia's NRL, known for his creative playmaking and kicking game. Injuries disrupted what could have been a longer career at the top level, but he remained a fan favorite in Canberra.

Mardy Collins

Mardy Collins was drafted 29th overall by the New York Knicks in 2006 but spent just two NBA seasons before moving to the G League and overseas. He is remembered for his role in the infamous Knicks-Nuggets brawl at Madison Square Garden in December 2006.

Caroline Wensink, niederländische Volleyballspielerin

Natalia Lavrova, ginasta russa (m.

Natalia Lavrova, ginasta russa (m. 2010).

Jen Lilley, actriz y cantante estadounidense.

Carlos Velásquez, boxeador puertorriqueño.

Savannah Welch, actriz, cantante, compositora y presentadora de podcast estadounidense.

Mark Milligan

Mark Milligan was born in Melbourne in 1985 and became one of the most versatile players in Australian football — the Socceroos — able to play in central defense, midfield, or as a defensive midfielder depending on what was needed. He earned over 100 caps for the national team and played in multiple A-League seasons as well as in Japan and the Middle East. Australia's football infrastructure required its best players to develop largely abroad. Milligan did it, returning to contribute to the national team consistently for over a decade.

Kina Grannis, chanteuse-compositrice américaine.

Shannon Michael Cole, australischer Fußballspieler

Antonio Valencia

Antonio Valencia was born in Lago Agrio, Ecuador in 1985 and became one of the most reliable right wingers in Premier League history — spending eleven seasons at Manchester United after arriving from Wigan Athletic in 2009. He was a physical winger who converted into a right back as he aged, which extended his usefulness considerably. He captained Ecuador. He captained Manchester United after Wayne Rooney departed. For a player from Lago Agrio — a city known primarily for the Chevron oil contamination case — the career arc was remarkable.

Crystal Bowersox

Crystal Bowersox finished as runner-up on American Idol Season 9, losing to Lee DeWyze but winning critical acclaim for her raw, rootsy vocal style. She has since released independent albums and toured the singer-songwriter circuit, building a career outside the major-label system that Idol typically feeds.

Robbie Findley

Robbie Findley played for Real Salt Lake when they won the 2009 MLS Cup and earned 19 caps for the U.S. national team. The speedy forward was part of American soccer's growing domestic talent pool during MLS's expansion era.

Marco Russ, futbolista alemán.

Alexis Ruano, futbolista español.

Ha Seung-Jin

Ha Seung-Jin was born in Seoul in 1985 and became the first South Korean player drafted in the first round of the NBA Draft, selected 46th overall by the Portland Trail Blazers in 2004 — which was actually the second round, despite the description. He was 7 feet tall. He played 81 NBA games over three seasons. The expectation around Asian big men in the early 2000s, shaped by Yao Ming's success in Houston, was frequently applied to players who were less equipped for it. Ha's career was a professional basketball career. Not every first becomes a star.

Cicinho

Cicinho (Cicero Joao de Cezare) played as a midfielder in Brazilian football, competing in domestic league competition. He was one of many professional players who built careers in Brazil's vast club system without reaching the national team level.

Nick Augusto

Nick Augusto drummed for the metal band Trivium from 2010 to 2014, performing on the albums In Waves and Vengeance Falls. He replaced Travis Smith behind the kit during a period when Trivium was transitioning their sound and touring major festival circuits worldwide.

Leon Camier

Leon Camier competed in the British Superbike Championship and World Superbike Championship, winning the BSB title in 2009 at age 22. The English rider was considered one of the most talented motorcycle racers of his generation, though injuries limited his impact at the world level.

Oleg Ivanov, futbolista ruso.

David Williams

David Williams was a try-scoring winger for the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles in the NRL, contributing to the club's 2008 and 2011 grand final campaigns. His speed and finishing ability made him a consistent threat on the edges during Manly's competitive run in the late 2000s.

Iosia Soliola

Iosia Soliola played rugby league for the New Zealand Warriors, the Canberra Raiders, and the New Zealand national team, bringing physicality and defensive intensity to every side he joined. His Samoan heritage connected him to the Pacific Islander communities that have become a dominant force in both Australian and New Zealand rugby league.

Phil Younghusband

He was born in England, but the country that claimed him wasn't. Phil Younghusband moved to the Philippines as a teenager, and instead of chasing a career with English clubs, he chose the national team that actually wanted him. He became one of the Philippines' all-time leading scorers, netting over 50 international goals. His choice helped spark a genuine football culture in a nation better known for basketball. And he didn't just play — he built something fans had barely dared to imagine.

Monica Spencer, jinete neozelandesa.

Marreese Speights American basketball player

Marreese Speights played nine NBA seasons as a power forward and center, winning an NBA championship with the Golden State Warriors in 2015. The undersized big man earned the nickname "Mo Buckets" for his scoring ability off the bench.

Jang Keun-suk

Jang Keun-suk became one of South Korea's biggest Hallyu (Korean Wave) stars through dramas like You're Beautiful and Love Rain, building a massive fanbase across Asia. His dual career as an actor and K-pop singer made him a pioneer of the multi-platform celebrity model that defines modern Korean entertainment.

Hayata, luchador profesional japonés.

Jang Keun-suk, actor, cantante, bailarín y modelo surcoreano.

Javier Macipe, director, guionista y productor de cine español.

James Jakes, britischer Automobilrennfahrer

Sven Grathwohl, deutscher Handballspieler

Carly Foulkes

Carly Foulkes became known as the "T-Mobile Girl" through a series of commercials for the wireless carrier, where her pink-and-white motorcycle outfit became instantly recognizable advertising imagery. The Canadian model leveraged the campaign's visibility into broader modeling and acting opportunities.

Tom Parker

Tom Parker was a member of the British boy band The Wanted, which scored hits like "Glad You Came" and "All Time Low" in the early 2010s. He was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor in 2020 and died at 33, having publicly documented his treatment to raise awareness of glioblastoma research.

Kelley O'Hara

Kelley O'Hara won two FIFA Women's World Cup titles with the United States in 2015 and 2019, playing as a defender with the attacking instincts of a forward. Her header goal against the Netherlands in the 2019 final punctuated a tournament where the U.S. team became as much a cultural phenomenon as a sporting one.

Aaron Pauley, vocalista, músico y compositor estadounidense de la banda Of Mice & Men.

Tom Parker, cantante británico, de la banda The Wanted (f.

Tom Parker, cantante británico, de la banda The Wanted (f. 2022).

Daniel Carriço, futbolista portugués.

Cristóbal Jorquera, chilenischer Fußballspieler

Michael Herck, rumänisch-belgischer Automobilrennfahrer

Niklas Andersen, deutscher Fußballspieler

Aaron Arens, schweizerischer Schauspieler

Dajana Cahill, actriz australiana.

Jim-Patrick Müller, deutscher Fußballspieler

Wang Hao

Wang Hao reached the chess Candidates Tournament and peaked at world #6, making him one of the strongest Chinese chess players of his generation. He retired from professional play at 30 to become a coach and administrator, reflecting China's investment in developing the next wave of grandmasters.

Jessica Mauboy

Jessica Mauboy was born in Darwin in 1989, of Timorese and Aboriginal Australian descent, and finished second on Australian Idol in 2006 at age 16. She then built a sustained music career, releasing multiple albums and scoring commercial hits, acting in films and television, and representing Australia at Eurovision in 2018. Darwin produces very few pop stars. The path from a regional city in the Northern Territory to Eurovision requires navigating an entertainment industry centered in Sydney and Melbourne. Mauboy navigated it.

Fabiana da Silva Simões, futbolista brasileña.

Betsy Hassett, futbolista neozelandesa.

Gastón Frías, actor argentino.

Tim Hornke, deutscher Handballspieler

Karina Torres, influencer, comediante y estilista profesional mexicana.

Siim Tenno

Siim Tenno played for several Estonian clubs in the Meistriliiga and represented the Estonian national team. He was part of the generation of domestic players who formed the backbone of Estonian football in the 2010s.

Justin Bell

Justin Bell was born in Manila in 1990, the son of a Filipino mother and American father, and built a career in film production and performance across the Philippines and United States. Filipino-American performers and creators navigate two entertainment industries simultaneously, each with different production cultures and audience expectations. The Philippines has one of the most active film industries in Southeast Asia, with a committed domestic audience and growing international export. Bell has worked in both contexts.

Sander Rølvåg, deportista de curling noruego.

David Lama, montañista austríaco (f.

David Lama, montañista austríaco (f. 2019).

Eric Kibi, baloncestista canadiense.

Sandra Vanegas, deportista de taekwondo colombiana.

Lucinda Dryzek, actriz británica.

Graeme Shinnie, futbolista escocés.

Thiago Cardoso

Thiago Cardoso played professional football in Brazil, working primarily as a goalkeeper in the country's lower divisions and Serie B. His career was spent in the competitive middle tiers of Brazilian football.

River Viiperi

River Viiperi is a Spanish model who gained international attention after appearing in campaigns for major fashion houses and dating Paris Hilton. His striking features and social media presence made him one of the most visible male models from Spain.

Izet Hajrović

Izet Hajrovic played for Grasshoppers, Galatasaray, and Werder Bremen, earning over 30 caps for Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was part of the golden generation of Bosnian footballers who qualified for the country's first-ever World Cup in 2014.

Lucinda Dryzek

Lucinda Dryzek is an English actress who appeared in multiple British television dramas and films during the 2010s. She trained in the UK's drama school system, part of the pipeline that feeds Britain's prolific television and theater industries.

Christian Clemens, futbolista alemán.

Tiffany Evans

Evans entered the music industry through talent competition television as a teenager and released material that positioned her as an R&B vocalist with actual range. She has worked steadily in the industry since, releasing material independently after the major label period. The career arc is one the pop industry produces regularly and almost never makes easier.

Dylan and Cole Sprouse

The Sprouse twins were in Big Daddy with Adam Sandler at age 6 and Cole Sprouse went on to play Jughead in Riverdale while Dylan moved more deliberately toward photography and life outside the spotlight. They were Disney Channel stars in The Suite Life of Zack and Cody from 2005 to 2008, then The Suite Life on Deck. Cole returned to acting in a way that surprised people who assumed he was done with it.

Facundo Argüello, tenista argentino.

Dylan Sprouse

Dylan Sprouse, along with his twin brother Cole, grew up on camera as a Disney Channel star on "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody." He stepped away from acting to study video game design at NYU, then returned to the screen and opened All-Wise Meadery, a mead brewery in Brooklyn.

Cole Sprouse

Cole Sprouse and his twin brother Dylan became child stars on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, a Disney Channel hit that ran for four seasons. Cole later reinvented himself as Jughead Jones on Riverdale and as a serious photographer, distancing himself from his child-actor origins.

Tiffany Evans, cantante, compositora y actriz estadounidense.

Yudi Tamashiro, apresentador de televisão brasileiro.

Daniele Garozzo

Daniele Garozzo won Olympic gold in individual foil fencing at the 2016 Rio Games, continuing Italy's long tradition of dominance in the discipline. Italian fencers have won more Olympic medals than any other nation, and Garozzo's precise, explosive style carried that legacy forward.

Cor Akim, pianiste et chanteur congolais.

Domingo Germán

Domingo Germán pitched a perfect game for the New York Yankees in June 2023, the 24th in MLB history and the first by a Yankee since David Cone in 1999. The Dominican right-hander retired all 27 Oakland Athletics batters in order, then was suspended for the entire 2024 season for violating MLB's domestic violence policy.

Yvonne Neuwirth

Yvonne Neuwirth competed on the WTA Tour as a professional tennis player from Austria. She played primarily on the ITF circuit, representing Austria in international competition.

Romain Arneodo, monegassischer Tennisspieler

Hajiba Enhari, taekwondoïste marocaine.

Giovanni Di Lorenzo, futbolista italiano.

Saido Berahino

Saido Berahino was born in Burundi during the civil war and came to England as a refugee at age 10. He rose through West Brom's youth academy to become a Premier League striker, scoring 20 goals in the 2014-15 season before a high-profile decline derailed his career.

Annika Holopainen, baloncestista finlandesa.

Felix Wieser, deportista alemán.

Saido Berahino, futebolista borundiano.

Bobby Shmurda

Bobby Shmurda's "Hot Boy" went viral in 2014 thanks to a dance video that spawned the Shmoney Dance and racked up hundreds of millions of views. Months later, he was arrested in a gang conspiracy case and spent nearly seven years in prison, returning to a music industry that had moved on without him.

Elliot Slessor, jugador de snooker inglés.

Guillaume de Mévius, piloto de rally belga.

Jenny Martínez, actriz, cantante, modelo, presentadora y psicóloga argentina.

Mayuko Fukuda, actriz japonesa.

Orlando Arcia, beisbolista venezolano.

Leonid Klischtschar, ukrainischer Poolbillardspieler

Emilija Baranac, actriz y modelo canadiense.

Mayuko Fukuda

Mayuko Fukuda was born in Kanagawa in 1994 and began acting as a child in Japanese television dramas — appearing in series on NHK and other major networks before she was ten years old. Child actors in Japanese television occupy a professional world that's serious about craft early: training in dance, voice, and physical performance begins young and the professional standard is maintained without the safety nets that protect child actors in American productions. She continued working into adult roles.

Jessica Sanchez

Jessica Sanchez finished as runner-up on American Idol Season 11, earning the mentorship of Jennifer Holliday who joined her for a show-stopping duet. The Filipino-American singer's powerful voice drew comparisons to Whitney Houston, and she has since released music independently and performed at international events.

Bruna Marquezine

Bruna Marquezine has been one of Brazil's biggest actresses since appearing in the telenovela Mulheres Apaixonadas at age 7. She dated Neymar in a relationship that dominated Brazilian tabloids and has over 40 million Instagram followers, making her one of the most-followed Brazilians on social media.

Jessica Sanchez, cantante estadounidense

Andreas Vindheim, futbolista noruego.

Serena Lo Bue, italienische Ruderin

André Lamoglia, ator brasileiro.

Ivette Olivares, futbolista chilena.

Yekaterina Riábova, cantante rusa.

Cinzia Zehnder, futbolista suiza.

Facundo Kidd, futbolista uruguayo.

Natalia Strzałka, luchadora polaca.

Tuva Hansen, futbolista noruega.

Tomás Wicz, actor y músico argentino.

Genaro Alberto Olivieri, tenista argentino.

Lil Skies

Lil Skies broke through with "Red Roses" and "Nowadays" in 2017-2018, riding the SoundCloud rap wave to mainstream success before he turned 20. The Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, rapper built a following on melodic trap and emotional lyrics, representing a generation of artists who bypassed traditional label gatekeeping entirely.

Michalis Lountzis, baloncestista griego.

Adrián Ben, atleta español.

Blake Monroe, luchadora profesional británica.

Celso Castillo, futbolista chileno.

Noah Higón, jurista, politóloga, escritora y activista española.

Roberto Meraz, futbolista mexicano.

Kelly Gould, atriz americana.

Saku Ylätupa, futbolista finlandés.

Martín Pascual Castillo, futbolista español.

Fabio Renato Rojas, futbolista peruano.

Yimmy Gómez, futbolista colombiano.

2000s 30

Jackson Porozo, futbolista ecuatoriano.

Shiori Asaba, nadadora japonesa.

Arthur Vignoli Carreira, futbolista brasileño.

Alejandro Marqués, futbolista venezolano.

Yuji Kitajima, futbolista japonés.

Ramiro Rattero, baloncestista argentino.

Gabriela Agúndez, deportista mexicana, especialista en clavados.

Ignacio Schor, futbolista argentino.

Guðný Árnadóttir, futbolista islandesa.

Gala Montes, actriz mexicana.

Gabbie Carter, actrice pornographique et modèle érotique américaine.

Manuel Lando, atleta italiano.

Autumn Falls, actrice pornographique américaine.

2001

Mohamed Jalil, triatleta egipcio.

2001

Seishiro Kato

Seishiro Kato is a young Japanese actor who has appeared in drama series and films, building his career in Japan's entertainment industry. He is part of the new generation of Japanese performers trained in the country's agency system.

2002

Kieron Williamson, artista inglés.

2002

Manu Gonzalez, piloto de motociclismo español.

Mason Burstow, futbolista inglés.

Maestro, futbolista angoleño.

Marko Milovanović, futbolista serbio.

Anastasiya Bachynska, gimnasta artística ucraniana.