Skip to content
-
July 25 in History
- 306 – Constantine I is proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops.
- 315 – The Arch of Constantine is completed near the Colosseum in Rome to commemorate Constantine I’s victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge.
- 677 – Climax of the Siege of Thessalonica by the Slavs in a three-day assault on the city walls.
- 864 – The Edict of Pistres of Charles the Bald orders defensive measures against the Vikings.
- 1137 – Eleanor of Aquitaine marries Prince Louis, later King Louis VII of France, at the Cathedral of Saint-André in Bordeaux.
- 1139 – Battle of Ourique: The Almoravids, led by Ali ibn Yusuf, are defeated by Prince Afonso Henriques who is proclaimed King of Portugal.
- 1261 – The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.
- 1278 – The naval Battle of Algeciras takes place in the context of the Spanish Reconquista resulting in a victory for the Emirate of Granada and the Maranid Dynasty over the Kingdom of Castile.
- 1467 – The Battle of Molinella: The first battle in Italy in which firearms are used extensively.
- 1536 – Sebastián de Belalcázar on his search of El Dorado founds the city of Santiago de Cali.
- 1538 – The city of Guayaquil is founded by the Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Orellana and given the name Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad de Santiago de Guayaquil.
- 1547 – Henry II of France is crowned.
- 1554 – Mary I marries Philip II of Spain at Winchester Cathedral.
- 1567 – Don Diego de Losada founds the city of Santiago de Leon de Caracas, modern-day Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela.
- 1593 – Henry IV of France publicly converts from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism.
- 1603 – James VI of Scotland is crowned king of England (James I of England), bringing the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland into personal union. Political union would occur in 1707.
- 1609 – The English ship Sea Venture, en route to Virginia, is deliberately driven ashore during a storm at Bermuda to prevent its sinking; the survivors go on to found a new colony there.
- 1693 – Ignacio de Maya founds the Real Santiago de las Sabinas, now known as Sabinas Hidalgo, Nuevo León, Mexico.
- 1722 – Dummer’s War begins along the Maine-Massachusetts border.
- 1755 – British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council order the deportation of the Acadians.
- 1759 – French and Indian War: In Western New York, British forces capture Fort Niagara from the French, who subsequently abandon Fort Rouillé.
- 1783 – American Revolutionary War: The war’s last action, the Siege of Cuddalore, is ended by a preliminary peace agreement.
- 1788 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completes his Symphony No. 40 in G minor (K550).
- 1792 – The Brunswick Manifesto is issued to the population of Paris promising vengeance if the French royal family is harmed.
- 1797 – Horatio Nelson loses more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife (Spain).
- 1799 – At Abu Qir in Egypt, Napoleon I of France defeats 10,000 Ottomans under Mustafa Pasha.
- 1814 – War of 1812: An American attack on Canada is repulsed.
- 1824 – Costa Rica annexes Guanacaste from Nicaragua.
- 1837 – The first commercial use of an electrical telegraph is successfully demonstrated in London by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone.
- 1853 – Joaquin Murrieta, the famous Californio bandit known as the “Robin Hood of El Dorado”, is killed.
- 1861 – American Civil War: The United States Congress passes the Crittenden–Johnson Resolution, stating that the war is being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.
- 1866 – The United States Congress passes legislation authorizing the rank of General of the Army. Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first to be promoted to this rank.
- 1868 – The Wyoming Territory is established.
- 1869 – The Japanese daimyōs begin returning their land holdings to the emperor as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms. (Traditional Japanese Date: June 17, 1869).
- 1894 – The First Sino-Japanese War begins when the Japanese fire upon a Chinese warship.
- 1898 – In the Puerto Rican Campaign, the United States seizes Puerto Rico from Spain.
- 1908 – Ajinomoto is founded. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovers that a key ingredient in kombu soup stock is monosodium glutamate (MSG), and patents a process for manufacturing it.
- 1909 – Louis Blériot makes the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine from Calais to Dover, England, United Kingdom in 37 minutes.
- 1915 – RFC Captain Lanoe Hawker becomes the first British pursuit aviator to earn the Victoria Cross.
- 1917 – Sir Robert Borden introduces the first income tax in Canada as a “temporary” measure (lowest bracket is 4% and highest is 25%).
- 1925 – Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) is established.
- 1934 – The Nazis assassinate Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt.
- 1940 – General Henri Guisan orders the Swiss Army to resist German invasion and makes surrender illegal.
- 1942 – The Norwegian Manifesto calls for nonviolent resistance to the German occupation.
- 1943 – World War II: Benito Mussolini is forced out of office by the Grand Council of Fascism and is replaced by Pietro Badoglio.
- 1944 – World War II: Operation Spring is one of the bloodiest days for the First Canadian Army during the war.
- 1946 – Nuclear weapons testing: Operation Crossroads: An atomic bomb is detonated underwater in the lagoon of Bikini Atoll.
- 1956 – Forty-five miles south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria collides with the MS Stockholm in heavy fog and sinks the next day, killing 51.
- 1957 – The Republic of Tunisia is proclaimed, under President Habib Bourguiba.
- 1958 – The African Regroupment Party (PRA) holds its first congress in Cotonou.
- 1961 – Cold War: In a speech John F. Kennedy emphasizes that any attack on Berlin is an attack on NATO.
- 1965 – Bob Dylan goes electric at the Newport Folk Festival, signaling a major change in folk and rock music.
- 1969 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. This is the start of the “Vietnamization” of the war.
- 1973 – Soviet Mars 5 space probe is launched.
- 1976 – Viking program: Viking 1 takes the famous Face on Mars photo.
- 1978 – Puerto Rican police shoot two nationalists in the Cerro Maravilla murders.
- 1978 – Birth of Louise Joy Brown, the first human to have been born after conception by in vitro fertilisation, or IVF.
- 1979 – Another section of the Sinai Peninsula is peacefully returned by Israel to Egypt.
- 1983 – Black July: Thirty-seven Tamil political prisoners at the Welikada high security prison in Colombo are massacred by the fellow Sinhalese prisoners.
- 1984 – Salyut 7 cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.
- 1993 – Israel launches a massive attack against Lebanon in what the Israelis call Operation Accountability, and the Lebanese call the Seven-Day War.
- 1993 – The Saint James Church massacre occurs in Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa.
- 1994 – Israel and Jordan sign the Washington Declaration, that formally ends the state of war that had existed between the nations since 1948.
- 1995 – A gas bottle explodes in Saint Michel station of line B of the RER (Paris regional train network). Eight are killed and 80 wounded.
- 1996 – In a military coup in Burundi, Pierre Buyoya deposes Sylvestre Ntibantunganya.
- 2000 – Concorde Air France Flight 4590 crashes at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, killing 113 people.
- 2007 – Pratibha Patil is sworn in as India’s first female president.
- 2010 – WikiLeaks publishes classified documents about the War in Afghanistan, one of the largest leaks in U.S. military history.
- 2018 – As-Suwayda attacks: Coordinated attacks occur in Syria.
- 2019 – National extreme heat records set this day in the UK, Belgium and Germany during the July 2019 European heatwave.
Births on July 25
- 975 – Thietmar, bishop of Merseburg (d. 1018)
- 1016 – Casimir I the Restorer, duke of Poland (d. 1058)
- 1109 – Afonso I, king of Portugal (d. 1185)
- 1165 – Ibn Arabi, Andalusian Sufi mystic, poet, and philosopher (d. 1240)
- 1261 – Arthur II, Duke of Brittany (d. 1312)
- 1291 – Hawys Gadarn, Welsh noblewoman (d. 1353)
- 1336 – Albert I, Duke of Bavaria (d. 1404)
- 1394 – James I, king of Scotland (d. 1437)
- 1404 – Philip I, Duke of Brabant (d. 1430)
- 1421 – Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland, English politician (d. 1461)
- 1450 – Jakob Wimpfeling, Renaissance humanist (d. 1528)
- 1486 – Albrecht VII, Duke of Mecklenburg (d. 1547)
- 1498 – Hernando de Aragón, Archbishop of Zaragoza (d. 1575)
- 1532 – Alphonsus Rodriguez, Jesuit lay brother and saint (d. 1617)
- 1556 – George Peele, English translator, poet, and dramatist (d. 1596)
- 1562 – Katō Kiyomasa, Japanese warlord (d. 1611)
- 1573 – Christoph Scheiner, German astronomer and Jesuit (d. 1650)
- 1581 – Brian Twyne, English archivist (d. 1644)
- 1605 – Theodore Haak, German scholar (d. 1690)
- 1633 – Joseph Williamson, English politician (d. 1701)
- 1654 – Agostino Steffani, Italian composer and diplomat (d. 1728)
- 1657 – Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, German composer (d. 1714)
- 1658 – Archibald Campbell, 1st Duke of Argyll, Scottish general (d. 1703)
- 1683 – Pieter Langendijk, Dutch playwright and poet (d. 1756)
- 1750 – Henry Knox, American general and politician, 1st United States Secretary of War (d. 1806)
- 1753 – Santiago de Liniers, 1st Count of Buenos Aires, French-Spanish captain and politician, 10th Viceroy of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata (d. 1810)
- 1797 – Princess Augusta of Hesse-Kassel (d. 1889)
- 1806 – Maria Weston Chapman, American abolitionist (d. 1885)
- 1839 – Francis Garnier, French captain and explorer (d. 1873)
- 1844 – Thomas Eakins, American painter, sculptor, and photographer (d. 1916)
- 1847 – Paul Langerhans, German pathologist, physiologist and biologist (d. 1888)
- 1848 – Arthur Balfour, Scottish-English lieutenant and politician, 33rd Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1930)
- 1857 – Frank J. Sprague, American naval officer and inventor (d. 1934)
- 1865 – Jac. P. Thijsse, Dutch botanist and conservationist (d. 1945)
- 1866 – Frederick Blackman, English physiologist and academic (d. 1947)
- 1867 – Max Dauthendey, German author and painter (d. 1918)
- 1867 – Alexander Rummler, American painter (d. 1959)
- 1869 – Platon, Estonian bishop and saint (d. 1919)
- 1870 – Maxfield Parrish, American painter and illustrator (d. 1966)
- 1875 – Jim Corbett, Indian hunter, environmentalist, and author (d. 1955)
- 1878 – Masaharu Anesaki, Japanese philosopher and scholar (d. 1949)
- 1882 – George S. Rentz, American commander (d. 1942)
- 1883 – Alfredo Casella, Italian pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1947)
- 1886 – Edward Cummins, American golfer (d. 1926)
- 1894 – Walter Brennan, American actor (d. 1974)
- 1894 – Gavrilo Princip, Bosnian Serb revolutionary (d. 1918)
- 1895 – Ingeborg Spangsfeldt, Danish actress (d. 1968)
- 1896 – Jack Perrin, American actor and stuntman (d. 1967)
- 1896 – Josephine Tey, Scottish author and playwright (d. 1952)
- 1901 – Ruth Krauss, American author and poet (d. 1993)
- 1901 – Mohammed Helmy, Egyptian physician and Righteous Among the Nations (d.1982)
- 1901 – Lila Lee, American actress and singer (d. 1973)
- 1902 – Eric Hoffer, American philosopher and author (d. 1983)
- 1905 – Elias Canetti, Bulgarian-Swiss novelist, playwright, and memoirist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1994)
- 1905 – Georges Grignard, French race car driver (d. 1977)
- 1905 – Denys Watkins-Pitchford, English author and illustrator (d. 1990)
- 1906 – Johnny Hodges, American saxophonist and clarinet player (d. 1970)
- 1908 – Bill Bowes, English cricketer (d. 1987)
- 1908 – Ambroise-Marie Carré, French priest and author (d. 2004)
- 1908 – Jack Gilford, American actor (d. 1990)
- 1914 – Woody Strode, American football player and actor (d. 1994)
- 1915 – S. U. Ethirmanasingham, Sri Lankan businessman and politician
- 1915 – Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., American lieutenant and pilot (d. 1944)
- 1916 – Lucien Saulnier, Canadian lawyer and politician (d. 1989)
- 1917 – Fritz Honegger, Swiss lawyer and politician (d. 1999)
- 1918 – Jane Frank, American painter and sculptor (d. 1986)
- 1920 – Rosalind Franklin, English biophysicist, chemist, and academic (d. 1958)
- 1921 – Adolph Herseth, American soldier and trumpet player (d. 2013)
- 1921 – Lionel Terray, French mountaineer (d. 1965)
- 1923 – Estelle Getty, American actress (d. 2008)
- 1923 – Edgar Gilbert, American mathematician and theorist (d. 2013)
- 1923 – Maria Gripe, Swedish journalist and author (d. 2007)
- 1924 – Frank Church, American lawyer and politician (d. 1984)
- 1924 – Scotch Taylor, South African cricketer and hockey player (d. 2004)
- 1925 – Benny Benjamin, American R&B drummer (The Funk Brothers) (d. 1969)
- 1925 – Jerry Paris, American actor and director (d. 1986)
- 1925 – Dick Passwater, American race car driver
- 1925 – Jutta Zilliacus, Finnish journalist and politician
- 1926 – Whitey Lockman, American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 2009)
- 1926 – Bernard Thompson, British television producer and director (d. 1998)
- 1926 – Beatriz Segall, Brazilian actress (d. 2018)
- 1927 – Daniel Ceccaldi, French actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2003)
- 1927 – Midge Decter, American journalist and author
- 1927 – Sadiq Hussain Qureshi, Pakistani politician, 10th Governor of Punjab (d. 2000)
- 1927 – Jean-Marie Seroney, Kenyan activist and politician (d. 1982)
- 1928 – Dolphy, Filipino actor, singer, and producer (d. 2012)
- 1928 – Mario Montenegro, Filipino actor (d. 1988)
- 1928 – Nils Taube, Estonian-English businessman (d. 2008)
- 1929 – Judd Buchanan, Canadian businessman and politician, 36th Canadian Minister of Public Works
- 1929 – Somnath Chatterjee, Indian lawyer and politician, 14th Speaker of the Lok Sabha (d. 2018)
- 1929 – Eddie Mazur, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1995)
- 1930 – Murray Chapple, New Zealand cricketer and manager (d. 1985)
- 1930 – Maureen Forrester, Canadian actress and singer (d. 2010)
- 1930 – Alice Parizeau, Polish-Canadian journalist and criminologist (d. 1990)
- 1930 – Herbert Scarf, American economist and academic (d. 2015)
- 1930 – Annie Ross, Scottish-American singer and actress
- 1931 – James Butler, English sculptor and educator
- 1932 – Paul J. Weitz, American captain, pilot, and astronaut (d. 2017)
- 1934 – Don Ellis, American trumpet player and composer (d. 1978)
- 1934 – Claude Zidi, French director and screenwriter
- 1935 – Barbara Harris, American actress and singer (d. 2018)
- 1935 – Adnan Khashoggi, Saudi Arabian businessman (d. 2017)
- 1935 – Gilbert Parent, Canadian educator and politician, 33rd Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada (d. 2009)
- 1935 – John Robinson, American football player and coach
- 1935 – Larry Sherry, American baseball player and coach (d. 2006)
- 1935 – Lars Werner, Swedish lawyer and politician (d. 2013)
- 1936 – Gerry Ashmore, English race car driver
- 1936 – Glenn Murcutt, English-Australian architect and academic
- 1937 – Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, English archaeologist and academic
- 1940 – Richard Ballantine, American-English journalist and author (d. 2013)
- 1941 – Manny Charlton, Spanish-born Scottish rock musician and songwriter
- 1941 – Nate Thurmond, American basketball player (d. 2016)
- 1941 – Emmett Till, American lynching victim (d. 1955)
- 1942 – Bruce Woodley, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1943 – Jim McCarty, English singer and drummer
- 1943 – Erika Steinbach, Polish-German politician
- 1944 – Sally Beauman, English journalist and author (d. 2016)
- 1946 – José Areas, Nicaraguan drummer
- 1946 – Nicole Farhi, French fashion designer and sculptor
- 1946 – John Gibson, American radio host
- 1946 – Rita Marley, Cuban-Jamaican singer
- 1946 – P. Selvarasa, Sri Lankan politician
- 1946 – Ljupka Dimitrovska, Macedonian-Croatian pop singer (d. 2016)
- 1948 – Steve Goodman, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1984)
- 1950 – Mark Clarke, English singer-songwriter and bass player
- 1951 – Jack Thompson, American lawyer and activist
- 1951 – Verdine White, American bass player and producer
- 1952 – Eduardo Souto de Moura, Portuguese architect, designed the Estádio Municipal de Braga
- 1953 – Joseph A. Tunzi, Chicago based author, foremost expert on Elvis Presley
- 1953 – Robert Zoellick, American banker and politician, 14th United States Deputy Secretary of State
- 1954 – Ken Greer, Canadian guitarist, keyboard player, and producer
- 1954 – Sheena McDonald, Scottish journalist
- 1954 – Walter Payton, American football player and race car driver (d. 1999)
- 1954 – Jochem Ziegert, German footballer and manager
- 1955 – Iman, Somalian-English model and actress
- 1955 – Randall Bewley, American guitarist and songwriter (d. 2009)
- 1956 – Andy Goldsworthy, English-Scottish sculptor and photographer
- 1956 – Frances Arnold, American scientist and engineer
- 1957 – Mark Hunter, English politician
- 1957 – Steve Podborski, Canadian skier
- 1958 – Alexei Filippenko, American astrophysicist and academic
- 1958 – Thurston Moore, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
- 1959 – Fyodor Cherenkov, Russian footballer and manager (d. 2014)
- 1959 – Geoffrey Zakarian, American chef and author
- 1960 – Alain Robidoux, Canadian snooker player
- 1960 – Justice Howard, American photographer
- 1960 – Māris Martinsons, Latvian film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor
- 1962 – Carin Bakkum, Dutch tennis player
- 1962 – Doug Drabek, American baseball player and coach
- 1963 – Denis Coderre, Canadian politician, 44th Mayor of Montreal
- 1963 – Julian Hodgson, Welsh chess player
- 1964 – Anne Applebaum, American journalist and author
- 1964 – Tony Granato, American ice hockey player and coach
- 1964 – Breuk Iversen, American designer and journalist
- 1965 – Marty Brown, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1965 – Illeana Douglas, American actress, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1965 – Dale Shearer, Australian rugby league player
- 1966 – Daryl Halligan, New Zealand rugby player and sportscaster
- 1966 – Maureen Herman, American bass player
- 1966 – Diana Johnson, English politician
- 1967 – Matt LeBlanc, American actor and producer
- 1967 – Ruth Peetoom, Dutch minister and politician
- 1967 – Tommy Skjerven, Norwegian footballer and referee
- 1968 – Rudi Bryson, South African cricketer
- 1968 – Shi Tao, Chinese journalist and poet
- 1969 – Jon Barry, American basketball player and sportscaster
- 1969 – Annastacia Palaszczuk, Australian politician, 39th Premier of Queensland
- 1971 – Roger Creager, American singer-songwriter
- 1971 – Tracy Murray, American basketball player
- 1971 – Billy Wagner, American baseball player and coach
- 1972 – David Penna, Australian rugby league player and coach
- 1973 – Dani Filth, English singer-songwriter
- 1973 – Kevin Phillips, English footballer
- 1973 – Igli Tare, Albanian footballer
- 1974 – Lauren Faust, American animator, producer, and screenwriter
- 1974 – Julia Laffranque, Estonian lawyer and judge
- 1974 – Kenzo Suzuki, Japanese rugby player and wrestler
- 1975 – Jody Craddock, English footballer and coach
- 1975 – Jean-Claude Darcheville, Guianan-French footballer
- 1975 – El Zorro, Mexican wrestler
- 1975 – Brian Gibson, American bass player
- 1975 – Evgeni Nabokov, Russian ice hockey player
- 1976 – Marcos Assunção, Brazilian footballer
- 1976 – Jovica Tasevski-Eternijan, Macedonian poet and critic
- 1976 – Javier Vázquez, Puerto Rican-American baseball player
- 1977 – Kenny Thomas, American basketball player
- 1978 – Gerard Warren, American football player
- 1978 – Louise Brown, first human to be born via IVF
- 1979 – Ali Carter, English snooker player
- 1979 – Tom Lungley, English cricketer and umpire
- 1980 – Shawn Riggans, American baseball player
- 1980 – Toni Vilander, Finnish race car driver
- 1980 – David Wachs, American actor and producer
- 1980 – Scott Waldrom, New Zealand rugby player
- 1981 – Conor Casey, American soccer player
- 1981 – Constantinos Charalambidis, Cypriot footballer
- 1981 – Yūichi Komano, Japanese footballer
- 1981 – Mac Lethal, American rapper and producer
- 1981 – Jani Rita, Finnish ice hockey player
- 1982 – Brad Renfro, American actor and musician (d. 2008)
- 1982 – Jason Dundas, Australian TV host
- 1983 – Nenad Krstić, Serbian basketball player
- 1984 – Loukas Mavrokefalidis, Greek basketball player
- 1985 – James Lafferty, American actor and athlete
- 1985 – Nelson Piquet Jr., Brazilian race car driver
- 1985 – Hugo Rodallega, Colombian footballer
- 1986 – Abraham Gneki Guié, Ivorian footballer
- 1986 – Hulk, Brazilian footballer
- 1987 – Richard Bachman, American ice hockey player
- 1987 – Mitchell Burgzorg, Dutch footballer and rapper
- 1987 – Fernando, Brazilian footballer
- 1987 – Jax Jones, English DJ, singer and songwriter
- 1987 – Eran Zahavi, Israeli footballer
- 1988 – John Goossens, Dutch footballer
- 1988 – Tom Hiariej, Dutch footballer
- 1988 – Stacey Kemp, English skater
- 1988 – Paulinho, Brazilian footballer
- 1988 – Anthony Stokes, Irish footballer
- 1989 – Natalia Vieru, Russian basketball player
- 1990 – Thodoris Karapetsas, Greek footballer
- 1991 – Toni Duggan, English footballer
- 1992 – Sergei Simonov, Russian ice hockey player (d. 2016)
- 1997 – Nat Butcher, Australian rugby league player
Deaths on July 25
- 306 – Constantius Chlorus, Roman emperor (b. 250)
- 885 – Ragenold, margrave of Neustria
- 1011 – Ichijō, emperor of Japan (b. 980)
- 1190 – Sibylla, queen of Jerusalem
- 1409 – Martin I, king of Sicily (b. 1376)
- 1471 – Thomas à Kempis, German priest and mystic
- 1472 – Charles of Artois, French nobleman (b. 1394)
- 1492 – Innocent VIII, pope of the Catholic Church (b. 1432)
- 1564 – Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1503)
- 1572 – Isaac Luria, Ottoman rabbi and mystic (b. 1534)
- 1608 – Pomponio Nenna, Italian composer (b. 1556)
- 1616 – Andreas Libavius, German physician and chemist (b. 1550)
- 1643 – Robert Pierrepont, 1st Earl of Kingston-upon-Hull, English general and politician (b. 1584)
- 1681 – Urian Oakes, English-American minister and educator (b. 1631)
- 1790 – Johann Bernhard Basedow, German educator and reformer (b. 1723)
- 1790 – William Livingston, American soldier and politician, 1st Governor of New Jersey (b. 1723)
- 1791 – Isaac Low, American merchant and politician (b. 1735)
- 1794 – André Chénier, Greek-French poet and author (b. 1762)
- 1794 – Jean-Antoine Roucher, French poet and author (b. 1745)
- 1794 – Friedrich von der Trenck, Prussian adventurer and author (b. 1726)
- 1826 – Kondraty Ryleyev, Russian poet and publisher (b. 1795)
- 1831 – Maria Szymanowska, Polish composer and pianist (b. 1789)
- 1834 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English philosopher, poet, and critic (b. 1772)
- 1842 – Dominique Jean Larrey, French physician and surgeon (b. 1766)
- 1843 – Charles Macintosh, Scottish chemist and engineer (b. 1766)
- 1861 – Jonas Furrer, Swiss lawyer and politician, President of the Swiss Confederation (b. 1805)
- 1865 – James Barry, English soldier and surgeon (b. 1799)
- 1887 – John Taylor, American religious leader, 3rd President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1808)
- 1934 – François Coty, French businessman, founded Coty, Inc. (b. 1874)
- 1934 – Engelbert Dollfuss, Austrian politician, 14th Chancellor of Austria (b. 1892)
- 1942 – Fred Englehardt, American triple jumper (b. 1879)
- 1952 – Herbert Murrill, English organist and composer (b. 1909)
- 1958 – Otto Lasanen, Finnish wrestler (b. 1891)
- 1959 – Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, Polish-born Irish rabbi and author (b. 1888)
- 1962 – Thibaudeau Rinfret, Canadian lawyer and jurist, 9th Chief Justice of Canada (b. 1879)
- 1963 – Ugo Cerletti, Italian neurologist and academic (b. 1877)
- 1966 – Frank O’Hara, American poet and critic (b. 1926)
- 1967 – Konstantinos Parthenis, Egyptian-Greek painter (b. 1878)
- 1971 – John Meyers, American swimmer and water polo player (b. 1880)
- 1971 – Leroy Robertson, American composer and educator (b. 1896)
- 1973 – Amy Jacques Garvey, Jamaican-American journalist and activist (b. 1895)
- 1973 – Louis St. Laurent, Canadian lawyer and politician, 12th Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1882)
- 1980 – Vladimir Vysotsky, Russian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (b. 1938)
- 1981 – Rosa A. González, Puerto Rican nurse, author, feminist, and activist (b. 1889)
- 1982 – Hal Foster, Canadian-American author and illustrator (b. 1892)
- 1984 – Bryan Hextall, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1913)
- 1984 – Big Mama Thornton, American singer-songwriter (b. 1926)
- 1986 – Vincente Minnelli, American director and screenwriter (b. 1903)
- 1988 – Judith Barsi, American child actress (b. 1978)
- 1989 – Steve Rubell, American businessman, co-owner of Studio 54 (b. 1943)
- 1991 – Lazar Kaganovich, Soviet politician (b. 1893)
- 1992 – Alfred Drake, American actor and singer (b. 1914)
- 1995 – Charlie Rich, American singer-songwriter (b. 1932)
- 1997 – Ben Hogan, American golfer (b. 1912)
- 1998 – Evangelos Papastratos, Greek businessman, co-founded Papastratos (b. 1910)
- 2000 – Rudi Faßnacht, German footballer, coach, and manager (b. 1934)
- 2002 – Abdel Rahman Badawi, Egyptian philosopher and poet (b. 1917)
- 2003 – Ludwig Bölkow, German engineer (b. 1912)
- 2003 – John Schlesinger, English actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1926)
- 2004 – John Passmore, Australian philosopher and academic (b. 1914)
- 2005 – Albert Mangelsdorff, German trombonist (b. 1928)
- 2006 – Ezra Fleischer, Romanian-Israeli poet and philologist (b. 1928)
- 2007 – Bernd Jakubowski, German footballer and manager (b. 1952)
- 2008 – Jeff Fehring, Australian footballer (b. 1955)
- 2008 – Tracy Hall, American chemist and academic (b. 1919)
- 2008 – Randy Pausch, American computer scientist and educator (b. 1960)
- 2009 – Vernon Forrest, American boxer (b. 1971)
- 2009 – Stanley Middleton, English author (b. 1919)
- 2009 – Harry Patch, English soldier (b. 1898)
- 2011 – Michael Cacoyannis, Cypriot-Greek director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1922)
- 2012 – B. R. Ishara, Indian director and screenwriter (b. 1934)
- 2012 – Barry Langford, English director and producer (b. 1926)
- 2012 – Greg Mohns, American-Canadian football player and coach (b. 1950)
- 2012 – Franz West, Austrian painter and sculptor (b. 1947)
- 2013 – Walter De Maria, American sculptor, illustrator, and composer (b. 1935)
- 2013 – William J. Guste, American lawyer and politician (b. 1922)
- 2013 – Hugh Huxley, English-American biologist and academic (b. 1924)
- 2014 – Bel Kaufman, German-American author and academic (b. 1911)
- 2014 – Richard Larter, Australian painter and illustrator (b. 1929)
- 2015 – Jacques Andreani, French diplomat, French ambassador to the United States (b. 1929)
- 2015 – R. S. Gavai, Indian lawyer and politician, 18th Governor of Kerala (b. 1929)
- 2015 – Bob Kauffman, American basketball player and coach (b. 1946)
- 2017 – Michael Johnson, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1944)
- 2018 – Sergio Marchionne, Italian-Canadian businessman(b. 1952)
- 2019 – Beji Caid Essebsi , 4th President and 9th Prime Minister of Tunisia (b. 1926)
Holidays and observances on July 25
- Christian feast day:
- Anne (Eastern Christianity)
- Christopher (Western Christianity)
- Cucuphas
- Glodesind
- James the Great (Western Christianity)
- John I Agnus
- Julian of Le Mans (translation)
- Magnerich of Trier
- July 25 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Earliest day on which Father’s Day can fall, while July 31 is the latest; celebrated on last Sunday in July. (Dominican Republic)
- Earliest day on which National Tree Planting Day can fall, while July 31 is the latest; celebrated on last Sunday in July. (Australia)
- Earliest day on which Navy Day can fall, while July 31 is the latest; celebrated on last Sunday in July. (Russia)
- Guanacaste Day (Costa Rica)
- National Baha’i Day (Jamaica)
- National Day of Galicia (Galicia)
- Puerto Rico Constitution Day (Puerto Rico)
- Republic Day (Tunisia)
-
June 14 in History
- 1158 – Munich is founded by Henry the Lion on the banks of the river Isar.
- 1216 – First Barons’ War: Prince Louis of France captures the city of Winchester and soon conquers over half of the Kingdom of England.
- 1276 – While taking exile in Fuzhou, away from the advancing Mongol invaders, the remnants of the Song dynasty court hold the coronation ceremony for Emperor Duanzong.
- 1285 – Second Mongol invasion of Vietnam: Forces led by Prince Trần Quang Khải of the Trần dynasty destroy most of the invading Mongol naval fleet in a battle at Chuong Duong.
- 1287 – Kublai Khan defeats the force of Nayan and other traditionalist Borjigin princes in East Mongolia and Manchuria.
- 1381 – Richard II of England meets leaders of Peasants’ Revolt at Mile End. The Tower of London is stormed by rebels who enter without resistance.
- 1404 – Welsh rebel leader Owain Glyndŵr, having declared himself Prince of Wales, allies himself with the French against King Henry IV of England.
- 1618 – Joris Veseler prints the first Dutch newspaper Courante uyt Italien, Duytslandt, &c. in Amsterdam (approximate date).
- 1645 – English Civil War: Battle of Naseby: Twelve thousand Royalist forces are beaten by 15,000 Parliamentarian soldiers.
- 1667 – The Raid on the Medway by the Dutch fleet in the Second Anglo-Dutch War ends. It had lasted for five days and resulted in the worst ever defeat of the Royal Navy.
- 1690 – King William III of England (William of Orange) lands in Ireland to confront the former King James II.
- 1775 – American Revolutionary War: the Continental Army is established by the Continental Congress, marking the birth of the United States Army.
- 1777 – The Second Continental Congress passes the Flag Act of 1777 adopting the Stars and Stripes as the Flag of the United States.
- 1789 – Mutiny on the Bounty: HMS Bounty mutiny survivors including Captain William Bligh and 18 others reach Timor after a nearly 7,400 km (4,600 mi) journey in an open boat.
- 1800 – The French Army of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte defeats the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo in Northern Italy and re-conquers Italy.
- 1807 – Emperor Napoleon’s French Grande Armée defeats the Russian Army at the Battle of Friedland in Poland (modern Russian Kaliningrad Oblast) ending the War of the Fourth Coalition.
- 1821 – Badi VII, king of Sennar, surrenders his throne and realm to Ismail Pasha, general of the Ottoman Empire, bringing the 300 year old Sudanese kingdom to an end.
- 1822 – Charles Babbage proposes a difference engine in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society.
- 1830 – Beginning of the French colonization of Algeria: Thirty-four thousand French soldiers begin their invasion of Algiers, landing 27 kilometers west at Sidi Fredj.
- 1839 – Henley Royal Regatta: the village of Henley-on-Thames, on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, stages its first regatta.
- 1846 – Bear Flag Revolt begins: Anglo settlers in Sonoma, California, start a rebellion against Mexico and proclaim the California Republic.
- 1863 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Winchester: A Union garrison is defeated by the Army of Northern Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley town of Winchester, Virginia.
- 1863 – Second Assault on the Confederate works at the Siege of Port Hudson during the American Civil War.
- 1872 – Trade unions are legalized in Canada.
- 1881 – The White Rajahs territories become the British protectorate of Sarawak.
- 1900 – Hawaii becomes a United States territory.
- 1900 – The second German Naval Law calls for the Imperial German Navy to be doubled in size.
- 1907 – The National Association for Women’s Suffrage succeeds in getting Norwegian women the right to vote in parliamentary elections.
- 1919 – John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown depart from St. John’s, Newfoundland on the first nonstop transatlantic flight.
- 1926 – Brazil leaves the League of Nations.
- 1937 – Pennsylvania becomes the first (and only) state of the United States to celebrate Flag Day officially as a state holiday.
- 1937 – U.S. House of Representatives passes the Marihuana Tax Act.
- 1940 – World War II: The German occupation of Paris begins.
- 1940 – The Soviet Union presents an ultimatum to Lithuania resulting in Lithuanian loss of independence.
- 1940 – Seven hundred twenty-eight Polish political prisoners from Tarnów become the first inmates of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
- 1941 – June deportation: the first major wave of Soviet mass deportations and murder of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, begins.
- 1944 – World War II: After several failed attempts, the British Army abandons Operation Perch, its plan to capture the German-occupied town of Caen.
- 1945 – World War II: Filipino troops of the Philippine Commonwealth Army liberate the captured in Ilocos Sur and start the Battle of Bessang Pass in Northern Luzon.
- 1949 – Albert II, a rhesus monkey, rides a V-2 rocket to an altitude of 134 km (83 mi), thereby becoming the first monkey in space.
- 1951 – UNIVAC I is dedicated by the U.S. Census Bureau.
- 1954 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law that places the words “under God” into the United States Pledge of Allegiance.
- 1955 – Chile becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
- 1959 – Disneyland Monorail System, the first daily operating monorail system in the Western Hemisphere, opens to the public in Anaheim, California.
- 1959 – Dominican exiles depart from Cuba and land in the Dominican Republic to overthrow the totalitarian government of Rafael Trujillo. All but four are killed or executed.
- 1962 – The European Space Research Organisation is established in Paris – later becoming the European Space Agency.
- 1966 – The Vatican announces the abolition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (“index of prohibited books”), which was originally instituted in 1557.
- 1967 – Mariner program: Mariner 5 is launched towards Venus.
- 1982 – Falklands War: Argentine forces in the capital Stanley conditionally surrender to British forces.
- 1986 – The Mindbender derails and kills three riders at the Fantasyland (known today as Galaxyland) indoor amusement park in Edmonton, Alberta.
- 1994 – The 1994 Vancouver Stanley Cup riot occurs after the New York Rangers win the Stanley Cup from Vancouver, causing an estimated C$1.1 million, leading to 200 arrests and injuries.
- 2002 – Near-Earth asteroid 2002 MN misses the Earth by 75,000 miles (121,000 km), about one-third of the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
- 2014 – A Ukraine military Ilyushin Il-76 airlifter is shot down, killing all 49 people on board.
- 2017 – London: A fire in a high-rise apartment building in North Kensington leaves 72 people dead and another 74 injured.
- 2017 – In Alexandria, Virginia, Republican member of Congress and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana is shot while practicing for charity baseball.
Births on June 14
- 1444 – Nilakantha Somayaji, Indian astronomer and mathematician (d. 1544)
- 1463 – Henry IV, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (d. 1514)
- 1479 – Giglio Gregorio Giraldi, Italian poet and scholar (d. 1552)
- 1529 – Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria (d. 1595)
- 1627 – Johann Abraham Ihle, German astronomer (d. 1699)
- 1691 – Jan Francisci, Slovak organist and composer (d. 1758)
- 1726 – Thomas Pennant, Welsh ornithologist and historian (d. 1798)
- 1730 – Antonio Sacchini, Italian composer and educator (d. 1786)
- 1736 – Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, French physicist and engineer (d. 1806)
- 1763 – Simon Mayr, German composer and educator (d. 1845)
- 1780 – Henry Salt, English historian and diplomat, British Consul-General in Egypt (d. 1827)
- 1796 – Nikolai Brashman, Czech-Russian mathematician and academic (d. 1866)
- 1798 – František Palacký, Czech historian and politician (d. 1876)
- 1801 – Heber C. Kimball, American religious leader (d. 1868)
- 1811 – Harriet Beecher Stowe, American author and activist (d. 1896)
- 1812 – Fernando Wood, American merchant and politician, 73rd Mayor of New York City (d. 1881)
- 1819 – Henry Gardner, American merchant and politician, 23rd Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1892)
- 1820 – John Bartlett, American author and publisher (d. 1905)
- 1829 – Bernard Petitjean, French Roman Catholic missionary to Japan (d. 1884)
- 1838 – Yamagata Aritomo, Japanese Field Marshal and politician, 3rd and 9th Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1922)
- 1840 – William F. Nast, American businessman (d. 1893)
- 1848 – Bernard Bosanquet, English philosopher and theorist (d. 1923)
- 1848 – Max Erdmannsdörfer, German conductor and composer (d. 1905)
- 1855 – Robert M. La Follette, American lawyer and politician, 20th Governor of Wisconsin (d. 1925)
- 1856 – Andrey Markov, Russian mathematician and theorist (d. 1922)
- 1862 – John Ulric Nef, Swiss-American chemist and academic (d. 1915)
- 1864 – Alois Alzheimer, German psychiatrist and neuropathologist (d. 1915)
- 1868 – Karl Landsteiner, Austrian biologist and physician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1943)
- 1868 – Anna B. Eckstein, German peace activist (d. 1947)
- 1870 – Sophia of Prussia (d. 1932)
- 1871 – Hermanus Brockmann, Dutch rower (d. 1936)
- 1871 – Jacob Ellehammer, Danish mechanic and engineer (d. 1946)
- 1872 – János Szlepecz, Slovene priest and author (d. 1936)
- 1877 – Jane Bathori, French soprano (d. 1970)
- 1877 – Ida MacLean, British biochemist, the first woman admitted to the London Chemical Society (d. 1944)
- 1878 – Léon Thiébaut, French fencer (d. 1943)
- 1879 – Arthur Duffey, American sprinter and coach (d. 1955)
- 1884 – John McCormack, Irish tenor and actor (d. 1945)
- 1884 – Georg Zacharias, German swimmer (d. 1953)
- 1890 – May Allison, American actress (d. 1989)
- 1894 – Marie-Adélaïde, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg (d. 1924)
- 1894 – José Carlos Mariátegui (d. 1930)
- 1894 – W. W. E. Ross, Canadian geophysicist and poet (d. 1966)
- 1895 – Jack Adams, Canadian-American ice hockey player, coach, and manager (d. 1968)
- 1900 – Ruth Nanda Anshen, American writer, editor, and philosopher (d. 2003)
- 1900 – June Walker, American stage and film actress (d. 1966)
- 1903 – Alonzo Church, American mathematician and logician (d. 1995)
- 1903 – Rose Rand, Austrian-American logician and philosopher from the Vienna Circle (d. 1980)
- 1904 – Margaret Bourke-White, American photographer and journalist (d. 1971)
- 1905 – Steve Broidy, American businessman (d. 1991)
- 1905 – Arthur Davis, American animator and director (d. 2000)
- 1907 – Nicolas Bentley, English author and illustrator (d. 1978)
- 1907 – René Char, French poet and author (d. 1988)
- 1909 – Burl Ives, American actor and singer (d. 1995)
- 1910 – Rudolf Kempe, German pianist and conductor (d. 1976)
- 1913 – Joe Morris, English-Canadian lieutenant and trade union leader (d. 1996)
- 1916 – Dorothy McGuire, American actress (d. 2001)
- 1917 – Lise Nørgaard, Danish journalist, author, and screenwriter
- 1917 – Gilbert Prouteau, French poet and director (d. 2012)
- 1917 – Atle Selberg, Norwegian-American mathematician and academic (d. 2007)
- 1918 – Fred Baur, American chemist and founder of Pringles (d. 2008)
- 1919 – Gene Barry, American actor (d. 2009)
- 1919 – Sam Wanamaker, American actor and director (d. 1993)
- 1921 – Martha Greenhouse, American actress (d. 2013)
- 1923 – Judith Kerr, German-English author and illustrator (d. 2019)
- 1923 – Green Wix Unthank, American soldier, lawyer, and judge (d. 2013)
- 1924 – James Black, Scottish pharmacologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2010)
- 1925 – Pierre Salinger, American journalist and politician, 11th White House Press Secretary (d. 2004)
- 1926 – Don Newcombe, American baseball player (d. 2019)
- 1928 – Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Argentinian-Cuban physician, author, guerrilla leader and politician (d. 1967)
- 1929 – Cy Coleman, American pianist and composer (d. 2004)
- 1929 – Alan Davidson, Australian cricketer
- 1929 – Johnny Wilson, Canadian-American ice hockey player and coach (d. 2011)
- 1931 – Marla Gibbs, American actress and comedian
- 1931 – Ross Higgins, Australian actor (d. 2016)
- 1931 – Junior Walker, American saxophonist (d. 1995)
- 1933 – Jerzy Kosiński, Polish-American novelist and screenwriter (d. 1991)
- 1933 – Vladislav Rastorotsky, Russian gymnast and coach
- 1936 – Renaldo Benson, American singer-songwriter (d. 2005)
- 1936 – Irmelin Sandman Lilius, Finnish author, poet, and translator
- 1938 – Julie Felix, American-English singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2020)
- 1939 – Steny Hoyer, American lawyer and politician
- 1939 – Peter Mayle, English author and screenwriter (d. 2018)
- 1939 – Colin Thubron, English journalist and author
- 1942 – Jonathan Raban, English author and academic
- 1942 – Roberto García-Calvo Montiel, Spanish judge (d. 2008)
- 1943 – Barry Burman, English painter and academic (d. 2001)
- 1943 – Jennifer Gretton, Baroness Gretton, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire
- 1943 – John Miles, English racing driver and journalist
- 1943 – Harold Wheeler, American composer, conductor, and producer
- 1944 – Laurie Colwin, American novelist and short story writer (d. 1992)
- 1945 – Rod Argent, English singer-songwriter and keyboard player
- 1945 – Carlos Reichenbach, Brazilian director and producer (d. 2012)
- 1945 – Richard Stebbins, American sprinter and educator
- 1946 – Robert Louis-Dreyfus, French-Swiss businessman (d. 2009)
- 1946 – Tõnu Sepp, Estonian instrument maker and educator
- 1946 – Donald Trump, American businessman, television personality and 45th President of the United States
- 1947 – Roger Liddle, Baron Liddle, English politician
- 1947 – Barry Melton, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1947 – Paul Rudolph, Canadian singer, guitarist, and cyclist
- 1948 – Laurence Yep, American author and playwright
- 1949 – Jim Lea, English singer-songwriter, bass player, and producer
- 1949 – Roger Powell, English-Australian scientist and academic
- 1949 – Antony Sher, South African-British actor, director, and screenwriter
- 1949 – Harry Turtledove, American historian and author
- 1949 – Alan White, English drummer and songwriter
- 1950 – Rowan Williams, Welsh archbishop and theologian
- 1951 – Paul Boateng, English lawyer and politician, British High Commissioner to South Africa
- 1951 – Danny Edwards, American golfer
- 1952 – Robert Lepikson, Estonian racing driver and politician, Estonian Minister of the Interior (d. 2006)
- 1952 – Pat Summitt, American basketball player and coach (d. 2016)
- 1952 – Leon Wieseltier, American philosopher, journalist, and critic
- 1953 – Janet Mackey, New Zealand lawyer and politician
- 1954 – Will Patton, American actor
- 1955 – Michael D. Duvall, American businessman and politician
- 1955 – Paul O’Grady, English television host, producer, and drag performer
- 1955 – Kirron Kher, Indian theatre, film & television actress, TV talk show host, politician and Member of Parliament
- 1956 – Fred Funk, American golfer and coach
- 1956 – King Diamond (Kim Bendix Petersen), heavy metal musician
- 1957 – Suzanne Nora Johnson, American lawyer and businesswoman
- 1957 – Mona Simpson, American novelist
- 1958 – Pamela Geller, American activist and blogger
- 1959 – Marcus Miller, American bass player, composer, and producer
- 1960 – Tonie Campbell, American hurdler
- 1960 – Mike Laga, American baseball player
- 1961 – Boy George, English singer-songwriter and producer
- 1961 – Dušan Kojić, Serbian singer-songwriter and bass player
- 1961 – Sam Perkins, American basketball player
- 1963 – Grant Kenny, Australian iron man and canoeist
- 1964 – Peter Gilliver, English lexicographer and academic
- 1967 – Dedrick Dodge, American football player and coach
- 1968 – Campbell Brown, American journalist
- 1968 – Faizon Love, Cuban-American actor and screenwriter
- 1969 – Éric Desjardins, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1969 – Steffi Graf, German tennis player
- 1970 – Heather McDonald, American comedian, actress, and author
- 1971 – Bruce Bowen, American basketball player and sportscaster
- 1971 – Ramon Vega, Swiss footballer
- 1972 – Rick Brunson, American basketball player and coach
- 1972 – Matthias Ettrich, German computer scientist and engineer, founded KDE
- 1972 – Dominic Brown, English guitarist and songwriter
- 1972 – Claude Henderson, South African cricketer
- 1972 – Danny McFarlane, Jamaican hurdler and sprinter
- 1973 – Sami Kapanen, Finnish-American ice hockey player and manager
- 1976 – Alan Carr, English comedian, actor, and screenwriter
- 1976 – Massimo Oddo, Italian footballer and manager
- 1977 – Boeta Dippenaar, South African cricketer
- 1977 – Chris McAlister, American football player
- 1977 – Joe Worsley, English rugby player and coach
- 1978 – Steve Bégin, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1978 – Diablo Cody, American director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1978 – Annia Hatch, Cuban-American gymnast and coach
- 1978 – Nikola Vujčić, Croatian former professional basketball player
- 1979 – Shannon Hegarty, Australian rugby league player
- 1981 – Elano, Brazilian footballer and manager
- 1982 – Jamie Green, English racing driver
- 1982 – Nicole Irving, Australian swimmer
- 1982 – Lang Lang, Chinese pianist
- 1983 – Trevor Barry, Bahamian high jumper
- 1983 – Louis Garrel, French actor, director, and screenwriter
- 1984 – Lorenzo Booker, American football player
- 1984 – Mark Cosgrove, Australian cricketer
- 1984 – Siobhán Donaghy, English singer-songwriter
- 1984 – Yury Prilukov, Russian swimmer
- 1985 – Oleg Medvedev. Russian luger
- 1985 – Andy Soucek, Spanish racing driver
- 1986 – Matt Read, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1987 – Andrew Cogliano, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1987 – Mohamed Diamé, Senegalese footballer
- 1988 – Adrián Aldrete, Mexican footballer
- 1988 – Kevin McHale, American actor, singer, dancer and radio personality
- 1989 – Lucy Hale, American actress and singer-songwriter
- 1989 – Brad Takairangi, Australian-Cook Islands rugby league player
- 1990 – Patrice Cormier, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1990 – Stephen McLaughlin, Irish footballer
- 1991 – Kostas Manolas, Greek footballer
- 1991 – Jesy Nelson, English singer
- 1992 – Devante Smith-Pelly, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1993 – Gunna, American rapper
- 1993 – Ryan McCartan, American actor and singer
- 1999 – Tzuyu, Taiwanese singer
Deaths on June 14
- 809 – Ōtomo no Otomaro, Japanese general (b. 731)
- 847 – Methodius I, patriarch of Constantinople
- 957 – Guadamir, bishop of Vic (Spain)
- 976 – Aron, Bulgarian nobleman
- 1161 – Emperor Qinzong of the Song dynasty (b. 1100)
- 1205 – Walter III, Count of Brienne
- 1349 – Günther von Schwarzburg, German king (b. 1304)
- 1381 – Simon Sudbury, English archbishop (b. 1316)
- 1497 – Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandía, Italian son of Pope Alexander VI (b. 1474)
- 1516 – John III of Navarre (b. 1469)
- 1544 – Antoine, Duke of Lorraine (b. 1489)
- 1548 – Carpentras, French composer (b. 1470)
- 1583 – Shibata Katsuie, Japanese samurai (b. 1522)
- 1594 – Jacob Kroger, German goldsmith, hanged in Edinburgh for stealing the jewels of Anne of Denmark.
- 1594 – Orlande de Lassus, Flemish composer and educator (b. 1532)
- 1662 – Henry Vane the Younger, English-American politician, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (b. 1613)
- 1674 – Marin le Roy de Gomberville, French author and poet (b. 1600)
- 1679 – Guillaume Courtois, French painter and illustrator (b. 1628)
- 1746 – Colin Maclaurin, Scottish mathematician (b. 1698)
- 1794 – Francis Seymour-Conway, 1st Marquess of Hertford, English courtier and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (b. 1718)
- 1800 – Louis Desaix, French general (b. 1768)
- 1800 – Jean-Baptiste Kléber, French general (b. 1753)
- 1801 – Benedict Arnold, American general during the American Revolution later turned British spy (b. 1741)
- 1825 – Pierre Charles L’Enfant, French-American architect and engineer, designed Washington, D.C. (b. 1754)
- 1837 – Giacomo Leopardi, Italian poet and philosopher (b. 1798)
- 1864 – Leonidas Polk, American general and bishop (b. 1806)
- 1887 – Mary Carpenter, English educational and social reformer (b. 1807)
- 1883 – Edward FitzGerald, English poet and author (b. 1809)
- 1886 – Alexander Ostrovsky, Russian director and playwright (b. 1823)
- 1907 – William Le Baron Jenney, American architect and engineer, designed the Home Insurance Building (b. 1832)
- 1907 – Bartolomé Masó, Cuban soldier and politician (b. 1830)
- 1908 – Frederick Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby, English captain and politician, 6th Governor General of Canada (b. 1841)
- 1914 – Adlai Stevenson I, American lawyer and politician, 23rd Vice President of the United States (b. 1835)
- 1916 – João Simões Lopes Neto, Brazilian author (b. 1865)
- 1920 – Max Weber, German sociologist and economist (b. 1864)
- 1923 – Isabelle Bogelot, French philanthropist (b. 1838)
- 1926 – Mary Cassatt, American-French painter (b. 1843)
- 1927 – Ottavio Bottecchia, Italian cyclist (b. 1894)
- 1927 – Jerome K. Jerome, English author (b. 1859)
- 1928 – Emmeline Pankhurst, English activist and academic (b. 1857)
- 1932 – Dorimène Roy Desjardins, Canadian businesswoman, co-founded Desjardins Group (b. 1858)
- 1933 – Justinien de Clary, French target shooter (b. 1860)
- 1936 – G. K. Chesterton, English essayist, poet, playwright, and novelist (b. 1874)
- 1936 – Hans Poelzig, German architect, painter, and designer, designed the IG Farben Building (b. 1869)
- 1946 – John Logie Baird, Scottish-English physicist and engineer (b. 1888)
- 1946 – Jorge Ubico, 21st President of Guatemala (b. 1878)
- 1953 – Tom Cole, Welsh-American racing driver (b. 1922)
- 1968 – Salvatore Quasimodo, Italian novelist and poet, Nobel Prize Laureate (b. 1901)
- 1972 – Dündar Taşer, Turkish soldier and politician (b. 1925)
- 1977 – Robert Middleton, American actor (b. 1911)
- 1977 – Alan Reed, American actor, original voice of Fred Flintstone (b.1907)
- 1979 – Ahmad Zahir, Afghan singer-songwriter (b. 1946)
- 1980 – Charles Miller, American saxophonist and flute player (b. 1939)
- 1986 – Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator (b. 1899)
- 1986 – Alan Jay Lerner, American composer and songwriter (b. 1918)
- 1987 – Stanisław Bareja, Polish actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1929)
- 1990 – Erna Berger, German soprano and actress (b. 1900)
- 1991 – Peggy Ashcroft, English actress (b. 1907)
- 1994 – Lionel Grigson, English pianist, composer, and educator (b. 1942)
- 1994 – Henry Mancini, American composer and conductor (b. 1924)
- 1994 – Marcel Mouloudji, French singer and actor (b. 1922)
- 1995 – Els Aarne, Ukrainian-Estonian pianist, composer, and educator (b. 1917)
- 1995 – Rory Gallagher, Irish singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (b. 1949)
- 1995 – Roger Zelazny, American author and poet (b. 1937)
- 1996 – Noemí Gerstein, Argentinian sculptor and illustrator (b. 1908)
- 1997 – Richard Jaeckel, American actor (b. 1926)
- 1999 – Bernie Faloney, American-Canadian football player and sportscaster (b. 1932)
- 2000 – Attilio Bertolucci, Italian poet and author (b. 1911)
- 2002 – June Jordan, American author and activist (b. 1936)
- 2003 – Dale Whittington, American race car driver (b. 1959)
- 2004 – Ulrich Inderbinen, Swiss mountaineer and guide (b. 1900)
- 2005 – Carlo Maria Giulini, Italian conductor and director (b. 1914)
- 2005 – Mimi Parent, Canadian-Swiss painter (b. 1924)
- 2006 – Monty Berman, English director, producer, and cinematographer (b. 1905)
- 2006 – Jean Roba, Belgian author and illustrator (b. 1930)
- 2007 – Ruth Graham, Chinese-American author, poet, and painter (b. 1920)
- 2007 – Robin Olds, American general and pilot (b. 1922)
- 2007 – Kurt Waldheim, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Austrian politician, 9th President of Austria (b. 1918)
- 2009 – Bob Bogle, American musician (The Ventures) (b. 1934)
- 2009 – William McIntyre, Canadian soldier, lawyer, and judge (b. 1918)
- 2012 – Peter Archer, Baron Archer of Sandwell, English lawyer and politician, Solicitor General for England and Wales (b. 1926)
- 2012 – Bob Chappuis, American football player and soldier (b. 1923)
- 2012 – Margie Hyams, American pianist and vibraphone player (b. 1920)
- 2012 – Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, German pianist and academic (b. 1930)
- 2012 – Carlos Reichenbach, Brazilian director and producer (b. 1945)
- 2012 – Gitta Sereny, Austrian-English historian, journalist, and author (b. 1921)
- 2013 – Elroy Schwartz, American screenwriter and producer (b. 1923)
- 2014 – Alberto Cañas Escalante, Costa Rican journalist and politician (b. 1920)
- 2014 – Isabelle Collin Dufresne, French actress (b. 1935)
- 2014 – Robert Lebeck, German photographer and journalist (b. 1929)
- 2014 – James E. Rogers, American lawyer, businessman, and academic (b. 1938)
- 2015 – Richard Cotton, Australian geneticist and academic (b. 1940)
- 2015 – Anne Nicol Gaylor, American activist, co-founded the Freedom From Religion Foundation (b. 1926)
- 2015 – Qiao Shi, Chinese politician (b. 1924)
- 2016 – Ann Morgan Guilbert, American actress and singer (b. 1928)
- 2016 – Gilles Lamontagne, Canadian politician, Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (b. 1919)
- 2020 – Sushant Singh Rajput, Indian film actor (b. 1986)
Holidays and observances on June 14
- Christian feast day:
- Burchard of Meissen
- Caomhán of Inisheer
- Elisha (Roman Catholic and Lutheran)
- Fortunatus of Naples (Roman Catholic)
- Blessed Francisca de Paula de Jesus (Nhá Chica)
- Joseph the Hymnographer (Roman Catholic: Orthodox April 3)
- Methodios I of Constantinople
- Quintian of Rodez (Rodez)
- Richard Baxter (Church of England)
- Valerius and Rufinus
- June 14 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Commemoration of the Soviet Deportation related observances:
- Baltic Freedom Day (United States)
- Mourning and Commemoration Day or Leinapäev (Estonia)
- Mourning and Hope Day (Lithuania)
- Day of Memory for Repressed People (Armenia)
- Flag Day (United States)
- Freedom Day (Malawi)
- Liberation Day (Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands)
- World Blood Donor Day
-
May 29 in History
- 363 – The Roman emperor Julian defeats the Sasanian army in the Battle of Ctesiphon, under the walls of the Sasanian capital, but is unable to take the city.
- 1108 – Battle of Uclés: Almoravid troops under the command of Tamim ibn Yusuf defeat a Castile and León alliance under the command of Prince Sancho Alfónsez.
- 1167 – Battle of Monte Porzio: A Roman army supporting Pope Alexander III is defeated by Christian of Buch and Rainald of Dassel.
- 1176 – Battle of Legnano: The Lombard League defeats Emperor Frederick I.
- 1328 – Philip VI is crowned King of France.
- 1416 – Battle of Gallipoli: The Venetians under Pietro Loredan defeat a much larger Ottoman fleet off Gallipoli.
- 1453 – Fall of Constantinople: Ottoman armies under Sultan Mehmed II Fatih capture Constantinople after a 53-day siege, ending the Byzantine Empire.
- 1658 – Battle of Samugarh: decisive battle in the struggle for the throne during the Mughal war of succession (1658–1659).
- 1660 – English Restoration: Charles II is restored to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland.
- 1733 – The right of settlers in New France to enslave natives is upheld at Quebec City.
- 1780 – American Revolutionary War: At the Battle of Waxhaws, the British continue attacking after the Continentals lay down their arms, killing 113 and critically wounding all but 53 that remained.
- 1790 – Rhode Island becomes the last of North America’s original Thirteen Colonies to ratify the Constitution and become one of the United States.
- 1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion: Between 300 and 500 United Irishmen are executed as rebels by the British Army in County Kildare, Ireland.
- 1807 – Mustafa IV became Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Caliph of Islam.
- 1848 – Wisconsin is admitted as the 30th U.S. state.
- 1852 – Jenny Lind leaves New York after her two-year American tour.
- 1861 – The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce is founded, in Hong Kong.
- 1864 – Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico arrives in Mexico for the first time.
- 1867 – The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 (“the Compromise”) is born through Act 12, which establishes the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
- 1868 – Mihailo Obrenović III, Prince of Serbia is assassinated.
- 1886 – The pharmacist John Pemberton places his first advertisement for Coca-Cola, which appeared in The Atlanta Journal.
- 1900 – N’Djamena is founded as Fort-Lamy by the French commander Émile Gentil.
- 1903 – In the May Coup, Alexander I, King of Serbia, and Queen Draga, are assassinated in Belgrade by the Black Hand (Crna Ruka) organization.
- 1913 – Igor Stravinsky’s ballet score The Rite of Spring receives its premiere performance in Paris, France, provoking a riot.
- 1914 – The Ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sinks in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with the loss of 1,012 lives.
- 1918 – Armenia defeats the Ottoman Army in the Battle of Sardarabad.
- 1919 – Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity is tested (later confirmed) by Arthur Eddington and Andrew Claude de la Cherois Crommelin
- 1920 – The Louth flood of 1920 was a severe flash flooding in the Lincolnshire market town of Louth which occurred 29 May 1920, resulting in 23 fatalities in 20 minutes. It has been described as one of the most significant flood disasters in Britain during the 20th century.
- 1931 – Michele Schirru, a citizen of the United States, is executed by Italian military firing squad for intent to kill Benito Mussolini.
- 1932 – World War I veterans begin to assemble in Washington, D.C., in the Bonus Army to request cash bonuses promised to them to be paid in 1945.
- 1935 – First flight of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter aeroplane.
- 1945 – First combat mission of the Consolidated B-32 Dominator heavy bomber.
- 1948 – United Nations Truce Supervision Organization is founded.
- 1950 – The St. Roch, the first ship to circumnavigate North America, arrives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
- 1953 – Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay’s (adopted) 39th birthday.
- 1964 – The Arab League meets in East Jerusalem to discuss the Palestinian question, leading to the formation of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
- 1973 – Tom Bradley is elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles, California.
- 1982 – Pope John Paul II becomes the first pontiff to visit Canterbury Cathedral.
- 1982 – Falklands War: British forces defeat the Argentines at the Battle of Goose Green.
- 1985 – Heysel Stadium disaster: Thirty-nine association football fans die and hundreds are injured when a dilapidated retaining wall collapses.
- 1985 – Amputee Steve Fonyo completes cross-Canada marathon at Victoria, British Columbia, after 14 months.
- 1988 – The U.S. President Ronald Reagan begins his first visit to the Soviet Union when he arrives in Moscow for a superpower summit with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
- 1989 – Signing of an agreement between Egypt and the United States, allowing the manufacture of parts of the F-16 jet fighter plane in Egypt.
- 1990 – The Russian parliament elects Boris Yeltsin as president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
- 1993 – The Miss Sarajevo beauty pageant is held in war-torn Sarajevo drawing global attention to the plight of its citizens.
- 1999 – Olusegun Obasanjo takes office as President of Nigeria, the first elected and civilian head of state in Nigeria after 16 years of military rule.
- 1999 – Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.
- 2001 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the disabled golfer Casey Martin can use a cart to ride in tournaments.
- 2004 – The National World War II Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C.
- 2008 – A doublet earthquake, of combined magnitude 6.1, strikes Iceland near the town of Selfoss, injuring 30 people.
- 2012 – A 5.8-magnitude earthquake hits northern Italy near Bologna, killing at least 24 people.
- 2015 – One World Observatory at One World Trade Center opens.
Births on May 29
- 1421 – Charles, Prince of Viana (d. 1461)
- 1439 – Pope Pius III (d. 1503)
- 1443 – Victor, Duke of Münsterberg, Reichsgraf, Duke of Münsterberg and Opava, Count of Glatz (d. 1500)
- 1504 – Antun Vrančić, Croatian archbishop (d. 1573)
- 1555 – George Carew, 1st Earl of Totnes, English Earl, general and administrator (d. 1629)
- 1568 – Virginia de’ Medici, Italian princess (d. 1615)
- 1594 – Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim, Bavarian field marshal (d. 1632)
- 1627 – Anne, Duchess of Montpensier, French princess (d. 1693)
- 1630 – Charles II of England (d. 1685)
- 1675 – Humphry Ditton, English mathematician and philosopher (d. 1715)
- 1716 – Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton, French zoologist and mineralogist (d. 1800)
- 1722 – James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster, Irish soldier and politician (d. 1773)
- 1730 – Jackson of Exeter, English organist and composer (d. 1803)
- 1736 – Patrick Henry, American lawyer and politician, 1st Governor of Virginia (d. 1799)
- 1780 – Henri Braconnot, French chemist and pharmacist (d. 1855)
- 1794 – Johann Heinrich von Mädler, German astronomer and selenographer (d. 1874)
- 1797 – Louise-Adéone Drölling, French painter (d. 1836)
- 1823 – John H. Balsley, American carpenter and inventor (d. 1895)
- 1860 – Isaac Albéniz, Spanish pianist and composer (d. 1909)
- 1871 – Clark Voorhees, American painter (d. 1933)
- 1873 – Rudolf Tobias, Estonian organist and composer (d. 1918)
- 1874 – G. K. Chesterton, English essayist, poet, and playwright (d. 1936)
- 1880 – Oswald Spengler, German historian and philosopher (d. 1936)
- 1892 – Alfonsina Storni, Swiss-Argentinian poet and author (d. 1938)
- 1893 – Max Brand, American journalist and author (d. 1944)
- 1894 – Beatrice Lillie, Canadian-English actress, singer and writer (d. 1989)
- 1894 – Josef von Sternberg, Austrian-American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1969)
- 1897 – Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Czech-American pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1957)
- 1899 – Douglas Abbott, Canadian lawyer and politician, 10th Canadian Minister of Defence (d. 1987)
- 1902 – Harry Kadwell, Australian rugby league player and coach (d. 1999)
- 1903 – Bob Hope, English-American actor, singer, and producer (d. 2003)
- 1904 – Hubert Opperman, Australian cyclist and politician (d. 1996)
- 1905 – Sebastian Shaw, English actor, director, and playwright (d. 1994)
- 1906 – T. H. White, Indian-English author (d. 1964)
- 1907 – Hartland Molson, Canadian captain and politician (d. 2002)
- 1908 – Diana Morgan, Welsh-English playwright and screenwriter (d. 1996)
- 1910 – Ralph Metcalfe, American sprinter and politician (d. 1978)
- 1913 – Tony Zale, American boxer (d. 1997)
- 1914 – Stacy Keach Sr., American actor (d. 2003)
- 1914 – Tenzing Norgay, Nepalese-Indian mountaineer (d. 1986)
- 1915 – Karl Münchinger, German conductor and composer (d. 1990)
- 1917 – John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States (d. 1963)
- 1917 – Marcel Trudel, Canadian historian, author, and academic (d. 2011)
- 1919 – Jacques Genest, Canadian physician and academic (d. 2018)
- 1920 – John Harsanyi, Hungarian-American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2000)
- 1920 – Clifton James, American actor (d. 2017)
- 1921 – Norman Hetherington, Australian cartoonist and puppeteer (d. 2010)
- 1922 – Joe Weatherly, American race car driver (d. 1964)
- 1922 – Iannis Xenakis, Greek-French composer, engineer, and theorist (d. 2001)
- 1923 – Bernard Clavel, French author (d. 2010)
- 1923 – John Parker, 6th Earl of Morley, English colonel and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Devon (d. 2015)
- 1923 – Eugene Wright, American jazz bassist
- 1924 – Lars Bo, Danish author and illustrator (d. 1999)
- 1924 – Miloslav Kříž, Czech basketball player and coach (d. 2013)
- 1924 – Pepper Paire, American baseball player (d. 2013)
- 1926 – Katie Boyle, Italian-English actress and television host (d. 2018)
- 1926 – Halaevalu Mataʻaho ʻAhomeʻe, Queen Consort of Tonga (d. 2017)
- 1926 – Abdoulaye Wade, Senegalese academic and politician, 3rd President of Senegal
- 1927 – Jean Coutu, Canadian pharmacist and businessman, founded the Jean Coutu Group
- 1929 – Harry Frankfurt, American philosopher and academic
- 1929 – Peter Higgs, English-Scottish physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1929 – Roberto Vargas, Puerto Rican-American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 2014)
- 1932 – Paul R. Ehrlich, American biologist and author
- 1932 – Richie Guerin, American basketball player and coach
- 1933 – Helmuth Rilling, German conductor and educator
- 1933 – Tarquinio Provini, Italian motorcycle racer (d. 2005)
- 1934 – Bill Vander Zalm, Dutch-Canadian businessman and politician, 28th Premier of British Columbia
- 1935 – André Brink, South African author and playwright (d. 2015)
- 1935 – Sylvia Robinson, American singer and producer (d. 2011)
- 1937 – Charles W. Pickering, American lawyer and judge
- 1937 – Irmin Schmidt, German keyboard player and composer
- 1937 – Alwin Schockemöhle, German show-jumper
- 1937 – Harry Statham, American basketball player and coach
- 1938 – Christopher Bland, English businessman and politician (d. 2017)
- 1938 – Fay Vincent, American lawyer and businessman
- 1939 – Pete Smith, Australian radio and television announcer
- 1939 – Al Unser, American race car driver
- 1940 – Taihō Kōki, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 48th Yokozuna (d. 2013)
- 1940 – Farooq Leghari, Pakistani politician, 8th President of Pakistan (d. 2010)
- 1941 – Doug Scott, English mountaineer and author
- 1941 – Bob Simon, American journalist (d. 2015)
- 1942 – Pierre Bourque, Canadian businessman and politician, 40th Mayor of Montreal
- 1942 – Kevin Conway, American actor and director (d. 2020)
- 1943 – Robert W. Edgar, American educator and politician (d. 2013)
- 1944 – Bob Benmosche, American businessman (d. 2015)
- 1944 – Quentin Davies, English soldier and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
- 1945 – Gary Brooker, English singer-songwriter and pianist
- 1945 – Peter Fraser, Baron Fraser of Carmyllie, Scottish lawyer and politician, Solicitor General for Scotland (d. 2013)
- 1945 – Julian Le Grand, English economist and author
- 1945 – Martin Pipe, English jockey and trainer
- 1945 – Joyce Tenneson, American photographer
- 1945 – Jean-Pierre Van Rossem, Belgian scholar and author (d. 2018)
- 1946 – Fernando Buesa, Spanish politician (d. 2000)
- 1947 – Anthony Geary, American actor
- 1948 – Michael Berkeley, English composer and radio host
- 1948 – Keith Gull, English microbiologist and academic
- 1949 – Robert Axelrod, American actor and screenwriter (d. 2019)
- 1949 – Brian Kidd, English footballer and manager
- 1949 – Francis Rossi, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1950 – Rebbie Jackson, American singer and actress
- 1953 – Danny Elfman, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor
- 1954 – Robert Beaser, American composer and educator
- 1954 – Jerry Moran, American lawyer and politician
- 1955 – Frank Baumgartl, German runner (d. 2010)
- 1955 – John Hinckley Jr., American attempted assassin of Ronald Reagan
- 1955 – David Kirschner, American animator, producer, and author
- 1955 – Gordon Rintoul, Scottish historian and curator
- 1955 – Ken Schrader, American race car driver and sportscaster
- 1956 – Mark Lyall Grant, English diplomat, British Ambassador to the United Nations
- 1956 – La Toya Jackson, American singer-songwriter and actress
- 1957 – Steven Croft, English bishop and theologian
- 1957 – Jeb Hensarling, American lawyer and politician
- 1957 – Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Iranian film director
- 1958 – Annette Bening, American actress
- 1958 – Juliano Mer-Khamis, Israeli actor, director, and activist (d. 2011)
- 1958 – Uwe Rapolder, German footballer and coach
- 1958 – Mike Stenhouse, American baseball player and sportscaster
- 1959 – Rupert Everett, English actor and novelist
- 1959 – Mel Gaynor, English drummer
- 1959 – Steve Hanley, Irish-English bass player and songwriter
- 1960 – Thomas Baumer, Swiss economist and academic
- 1960 – Mike Freer, English politician
- 1961 – Melissa Etheridge, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and activist
- 1961 – John Miceli, American drummer
- 1962 – Fandi Ahmad, Singaporean footballer, coach, and manager
- 1962 – Eric Davis, American baseball player
- 1962 – Carol Kirkwood, Scottish journalist
- 1962 – Chloé Sainte-Marie, Canadian actress and singer
- 1963 – Blaze Bayley, English singer-songwriter
- 1963 – Zhu Jianhua, Chinese high jumper
- 1963 – Ukyo Katayama, Japanese race car driver
- 1963 – Claude Loiselle, Canadian ice hockey player and manager
- 1964 – Howard Mills III, American academic and politician
- 1964 – Oswaldo Negri Jr., Brazilian race car driver
- 1966 – Natalie Nougayrède, French journalist
- 1967 – Noel Gallagher, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1967 – Mike Keane, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1967 – Steven Levitt, American economist, author, and academic
- 1968 – Torquhil Campbell, 13th Duke of Argyll, Scottish politician
- 1968 – Tate George, American basketball player
- 1968 – Jessica Morden, English politician
- 1968 – Hida Viloria, American activist
- 1970 – Natarsha Belling, Australian journalist
- 1970 – Roberto Di Matteo, Italian footballer and manager
- 1971 – Éric Lucas, Canadian boxer
- 1971 – Bernd Mayländer, German race car driver
- 1971 – Jo Beth Taylor, Australian television host and actress
- 1971 – Rob Womack, English shot putter and discus thrower
- 1972 – Bill Curley, American basketball player and coach
- 1972 – Simon Jones, English singer and bass player
- 1973 – Tomoko Kaneda, Japanese voice actress, singer, and radio personality
- 1973 – Mark Lee, American guitarist and songwriter
- 1973 – Alpay Özalan, Turkish footballer
- 1974 – Steve Cardenas, American martial artist and retired actor
- 1974 – Stephen Larkham, Australian rugby player and coach
- 1974 – Aaron McGruder, American author and cartoonist
- 1974 – Myf Warhurst, Australian radio and television host
- 1974 – Jenny Willott, English politician
- 1975 – Jason Allison, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1975 – Mel B, English singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress
- 1975 – Sven Kubis, German footballer
- 1975 – Sarah Millican, English comedian
- 1975 – Anthony Wall, English golfer
- 1975 – Daniel Tosh, American comedian, television host, actor, writer, and executive producer
- 1976 – Caçapa, Brazilian footballer and manager
- 1976 – Jerry Hairston Jr., American baseball player and sportscaster
- 1976 – Raef LaFrentz, American basketball player
- 1976 – Yegor Titov, Russian footballer
- 1977 – Massimo Ambrosini, Italian footballer
- 1977 – Marco Cassetti, Italian footballer
- 1977 – António Lebo Lebo, Angolan footballer
- 1978 – Pelle Almqvist, Swedish singer-songwriter
- 1978 – Sébastien Grosjean, French tennis player
- 1978 – Lorenzo Odone, Italian-American adrenoleukodystrophy patient who inspired the 1992 film, Lorenzo’s Oil (d. 2008)
- 1978 – Adam Rickitt, English singer
- 1979 – Arne Friedrich, German footballer
- 1979 – Brian Kendrick, American wrestler
- 1979 – John Rheinecker, American baseball player (d. 2017)
- 1980 – Ernesto Farías, Argentinian footballer
- 1981 – Andrey Arshavin, Russian footballer
- 1982 – Nataliya Dobrynska, Ukrainian heptathlete
- 1982 – Matt Macri, American baseball player
- 1982 – Kim Tae-kyun, South Korean baseball player
- 1984 – Carmelo Anthony, American basketball player
- 1984 – Nia Jax, Australian-American professional wrestler
- 1984 – Funmi Jimoh, American long jumper
- 1984 – Andreas Schäffer, German footballer
- 1984 – Ina Wroldsen, Norwegian singer and songwriter
- 1985 – Nathan Horton, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1987 – Lina Andrijauskaitė, Lithuanian long jumper
- 1987 – Issac Luke, New Zealand rugby league player
- 1987 – Kelvin Maynard, Dutch footballer (d. 2019)
- 1987 – Noah Reid, Canadian actor, producer, and screenwriter
- 1987 – Rui Sampaio, Portuguese footballer
- 1988 – Muath Al-Kasasbeh, Jordanian captain and pilot (d. 2015)
- 1988 – Cheng Fei, Chinese gymnast
- 1988 – Steve Mason, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1989 – Ezekiel Ansah, Ghanaian-American football player
- 1989 – Diego Barisone, Argentinian footballer (d. 2015)
- 1989 – Riley Keough, American model and actress
- 1990 – Joe Biagini, American baseball pitcher
- 1992 – Sarah Moundir, Swiss tennis player
- 1993 – Jana Čepelová, Slovak tennis player
- 1993 – Maika Monroe, American actress and kiteboarder
- 1993 – Grete Šadeiko, Estonian heptathlete
- 1998 – Markelle Fultz, American basketball player
- 1999 – Park Ji-hoon, South Korean singer and actor
Deaths on May 29
- 931 – Jimeno Garcés of Pamplona
- 1040 – Renauld I, Count of Nevers
- 1259 – Christopher I of Denmark (b. 1219)
- 1311 – James II of Majorca (b. 1243)
- 1320 – Pope John VIII of Alexandria, Coptic pope
- 1327 – Jens Grand, Danish archbishop (b. c. 1260)
- 1379 – Henry II of Castile (b. 1334)
- 1405 – Philippe de Mézières, French soldier and author (b. 1327)
- 1425 – Hongxi Emperor of China (b. 1378)
- 1453 – Ulubatlı Hasan, Ottoman commander (b. 1428)
- 1453 – Constantine XI Palaiologos, Byzantine emperor (b. 1404)
- 1500 – Bartolomeu Dias, Portuguese explorer and navigator (b. 1451)
- 1500 – Thomas Rotherham, English cleric and minister (b. 1423)
- 1546 – David Beaton, Scottish cardinal and politician, Lord Chancellor of Scotland (b. 1494)
- 1593 – John Penry, Welsh martyr (b. 1559)
- 1660 – Frans van Schooten, Dutch mathematician and academic (b. 1615)
- 1691 – Cornelis Tromp, Dutch admiral (b. 1629)
- 1790 – Israel Putnam, American general (b. 1718)
- 1796 – Carl Fredrik Pechlin, Swedish general and politician (b. 1720)
- 1814 – Joséphine de Beauharnais, first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte (b. 1763)
- 1829 – Humphry Davy, English-Swiss chemist and academic (b. 1778)
- 1847 – Emmanuel de Grouchy, Marquis de Grouchy, French general (b. 1766)
- 1862 – Franz Mirecki, Polish composer, music conductor, and music teacher (b. 1791)
- 1866 – Winfield Scott, American general, lawyer, and politician (b. 1786)
- 1873 – Prince Friedrich of Hesse and by Rhine (b. 1870)
- 1892 – Bahá’u’lláh, Persian religious leader, founded the Bahá’í Faith (b. 1817)
- 1896 – Gabriel Auguste Daubrée, French geologist and academic (b. 1814)
- 1903 – Bruce Price, American architect, designed the Château Frontenac and American Surety Building (b. 1845)
- 1910 – Mily Balakirev, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1837)
- 1911 – W. S. Gilbert, English playwright and poet (b. 1836)
- 1914 – Laurence Sydney Brodribb Irving, English author and playwright (b. 1871)
- 1914 – Henry Seton-Karr, English explorer, hunter, and author (b. 1853)
- 1917 – Kate Harrington, American poet and educator (b. 1831)
- 1919 – Robert Bacon, American colonel and politician, 39th United States Secretary of State (b. 1860)
- 1920 – Carlos Deltour, French rower (b. 1864)
- 1921 – Abbott Handerson Thayer, American painter and educator (b. 1849)
- 1935 – Josef Suk, Czech violinist and composer (b. 1874)
- 1939 – Ursula Ledóchowska, Austrian-Polish nun and saint, founded the Congregation of the Ursulines of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus (b. 1865)
- 1941 – Léo-Pol Morin, Canadian pianist, composer, and educator (b. 1892)
- 1942 – John Barrymore, American actor (b. 1882)
- 1946 – Martin Gottfried Weiss, German SS officer (b. 1905)
- 1948 – May Whitty, English actress (b. 1865)
- 1951 – Fanny Brice, American singer and comedian (b. 1891)
- 1951 – Dimitrios Levidis, Greek-French soldier and composer (b. 1885)
- 1953 – Morgan Russell, American painter and educator (b. 1886)
- 1957 – James Whale, English director (b. 1889)
- 1958 – Juan Ramón Jiménez, Spanish poet and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1881)
- 1963 – Netta Muskett, English author (b. 1887)
- 1966 – Ignace Lepp, Estonian-French priest and psychologist (b. 1909)
- 1968 – Arnold Susi, Estonian lawyer and politician, Estonian Minister of Education (b. 1896)
- 1970 – John Gunther, American journalist and author (b. 1901)
- 1970 – Eva Hesse, American artist (b. 1936)
- 1972 – Moe Berg, American baseball player, coach, and spy (b. 1902)
- 1972 – Stephen Timoshenko, Ukrainian-American engineer and academic (b. 1878)
- 1973 – George Harriman, English businessman (b. 1908)
- 1977 – Ba Maw, Burmese politician, Prime Minister of Burma (b. 1893)
- 1979 – Mary Pickford, Canadian-American actress, producer, and screenwriter, co-founded United Artists (b. 1892)
- 1979 – John H. Wood Jr., American lawyer and judge (b. 1916)
- 1982 – Romy Schneider, Austrian actress (b. 1938)
- 1983 – Arvīds Pelše, Latvian-Russian historian and politician (b. 1899)
- 1987 – Charan Singh, Indian politician, 5th Prime Minister of India (b. 1902)
- 1988 – Salem bin Laden, Saudi Arabian businessman (b. 1946)
- 1989 – George C. Homans, American sociologist and academic (b. 1910)
- 1991 – Margaret Barr (choreographer), Australian choreographer and teacher of dance-drama (b. 1904)
- 1993 – Billy Conn, American boxer (b. 1917)
- 1994 – Erich Honecker, German lawyer and politician (b. 1912)
- 1994- Lady May Abel Smith, member of the British Royal Family (b. 1906)
- 1996 – Tamara Toumanova, American ballerina and actress (b. 1919)
- 1997 – Jeff Buckley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1966)
- 1998 – Barry Goldwater, American general, activist, and politician (b. 1909)
- 2003 – David Jefferies, English motorcycle racer (b. 1972)
- 2004 – Archibald Cox, American lawyer and politician, 31st United States Solicitor General (b. 1912)
- 2004 – Samuel Dash, American academic and politician (b. 1925)
- 2005 – John D’Amico, Canadian ice hockey player and referee (b. 1937)
- 2005 – Hamilton Naki, South African surgeon (b. 1926)
- 2005 – George Rochberg, American soldier and composer (b. 1918)
- 2006 – Jacques Bouchard, Canadian businessman (b. 1930)
- 2007 – Dave Balon, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (b. 1938)
- 2007 – Lois Browne-Evans, Bermudian lawyer and politician (b. 1927)
- 2008 – Paula Gunn Allen, Native American writer (b. 1939)
- 2008 – Luc Bourdon, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1987)
- 2008 – Harvey Korman, American actor and comedian (b. 1927)
- 2010 – Dennis Hopper, American actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1936)
- 2011 – Sergei Bagapsh, Abkhazian politician, 2nd President of Abkhazia (b. 1949)
- 2011 – Bill Clements, American soldier and politician, 42nd Governor of Texas (b. 1917)
- 2011 – Ferenc Mádl, Hungarian academic and politician, 14th President of Hungary (b. 1931)
- 2012 – Mark Minkov, Russian composer (b. 1944)
- 2012 – Kaneto Shindo, Japanese director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1912)
- 2012 – Doc Watson, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1923)
- 2013 – Richard Ballantine, American-English journalist and author (b. 1940)
- 2013 – Françoise Blanchard, French actress (b. 1954)
- 2013 – Andrew Greeley, American priest, sociologist, and author (b. 1928)
- 2013 – Mulgrew Miller, American pianist and composer (b. 1955)
- 2013 – Henry Morgentaler, Polish-Canadian physician and activist (b. 1923)
- 2013 – Franca Rame, Italian actress and playwright (b. 1928)
- 2013 – Ludwig G. Strauss, German physician and academic (b. 1949)
- 2013 – Wali-ur-Rehman, Pakistani commander (b. 1970)
- 2014 – Christine Charbonneau, Canadian singer-songwriter (b. 1943)
- 2014 – Walter Jakob Gehring, Swiss biologist and academic (b. 1939)
- 2014 – Peter Glaser, Czech-American scientist and engineer (b. 1923)
- 2014 – Miljenko Prohaska, Croatian composer and conductor (b. 1925)
- 2014 – William M. Roth, American businessman (b. 1916)
- 2015 – Henry Carr, American football player and sprinter (b. 1942)
- 2015 – Doris Hart, American tennis player (b. 1925)
- 2015 – Betsy Palmer, American actress (b. 1926)
- 2017 – Manuel Noriega, Panamanian general and politician, Military Leader of Panama (b. 1934)
- 2017 – Mordechai Tzipori, Israeli Lieutenant General and minister (b. 1924)
- 2017 – Konstantinos Mitsotakis, Greek politician and prime minister (b. 1918)
- 2020 – Maikanti Baru, Nigerian engineer, former chief of state oil firm. (b. 1959)
Holidays and observances on May 29
- Army Day (Argentina)
- Ascension of Bahá’u’lláh (Bahá’í Faith) (Only if Bahá’í Naw-Rúz falls on March 21 of the Gregorian calendar)
- Christian feast day:
- Bona of Pisa
- Hypomone (Eastern Orthodox Church)
- Maximin of Trier
- Pope Alexander of Alexandria (Eastern Orthodox Church)
- Theodosia of Constantinople (Eastern Orthodox Church)
- Ursula Ledóchowska
- May 29 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Earliest day on which Feast of the Sacred Heart can fall, while July 2 is the latest; celebrated 19 days after Pentecost. (Catholic Church)
- International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers (International)
- National Elderly Day (Indonesia)
- Oak Apple Day (England), and its related observance:
- Castleton Garland Day (Castleton)
- Statehood Day (Rhode Island and Wisconsin)
- Veterans Day (Sweden)
- World Digestive Health Day
-
May 27 in History
- 1096 – Count Emicho enters Mainz, where his followers massacre Jewish citizens.At least 600 Jews are killed.
- 1120 – Richard III of Capua is anointed as Prince two weeks before his untimely death.
- 1153 – Malcolm IV becomes King of Scotland.
- 1199 – John is crowned King of England.
- 1257 – Richard of Cornwall, and his wife, Sanchia of Provence, are crowned King and Queen of the Germans at Aachen Cathedral.
- 1644 – Manchu regent Dorgon defeats rebel leader Li Zicheng of the Shun dynasty at the Battle of Shanhai Pass, allowing the Manchus to enter and conquer the capital city of Beijing.
- 1703 – Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint Petersburg.
- 1798 – The Battle of Oulart Hill takes place in Wexford, Ireland; Irish rebel leaders defeat and kill a detachment of militia.
- 1799 – War of the Second Coalition: Austrian forces defeat the French at Winterthur, Switzerland.
- 1813 – War of 1812: In Canada, American forces capture Fort George.
- 1860 – Giuseppe Garibaldi begins his attack on Palermo, Sicily, as part of the Italian unification.
- 1863 – American Civil War: First Assault on the Confederate works at the Siege of Port Hudson.
- 1874 – The first group of Dorsland trekkers under the leadership of Gert Alberts leaves Pretoria.
- 1883 – Alexander III is crowned Tsar of Russia.
- 1896 – The F4-strength St. Louis–East St. Louis tornado hits in St. Louis, Missouri, and East St. Louis, Illinois, killing at least 255 people and causing over $10–million in damage.
- 1905 – Russo-Japanese War: The Battle of Tsushima begins.
- 1917 – Pope Benedict XV promulgates the 1917 Code of Canon Law, the first comprehensive codification of Catholic canon law in the legal history of the Catholic Church.
- 1919 – The NC-4 aircraft arrives in Lisbon after completing the first transatlantic flight.
- 1927 – The Ford Motor Company ceases manufacture of the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make the Ford Model A.
- 1930 – The 1,046 feet (319 m) Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opens to the public.
- 1933 – New Deal: The U.S. Federal Securities Act is signed into law requiring the registration of securities with the Federal Trade Commission.
- 1933 – The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon Three Little Pigs, with its hit song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”
- 1935 – New Deal: The Supreme Court of the United States declares the National Industrial Recovery Act to be unconstitutional in A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, (295 U.S. 495).
- 1937 – In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California.
- 1940 – World War II: In the Le Paradis massacre, 99 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are shot after surrendering to German troops; two survive.
- 1941 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaims an “unlimited national emergency”.
- 1941 – World War II: The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic killing almost 2,100 men.
- 1942 – World War II: In Operation Anthropoid, Reinhard Heydrich is fatally wounded in Prague; he dies of his injuries eight days later.
- 1958 – First flight of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II.
- 1960 – In Turkey, a military coup removes President Celâl Bayar and the rest of the democratic government from office.
- 1962 – The Centralia mine fire is ignited in the town’s landfill above a coal mine.
- 1965 – Vietnam War: American warships begin the first bombardment of National Liberation Front targets within South Vietnam.
- 1967 – Australians vote in favor of a constitutional referendum granting the Australian government the power to make laws to benefit Indigenous Australians and to count them in the national census.
- 1967 – The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy is launched by Jacqueline Kennedy and her daughter Caroline.
- 1971 – The Dahlerau train disaster, the worst railway accident in West Germany, kills 46 people and injures 25 near Wuppertal.
- 1971 – Pakistani forces massacre over 200 civilians, mostly Bengali Hindus, in the Bagbati massacre.
- 1975 – Dibbles Bridge coach crash near Grassington, in North Yorkshire, England, kills 33 – the highest ever death toll in a road accident in the United Kingdom.
- 1980 – The Gwangju Massacre: Airborne and army troops of South Korea retake the city of Gwangju from civil militias, killing at least 207 and possibly many more.
- 1984 – The Danube-Black Sea canal is opened, in a ceremony attended by the Ceaușescus. It had been under construction since the 1950s.
- 1996 – First Chechen War: the Russian President Boris Yeltsin meets with Chechnyan rebels for the first time and negotiates a cease-fire.
- 1997 – The 1997 Central Texas tornado outbreak occurs, spawning multiple tornadoes in Central Texas, including the F5 that killed 27 in Jarrell.
- 1998 – Oklahoma City bombing: Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot.
- 2001 – Members of the Islamist separatist group Abu Sayyaf seize twenty hostages from an affluent island resort on Palawan in the Philippines; the hostage crisis would not be resolved until June 2002.
- 2006 – The 6.4 Mw Yogyakarta earthquake shakes central Java with an MSK intensity of VIII (Damaging), leaving more than 5,700 dead and 37,000 injured.
- 2016 – Barack Obama is the first president of United States to visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and meet Hibakusha.
- 2017 – Andrew Scheer takes over after Rona Ambrose as the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.
- 2018 – Maryland Flood Event: A flood occurs throughout the Patapsco Valley causing one death and destroying the entire first floors of buildings on Main Street in Ellicott City and causing cars to overturn.
Births on May 27
- 742 – Emperor Dezong of Tang (d. 805)
- 1332 – Ibn Khaldun, Tunisian historian and theologian (d. 1406)
- 1378 – Zhu Quan, Chinese military commander, historian and playwright (d. 1448)
- 1519 – Girolamo Mei, Italian historian and theorist (d. 1594)
- 1537 – Louis IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Marburg (d. 1604)
- 1576 – Caspar Schoppe, German author and scholar (d. 1649)
- 1584 – Michael Altenburg, German theologian and composer (d. 1640)
- 1601 – Antoine Daniel, French-Canadian missionary and saint (d. 1648)
- 1626 – William II, Prince of Orange (d. 1650)
- 1627 – Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier (d. 1693)
- 1651 – Louis Antoine de Noailles, French cardinal (d. 1729)
- 1652 – Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine of Germany (d. 1722)
- 1738 – Nathaniel Gorham, American merchant and politician, 14th President of the Continental Congress (d. 1796)
- 1756 – Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria (d. 1825)
- 1774 – Francis Beaufort, Irish hydrographer and officer in the Royal Navy (d. 1857)
- 1794 – Cornelius Vanderbilt, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1877)
- 1814 – John Rudolph Niernsee, Viennese-born American architect (d.1885)
- 1815 – Henry Parkes, English-Australian politician, 7th Premier of New South Wales (d. 1896)
- 1818 – Amelia Bloomer, American journalist and activist (d. 1894)
- 1819 – Julia Ward Howe, American poet and songwriter (d. 1910)
- 1827 – Samuel F. Miller, American lawyer and politician (d. 1892)
- 1832 – Zenas Ferry Moody, American surveyor and politician, 7th Governor of Oregon (d. 1917)
- 1836 – Jay Gould, American businessman and financier (d. 1892)
- 1837 – Wild Bill Hickok, American police officer (d. 1876)
- 1852 – Billy Barnes, English cricketer (d. 1899)
- 1857 – Theodor Curtius, German chemist (d. 1928)
- 1860 – Manuel Teixeira Gomes, Portuguese politician, 7th President of Portugal (d. 1941)
- 1863 – Arthur Mold, English cricketer (d. 1921)
- 1867 – Arnold Bennett, English author and playwright (d. 1931)
- 1868 – Aleksa Šantić, Bosnian poet and author (d. 1924)
- 1871 – Georges Rouault, French painter and illustrator (d. 1958)
- 1875 – Frederick Cuming, English cricketer (d. 1942)
- 1876 – Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski, Polish journalist and author (d. 1945)
- 1876 – William Stanier, English engineer (d. 1965)
- 1878 – Anna Cervin, Swedish artist (d. 1972)
- 1879 – Karl Bühler, German-American linguist and psychologist (d. 1963)
- 1879 – Hans Lammers, German judge and politician (d. 1962)
- 1883 – Jessie Arms Botke, American painter (d. 1971)
- 1884 – Max Brod, Czech journalist, author, and composer (d. 1968)
- 1887 – Frank Woolley, English cricketer (d. 1978)
- 1888 – Louis Durey, French composer (d. 1979)
- 1891 – Claude Champagne, Canadian violinist, pianist, and composer (d. 1965)
- 1891 – Jaan Kärner, Estonian poet and author (d. 1958)
- 1894 – Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French physician and author (d. 1961)
- 1894 – Dashiell Hammett, American detective novelist and screenwriter (d. 1961)
- 1895 – Douglas Lloyd Campbell, Canadian educator and politician, 13th Premier of Manitoba (d. 1995)
- 1897 – John Cockcroft, English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1967)
- 1897 – Dink Templeton, American rugby player and coach (d. 1962)
- 1898 – David Crosthwait, American engineer, inventor and writer (d. 1976)
- 1899 – Johannes Türn, Estonian chess and draughts player (d. 1993)
- 1900 – Lotte Toberentz, German overseer of the Nazi Uckermark concentration camp (d. 1964)
- 1900 – Uładzimir Žyłka, Belarusian poet and translator (d. 1933)
- 1904 – Chūhei Nambu, Japanese jumper and journalist (d. 1997)
- 1906 – Buddhadasa, Thai monk and philosopher (d. 1993)
- 1906 – Harry Hibbs, English footballer (d. 1984)
- 1906 – Antonio Rosario Mennonna, Italian bishop (d. 2009)
- 1907 – Nicolas Calas, Greek-American poet and critic (d. 1988)
- 1907 – Rachel Carson, American biologist, environmentalist, and author (d. 1964)
- 1909 – Dolores Hope, American singer and philanthropist (d. 2011)
- 1911 – Hubert Humphrey, American journalist and politician, 38th Vice President of the United States (d. 1978)
- 1911 – Teddy Kollek, Hungarian-Israeli politician, Mayor of Jerusalem (d. 2007)
- 1911 – Vincent Price, American actor (d. 1993)
- 1912 – John Cheever, American novelist and short story writer (d. 1982)
- 1912 – Sam Snead, American golfer and sportscaster (d. 2002)
- 1912 – Terry Moore, American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 1995)
- 1915 – Ester Soré, Chilean singer-songwriter (d. 1996)
- 1915 – Herman Wouk, American novelist (d. 2019)
- 1917 – Harry Webster, English engineer (d. 2007)
- 1918 – Yasuhiro Nakasone, Japanese commander and politician, 45th Prime Minister of Japan (d. 2019)
- 1921 – Bob Godfrey, Australian-English animator, director, and voice actor (d. 2013)
- 1922 – Otto Carius, German lieutenant and pharmacist (d. 2015)
- 1922 – Christopher Lee, English actor (d. 2015)
- 1922 – John D. Vanderhoof, American banker and politician, 37th Governor of Colorado (d. 2013)
- 1923 – Henry Kissinger, German-American political scientist and politician, 56th United States Secretary of State, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1923 – Sumner Redstone, American businessman and philanthropist
- 1924 – Jaime Lusinchi, Venezuelan physician and politician, President of Venezuela (d. 2014)
- 1924 – John Sumner, English-Australian director, founded the Melbourne Theatre Company (d. 2013)
- 1925 – Tony Hillerman, American journalist and author (d. 2008)
- 1927 – Jüri Randviir, Estonian chess player and journalist (d. 1996)
- 1928 – Thea Musgrave, Scottish-American composer and educator
- 1930 – John Barth, American novelist and short story writer
- 1930 – William S. Sessions, American civil servant and judge, 8th Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
- 1930 – Eino Tamberg, Estonian composer and educator (d. 2010)
- 1931 – André Barbeau, French-Canadian neurologist (d. 1986)
- 1931 – John Chapple, English field marshal and politician, Governor of Gibraltar
- 1931 – Bernard Fresson, French actor (d. 2002)
- 1931 – Faten Hamama, Egyptian actress and producer (d. 2015)
- 1931 – Philip Kotler, American author and professor
- 1933 – Edward Samuel Rogers, Canadian businessman (d. 2008)
- 1933 – Manfred Sommer, Spanish author and illustrator (d. 2007)
- 1934 – Ray Daviault, Canadian-American baseball player
- 1934 – Harlan Ellison, American author and screenwriter (d. 2018)
- 1935 – Daniel Colchico, American football player and coach (d. 2014)
- 1935 – Mal Evans, British road manager of The Beatles (d. 1976)
- 1935 – Jerry Kindall, American baseball player and coach (d. 2017)
- 1935 – Ramsey Lewis, American jazz pianist and composer
- 1935 – Lee Meriwether, American model and actress, Miss America 1955
- 1936 – Benjamin Bathurst, English admiral
- 1936 – Louis Gossett, Jr., American actor and producer
- 1936 – Marcel Masse, Canadian educator and politician, 29th Canadian Minister of National Defence (d. 2014)
- 1937 – Allan Carr, American playwright and producer (d. 1999)
- 1939 – Simon Cairns, 6th Earl Cairns, English courtier and businessman
- 1939 – Yves Duhaime, Canadian captain and politician
- 1939 – Sokratis Kokkalis, Greek businessman
- 1939 – Gerald Ronson, English businessman and philanthropist
- 1939 – Lionel Sosa, Mexican-American advertising and marketing executive
- 1939 – Don Williams, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2017)
- 1940 – Mike Gibson, Australian journalist and sportscaster (d. 2015)
- 1942 – Lee Baca, American police officer
- 1942 – Piers Courage, English racing driver (d. 1970)
- 1942 – Roger Freeman, Baron Freeman, English accountant and politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
- 1942 – Robin Widdows, English racing driver
- 1943 – Cilla Black, English singer and actress (d. 2015)
- 1943 – Bruce Weitz, American actor
- 1944 – Chris Dodd, American lawyer and politician
- 1944 – Ingrid Roscoe, English historian and politician, Lord Lieutenant of West Yorkshire
- 1944 – Alain Souchon, French singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
- 1945 – Bruce Cockburn, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1946 – Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Danish bassist and composer (d. 2005)
- 1946 – John Williams, English motorcycle racer (d. 1978)
- 1947 – Peter DeFazio, American politician
- 1947 – Marty Kristian, German-Australian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
- 1947 – Branko Oblak, Slovenian footballer and coach
- 1947 – Riivo Sinijärv, Estonian politician, 19th Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs
- 1948 – Wubbo de Boer, Dutch civil servant (d. 2017)
- 1948 – Pete Sears, English bass player
- 1948 – Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart, American occultist and author (d. 2014)
- 1949 – Hugh Lowther, 8th Earl of Lonsdale, English politician
- 1949 – Christa Vahlensieck, German runner
- 1950 – Dee Dee Bridgewater, American singer-songwriter and actress
- 1950 – Makis Dendrinos, Greek basketball player and coach (d. 2015)
- 1951 – John Conteh, English boxer
- 1954 – Pauline Hanson, Australian businesswoman, activist, and politician
- 1954 – Jackie Slater, American football player and coach
- 1955 – Eric Bischoff, American wrestler, manager, and producer
- 1955 – Richard Schiff, American actor, director, and producer
- 1955 – Ian Tracey, English organist and conductor
- 1956 – Cynthia McFadden, American journalist
- 1956 – Rosemary Squire, English producer and manager, co-founded Ambassador Theatre Group
- 1956 – Giuseppe Tornatore, Italian director and screenwriter
- 1957 – Dag Terje Andersen, Norwegian politician, Norwegian Minister of Labour
- 1957 – Nitin Gadkari, Indian lawyer and politician, Indian Minister of Transport
- 1957 – Eddie Harsch, Canadian-American keyboard player and bass player (d. 2016)
- 1957 – Siouxsie Sioux, English singer-songwriter, musician, and producer
- 1958 – Nick Anstee, English accountant and politician, 682nd Lord Mayor of London
- 1958 – Neil Finn, New Zealand singer-songwriter and musician
- 1958 – Jesse Robredo, Filipino politician, 23rd Filipino Secretary of the Interior (d. 2012)
- 1960 – Gaston Therrien, Canadian ice hockey player and sportscaster
- 1961 – José Luíz Barbosa, Brazilian runner and coach
- 1961 – Peri Gilpin, American actress
- 1962 – Marcelino Bernal, Mexican footballer
- 1962 – Ray Borner, Australian basketball player
- 1962 – Steven Brill, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1962 – Anthony A. Hyman, Israeli-English biologist and academic
- 1962 – David Mundell, Scottish lawyer and politician, Secretary of State for Scotland
- 1962 – Ravi Shastri, Indian cricketer and sportscaster
- 1963 – Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Cuban pianist and composer
- 1963 – Maria Walliser, Swiss skier
- 1964 – Adam Carolla, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
- 1965 – Pat Cash, Australian-English tennis player and sportscaster
- 1966 – Heston Blumenthal, English chef and author
- 1967 – Paul Gascoigne, English international footballer, midfielder, coach, and manager
- 1967 – Eddie McClintock, American actor
- 1968 – Jeff Bagwell, American baseball player and coach
- 1968 – Rebekah Brooks, English journalist
- 1968 – Harun Erdenay, Turkish basketball player and coach
- 1968 – Frank Thomas, American baseball player and sportscaster
- 1969 – Todd Hundley, American baseball player
- 1969 – Jeremy Mayfield, American race car driver
- 1969 – Craig Federighi, American computer scientist and engineer
- 1970 – Michele Bartoli, Italian cyclist
- 1970 – Tim Farron, English educator and politician
- 1970 – Joseph Fiennes, English actor
- 1970 – Alex Archer, American-born Australian musician
- 1971 – Mathew Batsiua, Nauruan politician
- 1971 – Paul Bettany, English actor
- 1971 – Wayne Carey, Australian footballer and coach
- 1971 – Kaur Kender, Estonian author
- 1971 – Lisa Lopes, American rapper and dancer (d. 2002)
- 1971 – Lee Sharpe, English footballer
- 1971 – Grant Stafford, South African tennis player
- 1971 – Sophie Walker, British politician, leader of the Women’s Equality Party
- 1971 – Petroc Trelawny, British radio and television broadcaster
- 1972 – Todd Demsey, American golfer
- 1972 – Antonio Freeman, American football player
- 1972 – Maxim Sokolov, Russian ice hockey player
- 1973 – Jack McBrayer, American actor and comedian
- 1973 – Tana Umaga, New Zealand rugby player and coach
- 1973 – Yorgos Lanthimos, Greek film video, and theatre director, producer and screenwriter
- 1974 – Skye Edwards, British singer-songwriter
- 1974 – Denise van Outen, English actress, singer, and television host
- 1974 – Derek Webb, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1974 – Danny Wuerffel, American football player
- 1975 – André 3000, American rapper
- 1975 – Michael Hussey, Australian cricketer
- 1975 – Jamie Oliver, English chef and author
- 1975 – Feryal Özel, Turkish astrophysicist, astronomer, and academic
- 1976 – Marcel Fässler, Swiss racing driver
- 1977 – Abderrahmane Hammad, Algerian high jumper
- 1977 – Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lankan cricketer
- 1978 – Adin Brown, American soccer player
- 1979 – Michael Buonauro, American author and illustrator (d. 2004)
- 1979 – Mile Sterjovski, Australian footballer
- 1980 – Craig Buntin, Canadian figure skater
- 1981 – Alina Cojocaru, Romanian ballerina
- 1981 – Johan Elmander, Swedish footballer
- 1984 – Blake Ahearn, American basketball player
- 1984 – Miguel González, Mexican baseball pitcher
- 1985 – Chiang Chien-ming, Taiwanese baseball player
- 1985 – Roberto Soldado, Spanish footballer
- 1986 – Conor Cummins, Manx motorcycle racer
- 1986 – Bamba Fall, Senegalese basketball player
- 1986 – Lasse Schöne, Danish footballer
- 1987 – Gervinho, Ivorian footballer
- 1987 – Bella Heathcote, Australian actress
- 1987 – Eric Kolelas, French-English actor and director
- 1987 – Bora Paçun, Turkish basketball player
- 1987 – Matt Prior, Australian rugby league player
- 1987 – Martina Sablikova, Czech speed skater and cyclist
- 1988 – Vontae Davis, American football player
- 1988 – Irina Davydova, Russian hurdler
- 1988 – Garrett Richards, American baseball pitcher
- 1988 – Tyler Sash, American football player (d. 2015)
- 1989 – Igor Morozov, Estonian footballer
- 1990 – Yenew Alamirew, Ethiopian runner
- 1990 – Chris Colfer, American actor and singer
- 1990 – Marcus Kruger, Swedish ice hockey player
- 1991 – Sebastien Dewaest, Belgian footballer
- 1991 – Tim Lafai, Samoan rugby league player
- 1991 – Ksenia Pervak, Russian tennis player
- 1991 – Eneli Vals, Estonian footballer
- 1992 – Aaron Brown, Canadian sprinter
- 1992 – Laurence Vincent-Lapointe, Canadian canoer
Deaths on May 27
- 366 – Procopius, Roman usurper (b. 325)
- 398 – Murong Bao, emperor of the Xianbei state Later Yan (b. 355)
- 475 – Eutropius, bishop of Orange
- 866 – Ordoño I of Asturias (b. 831)
- 927 – Simeon I of Bulgaria first Bulgarian Emperor (b. 864)
- 1039 – Dirk III, Count of Holland (b. 981)
- 1045 – Bruno of Würzburg, imperial chancellor of Italy (b. c. 1005)
- 1178 – Godfrey van Rhenen, bishop of Utrecht
- 1240 – William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey (b. 1166)
- 1444 – John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, English commander (b. 1404)
- 1508 – Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan (b. 1452)
- 1508 – Lucrezia Crivelli, mistress of Ludovico Sforza (b. 1452)
- 1525 – Thomas Müntzer, German mystic and theologian (b. 1488)
- 1541 – Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury (b. 1473)
- 1564 – John Calvin, French pastor and theologian (b. 1509)
- 1610 – François Ravaillac, French assassin of Henry IV of France (b. 1578)
- 1624 – Diego Ramírez de Arellano, Spanish sailor and cosmographer (b. c. 1580)
- 1637 – John Boteler, 1st Baron Boteler of Brantfield, English politician (b. c. 1566)
- 1661 – Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, Scottish general and politician (b. 1607)
- 1675 – Gaspard Dughet, Italian-French painter (b. 1613)
- 1690 – Giovanni Legrenzi, Italian organist and composer (b. 1626)
- 1702 – Dominique Bouhours, French priest and critic (b. 1628)
- 1707 – Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan, French mistress of Louis XIV of France (b. 1640)
- 1781 – Giovanni Battista Beccaria, Italian physicist and academic (b. 1716)
- 1797 – François-Noël Babeuf, French journalist (b. 1760)
- 1831 – Jedediah Smith, American hunter, explorer, and author (b. 1799)
- 1840 – Niccolò Paganini, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1782)
- 1867 – Thomas Bulfinch American mythologist (b. 1796)
- 1896 – Aleksandr Stoletov, Russian physicist, engineer, and academic (b. 1839)
- 1910 – Robert Koch, German physician and microbiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1843)
- 1918 – Ōzutsu Man’emon, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 18th Yokozuna (b. 1869)
- 1919 – Kandukuri Veeresalingam, Indian author and activist (b. 1848)
- 1933 – Achille Paroche, French target shooter (b. 1868)
- 1939 – Joseph Roth, Austrian-French journalist and author (b. 1894)
- 1941 – Ernst Lindemann, German captain (b. 1894)
- 1941 – Günther Lütjens, German admiral (b. 1889)
- 1942 – Muhammed Hamdi Yazır, Turkish theologian, logician, and translator (b. 1878)
- 1943 – Gordon Coates, New Zealand soldier and politician, 21st Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1878)
- 1945 – Enno Lolling, German physician (b. 1888)
- 1947 – Ed Konetchy, American baseball player and manager (b. 1885)
- 1949 – Robert Ripley, American cartoonist, publisher, and businessman, founded Ripley’s Believe It or Not! (b. 1890)
- 1953 – Jesse Burkett, American baseball player and manager (b. 1868)
- 1960 – James Montgomery Flagg, American painter and illustrator (b. 1877)
- 1963 – Grigoris Lambrakis, Greek physician and politician (b. 1912)
- 1964 – Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian lawyer and politician, 1st Prime Minister of India (b. 1889)
- 1967 – W. Otto Miessner, American composer and educator (b. 1880)
- 1967 – Ernst Niekisch, German academic and politician (b. 1889)
- 1969 – Jeffrey Hunter, American actor and producer (b. 1926)
- 1971 – Béla Juhos, Hungarian-Austrian philosopher from the Vienna Circle (b. 1901)
- 1971 – Armando Picchi, Italian footballer and coach (b. 1935)
- 1980 – Gün Sazak, Turkish agronomist and politician (b. 1932)
- 1984 – Vasilije Mokranjac, Serbian composer (b. 1923)
- 1986 – Ismail al-Faruqi, Palestinian-American philosopher and academic (b. 1921)
- 1986 – Ajoy Mukherjee, Indian politician, Chief Minister of West Bengal (b. 1901)
- 1986 – Giorgos Tzifos, Greek actor and cinematographer (b. 1918)
- 1987 – John Howard Northrop, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1891)
- 1988 – Hjördis Petterson, Swedish actress (b. 1908)
- 1988 – Ernst Ruska, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)
- 1989 – Arseny Tarkovsky, Russian poet and translator (b. 1907)
- 1990 – Robert B. Meyner, American lawyer and politician, 44th Governor of New Jersey (b. 1908)
- 1991 – Leopold Nowak, Austrian musicologist and theorist (b. 1904)
- 1992 – Uncle Charlie Osborne, American fiddler (b. 1890)
- 1998 – Minoo Masani, Indian lawyer and politician (b. 1905)
- 2000 – Kazimierz Leski, Polish engineer and pilot (b. 1912)
- 2000 – Murray MacLehose, Baron MacLehose of Beoch, Scottish politician and diplomat, 25th Governor of Hong Kong (b. 1917)
- 2000 – Maurice Richard, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (b. 1921)
- 2003 – Luciano Berio, Italian composer and educator (b. 1925)
- 2006 – Rob Borsellino, American journalist (b. 1949)
- 2006 – Paul Gleason, American actor (b. 1939)
- 2006 – Craig Heyward, American football player (b. 1966)
- 2007 – Izumi Sakai, Japanese singer-songwriter (b. 1967)
- 2007 – Gretchen Wyler, American actress and dancer (b. 1932)
- 2007 – Ed Yost, American inventor, created the hot air balloon (b. 1919)
- 2008 – Franz Künstler, Hungarian soldier (b. 1900)
- 2009 – Thomas M. Franck, American lawyer and academic (b. 1931)
- 2009 – Clive Granger, Welsh-American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1934)
- 2009 – Mona Grey, British nursing administrator; Northern Ireland’s first Chief Nursing Officer
- 2009 – Abram Hoffer, Canadian biochemist, physician, and psychiatrist (b. 1917)
- 2009 – Gérard Jean-Juste, Haitian-American priest and theologian (b. 1946)
- 2009 – Carol Anne O’Marie, American nun and author (b. 1933)
- 2009 – William Refshauge, Australian soldier and physician (b. 1913)
- 2009 – Paul Sharratt, English-American television host (b. 1933)
- 2010 – Payut Ngaokrachang, Thai animator and director (b. 1929)
- 2011 – Jeff Conaway, American actor and singer (b. 1950)
- 2011 – Margo Dydek, Polish-American basketball player (b. 1974)
- 2011 – Gil Scott-Heron, American singer-songwriter and poet (b. 1949)
- 2012 – Simeon Daniel, Nevisian educator and politician, 1st Premier of Nevis (b. 1934)
- 2012 – Friedrich Hirzebruch, German mathematician and academic (b. 1927)
- 2012 – Anahit Perikhanian, Russian-born Armenian Iranologist (b. 1928)
- 2012 – David Rimoin, Canadian-American geneticist and academic (b. 1936)
- 2013 – Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri, Indian politician (b. 1917)
- 2013 – Bill Pertwee, English actor (b. 1926)
- 2013 – Abdoulaye Sékou Sow, Malian politician, Prime Minister of Mali (b. 1931)
- 2014 – Robert Genn, Canadian painter and author (b. 1936)
- 2014 – Helma Sanders-Brahms, German director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1940)
- 2014 – Roberto Vargas, Puerto Rican-American baseball player, coach, and manager (b. 1929)
- 2014 – Massimo Vignelli, Italian-American graphic designer (b. 1931)
- 2015 – Erik Carlsson, Swedish rally driver (b. 1929)
- 2015 – Nils Christie, Norwegian sociologist, criminologist, and author (b. 1928)
- 2015 – Andy King, English footballer and manager (b. 1956)
- 2015 – Michael Martin, American philosopher and academic (b. 1932)
- 2017 – Gregg Allman, American musician, singer and songwriter (b. 1947)
- 2020 – Larry Kramer, American playwright, public health advocate and LGBT rights activist (b. 1935)
Holidays and observances on May 27
- Armed Forces Day (Nicaragua)
- Children’s Day (Nigeria)
- Christian feast day:
- Augustine of Canterbury
- Blessed Lojze Grozde
- Bede (commemoration, Anglican Communion)
- Bruno of Würzburg
- Eutropius of Orange
- Hildebert
- Julius the Veteran
- May 27 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Mother’s Day (Bolivia)
- Navy Day (Japan)
- Slavery Abolition Day (Guadeloupe, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin)
- Start of National Reconciliation Week (Australia)
-
April 27 in history
- 33 BC – Lucius Marcius Philippus, step-brother to the future emperor Augustus, celebrates a triumph for his victories while serving as governor in one of the provinces of Hispania.
- 395 – Emperor Arcadius marries Aelia Eudoxia, daughter of the Frankish general Flavius Bauto. She becomes one of the more powerful Roman empresses of Late Antiquity.
- 629 – Shahrbaraz is crowned as king of the Sasanian Empire.
- 711 – Islamic conquest of Hispania: Moorish troops led by Tariq ibn Ziyad land at Gibraltar to begin their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus).
- 1296 – First War of Scottish Independence: John Balliol’s Scottish army is defeated by an English army commanded by John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey at the Battle of Dunbar.
- 1509 – Pope Julius II places the Italian state of Venice under interdict.
- 1521 – Battle of Mactan: Explorer Ferdinand Magellan is killed by natives in the Philippines led by chief Lapu-Lapu.
- 1522 – Combined forces of Spain and the Papal States defeat a French and Venetian army at the Battle of Bicocca.
- 1539 – Re-founding of the city of Bogotá, New Granada (now Colombia), by Nikolaus Federmann and Sebastián de Belalcázar.
- 1565 – Cebu is established becoming the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines.
- 1578 – Duel of the Mignons claims the lives of two favourites of Henry III of France and two favorites of Henry I, Duke of Guise.
- 1595 – The relics of Saint Sava are incinerated in Belgrade on the Vračar plateau by Ottoman Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha; the site of the incineration is now the location of the Church of Saint Sava, one of the largest Orthodox churches in the world.
- 1650 – The Battle of Carbisdale: A Royalist army from Orkney invades mainland Scotland but is defeated by a Covenanter army.
- 1667 – Blind and impoverished, John Milton sells Paradise Lost to a printer for £10, so that it could be entered into the Stationers’ Register.
- 1777 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Ridgefield: A British invasion force engages and defeats Continental Army regulars and militia irregulars at Ridgefield, Connecticut.
- 1805 – First Barbary War: United States Marines and Berbers attack the Tripolitan city of Derna (The “shores of Tripoli” part of the Marines’ Hymn).
- 1813 – War of 1812: American troops capture York, the capital of Upper Canada, in the Battle of York.
- 1861 – American President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus.
- 1865 – The New York State Senate creates Cornell University as the state’s land grant institution.
- 1906 – The State Duma of the Russian Empire meets for the first time.
- 1909 – Sultan of Ottoman Empire Abdul Hamid II is overthrown, and is succeeded by his brother, Mehmed V.
- 1911 – Following the resignation and death of William P. Frye, a compromise is reached to rotate the office of President pro tempore of the United States Senate.
- 1927 – Carabineros de Chile (Chilean national police force and gendarmerie) are created.
- 1936 – The United Auto Workers (UAW) gains autonomy from the American Federation of Labor.
- 1941 – World War II: German troops enter Athens.
- 1941 – World War II: The Communist Party of Slovenia, the Slovene Christian Socialists, the left-wing Slovene Sokols (also known as “National Democrats”) and a group of progressive intellectuals establish the Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation.
- 1945 – World War II: The last German formations withdraw from Finland to Norway. The Lapland War and thus, World War II in Finland, comes to an end and the Raising the Flag on the Three-Country Cairn photograph is taken.
- 1945 – World War II: Benito Mussolini is arrested by Italian partisans in Dongo, while attempting escape disguised as a German soldier.
- 1953 – Operation Moolah offers $50,000 to any pilot who defected with a fully mission-capable Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 to South Korea. The first pilot was to receive $100,000.
- 1960 – Togo gains independence from French-administered UN trusteeship.
- 1961 – Sierra Leone is granted its independence from the United Kingdom, with Milton Margai as the first Prime Minister.
- 1967 – Expo 67 officially opens in Montreal, Quebec, Canada with a large opening ceremony broadcast around the world. It opens to the public the next day.
- 1974 – Ten thousand march in Washington, D.C., calling for the impeachment of U.S. President Richard Nixon.
- 1978 – Former United States President Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman is released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes.
- 1978 – The Saur Revolution begins in Afghanistan, ending the following morning with the murder of Afghan President Mohammed Daoud Khan and the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
- 1981 – Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse.
- 1986 – The city of Pripyat and surrounding areas are evacuated due to Chernobyl disaster.
- 1987 – The U.S. Department of Justice bars Austrian President Kurt Waldheim (and his wife, Elisabeth, who had also been a Nazi) from entering the US, charging that he had aided in the deportations and executions of thousands of Jews and others as a German Army officer during World War II.
- 1989 – The April 27 demonstrations, student-led protests responding to the April 26 Editorial, during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
- 1992 – The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising Serbia and Montenegro, is proclaimed.
- 1992 – Betty Boothroyd becomes the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700-year history.
- 1992 – The Russian Federation and 12 other former Soviet republics become members of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
- 1993 – Most of the Zambia national football team lose their lives in a plane crash off Libreville, Gabon en route to Dakar, Senegal to play a 1994 FIFA World Cup qualifying match against Senegal.
- 1994 – South African general election: The first democratic general election in South Africa, in which black citizens could vote. The Interim Constitution comes into force.
- 2005 – Airbus A380 aircraft had its maiden test flight.
- 2006 – Construction begins on the Freedom Tower (later renamed One World Trade Center) in New York City.
- 2007 – Estonian authorities remove the Bronze Soldier, a Soviet Red Army war memorial in Tallinn, amid political controversy with Russia.
- 2007 – Israeli archaeologists discover the tomb of Herod the Great south of Jerusalem.
- 2011 – The 2011 Super Outbreak devastates parts of the Southeastern United States, especially the states of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee. 205 tornadoes touched down on April 27 alone, killing more than 300 and injuring hundreds more.
- 2012 – At least four explosions hit the Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk with at least 27 people injured.
- 2018 – The Panmunjom Declaration is signed between North and South Korea, officially declaring their intentions to end the Korean conflict.
Births on April 27
- 85 BC – Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, Roman politician and general (d. 43 BC)
- 1468 – Frederick Jagiellon, Primate of Poland (d. 1503)
- 1564 – Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland (d. 1632)
- 1556 – François Béroalde de Verville, French writer (d. 1626)
- 1593 – Mumtaz Mahal, Mughal empress buried at the Taj Mahal (d. 1631)
- 1650 – Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Kassel, Queen Consort of Denmark (1670-1699) (d. 1714)
- 1654 – Charles Blount, English deist and philosopher (d. 1693)
- 1701 – Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia (d. 1773)
- 1718 – Thomas Lewis, Irish-born American surveyor and lawyer (d. 1790)
- 1748 – Adamantios Korais, Greek-French philosopher and scholar (d. 1833)
- 1755 – Marc-Antoine Parseval, French mathematician and theorist (d. 1836)
- 1759 – Mary Wollstonecraft, English philosopher, historian, and novelist (d. 1797)
- 1788 – Charles Robert Cockerell, English architect, archaeologist, and writer (d. 1863)
- 1791 – Samuel Morse, American painter and inventor, co-invented the Morse code (d. 1872)
- 1812 – William W. Snow, American lawyer and politician (d. 1886)
- 1812 – Friedrich von Flotow, German composer (d. 1883)
- 1820 – Herbert Spencer, English biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and philosopher (d. 1903)
- 1822 – Ulysses S. Grant, American general and politician, 18th President of the United States (d. 1885)
- 1840 – Edward Whymper, English-French mountaineer, explorer, author, and illustrator (d. 1911)
- 1848 – Otto of Bavaria (d. 1916)
- 1850 – Hans Hartwig von Beseler, German general and politician (d. 1921)
- 1853 – Jules Lemaître, French playwright and critic (d. 1914)
- 1857 – Theodor Kittelsen, Norwegian painter and illustrator (d. 1914)
- 1861 – William Arms Fisher, American composer and music historian (d. 1948)
- 1866 – Maurice Raoul-Duval, French polo player (d. 1916)
- 1875 – Frederick Fane, Irish-born, English cricketer (d. 1960)
- 1880 – Mihkel Lüdig, Estonian organist, composer, and conductor (d. 1958)
- 1882 – Jessie Redmon Fauset, American author and poet (d. 1961)
- 1887 – Warren Wood, American golfer (d. 1926)
- 1888 – Florence La Badie, Canadian actress (d. 1917)
- 1891 – Sergei Prokofiev, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1953)
- 1893 – Draža Mihailović, Serbian general (d. 1946)
- 1893 – Allen Sothoron, American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 1939)
- 1894 – George Petty, American painter and illustrator (d. 1975)
- 1894 – Nicolas Slonimsky, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1995)
- 1896 – Rogers Hornsby, American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 1963)
- 1896 – William Hudson, New Zealand-Australian engineer (d. 1978)
- 1896 – Wallace Carothers, American chemist and inventor of nylon (d. 1937)
- 1898 – Ludwig Bemelmans, Italian-American author and illustrator (d. 1962)
- 1899 – Walter Lantz, American animator, producer, screenwriter, and actor (d. 1994)
- 1900 – August Koern, Estonian politician and diplomat, Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs in exile (d. 1989)
- 1902 – Tiemoko Garan Kouyaté, Malian educator and activist (d. 1942)
- 1904 – Cecil Day-Lewis, Anglo-Irish poet and author (d. 1972)
- 1904 – Nikos Zachariadis, Greek politician (d. 1973)
- 1905 – John Kuck, American javelin thrower and shot putter (d. 1986)
- 1906 – Yiorgos Theotokas, Greek author and playwright (d. 1966)
- 1910 – Chiang Ching-kuo, Chinese politician, 3rd President of the Republic of China (d. 1988)
- 1911 – Bruno Beger, German anthropologist and ethnologist (d. 2009)
- 1911 – Chris Berger, Dutch sprinter and footballer (d. 1965)
- 1912 – Jacques de Bourbon-Busset, French author and politician (d. 2001)
- 1912 – Zohra Sehgal, Indian actress, dancer, and choreographer (d. 2014)
- 1913 – Philip Abelson, American physicist and author (d. 2004)
- 1913 – Irving Adler, American mathematician, author, and academic (d. 2012)
- 1913 – Luz Long, German long jumper and soldier (d. 1943)
- 1916 – Robert Hugh McWilliams, Jr., American sergeant, lawyer, and judge (d. 2013)
- 1916 – Enos Slaughter, American baseball player and manager (d. 2002)
- 1917 – Roman Matsov, Estonian violinist, pianist, and conductor (d. 2001)
- 1918 – Sten Rudholm, Swedish lawyer and jurist (d. 2008)
- 1920 – Guido Cantelli, Italian conductor (d. 1956)
- 1920 – Mark Krasnosel’skii, Ukrainian mathematician and academic (d. 1997)
- 1920 – James Robert Mann, American colonel, lawyer, and politician (d. 2010)
- 1920 – Edwin Morgan, Scottish poet and translator (d. 2010)
- 1921 – Robert Dhéry, French actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2004)
- 1922 – Jack Klugman, American actor (d. 2012)
- 1922 – Sheila Scott, English nurse and pilot (d. 1988)
- 1923 – Betty Mae Tiger Jumper, Seminole chief (d. 2011)
- 1924 – Vernon B. Romney, American lawyer and politician, 14th Attorney General of Utah (d. 2013)
- 1925 – Derek Chinnery, English broadcaster (d. 2015)
- 1926 – Tim LaHaye, American minister, activist, and author (d. 2016)
- 1926 – Basil A. Paterson, American lawyer and politician, 59th Secretary of State of New York (d. 2014)
- 1926 – Alan Reynolds, English painter and educator (d. 2014)
- 1927 – Coretta Scott King, African-American activist and author (d. 2006)
- 1927 – Joe Moakley, American soldier, lawyer, and politician (d. 2001)
- 1929 – Nina Ponomaryova, Russian discus thrower and coach (d. 2016)
- 1931 – Igor Oistrakh, Ukrainian violinist and educator
- 1932 – Anouk Aimée, French actress
- 1932 – Pik Botha, South African lawyer, politician, and diplomat, 8th South African Ambassador to the United States (d. 2018)
- 1932 – Casey Kasem, American disc jockey, music historian, radio celebrity, and voice actor; co-created American Top 40 (d. 2014)
- 1932 – Chuck Knox, American football coach (d. 2018)
- 1932 – Derek Minter, English motorcycle racer (d. 2015)
- 1932 – Gian-Carlo Rota, Italian-American mathematician and philosopher (d. 1999)
- 1933 – Peter Imbert, Baron Imbert, English police officer and politician, Lord Lieutenant for Greater London (d. 2017)
- 1935 – Theodoros Angelopoulos, Greek director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2012)
- 1935 – Ron Morris, American pole vaulter and coach
- 1936 – Geoffrey Shovelton, English singer and illustrator (d. 2016)
- 1937 – Sandy Dennis, American actress (d. 1992)
- 1937 – Robin Eames, Irish Anglican archbishop
- 1937 – Richard Perham, English biologist and academic (d. 2015)
- 1938 – Earl Anthony, American bowler and sportscaster (d. 2001)
- 1938 – Alain Caron, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1986)
- 1939 – Judy Carne, English actress and comedian (d. 2015)
- 1939 – Stanisław Dziwisz, Polish cardinal
- 1941 – Fethullah Gülen, Turkish preacher and theologian
- 1941 – Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti, Indian archaeologist
- 1941 – Lee Roy Jordan, American football player
- 1942 – Ruth Glick, American author
- 1942 – Jim Keltner, American drummer
- 1943 – Helmut Marko, Austrian race car driver and manager
- 1944 – Michael Fish, English meteorologist and journalist
- 1944 – Cuba Gooding Sr., American singer (d. 2017)
- 1944 – Herb Pedersen, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1945 – Martin Chivers, English footballer and manager
- 1945 – Jack Deverell, English general
- 1945 – Helen Hodgman, Scottish-Australian author
- 1945 – Terry Willesee, Australian journalist and television host
- 1945 – August Wilson, American author and playwright (d. 2005)
- 1946 – Franz Roth, German footballer
- 1947 – G. K. Butterfield, African-American soldier, lawyer, and politician
- 1947 – Nick Greiner, Hungarian-Australian politician, 37th Premier of New South Wales
- 1947 – Pete Ham, Welsh singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1975)
- 1947 – Keith Magnuson, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (d. 2003)
- 1947 – Ann Peebles, American soul singer-songwriter
- 1948 – Frank Abagnale Jr., American security consultant and criminal
- 1948 – Josef Hickersberger, Austrian footballer, coach, and manager
- 1948 – Kate Pierson, American singer-songwriter and bass player
- 1949 – Grant Chapman, Australian businessman and politician
- 1950 – Jaime Fresnedi, Filipino politician
- 1950 – Paul Lockyer, Australian journalist (d. 2011)
- 1951 – Ace Frehley, American guitarist and songwriter
- 1952 – Larry Elder, American lawyer and talk show host
- 1952 – George Gervin, American basketball player
- 1952 – Ari Vatanen, Finnish race car driver and politician
- 1953 – Arielle Dombasle, French-American actress and model
- 1954 – Frank Bainimarama, Fijian commander and politician, 8th Prime Minister of Fiji
- 1954 – Herman Edwards, American football player, coach, and sportscaster
- 1954 – Mark Holden, Australian singer, actor, and lawyer
- 1955 – Gudrun Berend, German hurdler (d. 2011)
- 1955 – Eric Schmidt, American engineer and businessman
- 1956 – Bryan Harvey, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2006)
- 1956 – Jeff Probyn, English rugby player, coach, and manager
- 1957 – Willie Upshaw, American baseball player and manager
- 1959 – Sheena Easton, Scottish-American singer-songwriter, actress, and producer
- 1959 – Marco Pirroni, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
- 1960 – Mike Krushelnyski, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1961 – Andrew Schlafly, American lawyer and activist, founded Conservapedia
- 1962 – Ángel Comizzo, Argentinian footballer and manager
- 1962 – Seppo Räty, Finnish javelin thrower and coach
- 1962 – Im Sang-soo, South Korean director and screenwriter
- 1962 – Andrew Selous, English soldier and politician
- 1963 – Russell T Davies, Welsh screenwriter and producer
- 1965 – Anna Chancellor, English actress
- 1966 – Peter McIntyre, Australian cricketer
- 1966 – Yoshihiro Togashi, Japanese illustrator
- 1967 – Willem-Alexander, King of the Netherlands
- 1967 – Tommy Smith, Scottish saxophonist, composer, and educator
- 1967 – Erik Thomson, Scottish-New Zealand actor
- 1967 – Jason Whitlock, American football player and journalist
- 1968 – Dana Milbank, American journalist and author
- 1969 – Cory Booker, African-American lawyer and politician
- 1969 – Darcey Bussell, English ballerina
- 1971 – Olari Elts, Estonian conductor
- 1972 – Nigel Barker, English photographer and author
- 1972 – Almedin Civa, Bosnian footballer and coach
- 1973 – Duško Adamović, Serbian footballer
- 1973 – Sharlee D’Angelo, Swedish bass player and songwriter
- 1973 – Sébastien Lareau, Canadian tennis player
- 1974 – Frank Catalanotto, American baseball player
- 1974 – Richard Johnson, Australian footballer
- 1975 – Rabih Abdullah, American football player
- 1975 – Chris Carpenter, American baseball player and manager
- 1975 – Pedro Feliz, Dominican baseball player
- 1975 – Kazuyoshi Funaki, Japanese ski jumper
- 1976 – Isobel Campbell, Scottish singer-songwriter and cellist
- 1976 – Sally Hawkins, English actress
- 1976 – Walter Pandiani, Uruguayan footballer
- 1976 – Faisal Saif, Indian director, screenwriter, and critic
- 1979 – Will Boyd, American bass player
- 1979 – Natasha Chokljat, Australian netball player
- 1979 – Vladimir Kozlov, Ukrainian wrestler
- 1980 – Sybille Bammer, Austrian tennis player
- 1980 – Talitha Cummins, Australian journalist
- 1980 – Christian Lara, Ecuadorian footballer
- 1981 – Joey Gathright, American baseball player
- 1981 – Patrik Gerrbrand, Swedish footballer
- 1982 – François Parisien, Canadian cyclist
- 1982 – Alexander Widiker, German rugby player
- 1983 – Ari Graynor, American actress and producer
- 1983 – Martin Viiask, Estonian basketball player
- 1984 – Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1984 – Daniel Holdsworth, Australian rugby league player
- 1984 – Patrick Stump, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
- 1985 – José António de Miranda da Silva Júnior, Brazilian footballer
- 1985 – Meselech Melkamu, Ethiopian runner
- 1986 – Jenna Coleman, English actress
- 1986 – Hayley Mulheron, Scottish netball player
- 1986 – Dinara Safina, Russian tennis player
- 1987 – Taylor Chorney, American ice hockey player
- 1987 – Elliott Shriane, Australian speed skater
- 1987 – William Moseley, English actor
- 1987 – Wang Feifei, Chinese singer and actress
- 1988 – Joeri Dequevy, Belgian footballer
- 1988 – Kris Thackray, English footballer
- 1988 – Semyon Varlamov, Russian ice hockey player
- 1988 – Lizzo, American singer and rapper
- 1989 – Lars Bender, German footballer
- 1989 – Sven Bender, German footballer
- 1989 – Tim Glasby, Australian rugby league player
- 1989 – Dmytro Kozban, Ukrainian footballer
- 1990 – Trude Raad, Norwegian deaf track and field athlete
- 1991 – Isaac Cuenca, Spanish footballer
- 1991 – Eric Fukusaki, Peruvian singer
- 1991 – Lara Gut, Swiss skier
- 1992 – Keenan Allen, American football player
- 1994 – Corey Seager, American baseball player
- 1995 – Nick Kyrgios, Australian tennis player
- 1997 – Josh Onomah, English footballer
Deaths on April 27
- 630 – Ardashir III of Persia (b. 621)
- 1160 – Rudolf I, Count of Bregenz (b. 1081)
- 1272 – Zita, Italian saint (b. 1212)
- 1321 – Nicolò Albertini, Italian cardinal statesman (b. c. 1250)
- 1353 – Simeon of Moscow, Grand Prince of Moscow and Vladimir
- 1403 – Maria of Bosnia, Countess of Helfenstein (b. 1335)
- 1404 – Philip II, Duke of Burgundy (b. 1342)
- 1463 – Isidore of Kiev (b. 1385)
- 1521 – Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese sailor and explorer (b. 1480)
- 1599 – Maeda Toshiie, Japanese general (b. 1538)
- 1605 – Pope Leo XI (b. 1535)
- 1607 – Edward Cromwell, 3rd Baron Cromwell, Governor of Lecale (b. 1560)
- 1613 – Robert Abercromby, Scottish priest and missionary (b. 1532)
- 1656 – Jan van Goyen, Dutch painter and illustrator (b. 1596)
- 1694 – John George IV, Elector of Saxony (b. 1668)
- 1695 – John Trenchard, English politician, Secretary of State for the Northern Department (b. 1640)
- 1702 – Jean Bart, French admiral (b. 1651)
- 1782 – William Talbot, 1st Earl Talbot, English politician, Lord Steward of the Household (b. 1710)
- 1813 – Zebulon Pike, American general and explorer (b. 1779)
- 1873 – William Macready, English actor and manager (b. 1793)
- 1882 – Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet and philosopher (b. 1803)
- 1893 – John Ballance, Irish-born New Zealand journalist and politician, 14th Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1839)
- 1896 – Henry Parkes, English-Australian businessman and politician, 7th Premier of New South Wales (b. 1815)
- 1915 – John Labatt, Canadian businessman (b. 1838)
- 1915 – Alexander Scriabin, Russian pianist and composer (b. 1872)
- 1932 – Hart Crane, American poet (b. 1899)
- 1936 – Karl Pearson, English mathematician and academic (b. 1857)
- 1937 – Antonio Gramsci, Italian sociologist, linguist, and politician (b. 1891)
- 1938 – Edmund Husserl, Czech mathematician and philosopher (b. 1859)
- 1952 – Guido Castelnuovo, Italian mathematician and statistician (b. 1865)
- 1961 – Roy Del Ruth, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1893)
- 1962 – A. K. Fazlul Huq, Bangladeshi-Pakistani lawyer and politician, Pakistani Minister of the Interior (b. 1873)
- 1965 – Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (b. 1908)
- 1967 – William Douglas Cook, New Zealand farmer, founded the Eastwoodhill Arboretum (b. 1884)
- 1969 – René Barrientos, Bolivian soldier, pilot, and politician, 55th President of Bolivia (b. 1919)
- 1970 – Arthur Shields, Irish rebel and actor (b. 1896)
- 1972 – Kwame Nkrumah, Ghanaian politician, 1st President of Ghana (b. 1909)
- 1973 – Carlos Menditeguy, Argentinian race car driver and polo player (b. 1914)
- 1977 – Stanley Adams, American actor and screenwriter (b. 1915)
- 1988 – Fred Bear, American hunter and author (b. 1902)
- 1989 – Konosuke Matsushita, Japanese businessman, founded Panasonic (b. 1894)
- 1992 – Olivier Messiaen, French organist and composer (b. 1908)
- 1992 – Gerard K. O’Neill, American physicist and astronomer (b. 1927)
- 1995 – Katherine DeMille, Canadian-American actress (b. 1911)
- 1995 – Willem Frederik Hermans, Dutch author, poet, and playwright (b. 1921)
- 1996 – William Colby, American diplomat, 10th Director of Central Intelligence (b. 1920)
- 1996 – Gilles Grangier, French director and screenwriter (b. 1911)
- 1998 – John Bassett, Canadian journalist and politician (b. 1915)
- 1998 – Carlos Castaneda, Peruvian-American anthropologist and author (b. 1925)
- 1998 – Anne Desclos, French journalist and author (b. 1907)
- 1998 – Browning Ross, American runner and soldier (b. 1924)
- 1999 – Al Hirt, American trumpet player and bandleader (b. 1922)
- 1999 – Dale C. Thomson, Canadian historian, author, and academic (b. 1923)
- 1999 – Cyril Washbrook, English cricketer (b. 1914)
- 2002 – George Alec Effinger, American author (b. 1947)
- 2002 – Ruth Handler, American inventor and businesswoman, created the Barbie doll (b. 1916)
- 2005 – Red Horner, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1909)
- 2006 – Julia Thorne, American author (b. 1944)
- 2007 – Mstislav Rostropovich, Russian cellist and conductor (b. 1927)
- 2009 – Frankie Manning, American dancer and choreographer (b. 1914)
- 2009 – Woo Seung-yeon, South Korean model and actress (b. 1983)
- 2009 – Feroz Khan (actor), Indian Actor, Film Director & Producer (b. 1939)
- 2011 – Marian Mercer, American actress and singer (b. 1935)
- 2012 – Daniel E. Boatwright, American soldier and politician (b. 1930)
- 2012 – Bill Skowron, American baseball player (b. 1930)
- 2013 – Aída Bortnik, Argentinian screenwriter (b. 1938)
- 2013 – Lorraine Copeland, Scottish archaeologist (b. 1921)
- 2013 – Antonio Díaz Jurado, Spanish footballer (b. 1969)
- 2013 – Jérôme Louis Heldring, Dutch journalist and author (b. 1917)
- 2013 – Aloysius Jin Luxian, Chinese bishop (b. 1916)
- 2013 – Mutula Kilonzo, Kenyan lawyer and politician, Kenyan Minister of Justice (b. 1948)
- 2014 – Yigal Arnon, Israeli lawyer (b. 1929)
- 2014 – Vujadin Boškov, Serbian footballer, coach, and manager (b. 1931)
- 2014 – Daniel Colchico, American football player and coach (b. 1935)
- 2014 – Harry Firth, Australian race car driver and manager (b. 1918)
- 2015 – Gene Fullmer, American boxer (b. 1931)
- 2015 – Verne Gagne, American football player, wrestler, and trainer (b. 1926)
- 2015 – Alexander Rich, American biologist, biophysicist, and academic (b. 1924)
- 2017 – Vinod Khanna, Indian actor, producer and politician (b. 1946)
- 2017 – Sadanoyama Shinmatsu, Japanese sumo wrestler (b. 1938)
Holidays and observances on April 27
- Christian feast days:
- Anthimus of Nicomedia
- Assicus
- Floribert of Liège
- John of Constantinople
- Liberalis of Treviso
- Pollio
- Rafael Arnáiz Barón
- Virgin of Montserrat
- Zita
- April 27 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Day of Russian Parliamentarism (Russia)
- Day of the Uprising Against the Occupying Forces (Slovenia)
- Flag Day (Moldova)
- Freedom Day (South Africa)
- UnFreedom Day (South Africa, unofficial)
- Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Sierra Leone from United Kingdom in 1961.
- Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Togo from France in 1960.
- King’s Day (Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten) (celebrated on April 26 if April 27 falls on a Sunday)
- National Veterans’ Day (Finla
-
April 25 in History
- 404 BC – Admiral Lysander and King Pausanias of Sparta blockade Athens and bring the Peloponnesian War to a successful conclusion.
- 775 – The Battle of Bagrevand puts an end to an Armenian rebellion against the Abbasid Caliphate. Muslim control over Transcaucasia is solidified and its Islamization begins, while several major Armenian nakharar families lose power and their remnants flee to the Byzantine Empire.
- 799 – After mistreatment and disfigurement by the citizens of Rome, pope Leo III flees to the Frankish court of king Charlemagne at Paderborn for protection.
- 1134 – The name Zagreb was mentioned for the first time in the Felician Charter relating to the establishment of the Zagreb Bishopric around 1094.
- 1607 – Eighty Years’ War: The Dutch fleet destroys the anchored Spanish fleet at Gibraltar.
- 1644 – The Chongzhen Emperor, the last Emperor of Ming dynasty China, commits suicide during a peasant rebellion led by Li Zicheng.
- 1707 – A coalition of Britain, the Netherlands and Portugal is defeated by a Franco-Spanish army at Almansa (Spain) in the War of the Spanish Succession.
- 1792 – Highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier becomes the first person executed by guillotine.
- 1792 – “La Marseillaise” (the French national anthem) is composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle.
- 1804 – The western Georgian kingdom of Imereti accepts the suzerainty of the Russian Empire.
- 1829 – Charles Fremantle arrives in HMS Challenger off the coast of modern-day Western Australia prior to declaring the Swan River Colony for the United Kingdom.
- 1846 – Thornton Affair: Open conflict begins over the disputed border of Texas, triggering the Mexican–American War.
- 1849 – The Governor General of Canada, Lord Elgin, signs the Rebellion Losses Bill, outraging Montreal’s English population and triggering the Montreal Riots.
- 1859 – British and French engineers break ground for the Suez Canal.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Forces under U.S. Admiral David Farragut demand the surrender of the Confederate city of New Orleans, Louisiana.
- 1864 – American Civil War: The Battle of Marks’ Mills.
- 1882 – French and Vietnamese troops clashed in Tonkin, when Commandant Henri Rivière seized the citadel of Hanoi with a small force of marine infantry.
- 1898 – Spanish–American War: The United States declares war on Spain.
- 1901 – New York becomes the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates.
- 1915 – World War I: The Battle of Gallipoli begins: The invasion of the Turkish Gallipoli Peninsula by British, French, Indian, Newfoundland, Australian and New Zealand troops, begins with landings at Anzac Cove and Cape Helles.
- 1916 – Anzac Day is commemorated for the first time on the first anniversary of the landing at ANZAC Cove.
- 1920 – At the San Remo conference, the principal Allied Powers of World War I adopt a resolution to determine the allocation of Class “A” League of Nations mandates for administration of the former Ottoman-ruled lands of the Middle East.
- 1938 – U.S. Supreme Court delivers its opinion in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins and overturns a century of federal common law.
- 1940 – Merkið, the flag of the Faroe Islands is approved by the British occupation government.
- 1944 – The United Negro College Fund is incorporated.
- 1945 – Elbe Day: United States and Soviet troops meet in Torgau along the River Elbe, cutting the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany in two.
- 1945 – Liberation Day (Italy): The Nazi occupation army surrenders and leaves Northern Italy after a general partisan insurrection by the Italian resistance movement; the puppet fascist regime dissolves and Benito Mussolini is captured after trying to escape. This day was set as a public holiday to celebrate the Liberation of Italy.
- 1945 – United Nations Conference on International Organization: Founding negotiations for the United Nations begin in San Francisco.
- 1945 – The last German troops retreat from Finland’s soil in Lapland, ending the Lapland War. Military acts of Second World War end in Finland.
- 1951 – Korean War: Assaulting Chinese forces are forced to withdraw after heavy fighting with UN forces, primarily made up of Australian and Canadian troops, at the Battle of Kapyong.
- 1953 – Francis Crick and James Watson publish “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid” describing the double helix structure of DNA.
- 1954 – The first practical solar cell is publicly demonstrated by Bell Telephone Laboratories.
- 1959 – The Saint Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opens to shipping.
- 1960 – The United States Navy submarine USS Triton completes the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.
- 1961 – Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an integrated circuit.
- 1972 – Vietnam War: Nguyen Hue Offensive: The North Vietnamese 320th Division forces 5,000 South Vietnamese troops to retreat and traps about 2,500 others northwest of Kontum.
- 1974 – Carnation Revolution: A leftist military coup in Portugal overthrows the authoritarian-conservative Estado Novo regime and establishes a democratic government.
- 1975 – As North Vietnamese forces close in on the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, the Australian Embassy is closed and evacuated, almost ten years to the day since the first Australian troop commitment to South Vietnam.
- 1981 – More than 100 workers are exposed to radiation during repairs of at the Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant in Japan.
- 1982 – Israel completes its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula per the Camp David Accords.
- 1983 – Cold War: American schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war.
- 1983 – Pioneer 10 travels beyond Pluto’s orbit.
- 1986 – Mswati III is crowned King of Swaziland, succeeding his father Sobhuza II.
- 1988 – In Israel, John Demjanjuk is sentenced to death for war crimes committed in World War II.
- 1990 – Violeta Chamorro takes office as the President of Nicaragua, the first woman to hold the position.
- 2001 – Michele Alboreto is killed while testing an Audi R8 at the Lausitzring in Germany.
- 2004 – The March for Women’s Lives brings between 500,000 and 800,000 protesters, mostly pro-choice, to Washington D.C. to protest the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, and other restrictions on abortion.
- 2005 – The final piece of the Obelisk of Axum is returned to Ethiopia after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937.
- 2005 – Bulgaria and Romania sign accession treaties to join the European Union.
- 2007 – Boris Yeltsin’s funeral: The first to be sanctioned by the Russian Orthodox Church for a head of state since the funeral of Emperor Alexander III in 1894.
- 2015 – Nearly 9,100 are killed after a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake strikes Nepal.
Births on April 25
- 1214 – Louis IX of France (d. 1270)
- 1228 – Conrad IV of Germany (d. 1254)
- 1284 – Edward II of England (d. 1327)
- 1287 – Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (d. 1330)
- 1502 – Georg Major, German theologian and academic (d. 1574)
- 1529 – Francesco Patrizi, Italian philosopher and scientist (d. 1597)
- 1599 – Oliver Cromwell, English general and politician, Lord Protector of Great Britain (d. 1658)
- 1621 – Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery, English soldier and politician (d. 1679)
- 1666 – Johann Heinrich Buttstett, German organist and composer (d. 1727)
- 1694 – Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, English architect and politician, Lord High Treasurer of Ireland (d. 1753)
- 1710 – James Ferguson, Scottish astronomer and author (d. 1776)
- 1723 – Giovanni Marco Rutini, Italian composer (d. 1797)
- 1725 – Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount Keppel, English admiral and politician (d. 1786)
- 1767 – Nicolas Oudinot, French general (d. 1847)
- 1770 – Georg Sverdrup, Norwegian philologist and academic (d. 1850)
- 1776 – Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh (d. 1857)
- 1843 – Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (d. 1878)
- 1849 – Felix Klein, German mathematician and academic (d. 1925)
- 1850 – Luise Adolpha Le Beau, German composer and educator (d. 1927)
- 1851 – Leopoldo Alas, Spanish author, critic, and academic (d. 1901)
- 1854 – Charles Sumner Tainter, American engineer and inventor (d. 1940)
- 1862 – Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, English ornithologist and politician, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (d. 1933)
- 1868 – John Moisant, American pilot and engineer (d. 1910)
- 1871 – Lorne Currie, French-English sailor (d. 1926)
- 1872 – C. B. Fry, English cricketer, footballer, educator, and politician (d. 1956)
- 1873 – Walter de la Mare, English poet, short story writer, and novelist (d. 1956)
- 1873 – Howard Garis, American author, creator of the Uncle Wiggily series of children’s stories (d. 1962)
- 1874 – Guglielmo Marconi, Italian businessman and inventor, developed Marconi’s law, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1937)
- 1874 – Ernest Webb, English-Canadian race walker (d. 1937)
- 1876 – Jacob Nicol, Canadian publisher, lawyer, and politician (d. 1958)
- 1878 – William Merz, American gymnast and triathlete (d. 1946)
- 1882 – Fred McLeod, Scottish golfer (d. 1976)
- 1887 – Kojo Tovalou Houénou, Beninese lawyer and critic (d. 1936)
- 1892 – Maud Hart Lovelace, American author (d. 1980)
- 1896 – Fred Haney, American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 1977)
- 1897 – Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood (d. 1965)
- 1900 – Gladwyn Jebb, English politician and diplomat, Secretary-General of the United Nations (d. 1996)
- 1900 – Wolfgang Pauli, Austrian-Swiss-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1958)
- 1902 – Werner Heyde, German psychiatrist and academic (d. 1964)
- 1902 – Mary Miles Minter, American actress (d. 1984)
- 1903 – Andrey Kolmogorov, Russian mathematician and academic (d. 1987)
- 1905 – George Nepia, New Zealand rugby player and referee (d. 1986)
- 1906 – William J. Brennan Jr., American colonel and Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (d. 1997)
- 1908 – Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (d. 1965)
- 1909 – William Pereira, American architect, designed the Transamerica Pyramid (d. 1985)
- 1910 – Arapeta Awatere, New Zealand interpreter, military leader, politician, and murderer (d. 1976)
- 1911 – Connie Marrero, Cuban baseball player and coach (d. 2014)
- 1912 – Earl Bostic, African-American saxophonist (d. 1965)
- 1913 – Nikolaos Roussen, Greek captain (d. 1944)
- 1914 – Ross Lockridge Jr., American author and academic (d. 1948)
- 1915 – Mort Weisinger, American journalist and author (d. 1978)
- 1916 – Jerry Barber, American golfer (d. 1994)
- 1917 – Ella Fitzgerald, American singer (d. 1996)
- 1917 – Jean Lucas, French racing driver (d. 2003)
- 1918 – Graham Payn, South African-born English actor and singer (d. 2005)
- 1918 – Gérard de Vaucouleurs, French-American astronomer and academic (d. 1995)
- 1918 – Astrid Varnay, Swedish-American soprano and actress (d. 2006)
- 1919 – Finn Helgesen, Norwegian speed skater (d. 2011)
- 1921 – Karel Appel, Dutch painter and sculptor (d. 2006)
- 1923 – Francis Graham-Smith, English astronomer and academic
- 1923 – Melissa Hayden, Canadian ballerina (d. 2006)
- 1923 – Albert King, African-American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (d. 1992)
- 1924 – Ingemar Johansson, Swedish race walker (d. 2009)
- 1924 – Franco Mannino, Italian pianist, composer, director, and playwright (d. 2005)
- 1924 – Paulo Vanzolini, Brazilian singer-songwriter and zoologist (d. 2013)
- 1925 – Tony Christopher, Baron Christopher, English trade union leader and businessman
- 1925 – Sammy Drechsel, German comedian and journalist (d. 1986)
- 1925 – Louis O’Neil, Canadian academic and politician (d. 2018)
- 1926 – Johnny Craig, American author and illustrator (d. 2001)
- 1926 – Gertrude Fröhlich-Sandner, Austrian politician (d. 2008)
- 1926 – Patricia Castell, Argentine actress (d. 2013)
- 1927 – Corín Tellado, Spanish author (d. 2009)
- 1927 – Albert Uderzo, French author and illustrator (d. 2020)
- 1928 – Cy Twombly, American-Italian painter and sculptor (d. 2011)
- 1929 – Yvette Williams, New Zealand long jumper, shot putter, and discus thrower (d. 2019)
- 1930 – Paul Mazursky, American actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2014)
- 1930 – Godfrey Milton-Thompson, English admiral and surgeon (d. 2012)
- 1930 – Peter Schulz, German lawyer and politician, Mayor of Hamburg (d. 2013)
- 1931 – Felix Berezin, Russian mathematician and physicist (d. 1980)
- 1931 – David Shepherd, English painter and author (d. 2017)
- 1932 – Nikolai Kardashev, Russian astrophysicist (d. 2019)
- 1932 – Meadowlark Lemon, African-American basketball player and minister (d. 2015)
- 1932 – Lia Manoliu, Romanian discus thrower and politician (d. 1998)
- 1933 – Jerry Leiber, American songwriter and producer (d. 2011)
- 1933 – Joyce Ricketts, American baseball player (d. 1992)
- 1934 – Peter McParland, Northern Irish footballer and manager
- 1935 – Bob Gutowski, American pole vaulter (d. 1960)
- 1935 – Reinier Kreijermaat, Dutch footballer (d. 2018)
- 1936 – Henck Arron, Surinamese banker and politician, 1st Prime Minister of the Republic of Suriname (d. 2000)
- 1938 – Roger Boisjoly, American aerodynamicist and engineer (d. 2012)
- 1938 – Ton Schulten, Dutch painter and graphic designer
- 1939 – Tarcisio Burgnich, Italian footballer and manager
- 1939 – Michael Llewellyn-Smith, English academic and diplomat
- 1939 – Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky, English historian and academic
- 1939 – Veronica Sutherland, English academic and British diplomat
- 1940 – Al Pacino, American actor and director
- 1941 – Bertrand Tavernier, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1942 – Jon Kyl, American lawyer and politician
- 1943 – Tony Christie, English singer-songwriter and actor
- 1944 – Len Goodman, English dancer
- 1944 – Mike Kogel, German singer-songwriter
- 1944 – Stephen Nickell, English economist and academic
- 1944 – Bruce Ponder, English geneticist and cancer researcher
- 1945 – Stu Cook, American bass player, songwriter, and producer
- 1945 – Richard C. Hoagland, American theorist and author
- 1945 – Björn Ulvaeus, Swedish singer-songwriter and producer
- 1946 – Talia Shire, American actress
- 1946 – Peter Sutherland, Irish lawyer and politician, Attorney General of Ireland
- 1946 – Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Russian colonel, lawyer, and politician
- 1947 – Johan Cruyff, Dutch footballer and manager (d. 2016)
- 1947 – Jeffrey DeMunn, American actor
- 1948 – Mike Selvey, English cricketer and sportscaster
- 1948 – Yu Shyi-kun, Taiwanese politician, 39th Premier of the Republic of China
- 1949 – Vicente Pernía, Argentinian footballer and race car driver
- 1949 – Dominique Strauss-Kahn, French economist, lawyer, and politician, French Minister of Finance
- 1949 – James Fenton, English poet, journalist and literary critic
- 1950 – Donnell Deeny, Northern Irish lawyer and judge
- 1950 – Steve Ferrone, English drummer
- 1950 – Peter Hintze, German politician (d. 2016)
- 1950 – Valentyna Kozyr, Ukrainian high jumper
- 1951 – Ian McCartney, Scottish politician, Minister of State for Trade
- 1952 – Ketil Bjørnstad, Norwegian pianist and composer
- 1952 – Vladislav Tretiak, Russian ice hockey player and coach
- 1952 – Jacques Santini, French footballer and coach
- 1953 – Ron Clements, American animator, producer, and screenwriter
- 1953 – Gary Cosier, Australian cricketer
- 1953 – Anthony Venables, English economist, author, and academic
- 1954 – Melvin Burgess, English author
- 1954 – Randy Cross, American football player and sportscaster
- 1954 – Róisín Shortall, Irish educator and politician
- 1955 – Américo Gallego, Argentinian footballer and coach
- 1955 – Parviz Parastui, Iranian actor and singer
- 1955 – Zev Siegl, American businessman, co-founded Starbucks
- 1956 – Dominique Blanc, French actress, director, and screenwriter
- 1956 – Abdalla Uba Adamu, Nigerian professor, media scholar
- 1957 – Theo de Rooij, Dutch cyclist and manager
- 1958 – Fish, Scottish singer-songwriter
- 1958 – Misha Glenny, British journalist
- 1959 – Paul Madden, English diplomat, British High Commissioner to Australia
- 1959 – Daniel Kash, Canadian actor and director
- 1959 – Tony Phillips, American baseball player (d. 2016)
- 1960 – Paul Baloff, American singer (d. 2002)
- 1960 – Robert Peston, English journalist
- 1960 – Bruce Redman, Australian director, producer, and critic
- 1961 – Dinesh D’Souza, Indian-American journalist and author
- 1961 – Miran Tepeš, Slovenian ski jumper
- 1962 – Foeke Booy, Dutch footballer and manager
- 1963 – Joy Covey, American businesswoman (d. 2013)
- 1963 – Dave Martin, English footballer
- 1963 – David Moyes, Scottish footballer and manager
- 1963 – Bernd Müller, German footballer and manager
- 1963 – Paul Wassif, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1964 – Hank Azaria, American actor, voice artist, comedian and producer
- 1964 – Andy Bell, English singer-songwriter
- 1965 – Eric Avery, American bass player and songwriter
- 1965 – Mark Bryant, American basketball player and coach
- 1965 – John Henson, American puppeteer and voice actor (d. 2014)
- 1966 – Diego Domínguez, Argentinian-Italian rugby player
- 1966 – Femke Halsema, Dutch sociologist, academic, and politician
- 1966 – Darren Holmes, American baseball player and coach
- 1966 – Erik Pappas, American baseball player and coach
- 1967 – Angel Martino, American swimmer
- 1968 – Vitaliy Kyrylenko, Ukrainian long jumper
- 1968 – Thomas Strunz, German footballer
- 1969 – Joe Buck, American sportscaster
- 1969 – Martin Koolhoven, Dutch director and screenwriter
- 1969 – Jon Olsen, American swimmer
- 1969 – Darren Woodson, American football player and sportscaster
- 1969 – Renée Zellweger, American actress and producer
- 1970 – Jason Lee, American skateboarder, actor, comedian and producer
- 1971 – Sara Baras, Spanish dancer
- 1971 – Brad Clontz, American baseball player
- 1973 – Carlota Castrejana, Spanish triple jumper
- 1973 – Fredrik Larzon, Swedish drummer
- 1973 – Barbara Rittner, German tennis player
- 1975 – Jacque Jones, American baseball player and coach
- 1976 – Gilberto da Silva Melo, Brazilian footballer
- 1976 – Tim Duncan, American basketball player
- 1976 – Breyton Paulse, South African rugby player
- 1976 – Rainer Schüttler, German tennis player and coach
- 1977 – Constantinos Christoforou, Cypriot singer-songwriter
- 1977 – Ilias Kotsios, Greek footballer
- 1977 – Marguerite Moreau, American actress and producer
- 1977 – Matthew West, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
- 1978 – Matt Walker, English swimmer
- 1980 – Ben Johnston, Scottish drummer and songwriter
- 1980 – James Johnston, Scottish bass player and songwriter
- 1980 – Daniel MacPherson, Australian actor and television host
- 1980 – Bruce Martin, New Zealand cricketer
- 1980 – Kazuhito Tadano, Japanese baseball player
- 1980 – Alejandro Valverde, Spanish cyclist
- 1981 – Dwone Hicks, American football player
- 1981 – Felipe Massa, Brazilian racing driver
- 1981 – John McFall, English sprinter
- 1981 – Anja Pärson, Swedish skier
- 1982 – Brian Barton, American baseball player
- 1982 – Monty Panesar, English cricketer
- 1982 – Marco Russo, Italian footballer
- 1983 – Johnathan Thurston, Australian rugby league player
- 1983 – DeAngelo Williams, American football player
- 1984 – Robert Andino, American baseball player
- 1984 – Isaac Kiprono Songok, Kenyan runner
- 1985 – Giedo van der Garde, Dutch racing driver
- 1986 – Alexei Emelin, Russian ice hockey player
- 1986 – Thin Seng Hon, Cambodian Paralympic athlete
- 1986 – Gwen Jorgensen, American triathlete
- 1986 – Claudia Rath, German heptathlete
- 1987 – Razak Boukari, Togolese footballer
- 1987 – Jay Park, American-South Korean singer-songwriter and dancer
- 1987 – Johann Smith, American soccer player
- 1988 – James Sheppard, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1989 – Marie-Michèle Gagnon, Canadian skier
- 1989 – Michael van Gerwen, Dutch darts player
- 1989 – Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama, one of the highest-ranking spiritual leaders in Tibet
- 1990 – Jean-Éric Vergne, French racing driver
- 1990 – Taylor Walker, Australian footballer
- 1991 – Alex Shibutani, American ice dancer
- 1993 – Alex Bowman, American race car driver
- 1993 – Daniel Norris, American baseball player
- 1994 – Omar McLeod, Jamaican hurdler
- 1995 – Lewis Baker, English footballer
- 1996 – Mack Horton, Australian swimmer
- 1997 – Julius Ertlthaler, Austrian footballer
Deaths on April 25
- 501 – Rusticus, saint and archbishop of Lyon (b. 455)
- 775 – Smbat VII Bagratuni, Armenian prince
- 775 – Mushegh VI Mamikonian, Armenian prince
- 908 – Zhang Wenwei, Chinese chancellor
- 1074 – Herman I, Margrave of Baden
- 1077 – Géza I of Hungary (b. 1040)
- 1185 – Emperor Antoku of Japan (b. 1178)
- 1217 – Hermann I, Landgrave of Thuringia
- 1228 – Queen Isabella II of Jerusalem (b. 1212)
- 1243 – Boniface of Valperga, Bishop of Aosta
- 1264 – Roger de Quincy, 2nd Earl of Winchester, medieval English nobleman; Earl of Winchester (b. 1195)
- 1295 – Sancho IV of Castile (b. 1258)
- 1342 – Pope Benedict XII (b. 1285)
- 1397 – Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent, English nobleman
- 1472 – Leon Battista Alberti, Italian author, poet, and philosopher (b. 1404)
- 1516 – John Yonge, English diplomat (b. 1467)
- 1566 – Louise Labé, French poet and author (b. 1520)
- 1566 – Diane de Poitiers, mistress of King Henry II of France (b. 1499)
- 1595 – Torquato Tasso, Italian poet and songwriter (b. 1544)
- 1605 – Naresuan, Siamese King of Ayutthaya Kingdom (b. c. 1555)
- 1644 – Chongzhen Emperor of China (b. 1611)
- 1660 – Henry Hammond, English cleric and theologian (b. 1605)
- 1690 – David Teniers the Younger, Flemish painter and educator (b. 1610)
- 1744 – Anders Celsius, Swedish astronomer, physicist, and mathematician (b. 1701)
- 1770 – Jean-Antoine Nollet, French minister, physicist, and academic (b. 1700)
- 1800 – William Cowper, English poet (b. 1731)
- 1840 – Siméon Denis Poisson, French mathematician and physicist (b. 1781)
- 1873 – Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy, Russian painter and sculptor (b. 1783)
- 1875 – 12th Dalai Lama (b. 1857)
- 1878 – Anna Sewell, English author (b. 1820)
- 1890 – Crowfoot, Canadian tribal chief (b. 1830)
- 1891 – Nathaniel Woodard, English priest and educator (b. 1811)
- 1892 – Henri Duveyrier, French explorer (b. 1840)
- 1892 – Karl von Ditmar, Estonian-German geologist and explorer (b. 1822)
- 1906 – John Knowles Paine, American composer and educator (b. 1839)
- 1911 – Emilio Salgari, Italian journalist and author (b. 1862)
- 1913 – Joseph-Alfred Archambeault, Canadian bishop (b. 1859)
- 1915 – Frederick W. Seward, American journalist, lawyer, and politician, 6th United States Assistant Secretary of State (b. 1830)
- 1919 – Augustus D. Juilliard, American businessman and philanthropist (b. 1836)
- 1923 – Louis-Olivier Taillon, Canadian lawyer and politician, 8th Premier of Quebec (b. 1840)
- 1928 – Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel, Russian general (b. 1878)
- 1941 – Salih Bozok, Turkish commander and politician (b. 1881)
- 1943 – Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, Russian director, producer, and playwright (b. 1858)
- 1944 – George Herriman, American cartoonist (b. 1880)
- 1944 – Tony Mullane, Irish-American baseball player (b. 1859)
- 1944 – William Stephens, American engineer and politician, 24th Governor of California (b. 1859)
- 1945 – Huldreich Georg Früh, Swiss composer (b. 1903)
- 1961 – Robert Garrett, American discus thrower and shot putter (b. 1875)
- 1970 – Anita Louise, American actress (b. 1915)
- 1972 – George Sanders, English actor (b. 1906)
- 1973 – Olga Grey, Hungarian-American actress (b. 1896)
- 1974 – Gustavo R. Vincenti, Maltese architect and developer (b. 1888)
- 1975 – Mike Brant, Israeli singer and songwriter (b.1947)
- 1976 – Carol Reed, English director and producer (b. 1906)
- 1976 – Markus Reiner, Israeli engineer and educator (b. 1886)
- 1982 – John Cody, American cardinal (b. 1907)
- 1983 – William S. Bowdern, American priest and author (b. 1897)
- 1988 – Carolyn Franklin, American singer-songwriter (b. 1944)
- 1988 – Clifford D. Simak, American journalist and author (b. 1904)
- 1990 – Dexter Gordon, American saxophonist, composer, and actor (b. 1923)
- 1992 – Yutaka Ozaki, Japanese singer-songwriter (b. 1965)
- 1995 – Art Fleming, American game show host (b. 1925)
- 1995 – Ginger Rogers, American actress, singer, and dancer (b. 1911)
- 1995 – Lev Shankovsky, Ukrainian military historian (b. 1903)
- 1996 – Saul Bass, American graphic designer and director (b. 1920)
- 1998 – Wright Morris, American author and photographer (b. 1910)
- 1999 – Michael Morris, 3rd Baron Killanin, Irish journalist and author (b. 1914)
- 1999 – Roger Troutman, American singer-songwriter and producer (b. 1951)
- 2000 – Lucien Le Cam, French mathematician and statistician (b. 1924)
- 2000 – David Merrick, American director and producer (b. 1911)
- 2001 – Michele Alboreto, Italian racing driver (b. 1956)
- 2002 – Lisa Lopes, American rapper and dancer (b. 1971)
- 2003 – Samson Kitur, Kenyan runner (b. 1966)
- 2004 – Thom Gunn, English-American poet and academic (b. 1929)
- 2005 – Jim Barker, American politician (b. 1935)
- 2005 – Swami Ranganathananda, Indian monk and educator (b. 1908)
- 2006 – Jane Jacobs, American-Canadian journalist, author, and activist (b. 1916)
- 2006 – Peter Law, Welsh politician and independent member of parliament (b. 1948)
- 2007 – Alan Ball Jr., English footballer and manager (b. 1945)
- 2007 – Arthur Milton, English footballer and cricketer (b. 1928)
- 2007 – Bobby Pickett, American singer-songwriter (b. 1938)
- 2008 – Humphrey Lyttelton, English trumpet player, composer, and radio host (b. 1921)
- 2009 – Bea Arthur, American actress and singer (b. 1922)
- 2010 – Dorothy Provine, American actress and singer (b. 1935)
- 2010 – Alan Sillitoe, English novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet (b. 1928)
- 2011 – Poly Styrene, British musician (b. 1957)
- 2012 – Gerry Bahen, Australian footballer (b. 1929)
- 2012 – Denny Jones, American rancher and politician (b. 1910)
- 2012 – Moscelyne Larkin, American ballerina and educator (b. 1925)
- 2012 – Louis le Brocquy, Irish painter and illustrator (b. 1916)
- 2013 – Brian Adam, Scottish biochemist and politician (b. 1948)
- 2013 – Jacob Avshalomov, American composer and conductor (b. 1919)
- 2013 – György Berencsi, Hungarian virologist and academic (b. 1941)
- 2013 – Rick Camp, American baseball player (b. 1953)
- 2014 – Dan Heap, Canadian priest and politician (b. 1925)
- 2014 – William Judson Holloway Jr., American soldier, lawyer, and judge (b. 1923)
- 2014 – Earl Morrall, American football player and coach (b. 1934)
- 2014 – Tito Vilanova, Spanish footballer and manager (b. 1968)
- 2014 – Stefanie Zweig, German journalist and author (b. 1932)
- 2015 – Jim Fanning, American-Canadian baseball player and manager (b. 1927)
- 2015 – Matthias Kuhle, German geographer and academic (b. 1948)
- 2015 – Don Mankiewicz, American screenwriter and novelist (b. 1922)
- 2015 – Mike Phillips, American basketball player (b. 1956)
- 2016 – Tom Lewis, Australian politician, 33rd Premier of New South Wales (b. 1922)
- 2018 – Madeeha Gauhar, Pakistani actress, playwright and director of social theater, and women’s rights activist (b. 1956)
- 2019 – John Havlicek, American basketball player (b. 1940)
Holidays and observances on April 25
- Anniversary of the First Cabinet of Kurdish Government (Iraqi Kurdistan)
- Anzac Day (Australia, New Zealand)
- Arbor Day (Germany)
- Christian feast day:
- Giovanni Battista Piamarta
- Major Rogation (Western Christianity)
- Mark the Evangelist
- Maughold
- Philo and Agathopodes
- Anianus of Alexandria
- April 25 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- DNA Day
- Flag Day (Faroe Islands)
- Freedom Day (Portugal)
- Liberation Day (Italy)
- Liberation Day (South Georgia)
- Military Foundation Day (North Korea)
- Parental Alienation Awareness Day
- Red Hat Society Day
- Sinai Liberation Day (Egypt)
- World Malaria Day
-
March 30 in History
- 598 – Balkan Campaign: The Avars lift the siege at the Byzantine stronghold of Tomis. Their leader Bayan I retreats north of the Danube River after the Avaro-Slavic hordes are decimated by the plague.
- 1282 – The people of Sicily rebel against the Angevin king Charles I, in what becomes known as the Sicilian Vespers.
- 1296 – Edward I sacks Berwick-upon-Tweed, during armed conflict between Scotland and England.
- 1699 – Guru Gobind Singh establishes the Khalsa in Anandpur Sahib, Punjab.
- 1815 – Joachim Murat issues the Rimini Proclamation which would later inspire Italian unification.
- 1818 – Physicist Augustin Fresnel reads a memoir on optical rotation to the French Academy of Sciences, reporting that when polarized light is “depolarized” by a Fresnel rhomb, its properties are preserved in any subsequent passage through an optically-rotating crystal or liquid.
- 1822 – The Florida Territory is created in the United States.
- 1841 – The National Bank of Greece is founded in Athens.
- 1842 – Ether anesthesia is used for the first time, in an operation by the American surgeon Dr. Crawford Long.
- 1844 – One of the most important battles of the Dominican War of Independence from Haiti takes place near the city of Santiago de los Caballeros.
- 1855 – Origins of the American Civil War: “Border Ruffians” from Missouri invade Kansas and force election of a pro-slavery legislature.
- 1856 – The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Crimean War.
- 1861 – Discovery of the chemical elements: Sir William Crookes announces his discovery of thallium.
- 1863 – Danish prince Wilhelm Georg is chosen as King George of Greece.
- 1867 – Alaska is purchased from Russia for $7.2 million, about 2-cent/acre ($4.19/km²), by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward.
- 1870 – Texas is readmitted to the United States Congress following Reconstruction.
- 1885 – The Battle for Kushka triggers the Panjdeh Incident which nearly gives rise to war between the Russian and British Empire.
- 1899 – German Society of Chemistry issues an invitation to other national scientific organizations to appoint delegates to the International Committee on Atomic Weights.
- 1912 – Sultan Abd al-Hafid signs the Treaty of Fez, making Morocco a French protectorate.
- 1918 – Outburst of bloody March Events in Baku and other locations of Baku Governorate.
- 1939 – The Heinkel He 100 fighter sets a world airspeed record of 463 mph (745 km/h).
- 1940 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Japan declares Nanking capital of a new Chinese puppet government, nominally controlled by Wang Jingwei.
- 1944 – World War II: Allied bombers conduct their most severe bombing run on Sofia, Bulgaria.
- 1944 – Out of 795 Lancasters, Halifaxes and Mosquitos sent to attack Nuremberg, 95 bombers do not return, making it the largest RAF Bomber Command loss of the war.
- 1945 – World War II: Soviet forces invade Austria and capture Vienna; Polish and Soviet forces liberate Danzig.
- 1949 – Cold War: A riot breaks out in Austurvöllur square in Reykjavík, when Iceland joins NATO.
- 1959 – Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet for India.
- 1961 – The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed in New York City.
- 1965 – Vietnam War: A car bomb explodes in front of the United States Embassy, Saigon, killing 22 and wounding 183 others.
- 1972 – Vietnam War: The Easter Offensive begins after North Vietnamese forces cross into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) of South Vietnam.
- 1976 – Israeli-Palestinian conflict: in the first organized response against Israeli policies by a Palestinian collective since 1948, Palestinians create the first Land Day.
- 1979 – Airey Neave, a British Member of Parliament, is killed by a car bomb as he exits the Palace of Westminster. The Irish National Liberation Army claims responsibility.
- 1981 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley, Jr.; three others are wounded in the same incident.
- 1982 – Space Shuttle program: STS-3 mission is completed with the landing of Columbia at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.
- 2002 – 2002 Lyon car attack takes place.
- 2009 – Twelve gunmen attack the Manawan Police Academy in Lahore, Pakistan.
- 2017 – SpaceX conducts the world’s first reflight of an orbital class rocket.
Births on March 30
- 892 – Shi Jingtang, founder of the Later Jin Dynasty (d. 942)
- 1135 – Maimonides, Spanish rabbi and philosopher (April 6 also proposed, d. 1204)
- 1326 – Ivan II of Moscow (d. 1359)
- 1432 – Mehmed the Conqueror, Ottoman sultan (d. 1481)
- 1510 – Antonio de Cabezón, Spanish composer and organist (d. 1566)
- 1551 – Salomon Schweigger, German theologian (d. 1622)
- 1606 – Vincentio Reinieri, Italian mathematician and astronomer (d. 1647)
- 1632 – John Proctor, farmer hanged for witchcraft in the Salem witch trials (d. 1692)
- 1640 – John Trenchard, English politician, Secretary of State for the Northern Department (d. 1695)
- 1727 – Tommaso Traetta, Italian composer and educator (d. 1779)
- 1746 – Francisco Goya, Spanish-French painter and sculptor (d. 1828)
- 1750 – John Stafford Smith, English organist and composer (d. 1836)
- 1793 – Juan Manuel de Rosas, Argentinian soldier and politician, 13th Governor of Buenos Aires Province (d. 1877)
- 1805 – Ferdinand Johann Wiedemann, German-Swedish linguist and botanist (d. 1887)
- 1811 – Robert Bunsen, German chemist and academic (d. 1899)
- 1820 – Anna Sewell, English author (d. 1878)
- 1820 – James Whyte, Scottish-Australian politician, 6th Premier of Tasmania (d. 1882)
- 1844 – Paul Verlaine, French poet (d. 1896)
- 1853 – Vincent van Gogh, Dutch-French painter and illustrator (d. 1890)
- 1853 – Arnoldo Sartorio, German composer, pianist, and teacher (d. 1936)
- 1857 – Léon Charles Thévenin, French engineer (d. 1926)
- 1858 – Siegfried Alkan, German composer (d. 1941)
- 1863 – Mary Calkins, American philosopher and psychologist (d. 1930)
- 1864 – Franz Oppenheimer, German-American sociologist and economist (d. 1943)
- 1874 – Charles Lightoller, English 2nd officer on the RMS Titanic (d. 1952)
- 1874 – Josiah McCracken, American hammer thrower, shot putter, and football player (d. 1962)
- 1874 – Nicolae Rădescu, Romanian general and politician, Prime Minister of Romania (d. 1953)
- 1875 – Thomas Xenakis, Greek-American gymnast (d. 1942)
- 1879 – Coen de Koning, Dutch speed skater (d. 1954)
- 1880 – Seán O’Casey, Irish dramatist, playwright, and memoirist (d. 1964)
- 1882 – Melanie Klein, Jewish Austrian-English psychologist and author (d. 1960)
- 1888 – J. R. Williams, Canadian-born cartoonist (d. 1957)
- 1891 – Chunseong, Korean monk, writer and philosopher (d. 1977)
- 1892 – Stefan Banach, Polish mathematician and academic (d. 1945)
- 1892 – Fortunato Depero, Italian painter and sculptor (d. 1960)
- 1892 – Erhard Milch, German field marshal (d. 1972)
- 1892 – Johannes Pääsuke, Estonian photographer and director (d. 1918)
- 1892 – Erwin Panofsky, German historian and academic (d. 1968)
- 1894 – Tommy Green, English race walker (d. 1975)
- 1894 – Sergey Ilyushin, Russian engineer, founded Ilyushin Aircraft Company (d. 1977)
- 1895 – Jean Giono, French author and poet (d. 1970)
- 1895 – Carl Lutz, Swiss vice-consul to Hungary during WWII, credited with saving over 62,000 Jews (d. 1975)
- 1895 – Charlie Wilson, English footballer (d. 1971)
- 1899 – Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay, Indian author, playwright, and screenwriter (d. 1970)
- 1902 – Brooke Astor, American socialite and philanthropist (d. 2007)
- 1902 – Ted Heath, English trombonist and composer (d. 1969)
- 1903 – Joy Ridderhof, American missionary (d. 1984)
- 1904 – Ripper Collins, American baseball player and coach (d. 1970)
- 1905 – Archie Birkin, English motorcycle racer (d. 1927)
- 1905 – Mikio Oda, Japanese triple jumper and academic (d. 1998)
- 1905 – Albert Pierrepoint, English hangman (d. 1992)
- 1907 – Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte, German general (d. 1994)
- 1910 – Józef Marcinkiewicz, Polish soldier, mathematician, and academic (d. 1940)
- 1911 – Ekrem Akurgal, Turkish archaeologist and academic (d. 2002)
- 1912 – Jack Cowie, New Zealand cricketer (d. 1994)
- 1912 – Alvin Hamilton, Canadian lieutenant and politician, 18th Canadian Minister of Agriculture (d. 2004)
- 1913 – Marc Davis, American animator (d. 2000)
- 1913 – Richard Helms, American soldier and diplomat, 8th Director of Central Intelligence (d. 2002)
- 1913 – Frankie Laine, American singer-songwriter (d. 2007)
- 1913 – Ċensu Tabone, Maltese general, physician, and politician, 4th President of Malta (d. 2012)
- 1914 – Sonny Boy Williamson I, American singer-songwriter and harmonica player (d. 1948)
- 1915 – Pietro Ingrao, Italian journalist and politician (d. 2015)
- 1917 – Els Aarne, Ukrainian-Estonian pianist, composer, and educator (d. 1995)
- 1919 – McGeorge Bundy, American intelligence officer and diplomat, 6th United States National Security Advisor (d. 1996)
- 1919 – Robin M. Williams, New Zealand mathematician and academic (d. 2013)
- 1921 – André Fontaine, French historian and journalist (d. 2013)
- 1922 – Turhan Bey, American actor (d. 2012)
- 1922 – Arthur Wightman, American physicist and academic (d. 2013)
- 1923 – Milton Acorn, Canadian poet and playwright (d. 1986)
- 1926 – Ingvar Kamprad, Swedish businessman, founded IKEA (d. 2018)
- 1927 – Wally Grout, Australian cricketer (d. 1968)
- 1928 – Robert Badinter, French lawyer and politician, French Minister of Justice
- 1928 – Colin Egar, Australian cricket umpire (d. 2008)
- 1928 – Tom Sharpe, English-Spanish author and educator (d. 2013)
- 1929 – Richard Dysart, American actor (d. 2015)
- 1929 – Ray Musto, American soldier and politician (d. 2014)
- 1929 – István Rózsavölgyi, Hungarian runner (d. 2012)
- 1930 – John Astin, American actor
- 1930 – Rolf Harris, Australian singer-songwriter
- 1933 – Jean-Claude Brialy, French actor and director (d. 2007)
- 1934 – Paul Crouch, American broadcaster, co-founded the Trinity Broadcasting Network (d. 2013)
- 1934 – Hans Hollein, Austrian architect and academic, designed Haas House (d. 2014)
- 1935 – Karl Berger, German pianist and composer
- 1935 – Willie Galimore, American football player (d. 1964)
- 1935 – Gordon Mumma, American composer
- 1937 – Warren Beatty, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1937 – Ian MacLaurin, Baron MacLaurin of Knebworth, English businessman
- 1938 – John Barnhill, American basketball player and coach (d. 2013)
- 1938 – Klaus Schwab, German economist and engineer, founded the World Economic Forum
- 1940 – Norman Gifford, English cricketer
- 1940 – Jerry Lucas, American basketball player and educator
- 1940 – Hans Ragnemalm, Swedish lawyer and judge (d. 2016)
- 1941 – Graeme Edge, English singer-songwriter and drummer
- 1941 – Ron Johnston, English geographer and academic
- 1941 – Wasim Sajjad, Pakistani lawyer and politician, President of Pakistan
- 1941 – Bob Smith, American soldier and politician
- 1942 – Ruben Kun, Nauruan lawyer and politician, 14th President of Nauru (d. 2014)
- 1942 – Tane Norton, New Zealand rugby player
- 1942 – Kenneth Welsh, Canadian actor
- 1943 – Jay Traynor, American pop and doo-wop singer (d. 2014)
- 1944 – Mark Wylea Erwin, American businessman and diplomat
- 1944 – Brian Wilshire, Australian radio host
- 1945 – Eric Clapton, English guitarist and singer-songwriter
- 1947 – Dick Roche, Irish politician, Minister of State for European Affairs
- 1947 – Terje Venaas, Norwegian bassist
- 1948 – Nigel Jones, Baron Jones of Cheltenham, English computer programmer and politician
- 1948 – Eddie Jordan, Irish racing driver and team owner, founded Jordan Grand Prix
- 1948 – Mervyn King, English economist and academic
- 1948 – Jim “Dandy” Mangrum, American rock singer
- 1949 – Liza Frulla, Canadian talk show host and politician, 3rd Minister of Canadian Heritage
- 1949 – Dana Gillespie, English singer-songwriter and actress
- 1949 – Naomi Sims, American model and author (d. 2009)
- 1950 – Janet Browne, English-American historian and academic
- 1950 – Robbie Coltrane, Scottish actor
- 1950 – Grady Little, American baseball player, coach, and manager
- 1950 – Warren Snowdon, Australian educator and politician, 39th Australian Minister for Veterans’ Affairs
- 1951 – Paul Da Vinci, English singer-songwriter
- 1952 – Stuart Dryburgh, English-New Zealand cinematographer
- 1952 – Peter Knights, Australian footballer and coach
- 1955 – Randy VanWarmer, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2004)
- 1956 – Bill Butler, Scottish educator and politician
- 1956 – Juanito Oiarzabal, Spanish mountaineer
- 1956 – Shahla Sherkat, Iranian journalist and author
- 1957 – Marie-Christine Koundja, Chadian author and diplomat
- 1957 – Paul Reiser, American actor and comedian
- 1958 – Maurice LaMarche, Canadian voice actor and stand-up comedian
- 1958 – Joey Sindelar, American golfer
- 1959 – Martina Cole, English television host and author
- 1960 – Laurie Graham, Canadian skier
- 1960 – Bill Johnson, American skier (d. 2016)
- 1961 – Mike Thackwell, New Zealand racing driver
- 1961 – Doug Wickenheiser, Canadian-American ice hockey player (d. 1999)
- 1962 – Mark Begich, American politician
- 1962 – MC Hammer, American rapper and actor
- 1962 – Gary Stevens, English international footballer, defender and manager
- 1963 – Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, Mongolian journalist and politician, 4th President of Mongolia
- 1963 – Eli-Eri Moura, Brazilian composer and conductor
- 1963 – Panagiotis Tsalouchidis, Greek footballer
- 1964 – Vlado Bozinovski, Macedonian-Australian footballer and manager
- 1964 – Tracy Chapman, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1965 – Piers Morgan, English journalist and talk show host
- 1966 – Efstratios Grivas, Greek chess player and author
- 1966 – Dmitry Volkov, Russian swimmer
- 1966 – Leonid Voloshin, Russian triple jumper
- 1967 – Christopher Bowman, American figure skater and coach (d. 2008)
- 1967 – Richard Hutten, Dutch furniture designer
- 1967 – Julie Richardson, New Zealand tennis player
- 1968 – Celine Dion, Canadian singer-songwriter
- 1969 – Troy Bayliss, Australian motorcycle racer
- 1970 – Tobias Hill, English poet and author
- 1970 – Sylvain Charlebois, Canadian food/agriculture researcher and author
- 1971 – Mari Holden, American cyclist
- 1971 – Mark Consuelos, American actor and television personality
- 1972 – Mili Avital, Israeli-American actress
- 1972 – Emerson Thome, Brazilian footballer and scout
- 1972 – Karel Poborský, Czech footballer
- 1973 – Adam Goldstein, American keyboard player, DJ, and producer (d. 2009)
- 1973 – Jan Koller, Czech footballer
- 1973 – Kareem Streete-Thompson, Caymanian-American long jumper
- 1974 – Martin Love, Australian cricketer
- 1975 – Paul Griffen, New Zealand-Italian rugby player
- 1976 – Ty Conklin, American ice hockey player
- 1976 – Obadele Thompson, Barbadian sprinter
- 1976 – Troels Lund Poulsen, Danish politician, Minister for Education of Denmark
- 1977 – Abhishek Chaubey, Indian director and screenwriter
- 1978 – Paweł Czapiewski, Polish runner
- 1978 – Chris Paterson, Scottish rugby player and coach
- 1978 – Bok van Blerk, South African singer-songwriter and actor
- 1979 – Norah Jones, American singer-songwriter and pianist
- 1979 – Anatoliy Tymoshchuk, Ukrainian footballer
- 1980 – Ricardo Osorio, Mexican footballer
- 1981 – Jammal Brown, American football player
- 1981 – Andrea Masi, Italian rugby player
- 1982 – Mark Hudson, English footballer
- 1982 – Philippe Mexès, French footballer
- 1982 – Javier Portillo, Spanish footballer
- 1982 – Jason Dohring, American actor
- 1983 – Jérémie Aliadière, French footballer
- 1984 – Mario Ančić, Croatian tennis player
- 1984 – Samantha Stosur, Australian tennis player
- 1985 – Giacomo Ricci, Italian racing driver
- 1986 – Sergio Ramos, Spanish footballer
- 1987 – Trent Barreta, American wrestler
- 1987 – Calum Elliot, Scottish footballer
- 1987 – Kwok Kin Pong, Hong Kong footballer
- 1987 – Marc-Édouard Vlasic, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1988 – Will Matthews, Australian rugby league player
- 1988 – Thanasis Papazoglou, Greek footballer
- 1988 – Richard Sherman, American football player
- 1988 – Larisa Yurkiw, Canadian alpine skier
- 1989 – Chris Sale, American baseball player
- 1989 – João Sousa, Portuguese tennis player
- 1990 – Thomas Rhett, American country music singer and songwriter
- 1990 – Michal Březina, Czech figure skater
- 1992 – Palak Muchhal, Indian playback singer
- 1993 – Anitta, Brazilian singer and entertainer
- 1994 – Jetro Willems, Dutch footballer
- 1997 – Cha Eun-woo, South Korean singer and actor, A member of the South Korean boy band, Astro
- 1998 – Kalyn Ponga, Australian rugby league player
- 2000 – Colton Herta, American race car driver
Deaths on March 30
- 116 – Quirinus of Neuss, Roman martyr and saint
- 365 – Ai of Jin, emperor of the Jin Dynasty (b. 341)
- 943 – Li Bian, emperor of Southern Tang (b. 889)
- 987 – Arnulf II, Count of Flanders (b. 960)
- 1180 – Al-Mustadi, Caliph (b. 1142)
- 1202 – Joachim of Fiore, Italian mystic and theologian (b. 1135)
- 1465 – Isabella of Clermont, queen consort of Naples (b. c. 1424)
- 1472 – Amadeus IX, Duke of Savoy (b. 1435)
- 1486 – Thomas Bourchier, English cardinal (b. 1404)
- 1526 – Konrad Mutian, German humanist (b. 1471)
- 1540 – Matthäus Lang von Wellenburg, German cardinal (b. 1469)
- 1559 – Adam Ries, German mathematician and academic (b. 1492)
- 1587 – Ralph Sadler, English politician, Secretary of State for England (b. 1507)
- 1662 – François le Métel de Boisrobert, French poet and playwright (b. 1592)
- 1689 – Kazimierz Łyszczyński, Polish atheist and philosopher (b. 1634)
- 1707 – Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, French general and engineer (b. 1633)
- 1764 – Pietro Locatelli, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1695)
- 1783 – William Hunter, Scottish anatomist and physician (b. 1718)
- 1804 – Victor-François, 2nd duc de Broglie, French general and politician, French Secretary of State for War (b. 1718)
- 1806 – Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (b. 1757)
- 1830 – Louis I, Grand Duke of Baden (b. 1763)
- 1840 – Beau Brummell, English-French fashion designer (b. 1778)
- 1842 – Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, French painter (b. 1755)
- 1864 – Louis Schindelmeisser, German clarinet player, composer, and conductor (b. 1811)
- 1873 – Bénédict Morel, Austrian-French psychiatrist and physician (b. 1809)
- 1879 – Thomas Couture, French painter and educator (b. 1815)
- 1886 – Joseph-Alfred Mousseau, Canadian judge and politician, 6th Premier of Quebec (b. 1838)
- 1896 – Charilaos Trikoupis, Greek politician, 55th Prime Minister of Greece (b. 1832)
- 1912 – Karl May, German author (b. 1842)
- 1925 – Rudolf Steiner, Austrian philosopher and author (b. 1861)
- 1935 – Romanos Melikian, Armenian composer (b. 1883)
- 1936 – Conchita Supervía, Spanish soprano and actress (b. 1895)
- 1940 – Sir John Gilmour, 2nd Baronet Scottish soldier and politician, Secretary of State for Scotland (b. 1876)
- 1943 – Jan Bytnar, Polish lieutenant; WWII resistance fighter (b. 1921)
- 1943 – Maciej Aleksy Dawidowski, Polish sergeant; WWII resistance fighter (b. 1920)
- 1945 – Béla Balogh, Hungarian actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1885)
- 1949 – Friedrich Bergius, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1884)
- 1949 – Dattaram Hindlekar, Indian cricketer (b. 1909)
- 1950 – Léon Blum, French lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of France (b. 1872)
- 1952 – Jigme Wangchuck, Bhutanese king (b. 1905)
- 1955 – Harl McDonald, American pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1899)
- 1956 – Edmund Clerihew Bentley, English author and poet (b. 1875)
- 1959 – Daniil Andreyev, Russian mystic and poet (b. 1906)
- 1959 – John Auden, English solicitor, deputy coroner and a territorial soldier (b. 1894)
- 1959 – Riccardo Zanella, Italian politician (b. 1875)
- 1960 – Joseph Haas, German composer and educator (b. 1879)
- 1961 – Philibert Jacques Melotte, English astronomer (b. 1880)
- 1963 – Aleksandr Gauk, Russian conductor and composer (b. 1893)
- 1964 – Nella Larsen, American nurse and author (b. 1891)
- 1965 – Philip Showalter Hench, American physician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1896)
- 1966 – Newbold Morris, American lawyer and politician (b. 1902)
- 1966 – Maxfield Parrish, American painter and illustrator (b. 1870)
- 1966 – Erwin Piscator, German director and producer (b. 1893)
- 1967 – Frank Thorpe, Australian public servant (b. 1885)
- 1967 – Jean Toomer, American poet and novelist (b. 1894)
- 1969 – Lucien Bianchi, Belgian racing driver (b. 1934)
- 1970 – Heinrich Brüning, German economist and politician, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1885)
- 1972 – Mahir Çayan, Turkish politician (b. 1946)
- 1972 – Gabriel Heatter, American radio commentator (b. 1890)
- 1973 – Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton, Scottish pilot and politician (b. 1903)
- 1973 – Yves Giraud-Cabantous, French racing driver (b. 1904)
- 1975 – Peter Bamm, German journalist and author (b. 1897)
- 1977 – Levko Revutsky, Ukrainian composer and educator (b. 1889)
- 1978 – George Paine, English cricketer and coach (b. 1908)
- 1978 – Memduh Tağmaç, Turkish general (b. 1904)
- 1979 – Airey Neave, English colonel, lawyer, and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (b. 1916)
- 1979 – Ray Ventura, French pianist and bandleader (b. 1908)
- 1981 – DeWitt Wallace, American publisher, co-founded Reader’s Digest (b. 1889)
- 1984 – Karl Rahner, German-Austrian priest and theologian (b. 1904)
- 1985 – Harold Peary, American actor and singer (b. 1908)
- 1986 – James Cagney, American actor and dancer (b. 1899)
- 1986 – John Ciardi, American poet and etymologist (b. 1916)
- 1988 – Edgar Faure, French historian and politician, Prime Minister of France (b. 1908)
- 1990 – Harry Bridges, Australian-born American activist and trade union leader (b. 1901)
- 1992 – Manolis Andronikos, Greek archaeologist and academic (b. 1919)
- 1993 – S. M. Pandit, Indian painter (b. 1916)
- 1993 – Richard Diebenkorn, American painter (b. 1922)
- 1995 – Rozelle Claxton, American pianist (b. 1913)
- 1995 – Tony Lock, English-Australian cricketer and coach (b. 1929)
- 1995 – Paul A. Rothchild, American record producer (b. 1935)
- 1996 – Hugh Falkus, English pilot and author (b. 1917)
- 1996 – Ryoei Saito, Japanese businessman (b. 1916)
- 2000 – Rudolf Kirchschläger, Austrian judge and politician, 8th President of Austria (b. 1915)
- 2002 – Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother of the United Kingdom (b. 1900)
- 2002 – Anand Bakshi, Indian poet and lyricist (b. 1930)
- 2003 – Michael Jeter, American actor (b. 1952)
- 2003 – Valentin Pavlov, Russian banker and politician, 11th Prime Minister of the Soviet Union (b. 1937)
- 2004 – Alistair Cooke, English-American journalist and author (b. 1908)
- 2004 – Hubert Gregg, English actor and director (b. 1914)
- 2004 – Michael King, New Zealand historian and author (b. 1945)
- 2004 – Timi Yuro, American singer and songwriter (b. 1940)
- 2005 – Robert Creeley, American novelist, essayist, and poet (b. 1926)
- 2005 – Milton Green, American hurdler and soldier (b. 1913)
- 2005 – Fred Korematsu, American political activist (b. 1919)
- 2005 – O. V. Vijayan, Indian author and illustrator (b. 1930)
- 2005 – Mitch Hedberg, American stand-up comedian (b. 1968)
- 2006 – Red Hickey, American football player and coach (b. 1917)
- 2006 – John McGahern, Irish author and educator (b. 1934)
- 2007 – John Roberts, Canadian political scientist, academic, and politician, 46th Secretary of State for Canada (b. 1933)
- 2008 – Roland Fraïssé, French mathematical logician (b. 1920)
- 2008 – David Leslie, Scottish racing driver (b. 1953)
- 2008 – Richard Lloyd, English racing driver (b. 1945)
- 2008 – Dith Pran, Cambodian-American photographer and journalist (b. 1942)
- 2010 – Jaime Escalante, Bolivian-American educator (b. 1930)
- 2010 – Morris R. Jeppson, American lieutenant and physicist (b. 1922)
- 2010 – Martin Sandberger, German SS officer (b. 1911)
- 2012 – Janet Anderson Perkin, Canadian baseball player and curler (b. 1921)
- 2012 – Aquila Berlas Kiani, Indian-Canadian sociologist and academic (b. 1921)
- 2012 – Francesco Mancini, Italian footballer and coach (b. 1968)
- 2012 – Granville Semmes, American businessman, founded 1-800-Flowers (b. 1928)
- 2012 – Leonid Shebarshin, Russian KGB officer (b. 1935)
- 2013 – Daniel Hoffman, American poet and academic (b. 1923)
- 2013 – Bobby Parks, American basketball player and coach (b. 1962)
- 2013 – Phil Ramone, South African-American songwriter and producer, co-founded A & R Recording (b. 1934)
- 2013 – Edith Schaeffer, Chinese-Swiss religious leader and author, co-founded L’Abri (b. 1914)
- 2013 – Bob Turley, American baseball player and coach (b. 1930)
- 2014 – Ray Hutchison, American lawyer and politician (b. 1932)
- 2014 – Kate O’Mara, English actress (b. 1939)
- 2015 – Helmut Dietl, German director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1944)
- 2015 – Roger Slifer, American author, illustrator, screenwriter, and producer (b. 1954)
- 2015 – Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld, Dutch astronomer and academic (b. 1921)
- 2018 – Bill Maynard, English actor (b. 1928)
- 2020 – Bill Withers, American musician (b. 1938)
Holidays and observances on March 30
- Christian feast day:
- Blessed Amadeus IX, Duke of Savoy
- Blessed Maria Restituta Kafka
- John Climacus
- Mamertinus of Auxerre
- Quirinus of Neuss
- Thomas Son Chasuhn, Marie-Nicolas-Antoine Daveluy (part of The Korean Martyrs)
- Tola of Clonard
- March 30 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Earliest day on which the first day of Hocktide can fall, while April 3 is the latest; observed on the second Monday after Easter. (Hungerford, England; popular in medieval England)
- Land Day (Palestine)
- National Doctors’ Day (United States)
- Spiritual Baptist/Shouter Liberation Day (Trinidad and Tobago)
- School Day of Non-violence and Peace (Spain)
-
March 25 in History
- 708 – Pope Constantine succeeds Pope Sisinnius as the 88th pope.
- 717 – Theodosius III resigns the throne to the Byzantine Empire to enter the clergy.
- 919 – Romanos Lekapenos seizes the Boukoleon Palace in Constantinople and becomes regent of the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII.
- 1000 – Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah assassinates the eunuch chief minister Barjawan and assumes control of the government.
- 1306 – Robert the Bruce becomes King of Scots (Scotland).
- 1409 – The Council of Pisa opens.
- 1555 – The city of Valencia is founded in present-day Venezuela.
- 1576 – Jerome Savage takes out a sub-lease to start the Newington Butts Theatre outside London.
- 1584 – Sir Walter Raleigh is granted a patent to colonize Virginia.
- 1655 – Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens.
- 1802 – The Treaty of Amiens is signed as a “Definitive Treaty of Peace” between France and the United Kingdom.
- 1807 – The Slave Trade Act becomes law, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.
- 1807 – The Swansea and Mumbles Railway, then known as the Oystermouth Railway, becomes the first passenger-carrying railway in the world.
- 1811 – Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for publishing the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism.
- 1821 – Traditional date of the start of the Greek War of Independence. The war had actually begun on 23 February 1821 (Julian calendar).
- 1845 – New Zealand Legislative Council pass the first Militia Act constituting the New Zealand Army.
- 1865 – American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces temporarily capture Fort Stedman from the Union.
- 1894 – Coxey’s Army, the first significant American protest march, departs Massillon, Ohio for Washington, D.C.
- 1911 – In New York City, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire kills 146 garment workers.
- 1917 – The Georgian Orthodox Church restores its autocephaly abolished by Imperial Russia in 1811.
- 1918 – The Belarusian People’s Republic is established.
- 1924 – On the anniversary of Greek Independence, Alexandros Papanastasiou proclaims the Second Hellenic Republic.
- 1931 – The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape.
- 1941 – The Kingdom of Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers with the signing of the Tripartite Pact.
- 1947 – An explosion in a coal mine in Centralia, Illinois kills 111.
- 1948 – The first successful tornado forecast predicts that a tornado will strike Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.
- 1949 – More than 92,000 kulaks are suddenly deported from the Baltic states to Siberia.
- 1957 – United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” on obscenity grounds.
- 1957 – The European Economic Community is established with West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg as the first members.
- 1965 – Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King Jr. successfully complete their 4-day 50-mile march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama.
- 1969 – During their honeymoon, John Lennon and Yoko Ono hold their first Bed-In for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel (until March 31).
- 1971 – The Army of the Republic of Vietnam abandon an attempt to cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos.
- 1975 – Faisal of Saudi Arabia is shot and killed by a mentally ill nephew.
- 1979 – The first fully functional Space Shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.
- 1988 – The Candle demonstration in Bratislava is the first mass demonstration of the 1980s against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.
- 1995 – WikiWikiWeb, the world’s first wiki, and part of the Portland Pattern Repository, is made public by Ward Cunningham.
- 1996 – The European Union’s Veterinarian Committee bans the export of British beef and its by-products as a result of mad cow disease (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy).
- 2006 – Capitol Hill massacre: A gunman kills six people before taking his own life at a party in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
- 2006 – Protesters demanding a new election in Belarus, following the rigged 2006 Belarusian presidential election, clash with riot police. Opposition leader Aleksander Kozulin is among several protesters arrested.
Births on March 25
- 1252 – Conradin, Duke of Swabia (d. 1268)
- 1259 – Andronikos II Palaiologos, Byzantine emperor (d. 1332)
- 1297 – Andronikos III Palaiologos, Byzantine emperor (d. 1341)
- 1297 – Arnošt of Pardubice, Polish archbishop (d. 1364)
- 1345 – Blanche of Lancaster (d. 1369)
- 1347 – Catherine of Siena, Italian philosopher, theologian, and saint (d. 1380)
- 1404 – John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, English military leader (d. 1444)
- 1414 – Thomas Clifford, 8th Baron de Clifford, English noble (d. 1455)
- 1434 – Eustochia Smeralda Calafato, Italian saint (d. 1485)
- 1453 – Giuliano de’ Medici (d. 1478)
- 1479 – Vasili III of Russia (d. 1533)
- 1491 – Marie d’Albret, Countess of Rethel (d. 1549)
- 1510 – Guillaume Postel, French linguist (d. 1581)
- 1538 – Christopher Clavius, German mathematician and astronomer (d. 1612)
- 1541 – Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1587)
- 1545 – John II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg (d. 1622)
- 1546 – Giacomo Castelvetro, Italian writer (d. 1616)
- 1593 – Jean de Brébeuf, French-Canadian missionary and saint (d. 1649)
- 1611 – Evliya Çelebi, Ottoman Turk traveller and writer (d. 1682)
- 1636 – Henric Piccardt, Dutch lawyer (d. 1712)
- 1643 – Louis Moréri, French priest and scholar (d. 1680)
- 1661 – Paul de Rapin, French soldier and historian (d. 1725)
- 1699 – Johann Adolph Hasse, German singer and composer (d. 1783)
- 1741 – Jean-Antoine Houdon, French sculptor and educator (d. 1828)
- 1745 – John Barry, American naval officer and father of the American navy (d. 1803)
- 1767 – Joachim Murat, French general (d. 1815)
- 1782 – Caroline Bonaparte, French daughter of Carlo Buonaparte (d. 1839)
- 1800 – Ernst Heinrich Karl von Dechen, German geologist and academic (d. 1889)
- 1808 – José de Espronceda, Spanish poet and author (d. 1842)
- 1824 – Clinton L. Merriam, American banker and politician (d. 1900)
- 1840 – Myles Keogh, Irish-American colonel (d. 1876)
- 1863 – Simon Flexner, American physician and academic (d. 1946)
- 1867 – Gutzon Borglum, American sculptor, designed Mount Rushmore (d. 1941)
- 1867 – Arturo Toscanini, Italian-American cellist and conductor (d. 1957)
- 1868 – Bill Lockwood, English cricketer (d. 1932)
- 1871 – Louis Perrée, French fencer (d. 1924)
- 1872 – Horatio Nelson Jackson, American race car driver and physician (d. 1955)
- 1873 – Rudolf Rocker, German-American author and activist (d. 1958)
- 1874 – Selim Sırrı Tarcan, Turkish educator and politician (d. 1957)
- 1876 – Irving Baxter, American jumper and pole vaulter (d. 1957)
- 1877 – Walter Little, Canadian politician (d. 1961)
- 1878 – František Janda-Suk, Czech discus thrower and shot putter (d. 1955)
- 1879 – Amedee Reyburn, American swimmer and water polo player (d. 1920)
- 1881 – Béla Bartók, Hungarian pianist and composer (d. 1945)
- 1881 – Patrick Henry Bruce, American painter and educator (d. 1936)
- 1881 – Mary Webb, English author and poet (d. 1927)
- 1893 – Johannes Villemson, Estonian runner (d. 1971)
- 1895 – Siegfried Handloser, German general and physician (d. 1954)
- 1885 – Jimmy Seed, English international footballer, inside forward and manager (d. 1966)
- 1897 – Leslie Averill, New Zealand doctor and soldier (d. 1981)
- 1899 – François Rozet, French-Canadian actor (d. 1994)
- 1901 – Ed Begley, American actor (d. 1970)
- 1903 – Binnie Barnes, English-American actress (d. 1998)
- 1903 – Frankie Carle, American pianist and bandleader (d. 2001)
- 1903 – Nahum Norbert Glatzer, Ukrainian-American theologian and scholar (d. 1990)
- 1904 – Pete Johnson, American boogie-woogie and jazz pianist (d. 1967)
- 1905 – Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim, German colonel (d. 1944)
- 1906 – Jean Sablon, French singer and actor (d. 1994)
- 1906 – A. J. P. Taylor, English historian and academic (d. 1990)
- 1908 – David Lean, English director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1991)
- 1910 – Magda Olivero, Italian soprano (d. 2014)
- 1910 – Benzion Netanyahu, Polish-Israeli historian and academic (d. 2012)
- 1912 – Melita Norwood, English civil servant and spy (d. 2005)
- 1912 – Jean Vilar, French actor and director (d. 1971)
- 1913 – Reo Stakis, Cypriot-Scottish businessman, founded Stakis Hotels (d. 2001)
- 1914 – Norman Borlaug, American agronomist and humanitarian, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2009)
- 1915 – Dorothy Squires, Welsh singer (d. 1998)
- 1916 – S. M. Pandit, Indian painter and educator (d. 1993)
- 1918 – Howard Cosell, American soldier, journalist, and author (d. 1995)
- 1920 – Paul Scott, English author, poet, and playwright (d. 1978)
- 1920 – Patrick Troughton, English actor (d. 1987)
- 1920 – Usha Mehta, Gandhian and freedom fighter of India (d. 2000)
- 1921 – Nancy Kelly, American actress (d. 1995)
- 1921 – Simone Signoret, French actress (d. 1985)
- 1922 – Eileen Ford, American businesswoman, co-founded Ford Models (d. 2014)
- 1923 – Bonnie Guitar, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2019)
- 1923 – Wim van Est, Dutch cyclist (d. 2003)
- 1924 – Roberts Blossom, American actor (d. 2011)
- 1924 – Machiko Kyō, Japanese actress (d. 2019)
- 1925 – Flannery O’Connor, American short story writer and novelist (d. 1964)
- 1925 – Anthony Quinton, Baron Quinton, English physician and philosopher (d. 2010)
- 1925 – Kishori Sinha, Indian politician, social activist and advocate (d. 2016)
- 1926 – Riz Ortolani, Italian composer and conductor (d. 2014)
- 1926 – László Papp, Hungarian boxer (d. 2003)
- 1926 – Jaime Sabines, Mexican poet and politician (d. 1999)
- 1926 – Gene Shalit, American journalist and critic
- 1927 – P. Shanmugam, Indian politician, 13th Chief Minister of Puducherry (d. 2013)
- 1928 – Jim Lovell, American captain, pilot, and astronaut
- 1928 – Gunnar Nielsen, Danish runner and typographer (d. 1985)
- 1928 – Hans Steinbrenner, German sculptor (d. 2008)
- 1929 – Cecil Taylor, American pianist and composer (d. 2018)
- 1930 – David Burge, American pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 2013)
- 1930 – Carlo Mauri, Italian mountaineer and explorer (d. 1982)
- 1930 – Rudy Minarcin, American baseball player and coach (d. 2013)
- 1931 – Humphrey Burton, English radio and television host
- 1932 – Penelope Gilliatt, English novelist, short story writer, and critic (d. 1993)
- 1932 – Wes Santee, American runner (d. 2010)
- 1934 – Johnny Burnette, American singer-songwriter (d. 1964)
- 1934 – Bernard King, Australian actor and chef (d. 2002)
- 1934 – Karlheinz Schreiber, German-Canadian businessman
- 1934 – Gloria Steinem, American feminist activist, co-founded the Women’s Media Center
- 1935 – Gabriel Elorde, Filipino boxer (d. 1985)
- 1936 – Carl Kaufmann, American-German sprinter (d. 2008)
- 1937 – Tom Monaghan, American businessman, founded Domino’s Pizza
- 1938 – Hoyt Axton, American singer-songwriter and actor (d. 1999)
- 1938 – Daniel Buren, French sculptor and painter
- 1938 – Fritz d’Orey, Brazilian race car driver
- 1939 – Toni Cade Bambara, American author, academic, and activist (d. 1995)
- 1939 – D. C. Fontana, American screenwriter and producer (d. 2019)
- 1941 – Gudmund Hernes, Norwegian sociologist and politician, Norwegian Minister of Education and Research
- 1942 – Aretha Franklin, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 2018)
- 1942 – Richard O’Brien, English actor and screenwriter
- 1942 – Kim Woodburn, English television host
- 1943 – Paul Michael Glaser, American actor and director
- 1945 – Leila Diniz, Brazilian actress (d. 1972)
- 1946 – Cliff Balsom, English footballer
- 1946 – Daniel Bensaïd, French philosopher and author (d. 2010)
- 1946 – Stephen Hunter, American author and critic
- 1946 – Maurice Krafft, French volcanologist (d. 1991)
- 1947 – Richard Cork, English historian and critic
- 1947 – Elton John, English singer-songwriter, pianist, producer, and actor
- 1948 – Bonnie Bedelia, American actress
- 1948 – Michael Stanley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1949 – Ronnie Flanagan, Northern Irish Chief Constable (Royal Irish Constabulary, Police Service of Northern Ireland)
- 1949 – Sue Klebold, American activist
- 1950 – Chuck Greenberg, American saxophonist, songwriter, and producer (d. 1995)
- 1950 – Ronnie McDowell, American singer-songwriter
- 1950 – David Paquette, American-New Zealander pianist
- 1951 – Jumbo Tsuruta, Japanese wrestler (d. 2000)
- 1952 – Stephen Dorrell, English soldier and politician, Secretary of State for Health
- 1952 – Antanas Mockus, Colombian mathematician, philosopher, and politician, Mayor of Bogotá
- 1953 – Robert Fox, English producer and manager
- 1953 – Vesna Pusić, Croatian sociologist and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of Croatia
- 1953 – Haroon Rasheed, Pakistani cricketer and coach
- 1954 – Thom Loverro, American journalist and author
- 1955 – Daniel Boulud, French chef and author
- 1955 – Lee Mazzilli, American baseball player, coach, and manager
- 1957 – Christina Boxer, English runner and journalist
- 1957 – Jonathan Michie, English economist and academic
- 1957 – Aleksandr Puchkov, Russian hurdler
- 1957 – Jim Uhls, American screenwriter and producer
- 1958 – Lorna Brown, Canadian artist, curator, and writer
- 1958 – Susie Bright, American journalist, author, and critic
- 1958 – Sisy Chen, Taiwanese journalist and politician
- 1958 – María Caridad Colón, Cuban javelin thrower and shot putter
- 1958 – John Ensign, American physician and politician
- 1958 – Ray Tanner, American baseball player and coach
- 1958 – Åsa Torstensson, Swedish politician, 3rd Swedish Minister for Infrastructure
- 1960 – Steve Norman, English saxophonist, songwriter, and producer
- 1960 – Peter O’Brien, Australian actor
- 1960 – Brenda Strong, American actress
- 1961 – Mark Brooks, American golfer
- 1962 – Marcia Cross, American actress
- 1962 – David Nuttall, English lawyer and politician
- 1963 – Karen Bruce, English dancer and choreographer
- 1963 – Velle Kadalipp, Estonian architect
- 1963 – Andrew O’Connor, British actor, comedian, magician, television presenter and executive producer
- 1964 – René Meulensteen, Dutch footballer and coach
- 1964 – Ken Wregget, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1964 – Norm Duke, American bowler
- 1965 – Avery Johnson, American basketball player and coach
- 1965 – Stefka Kostadinova, Bulgarian high jumper
- 1965 – Sarah Jessica Parker, American actress, producer, and designer
- 1966 – Tom Glavine, American baseball player and sportscaster
- 1966 – Humberto Gonzalez, Mexican boxer
- 1966 – Jeff Healey, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2008)
- 1966 – Anton Rogan, Northern Irish footballer
- 1967 – Matthew Barney, American sculptor and photographer
- 1967 – Doug Stanhope, American comedian and actor
- 1967 – Debi Thomas, American figure skater and physician
- 1969 – George Chlitsios, Greek conductor and composer
- 1969 – Dale Davis, American basketball player
- 1969 – Cathy Dennis, English singer-songwriter, record producer and actress
- 1969 – Jeffrey Walker, English singer-songwriter and bass player
- 1970 – Magnus Larsson, Swedish golfer
- 1971 – Stacy Dragila, American pole vaulter and coach
- 1971 – Cammi Granato, American ice hockey player and sportscaster
- 1971 – Sheryl Swoopes, American basketball player and coach
- 1972 – Giniel de Villiers, South African race car driver
- 1972 – Phil O’Donnell, Scottish footballer (d. 2007)
- 1973 – Michaela Dorfmeister, Austrian skier
- 1973 – Anders Fridén, Swedish singer-songwriter and producer
- 1973 – Bob Sura, American basketball player
- 1974 – Serge Betsen, Cameroonian-French rugby player
- 1974 – Lark Voorhies, American actress and singer
- 1975 – Ladislav Benýšek, Czech ice hockey player
- 1975 – Melanie Blatt, English singer-songwriter and actress
- 1975 – Erika Heynatz, Papua New Guinean-Australian model and actress
- 1976 – Francie Bellew, Irish footballer
- 1976 – Lars Figura, German sprinter
- 1976 – Wladimir Klitschko, Ukrainian boxer
- 1976 – Rima Wakarua, New Zealand-Italian rugby player
- 1977 – Natalie Clein, English cellist and educator
- 1977 – Andrew Lindsay, Scottish rower
- 1978 – Gennaro Delvecchio, Italian footballer
- 1979 – Muriel Hurtis-Houairi, French sprinter
- 1980 – Kathrine Sørland, Norwegian fashion model and television presenter
- 1982 – Danica Patrick, American race car driver
- 1982 – Álvaro Saborío, Costa Rican footballer
- 1982 – Jenny Slate, American comedian, actress and author
- 1983 – Mickaël Hanany, French high jumper
- 1984 – Katharine McPhee, American singer-songwriter and actress
- 1984 – Liam Messam, New Zealand rugby player
- 1985 – Carmen Rasmusen, Canadian-American singer-songwriter and actress
- 1985 – Diana Rennik, Estonian figure skater
- 1986 – Marco Belinelli, Italian basketball player
- 1986 – Megan Gibson, American softball player
- 1986 – Kyle Lowry, American basketball player
- 1986 – Mickey Paea, Australian rugby league player
- 1987 – Jacob Bagersted, Danish handball player
- 1987 – Victor Obinna, Nigerian footballer
- 1987 – Nobunari Oda, Japanese figure skater
- 1988 – Big Sean, American rapper, singer and songwriter
- 1988 – Mitchell Watt, Australian long jumper
- 1988 – Arthur Zeiler, German rugby player
- 1989 – Aly Michalka, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1989 – Scott Sinclair, English footballer
- 1990 – Mehmet Ekici, Turkish footballer
- 1990 – Alexander Esswein, German footballer
- 1991 – Scott Malone, English footballer, left-back
- 1993 – Jacob Gagan, Australian rugby league player
- 1993 – Sam Johnstone, English footballer
- 1994 – Justine Dufour-Lapointe, Canadian skier
Deaths on March 25
- 908 – Li Kening, Chinese general
- 940 – Taira no Masakado, Japanese samurai
- 990 – Nicodemus of Mammola, Italian monk and saint
- 1005 – Kenneth III, king of Scotland
- 1051 – Hugh IV, French nobleman
- 1189 – Frederick, duke of Bohemia
- 1223 – Alfonso II, king of Portugal (b. 1185)
- 1351 – Kō no Moronao, Japanese samurai
- 1351 – Kō no Moroyasu, Japanese samurai
- 1392 – Hosokawa Yoriyuki, Japanese samurai
- 1458 – Íñigo López de Mendoza, 1st Marquis of Santillana, Spanish poet and politician (b. 1398)
- 1558 – Marcos de Niza, French friar and explorer (b. 1495)
- 1603 – Ikoma Chikamasa, Japanese daimyō (b. 1526)
- 1609 – Olaus Martini, Swedish archbishop (b. 1557)
- 1609 – Isabelle de Limeuil, French noble (b. 1535)
- 1620 – Johannes Nucius, German composer and theorist (b. 1556)
- 1625 – Giambattista Marino, Italian poet and author (b. 1569)
- 1658 – Herman IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Rotenburg, German nobleman (b. 1607)
- 1677 – Wenceslaus Hollar, Czech-English painter and etcher (b. 1607)
- 1701 – Jean Regnault de Segrais, French poet and novelist (b. 1624)
- 1712 – Nehemiah Grew, English anatomist and physiologist (b. 1641)
- 1732 – Lucy Filippini, Italian teacher and saint (b. 1672)
- 1736 – Nicholas Hawksmoor, English architect, designed Easton Neston and Christ Church (b. 1661)
- 1738 – Turlough O’Carolan, Irish harp player and composer (b. 1670)
- 1801 – Novalis, German poet and author (b. 1772)
- 1818 – Caspar Wessel, Norwegian-Danish mathematician and cartographer (b. 1745)
- 1857 – William Colgate, English-American businessman and philanthropist, founded Colgate-Palmolive (b. 1783)
- 1860 – James Braid, Scottish-English surgeon (b. 1795)
- 1869 – Edward Bates, American politician and lawyer (b. 1793)
- 1873 – Wilhelm Marstrand, Danish painter and illustrator (b. 1810)
- 1907 – Ernst von Bergmann, Latvian-German surgeon and academic (b. 1836)
- 1908 – Durham Stevens, American diplomat (b. 1851)
- 1914 – Frédéric Mistral, French lexicographer and poet, 1904 Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1830)
- 1917 – Elizabeth Storrs Mead, American academic (b. 1832)
- 1918 – Claude Debussy, French composer (b. 1862)
- 1918 – Peter Martin, Australian footballer and soldier (b. 1875)
- 1927 – Marie-Alphonsine Danil Ghattas, Palestinian Roman Catholic nun; later canonized (b. 1843)
- 1931 – Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi, Indian journalist and politician (b. 1890)
- 1931 – Ida B. Wells, American journalist and activist (b. 1862)
- 1932 – Harriet Backer, Norwegian painter (b.1845)
- 1942 – William Carr, American rower (b. 1876)
- 1951 – Eddie Collins, American baseball player and manager (b. 1887)
- 1956 – Lou Moore, American race car driver (b. 1904)
- 1956 – Robert Newton, English actor (b. 1905)
- 1957 – Max Ophüls, German-American director and screenwriter (b. 1902)
- 1958 – Tom Brown, American trombonist (b. 1888)
- 1964 – Charles Benjamin Howard, Canadian businessman and politician (b. 1885)
- 1965 – Viola Liuzzo, American civil rights activist (b. 1925)
- 1969 – Billy Cotton, English singer, drummer, and bandleader (b. 1899)
- 1969 – Max Eastman, American poet and activist (b. 1883)
- 1973 – Jakob Sildnik, Estonian photographer and director (b. 1883)
- 1973 – Edward Steichen, Luxembourgian-American photographer, painter, and curator (b. 1879)
- 1975 – Juan Gaudino, Argentinian race car driver (b. 1893)
- 1975 – Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabian king (b. 1906)
- 1975 – Deiva Zivarattinam, Indian lawyer and politician (b. 1894)
- 1976 – Josef Albers, German-American painter and educator (b. 1888)
- 1976 – Benjamin Miessner, American radio engineer and inventor (b. 1890)
- 1979 – Robert Madgwick, Australian colonel and academic (b. 1905)
- 1979 – Akinoumi Setsuo, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 37th Yokozuna (b. 1914)
- 1980 – Milton H. Erickson, American psychiatrist and psychologist (b. 1901)
- 1980 – Walter Susskind, Czech-English conductor and educator (b. 1913)
- 1982 – Goodman Ace, American comedian and writer (b. 1899)
- 1983 – Bob Waterfield, American football player and coach (b. 1920)
- 1986 – Gloria Blondell, American actress (b. 1910)
- 1987 – A. W. Mailvaganam, Sri Lankan physicist and academic (b. 1906)
- 1988 – Robert Joffrey, American dancer, choreographer, and director, co-founded the Joffrey Ballet (b. 1930)
- 1991 – Marcel Lefebvre, French-Swiss archbishop (b. 1905)
- 1992 – Nancy Walker, American actress, singer, and director (b. 1922)
- 1994 – Angelines Fernández, Spanish-Mexican actress (b. 1922)
- 1994 – Bernard Kangro, Estonian poet and journalist (b. 1910)
- 1994 – Max Petitpierre, Swiss jurist and politician (b. 1899)
- 1995 – James Samuel Coleman, American sociologist and academic (b. 1926)
- 1995 – John Hugenholtz, Dutch engineer (b. 1914)
- 1996 – John Snagge, English journalist (b. 1904)
- 1998 – Max Green, Australian lawyer (b. 1952)
- 1998 – Steven Schiff, American lawyer and politician (b. 1947)
- 1999 – Cal Ripken, Sr., American baseball player, coach, and manager (b. 1936)
- 2000 – Helen Martin, American actress (b. 1909)
- 2001 – Brian Trubshaw, English cricketer and pilot (b. 1924)
- 2002 – Kenneth Wolstenholme, English journalist and sportscaster (b. 1920)
- 2005 – Paul Henning, American screenwriter and producer (b. 1911)
- 2006 – Bob Carlos Clarke, Irish photographer (b. 1950)
- 2006 – Rocío Dúrcal, Spanish singer and actress (b. 1944)
- 2006 – Richard Fleischer, American film director (b. 1916)
- 2006 – Buck Owens, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1929)
- 2007 – Andranik Margaryan, Armenian engineer and politician, 10th Prime Minister of Armenia (b. 1951)
- 2008 – Ben Carnevale, American basketball player and coach (b. 1915)
- 2008 – Thierry Gilardi, French journalist and sportscaster (b. 1958)
- 2008 – Abby Mann, American screenwriter and producer (b. 1927)
- 2008 – Herb Peterson, American businessman, created the McMuffin (b. 1919)
- 2009 – Johnny Blanchard, American baseball player (b. 1933)
- 2009 – Kosuke Koyama, Japanese-American theologian and academic (b. 1929)
- 2009 – Dan Seals, American musician (b. 1948)
- 2009 – Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu, Turkish politician and member of the Parliament of Turkey (b. 1954)
- 2012 – Priscilla Buckley, American journalist and author (b. 1921)
- 2012 – Hal E. Chester, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1921)
- 2012 – John Crosfield, English businessman, founded Crosfield Electronics (b. 1915)
- 2012 – Edd Gould, English animator and voice actor, founded Eddsworld (b. 1988)
- 2012 – Antonio Tabucchi, Italian author and academic (b. 1943)
- 2013 – Léonce Bernard, Canadian politician, 26th Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island (b. 1943)
- 2013 – Ben Goldfaden, American basketball player and educator (b. 1913)
- 2013 – Anthony Lewis, American journalist and academic (b. 1927)
- 2013 – Jean Pickering, English runner and long jumper (b. 1929)
- 2013 – Jean-Marc Roberts, French author and screenwriter (b. 1954)
- 2013 – John F. Wiley, American lieutenant, football player, and coach (b. 1920)
- 2014 – Lorna Arnold, English historian and author (b. 1915)
- 2014 – Hank Lauricella, American football player and politician (b. 1930)
- 2014 – Jon Lord, Canadian businessman and politician (b. 1956)
- 2014 – Sonny Ruberto, American baseball player, coach, and manager (b. 1946)
- 2014 – Jonathan Schell, American journalist and author (b. 1943)
- 2014 – Ralph Wilson, American businessman, founded the Buffalo Bills (b. 1918)
- 2015 – George Fischbeck, American journalist and educator (b. 1922)
- 2016 – Shannon Bolin, American actress and singer (b. 1917)
- 2017 – Cuthbert Sebastian, St. Kitts and Nevis politician (b. 1921)
- 2018 – Zell Miller, American author and politician (b. 1932)
- 2019 – Scott Walker, American-born British singer-songwriter (b. 1943)[9]
Holidays and observances on March 25
- Anniversary of the Arengo and the Feast of the Militants (San Marino)
- Christian feast days:
- Ælfwold II of Sherborne
- Barontius and Desiderius
- Blessed Marie-Alphonsine Danil Ghattas
- Omelyan Kovch (Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church)
- Dismas, the “Good Thief”
- Humbert of Maroilles
- Quirinus of Tegernsee
- March 25 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Cultural Workers Day (Russia)
- Earliest day on which Seward’s Day can fall, while March 31 is the latest; celebrated on the last Monday in March. (Alaska)
- Empress Menen’s Birthday (Rastafari)
- EU Talent Day (European Union)
- Feast of the Annunciation (Christianity), and its related observances (if March 25 falls in Holy Week or Easter Week the feast is moved to the Monday after the 2nd Sunday of Easter):
- Historic start of the new year (Lady Day) in England, Wales, Ireland, and the future United States until the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1752. (The year 1751 began on 25 March; the year 1752 began on 1 January.) It is one of the four Quarter days in Ireland and England.
- International Day of the Unborn Child (international)
- Mother’s Day (Slovenia)
- Vårfrudagen or Våffeldagen, “Waffle Day” (Sweden, Norway & Denmark)
- Freedom Day (Belarus)
- International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade (international)
- International Day of Solidarity with Detained and Missing Staff Members (United Nations General Assembly)
- Maryland Day (Maryland, United States)
- Medal of Honor Day (United States)
- Independence Day, celebrates the start of Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire, in 1821. (Greece)
- NZ Army Day
- Struggle for Human Rights Day (Slovakia)
- Tolkien Reading Day
-
February 14 in History
- 748 – Abbasid Revolution: The Hashimi rebels under Abu Muslim Khorasani take Merv, capital of the Umayyad province Khorasan, marking the consolidation of the Abbasid revolt.
- 842 – Charles the Bald and Louis the German swear the Oaths of Strasbourg in the French and German languages.
- 1014 – Pope Benedict VIII crowns Henry of Bavaria, King of Germany and of Italy, as Holy Roman Emperor.
- 1076 – Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor.
- 1130 – Pope Innocent II is elected.
- 1349 – Several hundred Jews are burned to death by mobs while the remaining Jews are forcibly removed from Strasbourg.
- 1400 – Richard II of England dies, most probably from starvation, in Pontefract Castle, on the orders of Henry Bolingbroke.
- 1530 – Spanish conquistadores, led by Nuño de Guzmán, overthrow and execute Tangaxuan II, the last independent monarch of the Tarascan state in present-day central Mexico.
- 1556 – Thomas Cranmer is declared a heretic.
- 1556 – Coronation of Akbar.
- 1655 – The Mapuches launch coordinated attacks against the Spanish in Chile beginning the Mapuche uprising of 1655.
- 1778 – The United States flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte renders a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.
- 1779 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Kettle Creek is fought in Georgia.
- 1779 – James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.
- 1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Cape St. Vincent: John Jervis, (later 1st Earl of St Vincent) and Horatio Nelson (later 1st Viscount Nelson) lead the British Royal Navy to victory over a Spanish fleet in action near Gibraltar.
- 1804 – Karađorđe leads the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire.
- 1831 – Ras Marye of Yejju marches into Tigray and defeats and kills Dejazmach Sabagadis in the Battle of Debre Abbay.
- 1835 – The original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, in the Latter Day Saint movement, is formed in Kirtland, Ohio.
- 1849 – In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken.
- 1852 – Great Ormond St Hospital for Sick Children, the first hospital in England to provide in-patient beds specifically for children, is founded in London.
- 1855 – Texas is linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas.
- 1859 – Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.
- 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray.
- 1879 – The War of the Pacific breaks out when the Chilean Army occupies the Bolivian port city of Antofagasta.
- 1899 – Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.
- 1900 – British forces begin the Battle of the Tugela Heights in an effort to lift the Siege of Ladysmith.
- 1903 – The United States Department of Commerce and Labor is established (later split into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor).
- 1912 – Arizona is admitted as the 48th and the last contiguous U.S. state.
- 1912 – The U.S. Navy commissions its first class of diesel-powered submarines.
- 1919 – The Polish–Soviet War begins.
- 1920 – The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago.
- 1924 – The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company changes its name to International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
- 1929 – Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre: Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s gang, are murdered in Chicago.
- 1942 – Battle of Pasir Panjang contributes to the fall of Singapore.
- 1943 – World War II: Rostov-on-Don, Russia is liberated.
- 1943 – World War II: Tunisia Campaign: General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim’s Fifth Panzer Army launches a concerted attack against Allied positions in Tunisia.
- 1944 – World War II: In the Action of 14 February 1944, a Royal Navy submarine sinks a German-controlled Italian submarine in the Strait of Malacca.
- 1945 – World War II: On the first day of the bombing of Dresden, the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden.
- 1945 – World War II: Navigational error leads to the mistaken bombing of Prague, Czechoslovakia by an American squadron of B-17s assisting in the Soviet’s Vistula–Oder Offensive.
- 1945 – World War II: Mostar is liberated by Yugoslav partisans
- 1945 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially beginning U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations.
- 1946 – The Bank of England is nationalized.
- 1949 – The Knesset (parliament of Israel) convenes for the first time.
- 1949 – The Asbestos Strike begins in Canada. The strike marks the beginning of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.
- 1961 – Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized at the University of California.
- 1966 – Australian currency is decimalized.
- 1979 – In Kabul, Setami Milli militants kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police.
- 1983 – United American Bank of Knoxville, Tennessee collapses. Its president, Jake Butcher, is later convicted of fraud.
- 1989 – Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal disaster.
- 1989 – Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.
- 1990 – Ninety-two people are killed when Indian Airlines Flight 605 crashes in Bangalore, India.
- 1990 – The Voyager 1 spacecraft takes the photograph of planet Earth that later become famous as Pale Blue Dot.
- 1998 – An oil tanker train collides with a freight train in Yaoundé, Cameroon, spilling fuel oil. One person scavenging the oil created a massive explosion which killed 120.
- 2000 – The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker enters orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.
- 2004 – In a suburb of Moscow, Russia, the roof of the Transvaal water park collapses, killing more than 25 people, and wounding more than 100 others.
- 2005 – In Beirut, 23 people, including former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, are killed when the equivalent of around 1,000 kg of TNT is detonated while Hariri’s motorcade drives through the city.
- 2005 – Seven people are killed and 151 wounded in a series of bombings by suspected al-Qaeda-linked militants that hit Makati, Davao City, and General Santos City, all in the Philippines.
- 2005 – YouTube is launched by a group of college students, eventually becoming the largest video sharing website in the world and a main source for viral videos.
- 2008 – Northern Illinois University shooting: A gunman opens fire in a lecture hall of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb County, Illinois, resulting in six fatalities (including the gunman) and 21 injuries.
- 2011 – As a part of Arab Spring, the Bahraini uprising begins with a ‘Day of Rage’.
- 2018 – Jacob Zuma resigns as President of South Africa.
- 2018 – A shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is one of the deadliest school massacres with 17 fatalities and 15 injuries.
- 2019 – Pulwama attack takes place in Lethpora in Pulwama district, Jammu and Kashmir, India in which 40 Central Reserve Police Force personnel and a suicide bomber were killed and 35 were injured.
Births on February 14
- 1404 – Leon Battista Alberti, Italian painter, poet, and philosopher (d. 1472)
- 1408 – John FitzAlan, 14th Earl of Arundel (d. 1435)
- 1452 – Pandolfo Petrucci, tyrant of Siena (d. 1512)
- 1468 – Johannes Werner, German priest and mathematician (d. 1522)
- 1483 – Babur, Moghul emperor (d. 1530)
- 1490 – Valentin Friedland, German scholar and educationist of the Reformation (d. 1556)
- 1513 – Domenico Ferrabosco, Italian composer (d. 1573)
- 1545 – Lucrezia de’ Medici, Duchess of Ferrara (d. 1561)
- 1602 – Francesco Cavalli, Italian composer (d. 1676)
- 1614 – John Wilkins, English bishop, academic and natural philosopher (d. 1672)
- 1625 – Countess Palatine Maria Eufrosyne of Zweibrücken, Swedish princess (d. 1687)
- 1628 – Valentine Greatrakes, Irish faith healer (d. 1683)
- 1640 – Countess Palatine Anna Magdalena of Birkenfeld-Bischweiler (d. 1693)
- 1670 – Rajaram Raj Bhonsle, third Chhatrapati of the Maratha Empire (d. 1700)
- 1679 – Georg Friedrich Kauffmann, German organist and composer (d. 1735)
- 1692 – Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée, French author and playwright (d. 1754)
- 1701 – Enrique Flórez, Spanish historian and author (d. 1773)
- 1763 – Jean Victor Marie Moreau, French general (d. 1813)
- 1782 – Eleanora Atherton, English philanthropist (d. 1870)
- 1784 – Heinrich Baermann, German clarinetist (d. 1847)
- 1799 – Walenty Wańkowicz, Polish painter and illustrator (d. 1842)
- 1800 – Emory Washburn, American historian, lawyer, and politician, 22nd Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1877)
- 1808 – Michael Costa, Italian-English conductor and composer (d. 1884)
- 1813 – Lydia Hamilton Smith, African-American businesswoman (d. 1884)
- 1819 – Christopher Latham Sholes, American journalist and politician, invented the typewriter (d. 1890)
- 1824 – Winfield Scott Hancock, American general and politician (d. 1886)
- 1828 – Edmond François Valentin About, French journalist and author (d. 1885)
- 1835 – Piet Paaltjens, Dutch minister and poet (d. 1894)
- 1838 – Margaret E. Knight, American inventor (d. 1914)
- 1846 – Julian Scott, American soldier and drummer, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1901)
- 1847 – Anna Howard Shaw, American physician, minister, and activist (d. 1919)
- 1848 – Benjamin Baillaud, French astronomer and academic (d. 1934)
- 1855 – Frank Harris, Irish author and journalist (d. 1931)
- 1859 – George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., American engineer, inventor of the Ferris wheel (d. 1896)
- 1860 – Eugen Schiffer, German lawyer and politician, Vice-Chancellor of Germany (d. 1954)
- 1869 – Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Scottish physicist and meteorologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1959)
- 1878 – Julius Nieuwland, Belgian priest, chemist and academic (d. 1936)
- 1882 – John Barrymore, American actor (d. 1942)
- 1884 – Nils Olaf Chrisander, Swedish actor and director (d. 1947)
- 1884 – Kostas Varnalis, Greek poet and playwright (d. 1974)
- 1890 – Nina Hamnett, Welsh-English painter and author (d. 1956)
- 1890 – Dick Richards Welsh international footballer, forward
- 1891 – Katherine Stinson, American aviator (d. 1977)
- 1892 – Radola Gajda, Czech commander and politician (d. 1948)
- 1894 – Jack Benny, American actor and producer (d. 1974)
- 1895 – Wilhelm Burgdorf, German general (d. 1945)
- 1895 – Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist (d. 1973)
- 1898 – Bill Tilman, English mountaineer and explorer (d. 1977)
- 1898 – Fritz Zwicky, Swiss-American physicist and astronomer (d. 1974)
- 1900 – Jessica Dragonette, American singer (d. 1980)
- 1903 – Stuart Erwin, American actor (d. 1967)
- 1905 – Thelma Ritter, American actress and singer (d. 1969)
- 1907 – Johnny Longden, English-American jockey and trainer (d. 2003)
- 1911 – Willem Johan Kolff, Dutch physician and inventor (d. 2009)
- 1912 – Tibor Sekelj, Hungarian lawyer, explorer, and author (d. 1988)
- 1913 – Mel Allen, American sportscaster (d. 1996)
- 1913 – Woody Hayes, American football player and coach (d. 1987)
- 1913 – Jimmy Hoffa, American trade union leader (d. 1975)
- 1913 – James Pike, American bishop (d. 1969)
- 1916 – Marcel Bigeard, French general (d. 2010)
- 1916 – Sally Gray, English actress and singer (d. 2006)
- 1916 – Masaki Kobayashi, Japanese director and producer (d. 1996)
- 1916 – Edward Platt, American actor (d. 1974)
- 1917 – Herbert A. Hauptman, American mathematician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2011)
- 1921 – Hugh Downs, American journalist, game show host, and producer
- 1921 – Hazel McCallion, Canadian businesswoman and politician, 3rd Mayor of Mississauga
- 1923 – Jay Hebert, American golfer (d. 1997)
- 1924 – Patricia Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma (d. 2017)
- 1927 – Lois Maxwell, Canadian-Australian model and actress (d. 2007)
- 1928 – William Allain, American soldier and politician, 58th Governor of Mississippi (d. 2013)
- 1928 – Vicente T. Blaz, American general and politician (d. 2014)
- 1929 – Vic Morrow, American actor and director (d. 1982)
- 1931 – Bernie Geoffrion, Canadian-American ice hockey player and coach (d. 2006)
- 1931 – Brian Kelly, American actor and director (d. 2005)
- 1932 – Harriet Andersson, Swedish actress
- 1934 – Florence Henderson, American actress and singer (d. 2016)
- 1935 – David Wilson, Baron Wilson of Tillyorn, Scottish academic and diplomat, 27th Governor of Hong Kong
- 1936 – Anna German, Polish singer (d. 1982)
- 1937 – John MacGregor, Baron MacGregor of Pulham Market, English politician, Secretary of State for Transport
- 1937 – Magic Sam, American singer and guitarist (d. 1969)
- 1939 – Razzy Bailey, American country music singer-songwriter and musician
- 1939 – Blowfly, American singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2016)
- 1939 – Eugene Fama, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1940 – James Maynard, American businessman, co-founded Golden Corral
- 1941 – Donna Shalala, American academic and politician, 18th United States Secretary of Health and Human Services
- 1941 – Paul Tsongas, American lawyer and politician (d. 1997)
- 1942 – Michael Bloomberg, American businessman and politician, 108th Mayor of New York City
- 1942 – Andrew Robinson, American actor and director
- 1942 – Ricardo Rodríguez, Mexican race car driver (d. 1962)
- 1943 – Eric Andersen, American singer-songwriter
- 1943 – Maceo Parker, American saxophonist
- 1943 – Aaron Russo, American director and producer (d. 2007)
- 1944 – Carl Bernstein, American journalist and author
- 1944 – Alan Parker, English director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1944 – Ronnie Peterson, Swedish race car driver (d. 1978)
- 1945 – Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein
- 1945 – Rod Masterson, American lieutenant and actor (d. 2013)
- 1946 – Bernard Dowiyogo, Nauru politician, President of Nauru (d. 2003)
- 1946 – Gregory Hines, American actor, singer, and dancer (d. 2003)
- 1947 – Tim Buckley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1975)
- 1947 – Judd Gregg, American lawyer and politician, 76th Governor of New Hampshire
- 1948 – Kitten Natividad, Mexican-American actress and dancer
- 1948 – Pat O’Brien, American journalist and author
- 1948 – Wally Tax, Dutch singer-songwriter (d. 2005)
- 1948 – Teller, American magician and actor
- 1950 – Roger Fisher, American guitarist and songwriter
- 1951 – Terry Gross, American radio host and producer
- 1951 – Kevin Keegan, English footballer and manager
- 1952 – Sushma Swaraj, Indian lawyer and politician, Indian Minister of External Affairs (d. 2019)
- 1954 – Jam Mohammad Yousaf, Pakistani politician, Chief Minister of Balochistan (d. 2013)
- 1955 – Carol Kalish, American publisher (d. 1991)
- 1956 – Howard Davis Jr., American boxer and trainer (d. 2015)
- 1956 – Dave Dravecky, American baseball player
- 1956 – Katharina Fritsch, German sculptor and academic
- 1957 – Alan Hunter, American television host and actor
- 1957 – Soile Isokoski, Finnish soprano and actress
- 1957 – Alan Smith, English bishop
- 1958 – Grant Thomas, Australian footballer and coach
- 1959 – Renée Fleming, American soprano and actress
- 1960 – Philip Jones, English admiral
- 1960 – Jim Kelly, American football player and businessman
- 1960 – Meg Tilly, American actress and author
- 1963 – Enrico Colantoni, Canadian actor, director, and producer
- 1963 – John Marzano, American baseball player (d. 2008)
- 1964 – Gianni Bugno, Italian cyclist and sportscaster
- 1966 – Petr Svoboda, Czech ice hockey player and agent
- 1967 – Stelios Haji-Ioannou, Greek-English businessman, founded easyJet
- 1967 – Manuela Maleeva, Bulgarian-Swiss tennis player
- 1967 – Mark Rutte, Dutch businessman and politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
- 1968 – Jules Asner, American model and television host
- 1968 – Chris Lewis, Guyanese-English cricketer
- 1968 – Scott McClellan, American civil servant and author, 25th White House Press Secretary
- 1969 – Meg Hillier, English journalist and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
- 1970 – Giuseppe Guerini, Italian cyclist
- 1970 – Sean Hill, American ice hockey player
- 1970 – Simon Pegg, English actor, director, and producer
- 1971 – Kris Aquino, Filipino talk show host, actress, and producer
- 1971 – Gheorghe Mureșan, Romanian basketball player
- 1972 – Drew Bledsoe, American football player and coach
- 1972 – Musōyama Masashi, Japanese sumo wrestler
- 1972 – Najwa Nimri, Spanish actress and singer
- 1972 – Jaan Tallinn, Estonian computer programmer, co-developed Skype
- 1972 – Rob Thomas, American singer-songwriter
- 1973 – H. D. Ackerman, South African cricketer
- 1973 – Tyus Edney, American basketball player and coach
- 1973 – Steve McNair, American football player (d. 2009)
- 1973 – Annalisa Buffa, Italian mathematician
- 1974 – Valentina Vezzali, Italian fencer and politician
- 1976 – Liv Kristine, Norwegian singer-songwriter
- 1976 – Rie Rasmussen, Danish model, film director, writer, photographer, and actress
- 1977 – Cadel Evans, Australian cyclist
- 1977 – Jim Jefferies, Australian comedian and actor
- 1977 – Darren Purse, English footballer
- 1977 – Elmer Symons, South African motorcycle racer (d. 2007)
- 1977 – Anna Erschler, Russian mathematician
- 1977 – Robert J. Jackson Jr., American law professor
- 1978 – Richard Hamilton, American basketball player
- 1978 – Darius Songaila, Lithuanian basketball player and coach
- 1980 – Josh Senter, American screenwriter and producer
- 1980 – Michelle Ye, Hong Kong actress and producer
- 1981 – Matteo Brighi, Italian footballer
- 1981 – Randy de Puniet, French motorcycle racer
- 1981 – Brad Halsey, American baseball player (d. 2014)
- 1982 – Marián Gáborík, Slovak ice hockey player
- 1982 – John Halls, English footballer and model
- 1982 – Lenka Tvarošková, Slovak tennis player
- 1983 – Callix Crabbe, Virgin Islander baseball player
- 1983 – Rocky Elsom, Australian rugby player
- 1983 – Bacary Sagna, French footballer
- 1985 – Karima Adebibe, English model and actress
- 1985 – Tyler Clippard, American baseball player
- 1985 – Heart Evangelista, Filipino singer and actress
- 1985 – Philippe Senderos, Swiss international footballer, centre back
- 1985 – Miki Yeung, Hong Kong singer and actress
- 1986 – Michael Ammermüller, German race car driver
- 1986 – Oliver Lee, English actor, director, and screenwriter
- 1986 – Gao Lin, Chinese footballer
- 1987 – Edinson Cavani, Uruguayan footballer
- 1987 – Tom Pyatt, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1987 – David Wheater, English footballer
- 1988 – Katie Boland, Canadian actress, producer, and screenwriter
- 1988 – Ángel Di María, Argentinian footballer
- 1988 – Siim Liivik, Estonian ice hockey player
- 1988 – Asia Nitollano, American singer and dancer
- 1989 – Néstor Calderón, Mexican footballer
- 1989 – Adam Matuszczyk, Polish footballer
- 1989 – Emma Miskew, Canadian curler
- 1989 – Brandon Sutter, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1989 – Jurij Tepeš, Slovenian ski jumper
- 1989 – Kristian Thomas, English gymnast
- 1990 – Sefa Yılmaz, German-Turkish footballer
- 1991 – Daniela Mona Lambin, Estonian footballer
- 1991 – Chris Rowney, English footballer
- 1992 – Christian Eriksen, Danish footballer
- 1992 – Freddie Highmore, English actor
- 1996 – Lucas Hernandez, French footballer
Deaths on February 14
- 869 – Cyril, Greek missionary bishop (b. 827)
- 945 – Lian Chongyu, Chinese general
- 945 – Zhu Wenjin, Chinese emperor
- 1009 – Bruno of Querfurt, German missionary bishop
- 1010 – Fujiwara no Korechika, Japanese nobleman (b. 974)
- 1140 – Leo I, Armenian prince
- 1140 – Sobĕslav I, duke of Bohemia
- 1164 – Sviatoslav Olgovich, Kievan prince
- 1229 – Rǫgnvaldr Guðrøðarson, king of the Isles
- 1317 – Margaret of France, queen of England
- 1400 – Richard II, king of England (b. 1367)
- 1440 – Dietrich of Oldenburg, German nobleman
- 1489 – Nicolaus von Tüngen, prince-bishop of Warmia
- 1528 – Edzard I, German nobleman (b. 1462)
- 1549 – Il Sodoma, Italian painter (b. 1477)
- 1571 – Odet de Coligny, French cardinal (b. 1517)
- 1676 – Abraham Bosse, French engraver and illustrator (b. 1602)
- 1714 – Maria Luisa of Savoy, queen of Spain (b. 1688)
- 1737 – Charles Talbot, 1st Baron Talbot, English lawyer and politician Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1685)
- 1744 – John Hadley, English mathematician, invented the octant (b. 1682)
- 1779 – James Cook, English captain, cartographer, and explorer (b. 1728)
- 1780 – William Blackstone, English jurist and politician (b. 1723)
- 1782 – Singu Min, Burmese king (b. 1756)
- 1808 – John Dickinson, American lawyer and politician 5th Governor of Delaware (b. 1732)
- 1831 – Vicente Guerrero, Mexican general and politician, 2nd President of Mexico (b. 1782)
- 1831 – Henry Maudslay, English engineer (b. 1771)
- 1870 – St. John Richardson Liddell, American general (b. 1815)
- 1881 – Fernando Wood, American merchant and politician, 73rd Mayor of New York City (b. 1812)
- 1884 – Lydia Hamilton Smith, African-American businesswoman (b. 1813)
- 1885 – Jules Vallès, French journalist and author (b. 1832)
- 1891 – William Tecumseh Sherman, American general (b. 1820)
- 1894 – Eugène Charles Catalan, Belgian-French mathematician and academic (b. 1814)
- 1901 – Edward Stafford, Scottish-New Zealand educator and politician, 3rd Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1819)
- 1910 – Giovanni Passannante, Italian anarchist (b. 1849)
- 1922 – Heikki Ritavuori, Finnish lawyer and politician (b. 1880)
- 1929 – Thomas Burke, American sprinter, coach, and lawyer (b. 1875)
- 1930 – Thomas Mackenzie, Scottish-New Zealand cartographer and politician, 18th Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1853)
- 1933 – Carl Correns, German botanist and geneticist (b. 1864)
- 1942 – Adnan Saidi, Malayan lieutenant (b. 1915)
- 1943 – Dora Gerson, German actress and singer (b. 1899)
- 1943 – David Hilbert, Russian-German mathematician, physicist, and philosopher (b. 1862)
- 1948 – Mordecai Brown, American baseball player and manager (b. 1876)
- 1949 – Yusuf Salman Yusuf, Iraqi politician (b. 1901)
- 1950 – Karl Guthe Jansky, American physicist and engineer (b. 1905)
- 1952 – Maurice De Waele, Belgian cyclist (b. 1896)
- 1958 – Abdur Rab Nishtar, Pakistani politician, 2nd Governor of Punjab (b. 1899)
- 1959 – Baby Dodds, American drummer (b. 1898)
- 1967 – Sig Ruman, German-American actor (b. 1884)
- 1969 – Vito Genovese, Italian-American mob boss (b. 1897)
- 1970 – Herbert Strudwick, English cricketer and coach (b. 1880)
- 1974 – Stewie Dempster, New Zealand cricketer and coach (b. 1903)
- 1975 – Julian Huxley, English biologist and eugenicist, co-founded the World Wide Fund for Nature (b. 1887)
- 1975 – P. G. Wodehouse, English novelist and playwright (b. 1881)
- 1979 – Adolph Dubs, American lieutenant and diplomat, United States Ambassador to Afghanistan (b. 1920)
- 1983 – Lina Radke, German runner and coach (b. 1903)
- 1986 – Edmund Rubbra, English composer and conductor (b. 1901)
- 1987 – Dmitry Kabalevsky, Russian pianist and composer (b. 1904)
- 1988 – Frederick Loewe, German-American composer (b. 1901)
- 1989 – James Bond, American ornithologist and zoologist (b. 1900)
- 1989 – Vincent Crane, English pianist (b. 1943)
- 1994 – Andrei Chikatilo, Soviet serial killer (b. 1936)
- 1994 – Christopher Lasch, American historian and critic (b. 1932)
- 1995 – Michael V. Gazzo, American actor and playwright (b. 1923)
- 1995 – U Nu, Burmese politician, 1st Prime Minister of Burma (b. 1907)
- 1996 – Bob Paisley, English footballer and manager (b. 1919)
- 1999 – John Ehrlichman, American lawyer and politician, 12th White House Counsel (b. 1925)
- 1999 – Buddy Knox, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1933)
- 2002 – Nándor Hidegkuti, Hungarian footballer and manager (b. 1922)
- 2002 – Mick Tucker, English drummer (b. 1947)
- 2003 – Johnny Longden, English jockey and trainer (b. 1907)
- 2004 – Marco Pantani, Italian cyclist (b. 1970)
- 2005 – Rafic Hariri, Lebanese businessman and politician, 60th Prime Minister of Lebanon (b. 1944; assassinated)
- 2006 – Lynden David Hall, English singer-songwriter and producer (b. 1974)
- 2007 – Ryan Larkin, Canadian animator and director (b. 1943)
- 2007 – Gareth Morris, English flute player and educator (b. 1920)
- 2009 – Bernard Ashley, English engineer and businessman, co-founded Laura Ashley plc (b. 1926)
- 2009 – Louie Bellson, American drummer and composer (b. 1924)
- 2010 – Doug Fieger, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1952)
- 2010 – Dick Francis, Welsh jockey and author (b. 1920)
- 2010 – Linnart Mäll, Estonian historian, orientalist, and translator (b. 1938)
- 2011 – George Shearing, English-American pianist and composer (b. 1919)
- 2012 – Mike Bernardo, South African boxer and martial artist (b. 1969)
- 2012 – Tonmi Lillman, Finnish drummer and producer (b. 1973)
- 2012 – Dory Previn, American singer-songwriter (b. 1925)
- 2012 – Péter Rusorán, Hungarian swimmer, water polo player, and coach (b. 1940)
- 2013 – Glenn Boyer, American historian and author (b. 1924)
- 2013 – Ronald Dworkin, American philosopher and scholar (b. 1931)
- 2014 – Tom Finney, English footballer (b. 1922)
- 2014 – Chris Pearson, Canadian lawyer and politician, 1st Premier of Yukon (b. 1931)
- 2014 – Mike Stepovich, American lawyer and politician, Governor of Alaska Territory (b. 1919)
- 2015 – Louis Jourdan, French-American actor and singer (b. 1921)
- 2015 – Philip Levine, American poet and academic (b. 1928)
- 2015 – Franjo Mihalić, Croatian-Serbian runner and coach (b. 1920)
- 2016 – Eric Lubbock, 4th Baron Avebury, English lieutenant, engineer, and politician (b. 1928)
- 2016 – Steven Stucky, American composer and academic (b. 1949)
- 2018 – Ruud Lubbers, Dutch politician and diplomat, Prime Minister and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (b. 1939)
- 2018 – Morgan Tsvangirai, 2nd Prime Minister of Zimbabwe (b. 1952).
Holidays and observances on February 14
- Christian feast day:
- Cyril and Methodius, patron saints of Europe (Roman Catholic Church)
- Manchan
- Valentine (Valentine’s Day)
- February 14 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Statehood Day (Arizona, United States)
- Statehood Day (Oregon, United States)
- Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (Armenian Apostolic Church)
- Parents’ Worship Day (parts of India)
-
February 3 in History
- 1112 – Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, and Douce I, Countess of Provence, marry, uniting the fortunes of those two states.
- 1451 – Sultan Mehmed II inherits the throne of the Ottoman Empire.
- 1488 – Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, becoming the first known European to travel so far south.
- 1509 – The Portuguese navy defeats a joint fleet of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Venice, the Sultan of Gujarat, the Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, the Zamorin of Calicut, and the Republic of Ragusa at the Battle of Diu in Diu, India.
- 1661 – Maratha forces under Chattrapati Shivaji defeat the Mughals in the Battle of Umberkhind.
- 1690 – The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in the Americas.
- 1706 – During the Battle of Fraustadt Swedish forces defeat a superior Saxon-Polish-Russian force by deploying a double envelopment.
- 1781 – American Revolutionary War: British forces seize the Dutch-owned Caribbean island Sint Eustatius.
- 1783 – Spain–United States relations are first established.
- 1787 – Militia led by General Benjamin Lincoln crush the remnants of Shays’ Rebellion in Petersham, Massachusetts.
- 1807 – A British military force, under Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty captures the Spanish Empire city of Montevideo, now the capital of Uruguay.
- 1809 – The Territory of Illinois is created by the 10th United States Congress.
- 1813 – José de San Martín defeats a Spanish royalist army at the Battle of San Lorenzo, part of the Argentine War of Independence.
- 1830 – The London Protocol of 1830 establishes the full independence and sovereignty of Greece from the Ottoman Empire as the final result of the Greek War of Independence.
- 1834 – Wake Forest University is established (as Wake Forest Institute) in North Carolina, United States.
- 1870 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to male citizens regardless of race.
- 1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.
- 1916 – The Centre Block of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada burns down with the loss of 7 lives.
- 1917 – First World War: The American entry into World War I begins when diplomatic relations with Germany are severed due to its unrestricted submarine warfare.
- 1918 – The Twin Peaks Tunnel in San Francisco, California begins service as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world at 11,920 feet (3,633 meters) long.
- 1930 – Communist Party of Vietnam is founded at a “Unification Conference” held in Kowloon, British Hong Kong.
- 1931 – The Hawke’s Bay earthquake, New Zealand’s worst natural disaster, kills 258.
- 1933 – Adolf Hitler announces that the expansion of Lebensraum into Eastern Europe, and its ruthless Germanisation, are the ultimate geopolitical objectives of Third Reich foreign policy.
- 1943 – The SS Dorchester is sunk by a German U-boat. Only 230 of 902 men aboard survive.
- 1944 – World War II: During the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, U.S. Army and Marine forces seize Kwajalein Atoll from the defending Japanese garrison.
- 1945 – World War II: As part of Operation Thunderclap, 1,000 B-17s of the Eighth Air Force bomb Berlin, a raid which kills between 2,500 and 3,000 and dehouses another 120,000.
- 1945 – World War II: The United States and the Philippine Commonwealth begin a month-long battle to retake Manila from Japan.
- 1953 – The Batepá massacre occurred in São Tomé when the colonial administration and Portuguese landowners unleashed a wave of violence against the native creoles known as forros.
- 1958 – Founding of the Benelux Economic Union, creating a testing ground for a later European Economic Community.
- 1959 – Rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson are killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.
- 1960 – British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan speaks of “a wind of change”, signalling that his Government was likely to support decolonisation.
- 1961 – The United States Air Forces begins Operation Looking Glass, and over the next 30 years, a “Doomsday Plane” is always in the air, with the capability of taking direct control of the United States’ bombers and missiles in the event of the destruction of the SAC’s command post.
- 1966 – The Soviet Union’s Luna 9 becomes the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon, and the first spacecraft to take pictures from the surface of the Moon.
- 1971 – New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption.
- 1972 – The first day of the seven-day 1972 Iran blizzard, which would kill at least 4,000 people, making it the deadliest snowstorm in history.
- 1984 – John Buster and the research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center announce history’s first embryo transfer, from one woman to another resulting in a live birth.
- 1984 – Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B is launched using Space Shuttle Challenger.
- 1989 – After a stroke two weeks previously, South African President P. W. Botha resigns as leader of the National Party, but stays on as president for six more months.
- 1989 – A military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay since 1954.
- 1994 – Space Shuttle program: STS-60 is launched, carrying Sergei Krikalev, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard the Shuttle.
- 1995 – Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 gets underway from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
- 1998 – Cavalese cable car disaster: a United States military pilot causes the death of 20 people when his low-flying plane cuts the cable of a cable-car near Trento, Italy.
- 2007 – A Baghdad market bombing kills at least 135 people and injures a further 339.
- 2014 – Two people are shot and killed and 29 students are taken hostage at a high school in Moscow, Russia.
Births on February 3
- 1338 – Joanna of Bourbon (d. 1378)
- 1392 – Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland, English nobleman and military commander (d. 1455)
- 1428 – Helena Palaiologina, Queen of Cyprus (d. 1458)
- 1478 – Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham (d. 1521)
- 1504 – Scipione Rebiba, Italian cardinal (d. 1577)
- 1677 – Jan Santini Aichel, Czech architect, designed the Karlova Koruna Chateau (d. 1723)
- 1689 – Blas de Lezo, Spanish admiral (d. 1741)
- 1690 – Richard Rawlinson, English minister and historian (d. 1755)
- 1721 – Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, Prussian general (d. 1773)
- 1736 – Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Austrian composer and theorist (d. 1809)
- 1747 – Samuel Osgood, American soldier and politician, 1st United States Postmaster General (d. 1813)
- 1757 – Joseph Forlenze, Italian ophthalmologist and surgeon (d. 1833)
- 1763 – Caroline von Wolzogen, German author (d. 1847)
- 1777 – John Cheyne, Scottish physician and author (d. 1836)
- 1790 – Gideon Mantell, English scientist (d. 1852)
- 1795 – Antonio José de Sucre, Venezuelan general and politician, 2nd President of Bolivia (d. 1830)
- 1807 – Joseph E. Johnston, American general and politician (d. 1891)
- 1809 – Felix Mendelssohn, German pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1847)
- 1811 – Horace Greeley, American journalist and politician (d. 1872)
- 1816 – Ram Singh Kuka, Indian credited with starting the Non-cooperation movement
- 1817 – Achille Ernest Oscar Joseph Delesse, French geologist and mineralogist (d. 1881)
- 1817 – Émile Prudent, French pianist and composer (d. 1863)
- 1821 – Elizabeth Blackwell, American physician and educator (d. 1910)
- 1824 – Ranald MacDonald, American explorer and educator (d. 1894)
- 1826 – Walter Bagehot, English journalist and businessman (d. 1877)
- 1830 – Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1903)
- 1842 – Sidney Lanier, American composer and poet (d. 1881)
- 1843 – William Cornelius Van Horne, American-Canadian businessman (d. 1915)
- 1857 – Giuseppe Moretti, Italian sculptor, designed the Vulcan statue (d. 1935)
- 1859 – Hugo Junkers, German engineer, designed the Junkers J 1 (d. 1935)
- 1862 – James Clark McReynolds, American lawyer and judge (d. 1946)
- 1867 – Charles Henry Turner, American biologist, educator and zoologist (d. 1923)
- 1872 – Lou Criger, American baseball player and manager (d. 1934)
- 1874 – Gertrude Stein, American novelist, poet, playwright, (d. 1946)
- 1878 – Gordon Coates, New Zealand soldier and politician, 21st Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1943)
- 1887 – Georg Trakl, Austrian pharmacist and poet (d. 1914)
- 1889 – Artur Adson, Estonian poet, playwright, and critic (d. 1977)
- 1889 – Carl Theodor Dreyer, Danish director and screenwriter (d. 1968)
- 1892 – Juan Negrín, Spanish physician and politician, 67th Prime Minister of Spain (d. 1956)
- 1893 – Gaston Julia, Algerian-French mathematician and academic (d. 1978)
- 1894 – Norman Rockwell, American painter and illustrator (d. 1978)
- 1898 – Alvar Aalto, Finnish architect, designed the Finlandia Hall and Aalto Theatre (d. 1976)
- 1899 – Café Filho, Brazilian journalist, lawyer, and politician, 18th President of Brazil (d. 1970)
- 1900 – Mabel Mercer, English-American singer (d. 1984)
- 1903 – Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton, Scottish soldier, pilot, and politician (d. 1973)
- 1904 – Pretty Boy Floyd, American gangster (d. 1934)
- 1905 – Paul Ariste, Estonian linguist and academic (d. 1990)
- 1905 – Arne Beurling, Swedish-American mathematician and academic (d. 1986)
- 1906 – George Adamson, Indian-English author and activist (d. 1989)
- 1907 – James A. Michener, American author and philanthropist (d. 1997)
- 1909 – André Cayatte, French lawyer and director (d. 1989)
- 1909 – Simone Weil, French mystic and philosopher (d. 1943)
- 1911 – Jehan Alain, French organist and composer (d. 1940)
- 1912 – Jacques Soustelle, French anthropologist and politician (d. 1990)
- 1914 – Mary Carlisle, American actress, singer, and dancer (d. 2018)
- 1915 – Johannes Kotkas, Estonian wrestler and hammer thrower (d. 1998)
- 1917 – Shlomo Goren, Polish-Israeli rabbi and general (d. 1994)
- 1918 – Joey Bishop, American actor and producer (d. 2007)
- 1918 – Helen Stephens, American runner, baseball player, and manager (d. 1994)
- 1920 – Russell Arms, American actor and singer (d. 2012)
- 1920 – Tony Gaze, Australian race car driver and pilot (d. 2013)
- 1920 – Henry Heimlich, American physician and author (d. 2016)
- 1924 – E. P. Thompson, English historian and author (d. 1993)
- 1924 – Martial Asselin, Canadian lawyer and politician, 25th Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (d. 2013)
- 1925 – Shelley Berman, American actor and comedian (d. 2017)
- 1925 – John Fiedler, American actor (d. 2005)
- 1926 – Hans-Jochen Vogel, German soldier and politician, 8th Mayor of Berlin
- 1927 – Kenneth Anger, American actor, director, and screenwriter
- 1927 – Blas Ople, Filipino journalist and politician, 21st President of the Senate of the Philippines (d. 2003)
- 1933 – Paul Sarbanes, American lawyer and politician
- 1934 – Juan Carlos Calabró, Argentinian actor and screenwriter (d. 2013)
- 1935 – Johnny “Guitar” Watson, American blues, soul, and funk singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1996)
- 1936 – Elizabeth Peer, American journalist (d. 1984)
- 1936 – Bob Simpson, Australian cricketer and coach
- 1937 – Billy Meier, Swiss author and photographer
- 1938 – Victor Buono, American actor (d. 1982)
- 1938 – Emile Griffith, American boxer and trainer (d. 2013)
- 1939 – Michael Cimino, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2016)
- 1940 – Fran Tarkenton, American football player and sportscaster
- 1941 – Dory Funk, Jr., American wrestler and trainer
- 1941 – Howard Phillips, American lawyer and politician (d. 2013)
- 1943 – Blythe Danner, American actress
- 1943 – Dennis Edwards, American soul/R&B singer (d. 2018)
- 1943 – Eric Haydock, English bass player (d. 2019)
- 1943 – Shawn Phillips, American-South African singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1945 – Johnny Cymbal, Scottish-American singer-songwriter and producer (d. 1993)
- 1945 – Bob Griese, American football player and sportscaster
- 1947 – Paul Auster, American novelist, essayist, and poet
- 1947 – Stephen McHattie, Canadian actor and director
- 1948 – Henning Mankell, Swedish author and playwright (d. 2015)
- 1949 – Jim Thorpe, American golfer
- 1950 – Morgan Fairchild, American actress
- 1950 – Grant Goldman, Australian radio and television host (d. 2020)
- 1951 – Eugenijus Riabovas, Lithuanian footballer and manager
- 1951 – Michael Ruppert, American journalist and author (d. 2014)
- 1952 – Fred Lynn, American baseball player and sportscaster
- 1954 – Tiger Williams, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1956 – John Jefferson, American football player and coach
- 1956 – Nathan Lane, American actor and comedian
- 1957 – Eric Lander, American mathematician, geneticist, and academic
- 1958 – Joe F. Edwards, Jr., American commander, pilot, and astronaut
- 1958 – Douglas Holtz-Eakin, American economist
- 1958 – Greg Mankiw, American economist and academic
- 1959 – Óscar Iván Zuluaga, Colombian economist and politician, 67th Colombian Minister of Finance
- 1960 – Tim Chandler, American bass player (d. 2018)
- 1960 – Marty Jannetty, American wrestler and trainer
- 1960 – Joachim Löw, German footballer and manager
- 1960 – Kerry Von Erich, American wrestler (d. 1993)
- 1961 – Linda Eder, American singer and actress
- 1963 – Raghuram Rajan, Indian economist and academic
- 1964 – Indrek Tarand, Estonian historian, journalist, and politician
- 1965 – Maura Tierney, American actress and producer
- 1966 – Frank Coraci, American director and screenwriter
- 1966 – Danny Morrison, New Zealand cricketer and sportscaster
- 1967 – Tim Flowers, English footballer and coach
- 1967 – Mixu Paatelainen, Finnish footballer and coach
- 1968 – Vlade Divac, Serbian-American basketball player and sportscaster
- 1968 – Marwan Khoury, Lebanese singer, songwriter, and composer
- 1969 – Beau Biden, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 44th Attorney General of Delaware (d. 2015)
- 1969 – Retief Goosen, South African golfer
- 1970 – Óscar Córdoba, Colombian footballer
- 1970 – Warwick Davis, English actor, producer, and screenwriter
- 1971 – Hong Seok-cheon, South Korean actor
- 1972 – Jesper Kyd, Danish pianist and composer
- 1973 – Ilana Sod, Mexican journalist and producer
- 1976 – Isla Fisher, Omani-Australian actress
- 1977 – Daddy Yankee, American-Puerto Rican singer, songwriter, rapper, actor and record producer
- 1977 – Marek Židlický, Czech ice hockey player
- 1978 – Joan Capdevila, Spanish footballer
- 1979 – Paul Franks, English cricketer and coach
- 1982 – Becky Bayless, American wrestler
- 1982 – Marie-Ève Drolet, Canadian speed skater
- 1984 – Elizabeth Holmes, American fraudster, founder of Theranos
- 1985 – Angela Fong, Canadian wrestler and actress
- 1985 – Andrei Kostitsyn, Belarusian ice hockey player
- 1986 – Lucas Duda, American baseball player
- 1986 – Mathieu Giroux, Canadian speed skater
- 1986 – Kanako Yanagihara, Japanese actress
- 1988 – Cho Kyuhyun, South Korean singer
- 1989 – Slobodan Rajković, Serbian footballer
- 1990 – Sean Kingston, American-Jamaican singer-songwriter
- 1990 – Martin Taupau, New Zealand rugby league player
- 1991 – Corey Norman, Australian rugby league player
- 1992 – Olli Aitola, Finnish ice hockey player
Deaths on February 3
- AD 6 – Ping, emperor of the Han Dynasty (b. 9 BC)
- 456 – Sihyaj Chan K’awiil II, ruler of Tikal
- 639 – K’inich Yo’nal Ahk I, ruler of Piedras Negras
- 699 – Werburgh, English nun and saint
- 865 – Ansgar, Frankish archbishop (b. 801)
- 929 – Guy, margrave of Tuscany
- 938 – Zhou Ben, Chinese general (b. 862)
- 994 – William IV, duke of Aquitaine (b. 937)
- 1014 – Sweyn Forkbeard, king of Denmark and England (b. 960)
- 1116 – Coloman, king of Hungary
- 1161 – Inge I, king of Norway (b. 1135)
- 1252 – Sviatoslav III, Russian Grand Prince (b. 1196)
- 1399 – John of Gaunt, Belgian-English politician, Lord High Steward (b. 1340)
- 1428 – Ashikaga Yoshimochi, Japanese shōgun (b. 1386)
- 1451 – Murad II, Ottoman sultan (b. 1404)
- 1468 – Johannes Gutenberg, German publisher, invented the Printing press (b. 1398)
- 1537 – Thomas FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Kildare (b. 1513)
- 1566 – George Cassander, Flemish theologian and author (b. 1513)
- 1618 – Philip II, duke of Pomerania (b. 1573)
- 1619 – Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham, English politician, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (b. 1564)
- 1737 – Tommaso Ceva, Italian mathematician and academic (b. 1648)
- 1802 – Pedro Rodríguez, Spanish statesman and economist (b. 1723)
- 1813 – Juan Bautista Cabral, Argentinian sergeant (b. 1789)
- 1820 – Gia Long, Vietnamese emperor (b. 1762)
- 1832 – George Crabbe, English surgeon and poet (b. 1754)
- 1862 – Jean-Baptiste Biot, French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician (b. 1774)
- 1866 – François-Xavier Garneau, Canadian poet, author, and historian (b. 1809)
- 1873 – Isaac Baker Brown, English gynecologist and surgeon (b. 1811)
- 1922 – John Butler Yeats, Irish painter and illustrator (b. 1839)
- 1924 – Woodrow Wilson, American historian, academic, and politician, 28th President of the United States, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1856)
- 1929 – Agner Krarup Erlang, Danish mathematician and engineer (b. 1878)
- 1935 – Hugo Junkers, German engineer, designed the Junkers J 1 (b. 1859)
- 1944 – Yvette Guilbert, French singer and actress (b. 1865)
- 1945 – Roland Freisler, German lawyer and judge (b. 1893)
- 1947 – Marc Mitscher, American admiral and pilot (b. 1887)
- 1952 – Harold L. Ickes, American journalist and politician, 32nd United States Secretary of the Interior (b. 1874)
- 1955 – Vasily Blokhin, Russian general (b. 1895)
- 1956 – Émile Borel, French mathematician and academic (b. 1871)
- 1956 – Johnny Claes, English-Belgian race car driver and trumpet player (b. 1916)
- 1959 – The Day the Music Died
- The Big Bopper, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1930)
- Buddy Holly, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1936)
- Ritchie Valens, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1941)
- 1960 – Fred Buscaglione, Italian singer and actor (b. 1921)
- 1961 – William Morrison, 1st Viscount Dunrossil, Scottish-Australian captain and politician, 14th Governor-General of Australia (b. 1893)
- 1961 – Anna May Wong, American actress (b. 1905)
- 1963 – Benjamin R. Jacobs (b. 1879)
- 1967 – Joe Meek, English songwriter and producer (b. 1929)
- 1969 – C. N. Annadurai, Indian journalist and politician, 7th Chief Minister of Madras State (b. 1909)
- 1969 – Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambican activist and academic (b. 1920)
- 1975 – William D. Coolidge, American physicist and engineer (b. 1873)
- 1975 – Umm Kulthum, Egyptian singer-songwriter and actress (b. 1904)
- 1985 – Frank Oppenheimer, American physicist and academic (b. 1912)
- 1989 – John Cassavetes, American actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1929)
- 1989 – Lionel Newman, American pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1916)
- 1991 – Nancy Kulp, American actress (b. 1921)
- 1993 – Françoys Bernier, Canadian pianist and conductor (b. 1927)
- 1996 – Audrey Meadows, American actress and banker (b. 1922)
- 1999 – Gwen Guthrie, American singer-songwriter and pianist (b. 1950)
- 2005 – Zurab Zhvania, Georgian biologist and politician, 4th Prime Minister of Georgia (b. 1963)
- 2005 – Ernst Mayr, German-American biologist and ornithologist (b. 1904)
- 2006 – Al Lewis, American actor and activist (b. 1923)
- 2009 – Sheng-yen, Chinese monk and scholar, founded the Dharma Drum Mountain (b. 1930)
- 2010 – Dick McGuire, American basketball player and coach (b. 1926)
- 2010 – Frances Reid, American actress (b. 1914)
- 2011 – Maria Schneider, French actress (b. 1952)
- 2012 – Toh Chin Chye, Singaporean academic and politician, 1st Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore (b. 1921)
- 2012 – Ben Gazzara, American actor and director (b. 1930)
- 2012 – Terence Hildner, American general (b. 1962)
- 2012 – Raj Kanwar, Indian director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1961)
- 2012 – Zalman King, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1942)
- 2012 – Andrzej Szczeklik, Polish physician and academic (b. 1938)
- 2013 – Cardiss Collins, American politician (b. 1931)
- 2013 – Oscar Feltsman, Ukrainian-Russian composer and producer (b. 1921)
- 2013 – James Muri, American soldier and pilot (b. 1918)
- 2013 – Jam Mohammad Yousaf, Pakistani politician, Chief Minister of Balochistan (b. 1954)
- 2015 – Martin Gilbert, English historian, author, and academic (b. 1936)
- 2015 – Mary Healy, American actress and singer (b. 1918)
- 2015 – Charlie Sifford, American golfer (b. 1922)
- 2015 – Nasim Hasan Shah, Pakistani lawyer and judge, 12th Chief Justice of Pakistan (b. 1929)
- 2016 – Balram Jakhar, Indian lawyer and politician, 23rd Governor of Madhya Pradesh (b. 1923)
- 2016 – József Kasza, Serbian politician and economist (b. 1945)
- 2016 – Saulius Sondeckis, Lithuanian violinist and conductor (b. 1928)
- 2017 – Dritëro Agolli, Albanian poet, writer and politician (b. 1931)
- 2019 – Julie Adams, American actress (b. 1926)
- 2019 – Kristoff St. John, American actor (b. 1966)
- 2020 – George Steiner, French-American philosopher, author, and critic (b. 1929)
Holidays and observances on February 3
- Christian feast day:
- Aaron the Illustrious (Syriac Orthodox Church)
- Ansgar
- Berlinda of Meerbeke
- Blaise
- Celsa and Nona
- Claudine Thévenet
- Dom Justo Takayama (Philippines and Japan)
- Hadelin
- Margaret of England
- Werburgh
- February 3 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Day of the Virgin of Suyapa (Honduras)
- Earliest day on which Shrove Tuesday can fall, while March 9 is the latest; celebrated on Tuesday before Ash Wednesday (Christianity)
- Four Chaplains Day (United States, also considered a Feast Day by the Episcopal Church)
- Communist Party of Vietnam Foundation Anniversary (Vietnam)
- Heroes’ Day (Mozambique)
- Martyrs’ Day (São Tomé and Príncipe)
- Setsubun (Japan)
- Veterans’ Day (Thailand)