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July 28 in History
- 1364 – Troops of the Republic of Pisa and the Republic of Florence clash in the Battle of Cascina.
- 1540 – Thomas Cromwell is executed at the order of Henry VIII of England on charges of treason. Henry marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on the same day.
- 1571 – La Laguna encomienda, known today as the Laguna province in the Philippines is founded by the Spaniards as one of the oldest encomiendas (provinces) in the country.
- 1635 – In the Eighty Years’ War the Spanish capture the strategic Dutch fortress of Schenkenschans.
- 1656 – Second Northern War: Battle of Warsaw begins.
- 1778 – Constitution of the province of Cantabria ratified at the Assembly Hall in Bárcena la Puente, Reocín, Spain.
- 1794 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just are executed by guillotine in Paris, France.
- 1808 – Mahmud II became Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Caliph of Islam.
- 1809 – Peninsular War: Battle of Talavera: Sir Arthur Wellesley’s British, Portuguese and Spanish army defeats a French force led by Joseph Bonaparte.
- 1821 – José de San Martín declares the independence of Peru from Spain.
- 1854 – USS Constellation (1854), the last all-sail warship built by the United States Navy, is commissioned.
- 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Ezra Church: Confederate troops make a third unsuccessful attempt to drive Union forces from Atlanta, Georgia.
- 1866 – At the age of 18, Vinnie Ream becomes the first and youngest female artist to receive a commission from the United States government for a statue (of Abraham Lincoln).
- 1868 – The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is certified, establishing African American citizenship and guaranteeing due process of law.
- 1896 – The city of Miami, Florida is incorporated.
- 1914 – In the culmination of the July Crisis, Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, igniting World War I.
- 1915 – The United States begins a 19-year occupation of Haiti.
- 1917 – The Silent Parade took place in New York City, in protest to murders, lynchings, and other violence directed towards African Americans.
- 1932 – U.S. President Herbert Hoover orders the United States Army to forcibly evict the “Bonus Army” of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, D.C.
- 1935 – First flight of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress.
- 1938 – Hawaii Clipper disappears between Guam and Manila as the first loss of an airliner in trans-Pacific China Clipper service.
- 1939 – The Sutton Hoo helmet is discovered.
- 1942 – World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227. In response to alarming German advances, all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so are to be tried in a military court, with punishment ranging from duty in a shtrafbat battalion, imprisonment in a Gulag, or execution.
- 1943 – World War II: Operation Gomorrah: The Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg, Germany causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.
- 1945 – A U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 and injuring 26.
- 1957 – Heavy rain and a mudslide in Isahaya, western Kyushu, Japan, kills 992.
- 1960 – The German Volkswagen Act came into force.
- 1965 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000.
- 1973 – Summer Jam at Watkins Glen: Nearly 600,000 people attend a rock festival at the Watkins Glen International Raceway.
- 1974 – Spetsgruppa A, Russia’s elite special force, was formed.
- 1976 – The Tangshan earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 moment magnitude flattens Tangshan in the People’s Republic of China, killing 242,769 and injuring 164,851.
- 1984 – The Summer Olympics officially known as the games of the XXIII were opened in Los Angeles.
- 1996 – The remains of a prehistoric man are discovered near Kennewick, Washington. Such remains will be known as the Kennewick Man.
- 2001 – Australian Ian Thorpe becomes the first swimmer to win six gold medals at a single World Championship.
- 2002 – Nine coal miners trapped in the flooded Quecreek Mine in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, are rescued after 77 hours underground.
- 2002 – Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 9560 crashes after takeoff from Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, Russia, killing 14 of the 16 people on board.
- 2005 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army calls an end to its thirty-year-long armed campaign in Northern Ireland.
- 2010 – Airblue Flight 202 crashes into the Margalla Hills north of Islamabad, Pakistan, killing all 152 people aboard. It is the deadliest aviation accident in Pakistan history and the first involving an Airbus A321.
- 2011 – While flying from Seoul, South Korea to Shanghai, China, Asiana Airlines Flight 991 develops an in-flight fire in the cargo hold. The Boeing 747-400F freighter attempts to divert to Jeju International Airport, but crashes into the sea South-West of Jeju island, killing both crew members on board.
- 2017 – Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif was disqualified for lifetime by Supreme Court of Pakistan founding him guilty of corruption charges.
- 2018 – Australian Wendy Tuck becomes the first woman skipper to win the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race.
Births on July 28
- 1347 – Margaret of Durazzo, Queen of Naples and Hungary (d. 1412)
- 1516 – William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, German nobleman (d. 1592)
- 1609 – Judith Leyster, Dutch painter (d. 1660)
- 1635 – Robert Hooke, English physicist and chemist (d. 1703)
- 1645 – Marguerite Louise d’Orléans, French princess (d. 1721)
- 1659 – Charles Ancillon, French jurist and diplomat (d. 1715)
- 1746 – Thomas Heyward, Jr., American judge and politician (d. 1809)
- 1750 – Fabre d’Églantine, French actor, playwright, and politician (d. 1794)
- 1783 – Friedrich Wilhelm von Bismarck, German army officer and writer (d. 1860)
- 1796 – Ignaz Bösendorfer, Austrian businessman, founded the Bösendorfer Company (d. 1859)
- 1804 – Ludwig Feuerbach, German anthropologist and philosopher (d. 1872)
- 1815 – Stefan Dunjov, Bulgarian colonel (d. 1889)
- 1844 – Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet (d. 1889)
- 1857 – Ballington Booth, English-American activist, co-founded Volunteers of America (d. 1940)
- 1860 – Elias M. Ammons, American businessman and politician, 19th Governor of Colorado (d. 1925)
- 1860 – Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia (d. 1922)
- 1863 – Huseyn Khan Nakhchivanski, Russian general (d. 1919)
- 1866 – Beatrix Potter, English children’s book writer and illustrator (d. 1943)
- 1866 – Albertson Van Zo Post, American fencer (d. 1938)
- 1867 – Charles Dillon Perrine, American-Argentinian astronomer (d. 1951)
- 1872 – Albert Sarraut, French journalist and politician, 106th Prime Minister of France (d. 1962)
- 1874 – Ernst Cassirer, Polish-American philosopher and academic (d. 1945)
- 1879 – Lucy Burns, American activist, co-founded the National Woman’s Party (d. 1966)
- 1879 – Stefan Filipkiewicz, Polish painter (d. 1944)
- 1887 – Marcel Duchamp, French-American painter and sculptor (d. 1968)
- 1887 – Willard Price, Canadian-American journalist and author (d. 1983)
- 1893 – Rued Langgaard, Danish organist and composer (d. 1952)
- 1896 – Barbara La Marr, American actress and screenwriter (d. 1926)
- 1898 – Lawrence Gray, American actor (d. 1970)
- 1901 – Freddie Fitzsimmons, American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 1979)
- 1901 – Rudy Vallée, American actor, singer, and saxophonist (d. 1986)
- 1902 – Albert Namatjira, Australian painter (d. 1959)
- 1902 – Sir Karl Popper, Austrian-English philosopher and academic (d. 1994)
- 1907 – Earl Tupper, American inventor and businessman, founded Tupperware Brands (d. 1983)
- 1909 – Aenne Burda, German publisher (d. 2005)
- 1909 – Malcolm Lowry, English novelist and poet (d. 1957)
- 1914 – Carmen Dragon, American conductor and composer (d. 1984)
- 1915 – Charles Hard Townes, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2015)
- 1915 – Dick Sprang, American illustrator (d. 2000)
- 1915 – Frankie Yankovic, American polka musician (d. 1998)
- 1916 – David Brown, American journalist and producer (d. 2010)
- 1920 – Andrew V. McLaglen, English-American director and producer (d. 2014)
- 1922 – Jacques Piccard, Belgian-Swiss oceanographer and engineer (d. 2008)
- 1923 – Ray Ellis, American conductor and producer (d. 2008)
- 1924 – Luigi Musso, Italian race car driver (d. 1958)
- 1924 – C. T. Vivian, American minister, author, and activist
- 1925 – Baruch Samuel Blumberg, American physician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2011)
- 1926 – Charlie Biddle, American-Canadian bassist (d. 2003)
- 1927 – John Ashbery, American poet (d. 2017)
- 1929 – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, American journalist and socialite, 37th First Lady of the United States (d. 1994)
- 1929 – Shirley Ann Grau, American novelist and short story writer
- 1930 – Firoza Begum, Bangladeshi singer (d. 2014)
- 1930 – Junior Kimbrough, American singer and guitarist (d. 1998)
- 1930 – Jean Roba, Belgian author and illustrator (d. 2006)
- 1930 – Ramsey Muir Withers, Canadian general (d. 2014)
- 1931 – Alan Brownjohn, English poet and author
- 1931 – Johnny Martin, Australian cricketer (d. 1992)
- 1932 – Natalie Babbitt, American author and illustrator (d. 2016)
- 1932 – Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, Brazilian colonel (d. 2015)
- 1933 – Charlie Hodge, Canadian ice hockey player and scout (d. 2016)
- 1934 – Jacques d’Amboise, American dancer and choreographer
- 1935 – Neil McKendrick, English historian and academic
- 1936 – Russ Jackson, Canadian football player and coach
- 1936 – Garfield Sobers, Barbadian cricketer
- 1937 – Francis Veber, French director and screenwriter
- 1938 – Luis Aragonés, Spanish footballer, coach, and manager (d. 2014)
- 1938 – Arsen Dedić, Croatian singer-songwriter and poet (d. 2015)
- 1938 – Alberto Fujimori, Peruvian engineer, academic, and politician, 90th President of Peru
- 1938 – Chuan Leekpai, Thai lawyer and politician, 20th Prime Minister of Thailand
- 1939 – Richard Johns, English air marshal
- 1940 – Philip Proctor, American voice actor and screenwriter
- 1941 – Riccardo Muti, Italian conductor and educator
- 1941 – Susan Roces, Filipino actress and producer
- 1942 – Marty Brennaman, American sportscaster
- 1942 – Tonia Marketaki, Greek director and screenwriter (d. 1994)
- 1943 – Mike Bloomfield, American guitarist and songwriter (d. 1981)
- 1943 – Bill Bradley, American basketball player and politician
- 1943 – Richard Wright, English singer-songwriter and keyboard player (d. 2008)
- 1945 – Jim Davis, American cartoonist, created Garfield
- 1946 – Jonathan Edwards, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1946 – Linda Kelsey, American actress
- 1946 – Fahmida Riaz, Pakistani poet and activist
- 1947 – Peter Cosgrove, Australian general and politician, 26th Governor General of Australia
- 1947 – Sally Struthers, American actress
- 1948 – Gerald Casale, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and director
- 1948 – Eiichi Ohtaki, Japanese singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2013)
- 1949 – Vida Blue, American baseball player and sportscaster
- 1949 – Peter Doyle, Australian singer and guitarist (d. 2001)
- 1949 – Simon Kirke, English drummer
- 1949 – Steve Peregrin Took, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1980)
- 1949 – Randall Wallace, American screenwriter and producer
- 1950 – Shahyar Ghanbari, Iranian singer-songwriter
- 1950 – Tapley Seaton, Kittitian politician, 4th Governor-General of Saint Kitts and Nevis
- 1951 – Santiago Calatrava, Spanish architect and engineer, designed the Athens Olympic Sports Complex
- 1951 – Doug Collins, American basketball player and coach
- 1951 – Gregg Giuffria, American rock musician and businessman
- 1951 – Ray Kennedy, English footballer
- 1952 – Vajiralongkorn, King of Thailand
- 1954 – Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan colonel and politician, President of Venezuela (d. 2013)
- 1954 – Gerd Faltings, German mathematician and academic
- 1954 – Steve Morse, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1954 – Mikey Sheehy, Irish footballer
- 1955 – Nikolay Zimyatov, Russian skier
- 1956 – John Feinstein, American journalist and author
- 1956 – Robert Swan, English explorer
- 1958 – Terry Fox, Canadian runner and activist (d. 1981)
- 1958 – Michael Hitchcock, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
- 1959 – William T. Vollmann, American novelist, short story writer and journalist
- 1960 – Luiz Fernando Carvalho, Brazilian director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1960 – Jon J. Muth, American author and illustrator
- 1960 – Yōichi Takahashi, Japanese illustrator
- 1961 – Yannick Dalmas, French race car driver
- 1962 – Rachel Sweet, American singer, television writer, and actress
- 1964 – Lori Loughlin, American actress
- 1965 – Priscilla Chan, Hong Kong singer
- 1966 – Sossina M. Haile, Ethiopian American chemist
- 1966 – Miguel Ángel Nadal, Spanish footballer
- 1966 – Jimmy Pardo, American stand-up comedian, actor, and host
- 1966 – Shikao Suga, Japanese singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1967 – Taka Hirose, Japanese bass player
- 1969 – Garth Snow, American ice hockey player and manager
- 1969 – Alexis Arquette, American actress (d. 2016)
- 1970 – Michael Amott, Swedish guitarist and songwriter
- 1970 – Isabelle Brasseur, Canadian figure skater
- 1970 – Paul Strang, Zimbabwean cricketer and coach
- 1971 – Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Iraqi leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
- 1971 – Ludmilla Lacueva Canut, Andorran writer
- 1971 – Stephen Lynch, American singer-songwriter and actor
- 1971 – Annie Perreault, Canadian speed skater
- 1972 – Robert Chapman, English cricketer
- 1973 – Marc Dupré, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1973 – Steve Staios, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1974 – Alexis Tsipras, Greek engineer and politician, 186th Prime Minister of Greece
- 1974 – Elizabeth Berkley, American actress
- 1975 – Leonor Watling, Spanish actress
- 1976 – Jacoby Shaddix, American singer-songwriter
- 1977 – Aki Berg, Finnish-Canadian ice hockey player
- 1977 – Manu Ginóbili, Argentinian basketball player
- 1977 – Miyabiyama Tetsushi, Japanese sumo wrestler
- 1978 – Kārlis Vērdiņš, Latvian poet
- 1978 – Hitomi Yaida, Japanese singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1979 – Henrik Hansen, Danish footballer
- 1979 – Birgitta Haukdal, Icelandic singer-songwriter and producer
- 1979 – Lee Min-woo, South Korean singer-songwriter and dancer
- 1979 – Alena Popchanka, Belarusian-French swimmer and coach
- 1980 – Stephen Christian, American singer-songwriter
- 1980 – Anthony Weaver, American football player
- 1981 – Michael Carrick, English footballer
- 1983 – Sam Dastyari, Iranian-Australian politician
- 1983 – Cody Hay, Canadian figure skater
- 1984 – Zach Parise, American ice hockey player
- 1985 – Mathieu Debuchy, French footballer
- 1985 – Dustin Milligan, Canadian actor, producer, and screenwriter
- 1985 – Darren Murphy, Irish footballer
- 1986 – Alexandra Chando, American actress
- 1986 – Lauri Korpikoski, Finnish ice hockey player
- 1986 – Dulquer Salmaan, Indian actor
- 1987 – Yasser Corona, Mexican footballer
- 1987 – Yevhen Khacheridi, Ukrainian-Greek footballer
- 1987 – Pedro, Spanish footballer
- 1988 – Greg Hardy, American football player
- 1989 – Felipe Kitadai, Brazilian martial artist
- 1990 – Soulja Boy, American rapper, producer, and actor
- 1990 – Simone Pizzuti, Italian footballer
- 1993 – Harry Kane, English footballer
- 1993 – Moses Odubajo, English footballer
- 1993 – Cher Lloyd, English singer-songwriter
- 1995 – Josh Addo-Carr, Australian rugby league player
Deaths on July 28
- 450 – Theodosius II, Roman emperor (b. 401)
- 938 – Thankmar, half-brother of Otto I (during Siege of Eresburg) (b. c. 908)
- 942 – Shi Jingtang, emperor of Later Jin (b. 892)
- 1057 – Victor II, pope of the Catholic Church (b. 1018)
- 1128 – William Clito, English son of Sybilla of Conversano (b. 1102)
- 1230 – Leopold VI, Duke of Austria (b. 1176)
- 1271 – Walter de Burgh, 1st Earl of Ulster (b. 1220)
- 1285 – Keran, Queen of Armenia
- 1333 – Guy VIII of Viennois, Dauphin of Vienne (b. 1309)
- 1345 – Sancia of Majorca, queen regent of Naples (b. c. 1285)
- 1458 – John II, king of Cyprus and Armenia
- 1488 – Edward Woodville, Lord Scales (at the Battle of St. Aubin-du-Cormier)
- 1508 – Robert Blackadder, bishop of Glasgow
- 1527 – Rodrigo de Bastidas, Spanish explorer, founded the city of Santa Marta (b. 1460)
- 1540 – Thomas Cromwell, English lawyer and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (b. 1495)
- 1585 – Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford (b. 1527)
- 1631 – Guillén de Castro y Bellvis, Spanish playwright (b. 1569)
- 1655 – Cyrano de Bergerac, French poet and playwright (b. 1619)
- 1667 – Abraham Cowley, English poet and author (b. 1618)
- 1675 – Bulstrode Whitelocke, English lawyer and politician (b. 1605)
- 1685 – Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington, English politician and diplomat, Secretary of State for the Southern Department (b. 1618)
- 1718 – Étienne Baluze, French scholar and academic (b. 1630)
- 1741 – Antonio Vivaldi, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1678)
- 1750 – Johann Sebastian Bach, German organist and composer (b. 1685)
- 1762 – George Dodington, 1st Baron Melcombe, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Somerset (b. 1691)
- 1794 – Maximilien Robespierre, French lawyer and politician, 2nd President of the Committee of Public Safety (b. 1758)
- 1794 – Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, French soldier and politician (b. 1767)
- 1808 – Selim III, Ottoman sultan (b. 1761)
- 1809 – Richard Beckett, English cricketer and captain (b.1772)
- 1818 – Gaspard Monge, French mathematician and engineer (b. 1746)
- 1835 – Édouard Mortier, duc de Trévise, French general and politician, 15th Prime Minister of France (b. 1768)
- 1836 – Nathan Mayer Rothschild, German-English banker and financier (b. 1777)
- 1842 – Clemens Brentano, German author and poet (b. 1778)
- 1844 – Joseph Bonaparte, French diplomat and brother of Napoleon (b. 1768)
- 1849 – Charles Albert of Sardinia (b. 1798)
- 1869 – Jan Evangelista Purkyně, Czech anatomist and physiologist (b. 1787)
- 1878 – George Law Curry, American publisher and politician (b. 1820)
- 1885 – Moses Montefiore, British philanthropist, sheriff and banker (b. 1784)
- 1895 – Edward Beecher, American minister and theologian (b. 1803)
- 1930 – John DeWitt, American hammer thrower (b. 1881)
- 1930 – Allvar Gullstrand, Swedish ophthalmologist and optician, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1862)
- 1933 – Nishinoumi Kajirō III, Japanese sumo wrestler, 30th yokozuna (b. 1890)
- 1934 – Marie Dressler, Canadian-American actress and singer (b. 1868)
- 1934 – Louis Tancred, South African cricketer and pilot (b. 1876)
- 1935 – Meletius IV of Constantinople (b. 1871)
- 1942 – Flinders Petrie, English archaeologist and academic (b. 1853)
- 1946 – Saint Alphonsa, first woman of Indian origin to be Canonization as a saint by the Catholic Church (b. 1910)
- 1957 – Edith Abbott, American economist, social worker, and educator (b. 1876)
- 1957 – Isaac Heinemann, German-Israeli scholar and academic (b. 1876)
- 1965 – Edogawa Ranpo, Japanese author and critic (b. 1894)
- 1965 – Attallah Suheimat, Jordanian politician (b. 1875)
- 1967 – Karl W. Richter, American lieutenant and pilot (b. 1942)
- 1968 – Otto Hahn, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1879)
- 1969 – Ramón Grau, Cuban physician and politician, 6th President of Cuba (b. 1882)
- 1969 – Frank Loesser, American composer (b. 1910)
- 1971 – Lawrence Moore Cosgrave, Canadian colonel and diplomat (b. 1890)
- 1971 – Myril Hoag, American baseball player (b. 1908)
- 1971 – Charles E. Pont, French-American minister and painter (b. 1898)
- 1972 – Helen Traubel, American soprano and actress (b. 1903)
- 1979 – Don Miller, American football player and coach (b. 1902)
- 1979 – Charles Shadwell, English conductor and bandleader (b. 1898)
- 1980 – Rose Rand, Austrian-born American logician and philosopher (b. 1903)
- 1981 – Stanley Rother, American priest and missionary (b. 1935)
- 1982 – Keith Green, American singer-songwriter and pianist (b. 1953)
- 1987 – Jack Renshaw, Australian politician, 31st Premier of New South Wales (b. 1909)
- 1990 – Jill Esmond, English actress (b. 1908)
- 1992 – Sulev Nõmmik, Estonian actor and director (b. 1931)
- 1993 – Stanley Woods, Irish motorcycle racer (b. 1903)
- 1996 – Roger Tory Peterson, American ornithologist and academic (b. 1908)
- 1997 – Rosalie Crutchley, English actress (b. 1920)
- 1997 – Seni Pramoj, Thai lawyer and politician, 6th Prime Minister of Thailand (b. 1905)
- 1998 – Zbigniew Herbert, Polish poet and author (b. 1924)
- 1998 – Lenny McLean, English boxer, actor, and author (b. 1949)
- 1998 – Consalvo Sanesi, Italian race car driver (b. 1911)
- 1999 – Trygve Haavelmo, Norwegian economist and mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1911)
- 2000 – Abraham Pais, Dutch-American physicist and historian (b. 1918)
- 2001 – Ahmed Sofa, Bangladeshi poet, author, and critic (b. 1943)
- 2002 – Archer John Porter Martin, English chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1910)
- 2003 – Valerie Goulding, Irish activist and politician (b. 1918)
- 2004 – Francis Crick, English biologist and biophysicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1916)
- 2004 – Tiziano Terzani, Italian journalist and author (b. 1938)
- 2006 – David Gemmell, English author (b. 1948)
- 2007 – Karl Gotch, Belgian-American wrestler and trainer (b. 1924)
- 2007 – Jim LeRoy, American soldier and pilot (b. 1961)
- 2009 – Jim Johnson, American football player and coach (b. 1941)
- 2011 – Abdul Fatah Younis, Libyan general (b. 1944)
- 2012 – Colin Horsley, New Zealand-English pianist and educator (b. 1920)
- 2012 – Sepp Mayerl, Austrian mountaineer (b. 1937)
- 2012 – William F. Milliken Jr., American race car driver and engineer (b. 1911)
- 2013 – Mustafa Adrisi, Ugandan general and politician, 3rd Vice President of Uganda (b. 1922)
- 2013 – Eileen Brennan, American actress and singer (b. 1932)
- 2013. – Rita Reys, Dutch jazz singer (b. 1924)
- 2013 – William Scranton, American captain and politician, 13th United States Ambassador to the United Nations (b. 1917)
- 2013 – Ersilio Tonini, Italian cardinal (b. 1914)
- 2014 – Margot Adler, American journalist and author (b. 1946)
- 2014 – Alex Forbes, Scottish footballer and manager (b. 1925)
- 2014 – Alakbar Mammadov, Azerbaijani footballer and manager (b. 1930)
- 2014 – Theodore Van Kirk, American soldier, pilot, and navigator (b. 1921)
- 2015 – Jan Kulczyk, Polish businessman (b. 1950)
- 2015 – Edward Natapei, Vanuatuan politician, 6th Prime Minister of Vanuatu (b. 1954)
- 2015 – Clive Rice, South African cricketer and coach (b. 1949)
- 2016 – Émile Derlin Zinsou, Beninese politician (b. 1918)
- 2016 – Mahasweta Devi, Indian Bengali fiction writer and socio-political activist (b. 1926)
- 2018 – Wanny van Gils, Dutch footballer (b. 1959)
Holidays and observances on July 28
- Christian feast day:
- Alphonsa Muttathupadathu (Syro-Malabar Catholic Church)
- Botvid
- Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frederick Handel, Henry Purcell (Episcopal Church commemoration)
- Johann Sebastian Bach, Heinrich Schütz, George Frederick Handel (Lutheran commemoration)
- Nazarius and Celsus
- Pedro Poveda Castroverde
- Pope Innocent I
- Pope Victor I
- Samson of Dol
- July 28 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Day of Commemoration of the Great Upheaval (Canada)
- Earliest day on which Emancipation Day can fall, while August 3 is the latest; celebrated on Thursday before the first Monday in August (Bermuda)
- Fiestas Patrias, celebrates the independence of Peru from Spain by General José de San Martín in 1821.
- Liberation Day (San Marino)
- Ólavsøka Eve (Faroe Islands)
- World Hepatitis Day
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June 18 in History
- 618 – Li Yuan becomes Emperor Gaozu of Tang, initiating three centuries of Tang dynasty rule over China.
- 656 – Ali becomes Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate.
- 860 – Byzantine–Rus’ War: A fleet of about 200 Rus’ vessels sails into the Bosphorus and starts pillaging the suburbs of the Byzantine capital Constantinople.
- 1053 – Battle of Civitate: Three thousand horsemen of Norman Count Humphrey rout the troops of Pope Leo IX.
- 1178 – Five Canterbury monks see what is possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed. It is believed that the current oscillations of the Moon’s distance from the Earth (on the order of meters) are a result of this collision.
- 1264 – The Parliament of Ireland meets at Castledermot in County Kildare, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature.
- 1265 – A draft Byzantine–Venetian treaty is concluded between Venetian envoys and Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, but is not ratified by Doge Reniero Zeno.
- 1429 – French forces under the leadership of Joan of Arc defeat the main English army under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay. This turns the tide of the Hundred Years’ War.
- 1633 – Charles I is crowned King of Scots at St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh.
- 1684 – The charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony is revoked via a scire facias writ issued by an English court.
- 1757 – Battle of Kolín between Prussian forces under Frederick the Great and an Austrian army under the command of Field Marshal Count Leopold Joseph von Daun in the Seven Years’ War.
- 1778 – American Revolutionary War: British troops abandon Philadelphia.
- 1799 – Action of 18 June 1799: A frigate squadron under Rear-admiral Perrée is captured by the British fleet under Lord Keith.
- 1812 – The United States declaration of war upon the United Kingdom is signed by President James Madison, beginning the War of 1812.
- 1815 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Waterloo results in the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte by the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher forcing him to abdicate the throne of France for the second and last time.
- 1822 – Constantine Kanaris blows up the Ottoman navy’s flagship at Chios, killing the Kapudan Pasha Nasuhzade Ali Pasha.
- 1858 – Charles Darwin receives a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that includes nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin’s own, prompting Darwin to publish his theory.
- 1859 – First ascent of Aletschhorn, second summit of the Bernese Alps.
- 1873 – Susan B. Anthony is fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.
- 1887 – The Reinsurance Treaty between Germany and Russia is signed.
- 1900 – Empress Dowager Cixi of China orders all foreigners killed, including foreign diplomats and their families.
- 1908 – Japanese immigration to Brazil begins when 781 people arrive in Santos aboard the ship Kasato-Maru.
- 1908 – The University of the Philippines is established.
- 1923 – Checker Taxi puts its first taxi on the streets.
- 1928 – Aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean (she is a passenger; Wilmer Stultz is the pilot and Lou Gordon the mechanic).
- 1935 – Police in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, clash with striking longshoremen, resulting in a total of 60 injuries and 24 arrests.
- 1940 – Appeal of 18 June by Charles de Gaulle.
- 1940 – The “Finest Hour” speech is delivered by Winston Churchill.
- 1945 – William Joyce (“Lord Haw-Haw”) is charged with treason for his pro-German propaganda broadcasting during World War II.
- 1946 – Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, a Socialist, calls for a Direct Action Day against the Portuguese in Goa.
- 1948 – Columbia Records introduces the long-playing record album in a public demonstration at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.
- 1953 – The Egyptian revolution of 1952 ends with the overthrow of the Muhammad Ali dynasty and the declaration of the Republic of Egypt.
- 1953 – A United States Air Force C-124 crashes and burns near Tachikawa, Japan, killing 129.
- 1954 – Carlos Castillo Armas leads an invasion force across the Guatemalan border, setting in motion the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état.
- 1965 – Vietnam War: The United States uses B-52 bombers to attack National Liberation Front guerrilla fighters in South Vietnam.
- 1972 – Staines air disaster: One hundred eighteen people are killed when a BEA H.S. Trident crashes two minutes after take off from London’s Heathrow Airport.
- 1979 – SALT II is signed by the United States and the Soviet Union.
- 1981 – The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, the first operational aircraft initially designed around stealth technology, makes its first flight.
- 1982 – Italian banker Roberto Calvi’s body is discovered hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London, England.
- 1983 – Space Shuttle program: STS-7, Astronaut Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.
- 1983 – Mona Mahmudnizhad, together with nine other Bahá’í women, is sentenced to death and hanged in Shiraz, Iran over her religious beliefs.
- 1984 – A major clash between about 5,000 police and a similar number of miners takes place at Orgreave, South Yorkshire, during the 1984–85 UK miners’ strike.
- 1994 – The Troubles: Members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) attack a crowded pub with assault rifles in Loughinisland, Northern Ireland. Six Catholic civilians are killed and five wounded. It was crowded with people watching the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
- 2006 – The first Kazakh space satellite, KazSat-1 is launched.
- 2007 – The Charleston Sofa Super Store fire happened in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine firefighters.
- 2009 – The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a NASA robotic spacecraft is launched.
- 2018 – An earthquake of magnitude 6.1 strikes northern Osaka.
Births on June 18
- 1269 – Eleanor of England, Countess of Bar (d. 1298)
- 1318 – Eleanor of Woodstock (d. 1355)
- 1332 – John V Palaiologos, Byzantine Emperor (d. 1391)
- 1466 – Ottaviano Petrucci, Italian printer (d. 1539)
- 1511 – Bartolomeo Ammannati, Italian architect and sculptor, designed the Ponte Santa Trinita (d. 1592)
- 1517 – Emperor Ōgimachi of Japan (d. 1593)
- 1521 – Maria of Portugal, Duchess of Viseu (d. 1577)
- 1667 – Ivan Trubetskoy, Russian field marshal (d. 1750)
- 1673 – Antonio de Literes, Spanish composer (d. 1747)
- 1677 – Antonio Maria Bononcini, Italian cellist and composer (d. 1726)
- 1716 – Joseph-Marie Vien, French painter and educator (d. 1809)
- 1717 – Johann Stamitz, Czech violinist and composer (d. 1757)
- 1757 – Ignaz Pleyel, Austrian-French pianist and composer (d. 1831)
- 1757 – Gervasio Antonio de Posadas, Argentinian lawyer and politician 1st Supreme Director of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (d. 1833)
- 1769 – Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, Irish-English politician, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (d. 1822)
- 1799 – William Lassell, English astronomer and merchant (d. 1880)
- 1812 – Ivan Goncharov, Russian journalist and author (d. 1891)
- 1815 – Ludwig Freiherr von und zu der Tann-Rathsamhausen, German general (d. 1881)
- 1816 – Hélène Napoleone Bonaparte, French daughter of Napoleon (d. 1907)
- 1816 – Jung Bahadur Rana, Nepali ruler (d. 1877)
- 1833 – Manuel González Flores, Mexican general and President (1880-1884) (d. 1893)
- 1834 – Auguste-Théodore-Paul de Broglie, French philosopher and academic (d. 1895)
- 1839 – William H. Seward Jr., American general and banker (d. 1920)
- 1845 – Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, French physician and parasitologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1922)
- 1850 – Richard Heuberger, Austrian composer and critic (d. 1914)
- 1854 – E. W. Scripps, American publisher, founded the E. W. Scripps Company (d. 1926)
- 1857 – Henry Clay Folger, American businessman and philanthropist, founded the Folger Shakespeare Library (d. 1930)
- 1858 – Andrew Forsyth, Scottish-English mathematician and academic (d. 1942)
- 1858 – Hector Rason, English-Australian politician, 7th Premier of Western Australia (d. 1927)
- 1862 – Carolyn Wells, American novelist and poet (d. 1942)
- 1863 – George Essex Evans, English-Australian poet and author (d. 1909)
- 1868 – Miklós Horthy, Hungarian admiral and politician, Regent of Hungary (d. 1957)
- 1870 – Édouard Le Roy, French mathematician and philosopher (d. 1954)
- 1877 – James Montgomery Flagg, American painter and illustrator (d. 1960)
- 1881 – Zoltán Halmay, Hungarian swimmer (d. 1956)
- 1882 – Georgi Dimitrov, Bulgarian compositor and politician, 32nd Prime Minister of Bulgaria (d. 1949)
- 1884 – Édouard Daladier, French captain and politician, Prime Minister of France (d. 1970)
- 1886 – George Mallory, English lieutenant and mountaineer (d. 1924)
- 1886 – Alexander Wetmore, American ornithologist and paleontologist (d. 1978)
- 1887 – Tancrède Labbé, Canadian businessman and politician (d. 1956)
- 1896 – Blanche Sweet, American actress (d. 1986)
- 1897 – Martti Marttelin, Finnish runner (d. 1940)
- 1900 – Vlasta Vraz, Czech-American relief worker, editor, and fundraiser (d. 1989)
- 1901 – Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (d. 1918)
- 1901 – Llewellyn Rees, English actor (d. 1994)
- 1902 – Louis Alter, American musician (d. 1980)
- 1902 – Paavo Yrjölä, Finnish decathlete (d. 1980)
- 1903 – Jeanette MacDonald, American actress and singer (d. 1965)
- 1903 – Raymond Radiguet, French author and poet (d. 1923)
- 1904 – Keye Luke, Chinese-American actor (d. 1991)
- 1904 – Manuel Rosenthal, French conductor and composer (d. 2003)
- 1905 – Eduard Tubin, Estonian composer and conductor (d. 1982)
- 1907 – Frithjof Schuon, Swiss-American metaphysicist, philosopher, and author (d. 1998)
- 1908 – Bud Collyer, American actor and game show host (d. 1969)
- 1908 – Stanley Knowles, American-Canadian academic and politician (d. 1997)
- 1908 – Nedra Volz, American actress (d. 2003)
- 1910 – Dick Foran, American actor and singer (d. 1979)
- 1910 – Avon Long, American actor and singer (d. 1984)
- 1910 – Ray McKinley, American singer, drummer, and bandleader (d. 1995)
- 1912 – Glenn Morris, American decathlete (d. 1974)
- 1913 – Wilfred Gordon Bigelow, Canadian soldier and surgeon (d. 2005)
- 1913 – Sammy Cahn, American pianist and composer (d. 1993)
- 1913 – Sylvia Porter, American economist and journalist (d. 1991)
- 1913 – Françoise Loranger, Canadian playwright and producer (d. 1995)
- 1913 – Robert Mondavi, American winemaker and philanthropist (d. 2008)
- 1913 – Oswald Teichmüller, German mathematician (d. 1943)
- 1914 – E. G. Marshall, American actor (d. 1998)
- 1914 – Efraín Huerta, Mexican poet (d.1982)
- 1915 – Red Adair, American firefighter (d. 2004)
- 1915 – Robert Kanigher, American author (d. 2002)
- 1915 – Alice T. Schafer, American mathematician (d. 2009)
- 1916 – Julio César Turbay Ayala, Colombian lawyer and politician, 25th President of Colombia (d. 2005)
- 1917 – Richard Boone, American actor, singer, and director (d. 1981)
- 1917 – Jack Karnehm, English snooker player and sportscaster (d. 2002)
- 1917 – Erik Ortvad, Danish painter and illustrator (d. 2008)
- 1918 – Alf Francis, West Prussia-born, English motor racing mechanic and race car constructor (d. 1983)
- 1918 – Jerome Karle, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2013)
- 1918 – Franco Modigliani, Italian-American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2003)
- 1919 – Jüri Järvet, Estonian actor and screenwriter (d. 1995)
- 1920 – Ian Carmichael, English actor and singer (d. 2010)
- 1920 – Lode Van Den Bergh, Belgian author and academic
- 1922 – Claude Helffer, French pianist and educator (d. 2004)
- 1924 – George Mikan, American basketball player and coach (d. 2005)
- 1925 – Robert Beadell, American composer and educator (d. 1994)
- 1926 – Philip B. Crosby, American businessman and author (d. 2001)
- 1926 – Allan Sandage, American astronomer and cosmologist (d. 2010)
- 1926 – Tom Wicker, American journalist and author (d. 2011)
- 1927 – Eva Bartok, Hungarian-English actress (d. 1998)
- 1927 – Paul Eddington, English actor (d. 1995)
- 1928 – Michael Blakemore, Australian actor, director, and screenwriter
- 1928 – David T. Lykken, American geneticist and academic (d. 2006)
- 1929 – Jürgen Habermas, German sociologist and philosopher
- 1929 – Tibor Rubin, Hungarian-American soldier, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 2015)
- 1931 – Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Brazilian sociologist, academic, and politician, 34th President of Brazil
- 1932 – Dudley R. Herschbach, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1932 – Geoffrey Hill, English poet and academic (d. 2016)
- 1933 – Colin Brumby, Australian composer and conductor (d. 2018)
- 1933 – Tommy Hunt, American singer
- 1934 – Brian Kenny, English general (d. 2017)
- 1934 – Mitsuteru Yokoyama, Japanese author and illustrator (d. 2004)
- 1936 – Denny Hulme, New Zealand race car driver (d. 1992)
- 1936 – Barack Obama Sr., Kenyan economist (d. 1982)
- 1936 – Ronald Venetiaan, Surinamese politician, 6th President of Suriname
- 1937 – Del Harris, American basketball player and coach
- 1937 – Jay Rockefeller, American lawyer and politician, 29th Governor of West Virginia
- 1937 – Bruce Trigger, Canadian archaeologist, anthropologist and historian (d. 2006)
- 1937 – Vitaly Zholobov, Ukrainian colonel, engineer, and astronaut
- 1938 – Kevin Murray, Australian footballer and coach
- 1939 – Lou Brock, American baseball player and sportscaster
- 1939 – Jean-Claude Germain, Canadian historian, author, and journalist
- 1939 – Brooks Firestone, American businessman and politician
- 1941 – Roger Lemerre, French footballer and manager
- 1941 – Paul Mayersberg, English director and screenwriter
- 1941 – Delia Smith, English chef and author
- 1942 – John Bellany, Scottish painter and academic (d. 2013)
- 1942 – Roger Ebert, American journalist, critic, and screenwriter (d. 2013)
- 1942 – Pat Hutchins, English author and illustrator
- 1942 – Thabo Mbeki, South African politician, 23rd President of South Africa
- 1942 – Paul McCartney, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1942 – Richard Perry, American record producer
- 1942 – Carl Radle, American bass player and producer (d. 1980)
- 1942 – Nick Tate, Australian actor and director
- 1942 – Hans Vonk, Dutch conductor (d. 2004)
- 1943 – Barry Evans, English actor (d. 1997)
- 1943 – Raffaella Carrà, Italian singer, dancer, and actress
- 1944 – Bruce DuMont, American broadcaster and political analyst
- 1944 – Sandy Posey, American pop/country singer
- 1946 – Russell Ash, English journalist and author (d. 2010)
- 1946 – Bruiser Brody, American wrestler (d. 1988)
- 1946 – Fabio Capello, Italian footballer and manager
- 1946 – Maria Bethânia, Brazilian singer
- 1947 – Ivonne Coll, Puerto Rican-American model and actress, Miss Puerto Rico 1967
- 1947 – Bernard Giraudeau, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2010)
- 1947 – Linda Thorson, Canadian actress
- 1948 – Philip Jackson, English actor
- 1948 – Éva Marton, Hungarian soprano and actress
- 1948 – Sherry Turkle, American academic, psychologist, and sociologist
- 1949 – Chris Van Allsburg, American author and illustrator
- 1949 – Jarosław Kaczyński, Polish lawyer and politician, 13th Prime Minister of Poland
- 1949 – Lech Kaczyński, Polish lawyer and politician, 4th President of Poland (d. 2010)
- 1949 – Lincoln Thompson, Jamaican singer-songwriter (d. 1999)
- 1950 – Rod de’Ath, Welsh drummer and producer (d. 2014)
- 1950 – Annelie Ehrhardt, German hurdler
- 1950 – Mike Johanns, American lawyer and politician, 28th United States Secretary of Agriculture
- 1950 – Jackie Leven, Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2011)
- 1951 – Mohammed Al-Sager, Kuwaiti journalist and politician
- 1951 – Miriam Flynn, American actress and comedian
- 1951 – Ian Hargreaves, English-Welsh journalist and academic
- 1951 – Stephen Hopper, Australian botanist and academic
- 1951 – Gyula Sax, Hungarian chess player (d. 2014)
- 1952 – Tiiu Aro, Estonian physician and politician, Estonian Minister of Social Affairs
- 1952 – Denis Herron, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1952 – Carol Kane, American actress
- 1952 – Isabella Rossellini, Italian actress, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1952 – Lee Soo-man, South Korean singer and businessman, founded S.M. Entertainment
- 1953 – Peter Donohoe, English pianist and educator
- 1955 – Ed Fast, Canadian lawyer and politician
- 1956 – Brian Benben, American actor and producer
- 1956 – John Scott, English organist and conductor (d. 2015)
- 1957 – Miguel Ángel Lotina, Spanish footballer and manager
- 1957 – Richard Powers, American novelist
- 1958 – Peter Altmaier, German jurist and politician, Federal Minister for Special Affairs of Germany
- 1958 – Gary Martin, British voice actor and actor
- 1959 – Joe Ansolabehere, American animation screenwriter and producer
- 1960 – Barbara Broccoli, American director and producer
- 1960 – Steve Murphy, Canadian journalist
- 1961 – Oz Fox, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
- 1961 – Andrés Galarraga, Venezuelan-American baseball player
- 1961 – Angela Johnson, American novelist and poet
- 1961 – Alison Moyet, English singer-songwriter
- 1962 – Lisa Randall, American physicist and academic
- 1963 – Dizzy Reed, American keyboard player and songwriter
- 1963 – Bruce Smith, American football player
- 1964 – Uday Hussein, Iraqi commander (d. 2003)
- 1964 – Patti Webster, American publicist and author (d. 2013)
- 1966 – Kurt Browning, Canadian figure skater, choreographer, and sportscaster
- 1966 – Troy Kemp, Bahamian high jumper
- 1968 – Frank Müller, German decathlete
- 1969 – Haki Doku, Albanian cyclist
- 1969 – Christopher Largen, American journalist and author (d. 2012)
- 1970 – Katie Derham, English journalist
- 1970 – Ivan Kozák, Slovak footballer
- 1970 – Greg Yaitanes, American director and producer
- 1971 – Kerry Butler, American actress and singer
- 1971 – Jason McAteer, English-Irish footballer and manager
- 1971 – Nathan Morris, American soul singer
- 1972 – Anu Tali, Estonian pianist and conductor
- 1972 – Wikus du Toit, South African actor, director, and composer
- 1973 – Julie Depardieu, French actress
- 1973 – Stephen Thomas Erlewine, American author and music critic
- 1973 – Ray LaMontagne, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1973 – Alexandra Meissnitzer, Austrian skier
- 1973 – Matt Parsons, Australian rugby league player
- 1973 – Gavin Wanganeen Australian footballer and coach
- 1974 – Vincenzo Montella, Italian footballer and manager
- 1974 – Sergey Sharikov, Russian fencer and coach (d. 2015)
- 1975 – Marie Gillain, Belgian actress
- 1975 – Aleksandrs Koļinko, Latvian footballer
- 1975 – Martin St. Louis, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1976 – Blake Shelton, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1978 – Wang Liqin, Chinese table tennis player
- 1979 – Yumiko Kobayashi, Japanese voice actress and singer
- 1979 – Ivana Wong, Hong Kong singer-songwriter and actress
- 1980 – Antonio Gates, American football player
- 1980 – Sergey Kirdyapkin, Russian race walker
- 1980 – Craig Mottram, Australian runner
- 1980 – Antero Niittymäki, Finnish ice hockey player
- 1980 – Tara Platt, American actress, producer, and screenwriter
- 1981 – Clint Newton, American-Australian rugby league player
- 1981 – Marco Streller, Swiss footballer
- 1982 – Nadir Belhadj, French-Algerian footballer
- 1982 – Marco Borriello, Italian footballer
- 1982 – Nathan Cavaleri, Australian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
- 1983 – Billy Slater, Australian rugby league player
- 1983 – Cameron Smith, Australian rugby league player
- 1984 – Nanyak Dala, Canadian rugby player
- 1985 – Chris Coghlan, American baseball player
- 1985 – Alex Hirsch, American animator and television producer
- 1986 – Edgars Eriņš, Latvian decathlete
- 1986 – Richard Gasquet, French tennis player
- 1987 – Omar Arellano, Mexican footballer
- 1987 – Moeen Ali, English cricketer
- 1988 – Elini Dimoutsos, Greek footballer
- 1988 – Josh Dun, American musician
- 1989 – Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, French-born Gabonese footballer
- 1989 – Chris Harris Jr., American football player
- 1990 – Luke Adam, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1990 – Sandra Izbașa, Romanian gymnast
- 1990 – Derek Stepan, American ice hockey player
- 1990 – Christian Taylor, American triple jumper
- 1993 – Dennis Lloyd, Israeli musician, producer, singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist
- 1994 – Sean McMahon, Australian rugby player
- 1994 – Takeoff, American rapper
- 1995 – Maxim Kovtun, Russian figure skater
- 1996 – Alen Halilović, Croatian footballer
- 1996 – Niki Wories, Dutch figure skater
- 1997 – Katharina Hobgarski, German tennis player
- 1997 – Latrell Mitchell, Australian rugby league player
- 1999 – Trippie Redd, American rapper
Deaths on June 18
- 741 – Leo III the Isaurian, Byzantine emperor (b. 685)
- 908 – Zhang Hao, general of Yang Wu
- 1095 – Sophia of Hungary (b. c. 1050)
- 1164 – Elisabeth of Schönau, German Benedictine visionary (b. c. 1129)
- 1234 – Emperor Chūkyō of Japan (b. 1218)
- 1250 – Theresa of Portugal, Queen of León
- 1291 – Alfonso III of Aragon (b. 1265)
- 1333 – Henry XV, Duke of Bavaria (b. 1312)
- 1464 – Rogier van der Weyden, Flemish painter (b. 1400)
- 1588 – Robert Crowley, English minister and poet (b. 1517)
- 1629 – Piet Pieterszoon Hein, Dutch admiral (b. 1577)
- 1650 – Christoph Scheiner, German priest, physicist, and astronomer (b. 1575)
- 1673 – Jeanne Mance, French-Canadian nurse, founded the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal (b. 1606)
- 1704 – Tom Brown, English author and translator (b. 1662)
- 1726 – Michel Richard Delalande, French organist and composer (b. 1657)
- 1742 – John Aislabie, English politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (b. 1670)
- 1749 – Ambrose Philips, English poet and politician (b. 1674)
- 1772 – Johann Ulrich von Cramer, German jurist and scholar (b. 1706)
- 1772 – Gerard van Swieten, Dutch-Austrian physician and reformer (b. 1700)
- 1788 – Adam Gib, Scottish religious leader (b. 1714)
- 1794 – François Buzot, French lawyer and politician (b. 1760)
- 1794 – James Murray, Scottish-English general and politician, 20th Governor of the Province of Quebec (b. 1721)
- 1815 – Thomas Picton, Welsh-English general and politician (b. 1758)
- 1833 – Robert Hett Chapman, American minister, missionary, and academic (b. 1771)
- 1835 – William Cobbett, English farmer and journalist (b. 1763)
- 1860 – Friedrich Wilhelm von Bismarck, German army officer and writer (b. 1783)
- 1866 – Prince Sigismund of Prussia (b. 1864)
- 1902 – Samuel Butler, English novelist, satirist, and critic (b. 1835)
- 1905 – Carmine Crocco, Italian soldier (b. 1830)
- 1916 – Max Immelmann, German lieutenant and pilot (b. 1890)
- 1917 – Titu Maiorescu, Romanian critic and politician, 23rd Prime Minister of Romania (b. 1840)
- 1922 – Jacobus Kapteyn, Dutch astronomer and academic (b. 1851)
- 1928 – Roald Amundsen, Norwegian pilot and explorer (b. 1872)
- 1936 – Maxim Gorky, Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright (b. 1868)
- 1937 – Gaston Doumergue, French politician, 13th President of France (b. 1863)
- 1942 – Arthur Pryor, American trombonist, bandleader, and politician (b. 1870)
- 1943 – Elias Degiannis, Greek commander (b. 1912)
- 1945 – Florence Bascom, American geologist and educator (b. 1862)[10]
- 1945 – Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., American general (b. 1886)
- 1947 – Shigematsu Sakaibara, Japanese admiral (b. 1898)
- 1948 – Edward Brooker, English-Australian politician, 31st Premier of Tasmania (b. 1891)
- 1959 – Ethel Barrymore, American actress (b. 1879)
- 1963 – Pedro Armendáriz, Mexican-American actor (b. 1912)
- 1964 – Giorgio Morandi, Italian painter (b. 1890)
- 1967 – Geki, Italian race car driver (b. 1937)
- 1967 – Beat Fehr, Swiss race car driver (b. 1942)
- 1971 – Thomas Gomez, American actor (b. 1905)
- 1971 – Paul Karrer, Russian-Swiss chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1889)
- 1974 – Júlio César de Mello e Souza, Brazilian mathematician and academic (b. 1896)
- 1974 – Georgy Zhukov, Russian marshal and politician, Minister of Defence for the Soviet Union (b. 1896)
- 1975 – Hugo Bergmann, German-Israeli philosopher and author (b. 1883)
- 1978 – Walter C. Alvarez, American physician and author (b. 1884)
- 1980 – Terence Fisher, English director and screenwriter (b. 1904)
- 1980 – André Leducq, French cyclist (b. 1904)
- 1982 – Djuna Barnes, American novelist, journalist, and playwright (b. 1892)
- 1982 – John Cheever, American novelist and short story writer (b. 1912)
- 1982 – Curd Jürgens, German-Austrian actor and director (b. 1915)
- 1984 – Alan Berg, American lawyer and radio host (b. 1934)
- 1985 – Paul Colin, French illustrator (b. 1892)
- 1986 – Frances Scott Fitzgerald, American journalist (b. 1921)
- 1989 – I. F. Stone, American journalist and author (b. 1907)
- 1992 – Kofoworola Abeni Pratt, the first black Chief Nursing Officer of Nigeria (b. 1910)
- 1992 – Peter Allen, Australian singer-songwriter and pianist (b. 1944)
- 1992 – Mordecai Ardon, Polish-Israeli painter and educator (b. 1896)
- 1993 – Craig Rodwell, American activist, founded the Oscar Wilde Bookshop (b. 1940)
- 1996 – Endel Puusepp, Estonian-Soviet military pilot and politician (b. 1909)
- 1997 – Lev Kopelev, Ukrainian-German author and academic (b. 1912)
- 1998 – Felix Knight, American actor and tenor (b. 1908)
- 2000 – Nancy Marchand, American actress (b. 1928)
- 2003 – Larry Doby, American baseball player and manager (b. 1923)
- 2005 – Mushtaq Ali, Indian cricketer (b. 1914)
- 2005 – Manuel Sadosky, Argentinian mathematician and academic (b. 1914)
- 2006 – Vincent Sherman, American actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1906)
- 2006 – Joseph Zobel, Martinique-French author (b. 1915)
- 2007 – Bernard Manning, English comedian and actor (b. 1930)
- 2007 – Hank Medress, American singer and producer (b. 1938)
- 2007 – Georges Thurston, Canadian singer-songwriter (b. 1951)
- 2008 – Jean Delannoy, French actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1908)
- 2008 – Tasha Tudor, American author and illustrator (b. 1915)
- 2008 – Hans Steinbrenner, German sculptor (b. 1928)
- 2010 – Trent Acid, American wrestler (b. 1980)
- 2010 – José Saramago, Portuguese novelist Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1922)
- 2010 – Okan Demiriş, Turkish composer (b. 1942)
- 2011 – Yelena Bonner, Russian activist (b. 1923)
- 2011 – Frederick Chiluba, Zambian politician, 2nd President of Zambia (b. 1943)
- 2011 – Clarence Clemons, American saxophonist (b. 1942)
- 2012 – Horacio Coppola, Argentinian photographer and director (b. 1906)
- 2012 – Lina Haag, German author and activist (b. 1907)
- 2012 – Tom Maynard, Welsh cricketer (b. 1989)
- 2012 – Luis Edgardo Mercado Jarrín, Peruvian general and politician, 109th Prime Minister of Peru (b. 1919)
- 2012 – Alketas Panagoulias, Greek footballer and manager (b. 1934)
- 2012 – William Van Regenmorter, American businessman and politician (b. 1939)
- 2013 – Brent F. Anderson, American engineer and politician (b. 1932)
- 2013 – Alastair Donaldson, Scottish bass player (b. 1955)
- 2013 – Garde Gardom, Canadian lawyer and politician, 26th Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia (b. 1924)
- 2013 – Michael Hastings, American journalist and author (b. 1980)
- 2013 – David Wall, English ballet dancer (b. 1946)
- 2014 – Stephanie Kwolek, American chemist and engineer (b. 1923)
- 2014 – Johnny Mann, American singer-songwriter and conductor (b. 1928)
- 2014 – Claire Martin, Canadian author (b. 1914)
- 2014 – Vladimir Popovkin, Russian general (b. 1957)
- 2014 – Horace Silver, American pianist and composer (b. 1928)
- 2015 – Phil Austin, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter (b. 1941)
- 2015 – Ralph J. Roberts, American businessman, co-founded Comcast (b. 1920)
- 2015 – Danny Villanueva, American football player and broadcaster, co-founded Univision (b. 1937)
- 2015 – Allen Weinstein, American historian and academic (b. 1937)
- 2016 – Jeppiaar, Indian educationist, founder and chancellor of Sathyabama University (b. 1931)
- 2018 – XXXTentacion, American rapper (b. 1998)
- 2018 – Big Van Vader (also known as Vader) American professional wrestler (b. 1955)
- 2018 – Jimmy Wopo, American rapper (b. 1997)
- 2020 – Vera Lynn, English singer who was the “Forces’ Sweetheart” in World War II (b. 1917)
Holidays and observances on June 18
- Autistic Pride Day (International)
- Christian feast day:
- Bernard Mizeki (Anglican and Episcopal Church)
- Elisabeth of Schönau
- Gregorio Barbarigo
- Leontius, Hypatius and Theodulus
- Marina the Monk (Maronite Church, Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria)
- Mark and Marcellian
- June 18 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Foundation Day (Benguet)
- Human Rights Day (Azerbaijan)
- National Day (Seychelles)
- Queen Mother’s Birthday (Cambodia)
- Waterloo Day (United Kingdom)
-
June 9 in History
- 411 BC – The Athenian coup succeeds, forming a short-lived oligarchy.
- AD 53 – The Roman emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia.
- AD 68 – Nero commits suicide, after quoting Homer’s Iliad, thus ending the Julio-Claudian dynasty and starting the civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors.
- 721 – Odo of Aquitaine defeats the Moors in the Battle of Toulouse.
- 747 – Abbasid Revolution: Abu Muslim Khorasani begins an open revolt against Umayyad rule, which is carried out under the sign of the Black Standard.
- 1311 – Duccio’s Maestà, a seminal artwork of the early Italian Renaissance, is unveiled and installed in Siena Cathedral in Siena, Italy.
- 1523 – The Parisian Faculty of Theology fines Simon de Colines for publishing the Biblical commentary Commentarii initiatorii in quatuor Evangelia by Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples.
- 1534 – Jacques Cartier is the first European to describe and map the Saint Lawrence River.
- 1667 – Second Anglo-Dutch War: The Raid on the Medway by the Dutch fleet begins. It lasts for five days and results in the worst ever defeat of the Royal Navy.
- 1732 – James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of the future U.S. state of Georgia.
- 1772 – The British schooner Gaspee is burned in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island.
- 1798 – Irish Rebellion of 1798: Battles of Arklow and Saintfield.
- 1815 – End of the Congress of Vienna: The new European political situation is set.
- 1856 – Five hundred Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa for the Mormon Trail.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Stonewall Jackson concludes his successful Shenandoah Valley Campaign with a victory in the Battle of Port Republic; his tactics during the campaign are now studied by militaries around the world.
- 1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia.
- 1885 – Treaty of Tientsin is signed to end the Sino-French War, with China eventually giving up Tonkin and Annam – most of present-day Vietnam – to France.
- 1900 – Indian nationalist Birsa Munda dies of cholera in a British prison.
- 1915 – William Jennings Bryan resigns as Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State over a disagreement regarding the United States’ handling of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.
- 1923 – Bulgaria’s military takes over the government in a coup.
- 1928 – Charles Kingsford Smith completes the first trans-Pacific flight in a Fokker Trimotor monoplane, the Southern Cross.
- 1930 – A Chicago Tribune reporter, Jake Lingle, is killed during rush hour at the Illinois Central train station by Leo Vincent Brothers, allegedly over a $100,000 gambling debt owed to Al Capone.
- 1944 – World War II: Ninety-nine civilians are hanged from lampposts and balconies by German troops in Tulle, France, in reprisal for maquisards attacks.
- 1944 – World War II: The Soviet Union invades East Karelia and the previously Finnish part of Karelia, occupied by Finland since 1941.
- 1948 – Foundation of the International Council on Archives under the auspices of the UNESCO.
- 1953 – The Flint–Worcester tornado outbreak sequence kills 94 people in Massachusetts.
- 1954 – Joseph Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Army–McCarthy hearings, giving McCarthy the famous rebuke, “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
- 1957 – First ascent of Broad Peak by Fritz Wintersteller, Marcus Schmuck, Kurt Diemberger, and Hermann Buhl.
- 1959 – The USS George Washington is launched. It is the first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine.
- 1965 – The civilian Prime Minister of South Vietnam, Phan Huy Quát, resigns after being unable to work with a junta led by Nguyễn Cao Kỳ.
- 1965 – Vietnam War: The Viet Cong commences combat with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam in the Battle of Đồng Xoài, one of the largest battles in the war.
- 1967 – Six-Day War: Israel captures the Golan Heights from Syria.
- 1968 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a national day of mourning following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
- 1972 – Severe rainfall causes a dam in the Black Hills of South Dakota to burst, creating a flood that kills 238 people and causes $160 million in damage.
- 1973 – In horse racing, Secretariat wins the U.S. Triple Crown.
- 1978 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opens its priesthood to “all worthy men”, ending a 148-year-old policy of excluding black men.
- 1979 – The Ghost Train fire at Luna Park Sydney, Australia, kills seven.
- 1999 – Kosovo War: The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and NATO sign a peace treaty.
- 2008 – Two bombs explode at a train station near Algiers, Algeria, killing at least 13 people.
- 2009 – An explosion kills 17 people and injures at least 46 at a hotel in Peshawar, Pakistan.
- 2010 – At least 40 people are killed and more than 70 wounded in a suicide bombing at a wedding party in Arghandab, Kandahar.
Births on June 9
- 1016 – Deokjong of Goryeo, ruler of Korea (d. 1034)
- 1424 – Blanche II of Navarre (d. 1464)
- 1580 – Daniel Heinsius, Belgian poet and scholar (d. 1655)
- 1588 – Johann Andreas Herbst, German composer and theorist (d. 1666)
- 1595 – Władysław IV Vasa, Polish king (d. 1648)
- 1597 – Pieter Jansz. Saenredam, Dutch painter (d. 1665)
- 1640 – Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1705)
- 1661 – Feodor III of Russia (d. 1682)
- 1672 – Peter the Great, Russian emperor (d. 1725)
- 1686 – Andrey Osterman, German-Russian politician, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs (d. 1747)
- 1696 – Shiva Rajaram, infant Chattrapati of the Maratha Empire (d. 1726)
- 1732 – Giuseppe Demachi, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1791)
- 1754 – Francis Mackenzie, 1st Baron Seaforth, English general and politician, Governor of Barbados (d. 1815)
- 1768 – Samuel Slater, English-American engineer and businessman (d. 1835)
- 1781 – George Stephenson, English engineer, designed the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (d. 1848)
- 1810 – Otto Nicolai, German composer and conductor (d. 1849)
- 1812 – Johann Gottfried Galle, German astronomer and academic (d. 1910)
- 1836 – Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, English physician and politician (d. 1917)
- 1837 – Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie, English author (d. 1919)
- 1842 – Hazard Stevens, American military officer, mountaineer, politician and writer (d. 1918)
- 1843 – Bertha von Suttner, Austrian journalist and author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1914)
- 1845 – Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto, English soldier, academic, and politician, 36th Governor-General of India (d. 1914)
- 1845 – Frank Norton, American baseball player (d. 1920)
- 1849 – Michael Ancher, Danish painter and academic (d. 1927)
- 1851 – Charles Joseph Bonaparte, American lawyer and politician, 46th United States Attorney General (d. 1921)
- 1861 – Pierre Duhem, French physicist, mathematician, and historian (d. 1916)
- 1861 – Gustav Heinrich Johann Apollon Tammann, Russian-German chemist and physicist (d. 1938)
- 1864 – Jeanne Bérangère, French actress (d. 1928)
- 1865 – Albéric Magnard, French composer and educator (d. 1914)
- 1865 – Carl Nielsen, Danish violinist, composer, and conductor (d. 1931)
- 1868 – Jane Avril, French model and dancer (d. 1943)
- 1874 – Launceston Elliot, Scottish weightlifter and wrestler (d. 1930)
- 1875 – Henry Hallett Dale, English pharmacologist and physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
- 1879 – Harry DeBaecke, American rower (d. 1961)
- 1882 – Robert Kerr, Irish-Canadian sprinter and coach (d. 1963)
- 1885 – Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski, Polish general and politician, 27th Prime Minister of Poland (d. 1962)
- 1890 – Leslie Banks, English actor, director, and producer (d. 1952)
- 1891 – Cole Porter, American composer and songwriter (d. 1964)
- 1893 – Irish Meusel, American baseball player and coach (d. 1963)
- 1895 – Archie Weston, American football player and journalist (d. 1981)
- 1898 – Luigi Fagioli, Italian race car driver (d. 1952)
- 1900 – Fred Waring, American singer, bandleader, and television host (d. 1984)
- 1902 – Skip James, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1969)
- 1903 – Felice Bonetto, Italian race car driver (d. 1953)
- 1903 – Marcia Davenport, American author and critic (d. 1996)
- 1906 – Robert Klark Graham, American eugenicist and businessman, founded Repository for Germinal Choice (d. 1997)
- 1908 – Luis Kutner, American lawyer, author, and activist (d. 1993)
- 1908 – Branch McCracken, American basketball player and coach (d. 1970)
- 1910 – Robert Cummings, American actor, singer, and director (d. 1990)
- 1910 – Ted Hicks, Australian public servant and diplomat, Australian High Commissioner to New Zealand (d. 1984)
- 1912 – Ingolf Dahl, German-American pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1970)
- 1915 – Jim McDonald, American football player and coach (d. 1997)
- 1915 – Les Paul, American guitarist and songwriter (d. 2009)
- 1916 – Jurij Brězan, German soldier and author (d. 2006)
- 1916 – Siegfried Graetschus, German SS officer (d. 1943)
- 1916 – Robert McNamara, American businessman and politician, 8th United States Secretary of Defense (d. 2009)
- 1917 – Eric Hobsbawm, Egyptian-English historian and author (d. 2012)
- 1918 – John Hospers, American philosopher and politician (d. 2011)
- 1921 – Arthur Hertzberg, American rabbi and scholar (d. 2006)
- 1921 – Jean Lacouture, French journalist, historian, and author (d. 2015)
- 1922 – George Axelrod, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2003)
- 1922 – John Gillespie Magee, Jr., Anglo-American pilot and poet (d. 1941)
- 1922 – Fernand Seguin, Canadian biochemist and academic (d. 1988)
- 1923 – Gerald Götting, German politician (d. 2015)
- 1924 – Ed Farhat, American wrestler and manager (d. 2003)
- 1925 – Keith Laumer, American soldier and author (d. 1993)
- 1925 – Herman Sarkowsky, German-American businessman and philanthropist, co-founded the Seattle Seahawks (d. 2014)
- 1926 – Calvin “Fuzz” Jones, American singer and bass player (d. 2010)
- 1926 – Happy Rockefeller, American philanthropist, 31st Second Lady of the United States (d. 2015)
- 1927 – Jim Nolan, American basketball player (d. 1983)
- 1928 – R. Geraint Gruffydd, Welsh critic and academic (d. 2015)
- 1929 – Johnny Ace, American singer and pianist (d. 1954)
- 1930 – Barbara, French singer (d. 1997)
- 1930 – Jordi Pujol, Spanish physician and politician, 126th President of the Generalitat de Catalunya
- 1931 – Jackie Mason, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter
- 1931 – Nandini Satpathy, Indian author and politician, 8th Chief Minister of Odisha (d. 2006)
- 1931 – Bill Virdon, American baseball player, coach, and manager
- 1933 – Al Cantello, American javelin thrower and coach
- 1934 – Michael Mates, English colonel and politician
- 1934 – Jackie Wilson, American singer-songwriter (d. 1984)
- 1935 – Dutch Savage, American wrestler and promoter (d. 2013)
- 1936 – Nell Dunn, English playwright, screenwriter and author
- 1936 – Mick O’Dwyer, Irish Gaelic footballer and manager
- 1936 – George Radda, Hungarian chemist and academic
- 1937 – Harald Rosenthal, German hydrobiologist and academic
- 1938 – Jeremy Hardie, English economist and businessman
- 1938 – Giles Havergal, Scottish actor, director, and playwright
- 1938 – Charles Wuorinen, American composer and educator (d. 2020)
- 1939 – Ileana Cotrubaș, Romanian soprano and actress
- 1939 – Eric Fernie, Scottish historian and academic
- 1939 – David Hobbs, English race car driver and sportscaster
- 1939 – Dick Vitale, American basketball player, coach, and sportscaster
- 1939 – Charles Webb, American author
- 1940 – André Vallerand, Canadian businessman and politician
- 1941 – Jon Lord, English singer-songwriter and keyboard player (d. 2012)
- 1942 – Anton Burghardt, German footballer and manager
- 1942 – Nicholas Lloyd, English journalist
- 1943 – John Fitzpatrick, English race car driver
- 1943 – Charles Saatchi, Iraqi-English businessman, co-founded Saatchi & Saatchi
- 1944 – Janric Craig, 3rd Viscount Craigavon, English accountant and politician
- 1944 – Wally Gabler, American football player and sportscaster
- 1946 – Deyda Hydara, Gambian journalist and publisher, co-founded The Point (d. 2004)
- 1946 – James Kelman, Scottish author and playwright
- 1946 – Peter Kilfoyle, English politician
- 1946 – Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata, Italian politician and diplomat, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs
- 1947 – Robert Indermaur, Swiss painter
- 1947 – Robbie Vincent, UK disc jockey and radio presenter
- 1948 – Jim Bailey, American football player
- 1948 – Gudrun Schyman, Swedish social worker and politician
- 1949 – Kiran Bedi, Indian police officer and activist
- 1950 – Trevor Bolder, English bass player, songwriter, and producer (d. 2013)
- 1950 – Fred Jackson, American football player and coach
- 1950 – Giorgos Kastrinakis, Greek-American basketball player
- 1951 – Michael Patrick Cronan, American graphic designer and academic (d. 2013)
- 1951 – James Newton Howard, American composer, conductor, and producer
- 1951 – Dave Parker, American baseball player and coach
- 1951 – Brian Taylor, American basketball player
- 1952 – Uzi Hitman, Israeli singer-songwriter (d. 2004)
- 1952 – Billy Knight, American basketball player
- 1953 – Ken Navarro, Italian-American guitarist and composer
- 1954 – Pete Byrne, English singer-songwriter
- 1954 – Paul Chapman, Welsh guitarist and songwriter
- 1954 – Gregory Maguire, American author
- 1954 – Elizabeth May, American-Canadian environmentalist, lawyer, and politician
- 1954 – George Pérez, American author and illustrator
- 1956 – Berit Aunli, Norwegian skier
- 1956 – Patricia Cornwell, American journalist and author
- 1956 – Marek Gazdzicki, Polish nuclear physicist
- 1956 – Joaquín, Spanish footballer
- 1956 – John Le Lievre, British squash player
- 1956 – Kayhan Mortezavi, Iranian director
- 1956 – Francine Raymond, French Canadian singer songwriter
- 1956 – Nikolai Tsonev, Bulgarian politician
- 1956 – Rudolf Wojtowicz, Polish footballer
- 1957 – Randy Read, English crystallographer and academic
- 1958 – David Ancrum, American basketball player and coach
- 1959 – Peter Fowler, Australian golfer
- 1960 – Steve Paikin, Canadian journalist and author
- 1961 – Thomas Benson, American football player
- 1961 – Michael J. Fox, Canadian-American actor, producer, and author
- 1961 – Aaron Sorkin, American screenwriter, producer, and playwright
- 1962 – Yuval Banay, Israeli singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1962 – Ken Rose, American football player
- 1962 – David Trewhella, Australian rugby league player
- 1963 – Gilad Atzmon, Israeli-English saxophonist, author, and activist
- 1963 – Johnny Depp, American actor
- 1963 – David Koepp, American director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1964 – Gloria Reuben, Canadian-American actress
- 1964 – Wayman Tisdale, American basketball player and bass player (d. 2009)
- 1967 – Rubén Maza, Venezuelan runner
- 1968 – Niki Bakoyianni, Greek high jumper and coach
- 1969 – André Racicot, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1969 – Eric Wynalda, American soccer player, coach, and sportscaster
- 1971 – Gilles De Bilde, Belgian footballer and sportscaster
- 1971 – Jean Galfione, French pole vaulter and sportscaster
- 1971 – Jackie McKeown, Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1972 – Matt Horsley, Australian footballer and coach
- 1973 – Aigars Apinis, Latvian discus thrower and shot putter
- 1973 – Tedy Bruschi, American football player and sportscaster
- 1973 – Frédéric Choffat, Swiss director, producer, and cinematographer
- 1973 – Grant Marshall, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1974 – Samoth, Norwegian singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1975 – Otto Addo, German-Ghanaian footballer and manager
- 1975 – Ameesha Patel, Indian actress and model
- 1975 – Andrew Symonds, English-Australian cricketer
- 1977 – Usman Afzaal, Pakistani-English cricketer
- 1977 – Paul Hutchison, English cricketer
- 1977 – Olin Kreutz, American football player
- 1977 – Peja Stojaković, Serbian basketball player
- 1978 – Matt Bellamy, English singer, musician and songwriter
- 1978 – Shandi Finnessey, American model and actress, Miss USA 2004
- 1978 – Miroslav Klose, German footballer
- 1978 – Heather Mitts, American soccer player
- 1978 – Hayden Schlossberg, American director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1979 – Dario Dainelli, Italian footballer
- 1979 – Amanda Lassiter, American basketball player
- 1980 – D’banj, Nigerian singer-songwriter and harmonica player
- 1980 – Mike Fontenot, American baseball player
- 1980 – Udonis Haslem, American basketball player
- 1980 – Lehlohonolo Seema, South African footballer
- 1981 – Natalie Portman, Israeli-American actress
- 1982 – Parinya Charoenphol, Thai boxer, model, and actress
- 1982 – Yoshito Ōkubo, Japanese footballer
- 1982 – Christina Stürmer, Austrian singer-songwriter
- 1983 – Firas Al-Khatib, Syrian footballer
- 1983 – Josh Cribbs, American football player
- 1983 – Dwayne Jones, American basketball player
- 1983 – Danny Richar, Dominican-American baseball player
- 1984 – Yulieski Gourriel, Cuban baseball player
- 1984 – Jake Newton, Guyanese footballer
- 1984 – Asko Paade, Estonian basketball player
- 1984 – Masoud Shojaei, Iranian footballer
- 1984 – Wesley Sneijder, Dutch footballer
- 1985 – Richard Kahui, New Zealand rugby player
- 1985 – Sonam Kapoor, Indian model and actress
- 1985 – Sebastian Telfair, American basketball player
- 1986 – Doug Legursky, American football player
- 1986 – Yadier Pedroso, Cuban baseball player (d. 2013)
- 1986 – Ashley Postell, American gymnast
- 1987 – Jaan Mölder, Estonian race car driver
- 1988 – Jason Demers, Canadian ice hockey defenseman
- 1988 – Sara Isaković, Slovenian swimmer
- 1989 – Dídac Vilà, Spanish footballer
- 1990 – Matthias Mayer, Austrian skier
- 1992 – Zach Hyman, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1992 – Yannick Agnel, French swimmer
- 1992 – Boyd Cordner, Australian rugby league player
- 1993 – George Jennings, Australian rugby league player
Deaths on June 9
- AD 68 – Nero, Roman emperor (b. 37)
- 373 – Ephrem the Syrian, hymnographer and theologian (b. 306)
- 597 – Columba, Irish missionary and saint (b. 521)
- 630 – Shahrbaraz, king of the Persian Empire
- 889 – Aimoin, Frankish monk and archivist
- 908 – Yang Wo, Prince of Hongnong
- 1075 – Gebhard of Supplinburg, Saxon count
- 1087 – Otto I of Olomouc (b. 1045)
- 1238 – Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester
- 1252 – Otto I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
- 1348 – Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Sienese painter (b. 1290)
- 1361 – Philippe de Vitry, French composer and poet (b. 1291)
- 1563 – William Paget, 1st Baron Paget, English accountant and politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (b. 1506)
- 1572 – Jeanne d’Albret, Navarrese queen and Huguenot leader (b. 1528)
- 1583 – Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (b. 1525)
- 1597 – José de Anchieta, Spanish Jesuit missionary (b. 1534)
- 1647 – Leonard Calvert, Colonial governor of Maryland (b. 1606)
- 1656 – Thomas Tomkins, Welsh-English composer (b. 1572)
- 1716 – Banda Singh Bahadur, Indian commander (b. 1670)
- 1717 – Jeanne Guyon, French mystic and author (b. 1648)
- 1834 – William Carey, English minister and missionary (b. 1761)
- 1870 – Charles Dickens, English novelist and critic (b. 1812)
- 1875 – Gérard Paul Deshayes, French geologist and conchologist (b. 1795)
- 1889 – Mike Burke, American baseball player (b. 1854)
- 1892 – William Grant Stairs, Canadian-English captain and explorer (b. 1863)
- 1901 – Adolf Bötticher, German historian and author (b. 1842)
- 1923 – Princess Helena of the United Kingdom (b. 1846)
- 1927 – Victoria Woodhull, American activist for women’s rights (b. 1838)
- 1929 – Louis Bennison, American stage and silent film actor (b. 1884)
- 1929 – Margaret Lawrence, American stage actress (b. 1889)
- 1942 – František Erben, Czech gymnast (b. 1874)
- 1952 – Adolf Busch, German-Austrian violinist and composer (b. 1891)
- 1953 – Ernest Graves, Sr., American football player, coach, and general (b. 1880)
- 1956 – Chandrashekhar Agashe, Indian industrialist and lawyer (b. 1888)
- 1956 – Hans Bergsland, Norwegian fencer (b. 1878)
- 1956 – Thomas Hicks, Australian tennis player (b. 1869)
- 1956 – Ferdinand Jodl, German general (b. 1896)
- 1958 – Robert Donat, English actor (b. 1905)
- 1959 – Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1876)
- 1960 – Harry S. Hammond, American football player and businessman (b. 1884)
- 1961 – Camille Guérin, French veterinarian, bacteriologist and immunologist (b. 1872)
- 1963 – Jacques Villon, French painter (b.1875)
- 1964 – Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, British businessman and politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (b. 1879)
- 1968 – Bernard Cronin, Australian author and journalist (b. 1884)
- 1972 – Gilberto Parlotti, Italian motorcycle racer (b. 1940)
- 1973 – Chuck Bennett, American football player and coach (b. 1907)
- 1973 – John Creasey, English author and politician (b. 1908)
- 1973 – Erich von Manstein, German general (b. 1887)
- 1974 – Miguel Ángel Asturias, Guatemalan journalist, author, and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1899)
- 1979 – Cyclone Taylor, Canadian ice hockey player and civil servant (b. 1884)
- 1981 – Allen Ludden, American game show host (b. 1917)
- 1984 – Helen Hardin, American painter (b. 1943)
- 1989 – George Wells Beadle, American geneticist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1903)
- 1991 – Claudio Arrau, Chilean-American pianist and educator (b. 1903)
- 1993 – Alexis Smith, Canadian-born American actress (b. 1921)
- 1994 – Jan Tinbergen, Dutch economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1903)
- 1997 – Stanley Knowles, American-Canadian academic and politician (b. 1908)
- 1998 – Lois Mailou Jones, American painter and academic (b. 1905)
- 2000 – John Abramovic, American basketball player (b. 1919)
- 2000 – Jacob Lawrence, American painter and academic (b. 1917)
- 2004 – Rosey Brown, American football player and coach (b. 1932)
- 2004 – Brian Williamson, Jamaican activist, co-founded J-FLAG (b. 1945)
- 2006 – Drafi Deutscher, German singer-songwriter (b. 1946)
- 2007 – Frankie Abernathy, American purse designer, cast-member on The Real World: San Diego (b. 1981)
- 2008 – Algis Budrys, Lithuanian-American author and critic (b. 1931)
- 2008 – Suleiman Mousa, Jordanian historian and author (b. 1919)
- 2009 – Dick May, American race car driver (b. 1930)
- 2010 – Ken Brown, British Guitarist who was a member of The Quarrymen (b. 1940)
- 2011 – M. F. Husain, Indian painter and director (b. 1915)
- 2011 – Tomoko Kawakami, Japanese voice actress (b. 1970)
- 2011 – Mike Mitchell, American basketball player (b. 1956)
- 2012 – Régis Clère, French cyclist (b. 1956)
- 2012 – John Maples, Baron Maples, English lawyer and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence (b. 1943)
- 2012 – Ivan Minatti, Slovene poet and translator (b. 1924)
- 2012 – Hawk Taylor, American baseball player and coach (b. 1939)
- 2012 – Abram Wilson, American-English trumpet player and educator (b. 1973)
- 2013 – Iain Banks, Scottish author (b. 1954)
- 2013 – Bruno Bartoletti, Italian conductor (b. 1926)
- 2013 – John Burke, English rugby player (b. 1948)
- 2013 – Walter Jens, German philologist, historian, and academic (b. 1923)
- 2013 – Zdeněk Rotrekl, Czech poet and historian (b. 1920)
- 2014 – Bernard Agré, Ivorian cardinal (b. 1926)
- 2014 – Rik Mayall, English comedian, actor, and screenwriter (b. 1958)
- 2014 – Elsie Quarterman, American ecologist and academic (b. 1910)
- 2014 – Alicemarie Huber Stotler, American lawyer and judge (b. 1942)
- 2014 – Gustave Tassell, American fashion designer (b. 1926)
- 2014 – Bob Welch, American baseball player and coach (b. 1956)
- 2015 – Pumpkinhead, American rapper (b. 1975)
- 2015 – Pedro Zerolo, Spanish lawyer and politician (b. 1960)
- 2017 – Adam West, American actor and investor (b. 1928)
- 2018 – Fadil Vokrri, Kosovo Albanian football administrator and player (b. 1960)
- 2019 – Bushwick Bill, Jamaican-American rapper (b. 1966)
Holidays and observances on June 9
- Anniversary of the Accession of King Abdullah II (Jordan)
- Autonomy Day (Åland Islands)
- Christian feast day:
- Aidan of Lindisfarne (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)
- Bede (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)
- Columba
- Ephrem the Syrian (Roman Catholic Church and Church of England)
- José de Anchieta
- Primus and Felician
- June 9 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Coral Triangle Day
- La Rioja Day (La Rioja)
- Murcia Day (Murcia)
- National Heroes’ Day (Uganda)
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May 15 in History
- 495 BC – A newly constructed temple in honour of the god Mercury was dedicated in ancient Rome on the Circus Maximus, between the Aventine and Palatine hills. To spite the senate and the consuls, the people awarded the dedication to a senior military officer, Marcus Laetorius.
- 221 – Liu Bei, Chinese warlord, proclaims himself emperor of Shu Han, the successor of the Han dynasty.
- 392 – Emperor Valentinian II is assassinated while advancing into Gaul against the Frankish usurper Arbogast. He is found hanging in his residence at Vienne.
- 589 – King Authari marries Theodelinda, daughter of the Bavarian duke Garibald I. A Catholic, she has great influence among the Lombard nobility.
- 908 – The three-year-old Constantine VII, the son of Emperor Leo VI the Wise, is crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire by Patriarch Euthymius I at Constantinople.
- 1252 – Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull ad extirpanda, which authorizes, but also limits, the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition.
- 1525 – Insurgent peasants led by Anabaptist pastor Thomas Müntzer were defeated at the Battle of Frankenhausen, ending the German Peasants’ War in the Holy Roman Empire.
- 1536 – Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, stands trial in London on charges of treason, adultery and incest; she is condemned to death by a specially-selected jury.
- 1567 – Mary, Queen of Scots marries James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, her third husband.
- 1618 – Johannes Kepler confirms his previously rejected discovery of the third law of planetary motion (he first discovered it on March 8 but soon rejected the idea after some initial calculations were made).
- 1648 – The Peace of Münster is ratified, by which Spain acknowledges Dutch sovereignty.
- 1718 – James Puckle, a London lawyer, patents the world’s first machine gun.
- 1776 – American Revolution: The Fifth Virginia Convention instructs its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States Declaration of Independence.
- 1791 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre proposes the Self-denying Ordinance.
- 1792 – War of the First Coalition: France declares war on Kingdom of Sardinia.
- 1793 – Diego Marín Aguilera flies a glider for “about 360 meters”, at a height of 5–6 meters, during one of the first attempted manned flights.
- 1796 – War of the First Coalition: Napoleon enters Milan in triumph.
- 1800 – King George III of the United Kingdom survives an assassination attempt by James Hadfield, who is later acquitted by reason of insanity.
- 1817 – Opening of the first private mental health hospital in the United States, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason (now Friends Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).
- 1836 – Francis Baily observes “Baily’s beads” during an annular eclipse.
- 1849 – The Sicilian revolution of 1848 is finally extinguished.
- 1850 – The Bloody Island massacre takes place in Lake County, California, in which a large number of Pomo Indians are slaughtered by a regiment of the United States Cavalry.
- 1850 – The Arana–Southern Treaty is ratified, ending “the existing differences” between Great Britain and Argentina.
- 1851 – The first Australian gold rush is proclaimed, although the discovery had been made three months earlier.
- 1858 – Opening of the present Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London.
- 1862 – President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill into law creating the United States Bureau of Agriculture. It is later renamed the United States Department of Agriculture.
- 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of New Market, Virginia: Students from the Virginia Military Institute fight alongside the Confederate army to force Union General Franz Sigel out of the Shenandoah Valley.
- 1867 – Canadian Bank of Commerce opens for business in Toronto, Ontario. The bank would later merge with Imperial Bank of Canada to become what is CIBC in 1961.
- 1869 – Women’s suffrage: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association.
- 1891 – Pope Leo XIII defends workers’ rights and property rights in the encyclical Rerum novarum, the beginning of modern Catholic social teaching.
- 1904 – Russo-Japanese War: The Russian minelayer Amur lays a minefield about 15 miles off Port Arthur and sinks Japan’s battleships Hatsuse, 15,000 tons, with 496 crew and Yashima.
- 1905 – Las Vegas is founded when 110 acres (0.45 km2), in what later would become downtown, are auctioned off.
- 1911 – In Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, the United States Supreme Court declares Standard Oil to be an “unreasonable” monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act and orders the company to be broken up.
- 1911 – More than 300 Chinese immigrants are killed in the Torreón massacre when the forces of the Mexican Revolution led by Emilio Madero take the city of Torreón from the Federales.
- 1914 – During a poker game at the Gaiety Theatre in Galesburg, Illinois, comedian Art Fisher nicknames Chicko, Harpo, Groucho, and Gummo Marx.
- 1919 – The Winnipeg general strike begins. By 11:00, almost the whole working population of Winnipeg had walked off the job.
- 1919 – Greek occupation of Smyrna. During the occupation, the Greek army kills or wounds 350 Turks; those responsible are punished by Greek commander Aristides Stergiades.
- 1925 – Al-Insaniyyah, the first Arabic communist newspaper, is founded.
- 1928 – Walt Disney character Mickey Mouse premieres in his first cartoon, “Plane Crazy”.
- 1929 – A fire at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio kills 123.
- 1932 – In an attempted coup d’état, the Prime Minister of Japan Inukai Tsuyoshi is assassinated.
- 1933 – All military aviation organizations within or under the control of the RLM of Germany were officially merged in a covert manner to form its Wehrmacht military’s air arm, the Luftwaffe.
- 1934 – Kārlis Ulmanis establishes an authoritarian government in Latvia.
- 1940 – USS Sailfish is recommissioned. It was originally the USS Squalus.
- 1940 – World War II: After fierce fighting, the poorly trained and equipped Dutch troops surrender to Germany, marking the beginning of five years of occupation.
- 1940 – Richard and Maurice McDonald open the first McDonald’s restaurant.
- 1941 – First flight of the Gloster E.28/39 the first British and Allied jet aircraft.
- 1941 – Joe DiMaggio begins a 56-game hitting streak.
- 1942 – World War II: In the United States, a bill creating the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) is signed into law.
- 1943 – Joseph Stalin dissolves the Comintern (or Third International).
- 1945 – World War II: The Battle of Poljana, the final skirmish in Europe is fought near Prevalje, Slovenia.
- 1948 – Following the expiration of The British Mandate for Palestine, the Kingdom of Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia invade Israel thus starting the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
- 1957 – At Malden Island in the Pacific Ocean, Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb in Operation Grapple.
- 1958 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3.
- 1960 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 4.
- 1963 – Project Mercury: The launch of the final Mercury mission, Mercury-Atlas 9 with astronaut Gordon Cooper on board. He becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space, and the last American to go into space alone.
- 1966 – After a policy dispute, Prime Minister Nguyễn Cao Kỳ of South Vietnam’s ruling junta launches a military attack on the forces of General Tôn Thất Đính, forcing him to abandon his command.
- 1969 – People’s Park: California Governor Ronald Reagan has an impromptu student park owned by the University of California at Berkeley fenced off from student anti-war protestors, sparking a riot.
- 1970 – President Richard Nixon appoints Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington the first female United States Army generals.
- 1970 – Philip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green are killed at Jackson State University by police during student protests.
- 1972 – The Ryukyu Islands, under U.S. military governance since its conquest in 1945, reverts to Japanese control.
- 1972 – In Laurel, Maryland, Arthur Bremer shoots and paralyzes Alabama Governor George Wallace while he is campaigning to become president.
- 1974 – Ma’alot massacre: Members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine attack and take hostages at an Israeli school; a total of 31 people are killed, including 22 schoolchildren.
- 1976 – Aeroflot Flight 1802 crashes in Viktorovka, Chernihiv Raion, killing all 52 people on board.
- 1987 – The Soviet Union launches the Polyus prototype orbital weapons platform. It fails to reach orbit.
- 1988 – Soviet–Afghan War: After more than eight years of fighting, the Soviet Army begins to withdraw 115,000 troops from Afghanistan.
- 1991 – Édith Cresson becomes France’s first female Prime Minister.
- 1997 – The United States government acknowledges the existence of the “Secret War” in Laos and dedicates the Laos Memorial in honor of Hmong and other “Secret War” veterans.
- 1997 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on STS-84 to dock with the Russian space station Mir.
- 2004 – Arsenal F.C. go an entire league campaign unbeaten in the English Premier League, joining Preston North End F.C with the right to claim the title “The Invincibles”.
- 2008 – California becomes the second U.S. state after Massachusetts in 2004 to legalize same-sex marriage after the state’s own Supreme Court rules a previous ban unconstitutional.
- 2010 – Jessica Watson becomes the youngest person to sail, non-stop and unassisted around the world solo.
- 2013 – An upsurge in violence in Iraq leaves more than 389 people dead over three days.
Births on May 15
- 1397 – Sejong the Great, Korean king (d. 1450)
- 1531 – Maria of Austria, Duchess of Jülich-Cleves-Berg (d. 1581)
- 1565 – Hendrick de Keyser, Dutch sculptor and architect (d. 1621)
- 1567 – Claudio Monteverdi, Italian priest and composer (d. 1643)
- 1655 – Pope Innocent XIII (d. 1724)
- 1608 – René Goupil, French-American missionary and saint (d. 1642)
- 1633 – Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, French noble (d. 1707)
- 1645 – George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys, British judge (d. 1689)
- 1689 – Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, English writer (d. 1762)
- 1720 – Maximilian Hell, Hungarian priest and astronomer (d. 1792)
- 1749 – Levi Lincoln Sr., American lawyer and politician, 4th United States Attorney General (d. 1820)
- 1759 – Maria Theresia von Paradis, Austrian pianist and composer (d. 1824)
- 1770 – Ezekiel Hart, Canadian businessman and politician (d. 1843)
- 1773 – Klemens von Metternich, German-Austrian politician, 1st State Chancellor of the Austrian Empire (d. 1859)
- 1786 – Dimitris Plapoutas, Greek general and politician (d. 1864)
- 1803 – Juan Almonte, son of José María Morelos, was a Mexican soldier and diplomat who served as a regent in the Second Mexican Empire (1863-1864) (d. 1869)
- 1805 – Samuel Carter, Early English railway solicitor and MP (d. 1878)
- 1808 – Michael William Balfe, Irish composer and conductor (d. 1870)
- 1817 – Debendranath Tagore, Indian philosopher and author (d. 1905)
- 1841 – Clarence Dutton, American commander and geologist (d. 1912)
- 1845 – Élie Metchnikoff, Russian zoologist (d. 1916)
- 1848 – Viktor Vasnetsov, Russian painter and illustrator (d. 1926)
- 1854 – Ioannis Psycharis, Ukrainian-French philologist and author (d. 1929)
- 1856 – L. Frank Baum, American novelist (d. 1919)
- 1856 – Matthias Zurbriggen, Swiss mountaineer (d. 1917)
- 1857 – Williamina Fleming, Scottish-American astronomer and academic (d. 1911)
- 1859 – Pierre Curie, French physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1906)
- 1862 – Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian author and playwright (d. 1931)
- 1863 – Frank Hornby, English businessman and politician, invented Meccano (d. 1936)
- 1869 – Paul Probst, Swiss target shooter (d. 1945)
- 1869 – John Storey, Australian politician, 20th Premier of New South Wales (d. 1921)
- 1882 – Walter White, Scottish international footballer (d. 1950)
- 1890 – Katherine Anne Porter, American short story writer, novelist, and essayist (d. 1980)
- 1891 – Mikhail Bulgakov, Russian novelist and playwright (d. 1940)
- 1891 – Fritz Feigl, Austrian-Brazilian chemist and academic (d. 1971)
- 1892 – Charles E. Rosendahl, American admiral (d. 1977)
- 1892 – Jimmy Wilde, Welsh boxer (d. 1969)
- 1893 – José Nepomuceno, Filipino filmmaker, founder of Philippine cinema (d. 1959)
- 1894 – Feg Murray, American hurdler and cartoonist (d. 1973)
- 1895 – Prescott Bush, American captain, banker, and politician (d. 1972)
- 1895 – William D. Byron, American lieutenant and politician (d. 1941)
- 1898 – Arletty, French model, actress, and singer (d. 1992)
- 1899 – Jean Étienne Valluy, French general (d. 1970)
- 1900 – Ida Rhodes, American mathematician, pioneer in computer programming (d. 1986)
- 1901 – Xavier Herbert, Australian author (d. 1984)
- 1901 – Luis Monti, Argentinian-Italian footballer and manager (d. 1983)
- 1902 – Richard J. Daley, American lawyer and politician, 48th Mayor of Chicago (d. 1976)
- 1902 – Sigizmund Levanevsky, Soviet aircraft pilot of Polish origin (d. 1937)
- 1903 – Maria Reiche, German mathematician and archaeologist (d. 1998)
- 1904 – Clifton Fadiman, American game show host and author (d. 1999)
- 1905 – Joseph Cotten, American actor (d. 1994)
- 1905 – Albert Dubout, French cartoonist, illustrator, painter, and sculptor (d. 1976)
- 1905 – Abraham Zapruder, American businessman and amateur photographer, filmed the Zapruder film (d. 1970)
- 1907 – Sukhdev Thapar, Indian activist (d. 1931)
- 1909 – James Mason, English actor, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1984)
- 1909 – Clara Solovera, Chilean singer-songwriter (d. 1992)
- 1910 – Constance Cummings, British-based American actress (d. 2005)
- 1911 – Max Frisch, Swiss playwright and novelist (d. 1991)
- 1911 – Herta Oberheuser, German physician (d. 1978)
- 1912 – Arthur Berger, American composer and educator (d. 2003)
- 1914 – Turk Broda, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (d. 1972)
- 1914 – Angus MacLean, Canadian farmer and politician, 25th Premier of Prince Edward Island (d. 2000)
- 1914 – Norrie Paramor, English composer, producer, and conductor (d. 1979)
- 1915 – Hilda Bernstein, English-South African author and activist (d. 2006)
- 1915 – Paul Samuelson, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2009)
- 1915 – Henrik Sandberg, Danish production manager and producer (d. 1993)
- 1916 – Vera Gebuhr, Danish actress (d. 2014)
- 1918 – Eddy Arnold, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (d. 2008)
- 1918 – Arthur Jackson, American lieutenant and target shooter (d. 2015)
- 1918 – Joseph Wiseman, Canadian-American actor (d. 2009)
- 1920 – Michel Audiard, French director and screenwriter (d. 1985)
- 1922 – Sigurd Ottovich Schmidt, Russian historian and ethnographer (d. 2013)
- 1922 – Jakucho Setouchi, Japanese nun and author
- 1923 – Richard Avedon, American sailor and photographer (d. 2004)
- 1923 – John Lanchbery, English-Australian composer and conductor (d. 2003)
- 1924 – Maria Koepcke, German-Peruvian ornithologist and zoologist (d. 1971)
- 1925 – Andrei Eshpai, Russian pianist and composer (d. 2015)
- 1925 – Mary F. Lyon, English geneticist and biologist (d. 2014)
- 1925 – Carl Sanders, American soldier, pilot, and politician, 74th Governor of Georgia (d. 2014)
- 1925 – Roy Stewart, Jamaican-English actor and stuntman (d. 2008)
- 1926 – Clermont Pépin, Canadian pianist, composer, and educator (d. 2006)
- 1926 – Anthony Shaffer, English author, playwright, and screenwriter (d. 2001)
- 1926 – Peter Shaffer, English playwright and screenwriter (d. 2016)
- 1930 – Jasper Johns, American painter and sculptor
- 1931 – Ken Venturi, American golfer and sportscaster (d. 2013)
- 1935 – Don Bragg, American pole vaulter
- 1935 – Ted Dexter, Italian-English cricketer
- 1935 – Utah Phillips, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2008)
- 1935 – Akihiro Miwa, Japanese singer, actor, director, composer, author and drag queen
- 1936 – Anna Maria Alberghetti, Italian-American actress and singer
- 1936 – Mart Laga, Estonian basketball player (d. 1977)
- 1936 – Ralph Steadman, English painter and illustrator
- 1936 – Paul Zindel, American playwright and novelist (d. 2003)
- 1937 – Madeleine Albright, Czech-American politician and diplomat, 64th United States Secretary of State
- 1937 – Karin Krog, Norwegian singer
- 1937 – Trini Lopez, American singer, guitarist, and actor
- 1938 – Mireille Darc, French actress, director, and screenwriter (d. 2017)
- 1938 – Nancy Garden, American author (d. 2014)
- 1939 – Dorothy Shirley, English high jumper and educator
- 1940 – Roger Ailes, American businessman (d. 2017)
- 1940 – Lainie Kazan, American actress and singer
- 1940 – Don Nelson, American basketball player and coach
- 1941 – Jaxon, American illustrator and publisher, co-founded the Rip Off Press (d. 2006)
- 1942 – Lois Johnson, American singer-songwriter (d. 2014)
- 1942 – Jusuf Kalla, Indonesian businessman and politician, 10th Vice President of Indonesia
- 1942 – Doug Lowe, Australian politician, 35th Premier of Tasmania
- 1942 – K. T. Oslin, American singer-songwriter and actress
- 1943 – Paul Bégin, Canadian lawyer and politician
- 1943 – Freddie Perren, American songwriter, producer, and conductor (d. 2004)
- 1944 – Bill Alter, American police officer and politician
- 1944 – Ulrich Beck, German sociologist and academic (d. 2015)
- 1945 – Michael Dexter, English hematologist and academic
- 1945 – Jerry Quarry, American boxer (d. 1999)
- 1946 – Thadeus Nguyễn Văn Lý, Vietnamese priest and activist
- 1947 – Graeham Goble, Australian singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer
- 1948 – Kate Bornstein, American author, playwright, performance artist, and gender theorist
- 1948 – Yutaka Enatsu, Japanese baseball player
- 1948 – Brian Eno, English singer-songwriter, keyboard player, and producer
- 1948 – Kathleen Sebelius, American politician, 44th Governor of Kansas
- 1949 – Frank L. Culbertson Jr., American captain, pilot, and astronaut
- 1949 – Robert S.J. Sparks, English geologist and academic
- 1950 – Jim Bacon, Australian politician, 41st Premier of Tasmania (d. 2004)
- 1950 – Jim Simons, American golfer (d. 2005)
- 1951 – Dennis Frederiksen, American singer-songwriter (d. 2014)
- 1951 – Chris Ham, English political scientist and academic
- 1951 – Frank Wilczek, American mathematician and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1952 – Chazz Palminteri, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1953 – George Brett, American baseball player and coach
- 1953 – Athene Donald, English physicist and academic
- 1953 – Mike Oldfield, English-Irish singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
- 1954 – Diana Liverman, English-American geographer and academic
- 1954 – Caroline Thomson, English journalist and broadcaster
- 1955 – Mohamed Brahmi, Tunisian politician (d. 2013)
- 1955 – Lia Vissi, Cypriot singer-songwriter and politician
- 1956 – Andreas Loverdos, Greek lawyer and politician, Greek Minister of Labour
- 1956 – Dan Patrick, American television anchor and sportscaster
- 1956 – Kevin Greenaugh, American nuclear engineer
- 1957 – Meg Gardiner, American-English author and academic
- 1957 – Juan José Ibarretxe, Spanish politician
- 1957 – Kevin Von Erich, American football player and wrestler
- 1958 – Jason Graae, American musical theater actor
- 1958 – Ruth Marcus, American journalist
- 1958 – Ron Simmons, American football player and wrestler
- 1959 – Khaosai Galaxy, Thai boxer and politician
- 1959 – Luis Pérez-Sala, Spanish race car driver
- 1959 – Beverly Jo Scott, American-Belgian singer-songwriter
- 1960 – Rhonda Burchmore, Australian actress, singer, and dancer
- 1960 – Rob Bowman, American director and producer
- 1960 – R. Kuhaneswaran, Sri Lankan politician
- 1960 – Rimas Kurtinaitis, Lithuanian basketball player and coach
- 1961 – Giselle Fernández, Mexican-American television journalist.
- 1962 – Lisa Curry, Australian swimmer
- 1963 – Gavin Nebbeling, South African footballer
- 1964 – Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Danish lawyer and politician, 40th Prime Minister of Denmark
- 1965 – André Abujamra, Brazilian singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1965 – Scott Tronc, Australian rugby league player
- 1966 – Jiří Němec, Czech footballer
- 1967 – Simen Agdestein, Norwegian chess grandmaster and football player
- 1967 – Laura Hillenbrand, American journalist and author
- 1967 – John Smoltz, American baseball player and sportscaster
- 1967 – Madhuri Dixit, Indian actress
- 1968 – Cecilia Malmström, Swedish academic and politician, 15th European Commissioner for Trade
- 1968 – Sophie Raworth, English journalist and broadcaster
- 1969 – Hideki Irabu, Japanese-American baseball player (d. 2011)
- 1969 – Emmitt Smith, American football player and sportscaster
- 1970 – Frank de Boer, Dutch footballer and manager
- 1970 – Ronald de Boer, Dutch footballer and manager
- 1970 – Desmond Howard, American football player and sportscaster
- 1970 – Alison Jackson, English photographer, director, and screenwriter
- 1970 – Rod Smith, American football player
- 1970 – Ben Wallace, English captain and politician
- 1971 – Karin Lušnic, Slovenian tennis player
- 1972 – Danny Alexander, Scottish politician, Secretary of State for Scotland
- 1972 – David Charvet, French actor and singer
- 1974 – Vasilis Kikilias, Greek basketball player and politician
- 1974 – Matthew Sadler, English chess player and author
- 1974 – Marko Tredup, German footballer and manager
- 1974 – Ahmet Zappa, American musician and writer
- 1975 – Ray Lewis, American football player and sportscaster
- 1975 – Ales Michalevic, Belarusian lawyer and politician
- 1976 – Torraye Braggs, American basketball player
- 1976 – Mark Kennedy, Irish footballer
- 1976 – Jacek Krzynówek, Polish footballer
- 1976 – Ryan Leaf, American football player and coach
- 1976 – Anže Logar, Slovenian politician
- 1976 – Tyler Walker, American baseball player
- 1978 – Amy Chow, American gymnast and pediatrician
- 1978 – Dwayne De Rosario, Canadian soccer player
- 1978 – Edu, Brazilian footballer
- 1978 – David Krumholtz, American actor
- 1979 – Adolfo Bautista, Mexican footballer
- 1979 – Daniel Caines, English sprinter
- 1979 – Chris Masoe, New Zealand rugby player
- 1979 – Ryan Max Riley, American skier
- 1979 – Robert Royal, American football player
- 1979 – Dominic Scott, Irish guitarist
- 1980 – Josh Beckett, American baseball player
- 1981 – Patrice Evra, French footballer
- 1981 – Paul Konchesky, English international footballer
- 1981 – Justin Morneau, Canadian baseball player
- 1981 – Zara Phillips, English equestrian
- 1981 – Jamie-Lynn Sigler, American actress and singer
- 1982 – Veronica Campbell-Brown, Jamaican sprinter
- 1982 – Segundo Castillo, Ecuadorian footballer
- 1982 – Rafael Pérez, Dominican baseball player
- 1982 – Layal Abboud, Lebanese singer
- 1984 – Jeff Deslauriers, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1984 – Sérgio Jimenez, Brazilian race car driver
- 1984 – Samantha Noble, Australian actress
- 1984 – Beau Scott, Australian rugby league player
- 1984 – Mr Probz, Dutch singer, songwriter, rapper, actor and record producer
- 1985 – Cristiane, Brazilian footballer
- 1985 – Tania Cagnotto, Italian diver
- 1985 – Laura Harvey, English football coach
- 1985 – Tathagata Mukherjee, Indian actor
- 1985 – Denis Onyango, Ugandan goalkeeper
- 1985 – Justine Robbeson, South African javelin thrower
- 1986 – Thomas Brown, American football player
- 1986 – Matías Fernández, Chilean footballer
- 1986 – Adam Moffat, Scottish footballer
- 1987 – David Adams, American baseball player
- 1987 – Michael Brantley, American baseball player
- 1987 – Brian Dozier, American baseball player
- 1987 – Mark Fayne, American ice hockey player
- 1987 – Ersan İlyasova, Turkish basketball player
- 1987 – Leonardo Mayer, Argentinian tennis player
- 1987 – Andy Murray, Scottish tennis player
- 1988 – Indrek Kajupank, Estonian basketball player
- 1988 – Scott Laird, English footballer
- 1989 – Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa, French footballer
- 1990 – Jordan Eberle, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1990 – Lee Jong-hyun, Korean guitarist
- 1990 – Stella Maxwell, New Zealand model
- 1993 – Jeremy Hawkins, New Zealand rugby league player
- 1993 – Tomáš Kalas, Czech international footballer
- 1996 – Birdy, English singer-songwriter
- 1997 – Ousmane Dembélé, French footballer
Deaths on May 15
- 392 – Valentinian II, Roman emperor (b. 371)
- 558 – Hilary of Galeata, Christian monk (b. 476)
- 884 – Narinus I, pope of the Catholic Church (b. 830)
- 913 – Hatto I, German archbishop (b. 850)
- 926 – Zhuang Zong, Chinese emperor (b. 885)
- 973 – Byrhthelm, bishop of Wells
- 1036 – Go-Ichijō, emperor of Japan (b. 1008)
- 1157 – Yuri Dolgorukiy, Grand Prince of Kiev (b. 1099)
- 1175 – Mleh, prince of Armenia
- 1174 – Nur ad-Din, Seljuk emir of Syria (b. 1118)
- 1268 – Peter II, count of Savoy (b. 1203)
- 1461 – Domenico Veneziano, Italian painter (b. c. 1410)
- 1464 – Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset (b. 1436)
- 1470 – Charles VIII, king of Sweden (b. 1409)
- 1585 – Niwa Nagahide, Japanese samurai (b. 1535)
- 1609 – Giovanni Croce, Italian composer and educator (b. 1557)
- 1615 – Henry Bromley, English politician (b. 1560)
- 1634 – Hendrick Avercamp, Dutch painter (b. 1585)
- 1698 – Marie Champmeslé, French actress (b. 1642)
- 1699 – Sir Edward Petre, 3rd Baronet, English politician (b. 1631)
- 1700 – John Hale, American minister (b. 1636)
- 1740 – Ephraim Chambers, English publisher (b. 1680)
- 1773 – Alban Butler, English priest and hagiographer (b. 1710)
- 1845 – Braulio Carrillo Colina, Costa Rican lawyer and politician, Head of State of Costa Rica (b. 1800)
- 1879 – Gottfried Semper, German architect and educator, designed the Semper Opera House (b. 1803)
- 1886 – Emily Dickinson, American poet and author (b. 1830)
- 1914 – Ida Freund, Austrian-born chemist and educator (b. 1863)
- 1919 – Hasan Tahsin, Turkish journalist (b. 1888)
- 1924 – Paul-Henri-Benjamin d’Estournelles de Constant, French diplomat and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)
- 1926 – Joseph James Fletcher, Australian biologist (b. 1850)
- 1928 – Umegatani Tōtarō I, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 15th Yokozuna (b. 1845)
- 1935 – Kazimir Malevich, Ukrainian-Russian painter and theoretician (b. 1878)
- 1937 – Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden, English politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (b. 1864)
- 1945 – Kenneth J. Alford, English soldier, bandmaster, and composer (b. 1881)
- 1945 – Charles Williams, English author, poet, and critic (b. 1886)
- 1948 – Edward J. Flanagan, Irish-American priest, founded Boys Town (b. 1886)
- 1954 – William March, American soldier and author (b. 1893)
- 1956 – Austin Osman Spare, English painter and magician (b. 1886)
- 1957 – Keith Andrews, American race car driver (b. 1920)
- 1957 – Dick Irvin, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (b. 1892)
- 1963 – John Aglionby, English-born Bishop of Accra and soldier (b. 1884)
- 1964 – Vladko Maček, Croatian lawyer and politician (b. 1879)
- 1965 – Pio Pion, Italian businessman (b. 1887)
- 1967 – Edward Hopper, American painter (b. 1882)
- 1967 – Italo Mus, Italian painter (b. 1892)
- 1969 – Joe Malone, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1890)
- 1971 – Tyrone Guthrie, English director, producer, and playwright (b. 1900)
- 1978 – Robert Menzies, Australian lawyer and politician, 12th Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1894)
- 1980 – Gordon Prange, American historian and author (b. 1910)
- 1982 – Gordon Smiley, American race car driver (b. 1946)
- 1984 – Francis Schaeffer, American pastor, theologian, and philosopher (b. 1912)
- 1985 – Jackie Curtis, American actress and writer (b. 1947)
- 1986 – Elio de Angelis, Italian race car driver (b. 1958)
- 1986 – Theodore H. White, American historian, journalist, and author (b. 1915)
- 1989 – Johnny Green, American composer and conductor (b. 1908)
- 1989 – Luc Lacourcière, Canadian ethnographer and author (b. 1910)
- 1991 – Andreas Floer, German mathematician and academic (b. 1956)
- 1991 – Amadou Hampâté Bâ, Malian ethnologist and author (b. 1901)
- 1991 – Fritz Riess, German race car driver (b. 1922)
- 1993 – Salah Ahmed Ibrahim, Sudanese poet and diplomat (b. 1933)
- 1994 – Gilbert Roland, American actor (b. 1905)
- 1995 – Eric Porter, English actor (b. 1928)
- 1996 – Charles B. Fulton, American lawyer and judge (b. 1910)
- 1998 – Earl Manigault, American basketball player (b. 1944)
- 1998 – Naim Talu, Turkish economist, banker, politician, 15th Prime Minister of Turkey (b. 1919)
- 2003 – June Carter Cash, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actress (b. 1929)
- 2006 – Nizar Abdul Zahra, Iraqi footballer (b. 1961)
- 2007 – Jerry Falwell, American pastor, founded Liberty University (b. 1933)
- 2008 – Tommy Burns, Scottish footballer and manager (b. 1956)
- 2008 – Alexander Courage, American composer and conductor (b. 1919)
- 2008 – Will Elder, American illustrator (b. 1921)
- 2009 – Bud Tingwell, Australian actor, director, and producer (b. 1923)
- 2009 – Wayman Tisdale, American basketball player and bass player (b. 1964)
- 2010 – Besian Idrizaj, Austrian footballer (b. 1987)
- 2010 – Loris Kessel, Swiss race car driver (b. 1950)
- 2012 – Carlos Fuentes, Mexican novelist and essayist (b. 1928)
- 2012 – Arno Lustiger, German historian and author (b. 1924)
- 2012 – Zakaria Mohieddin, Egyptian soldier and politician, 33rd Prime Minister of Egypt (b. 1918)
- 2013 – Henrique Rosa, Bissau-Guinean politician, President of Guinea-Bissau (b. 1946)
- 2014 – Jean-Luc Dehaene, French-Belgian politician, 63rd Prime Minister of Belgium (b. 1940)
- 2014 – Noribumi Suzuki, Japanese director and screenwriter (b. 1933)
- 2015 – Elisabeth Bing, German-American physical therapist and author (b. 1914)
- 2015 – Jackie Brookner, American sculptor and educator (b. 1945)
- 2015 – Garo Yepremian, Cypriot-American football player (b. 1944)
- 2020 – Fred Willard, American actor, comedian, and writer (b. 1933)[19]
Holidays and observances on May 15
- Aoi Matsuri (Kyoto)
- Army Day (Slovenia)
- Christian feast day:
- Achillius of Larissa
- Athanasius of Alexandria (Coptic Church)
- Dymphna
- Hallvard Vebjørnsson (Roman Catholic Church)
- Hesychius of Cazorla
- Hilary of Galeata
- Isidore the Laborer, celebrated with festivals in various countries, the beginning of bullfighting season in Madrid.
- Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (Roman Catholic Church)
- Peter, Andrew, Paul, and Denise (Roman Catholic Church)
- Reticius (Roman Catholic Church)
- Sophia of Rome (Roman Catholic church)
- May 15 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Constituent Assembly Day (Lithuania)
- Earliest date on which Armed Forces Day (United States) can fall, while May 21 is the latest; celebrated on the third Saturday of May.
- Independence Day (Paraguay), celebrates the independence of Paraguay from Spain in 1811. Celebrations for the anniversary of the independence begin on Flag Day, May 14.
- International Conscientious Objectors Day
- International Day of Families (International)
- La Corsa dei Ceri begins on the eve of the feast day of Saint Ubaldo. (Gubbio)
- Mother’s Day (Paraguay)
- Nakba Day (Palestinian communities)
- Peace Officers Memorial Day (United States)
- Republic Day (Lithuania)
- Teachers’ Day (Colombia, Mexico and South Korea)
-
May 1 in History
- 475 BC – Roman consul Publius Valerius Poplicola celebrates a Roman triumph for his victory over Veii and the Sabines.
- 305 – Diocletian and Maximian retire from the office of Roman emperor.
- 524 – King Sigismund of Burgundy is executed at Orléans after an eight-year reign and is succeeded by his brother Godomar.
- 880 – The Nea Ekklesia is inaugurated in Constantinople, setting the model for all later cross-in-square Orthodox churches.
- 1169 – Norman mercenaries land at Bannow Bay in Leinster, marking the beginning of the Norman invasion of Ireland.
- 1328 – Wars of Scottish Independence end: By the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton, England recognises Scotland as an independent state.
- 1455 – Battle of Arkinholm, Royal forces end the Black Douglas hegemony in Scotland.
- 1576 – Stephen Báthory, the reigning Prince of Transylvania, marries Anna Jagiellon and they become co-rulers of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
- 1707 – The Act of Union joining England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain takes effect.
- 1753 – Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.
- 1759 – Josiah Wedgwood founds the Wedgwood pottery company in Great Britain
- 1776 – Establishment of the Illuminati in Ingolstadt, Upper Bavaria, by Jesuit-taught Adam Weishaupt.
- 1778 – American Revolution: The Battle of Crooked Billet begins in Hatboro, Pennsylvania.
- 1786 – In Vienna, Austria, Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro is performed for the first time.
- 1794 – War of the Pyrenees: The Battle of Boulou ends, in which French forces defeat the Spanish and regain nearly all the land they lost to Spain in 1793.
- 1820 – Execution of the Cato Street Conspirators, who plotted to kill the British Cabinet and Prime Minister Lord Liverpool.
- 1840 – The Penny Black, the first official adhesive postage stamp, is issued in the United Kingdom.
- 1844 – Hong Kong Police Force, the world’s second modern police force and Asia’s first, is established.
- 1846 – The few remaining Mormons left in Nauvoo, Illinois, formally dedicate the Nauvoo Temple.
- 1851 – Queen Victoria opens The Great Exhibition at The Crystal Palace in London.
- 1856 – The Province of Isabela was created in the Philippines in honor of Queen Isabela II.
- 1862 – American Civil War: The Union Army completes its capture of New Orleans.
- 1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chancellorsville begins.
- 1865 – The Empire of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay sign the Treaty of the Triple Alliance.
- 1866 – The Memphis Race Riots begin. In three days time, 46 blacks and two whites were killed. Reports of the atrocities influenced passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
- 1875 – Alexandra Palace reopens after being burned down in a fire in 1873.
- 1884 – The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions demands the eight-hour work day in the United States.
- 1884 – Moses Fleetwood Walker becomes the first black person to play in a professional baseball game in the United States.
- 1885 – The original Chicago Board of Trade Building opens for business.
- 1886 – Rallies are held throughout the United States demanding the eight-hour work day, culminating in the Haymarket affair in Chicago, in commemoration of which May 1 is celebrated as International Workers’ Day in many countries.
- 1893 – The World’s Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago.
- 1894 – Coxey’s Army, the first significant American protest march, arrives in Washington, D.C.
- 1898 – Spanish–American War: Battle of Manila Bay: The Asiatic Squadron of the United States Navy destroys the Pacific Squadron of the Spanish Navy after a seven-hour battle. Spain loses all seven of its ships, and 381 Spanish sailors die. There are no American vessel losses or combat deaths.
- 1900 – The Scofield Mine disaster kills over 200 men in Scofield, Utah in what is to date the fifth-worst mining accident in United States history.
- 1915 – The RMS Lusitania departs from New York City on her 202nd, and final, crossing of the North Atlantic. Six days later, the ship is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland with the loss of 1,198 lives.
- 1919 – German troops enter Munich to suppress the Bavarian Soviet Republic.
- 1925 – The All-China Federation of Trade Unions is officially founded. Today it is the largest trade union in the world, with 134 million members.
- 1927 – The Union Labor Life Insurance Company is founded by the American Federation of Labor.
- 1929 – The 7.2 Mw Kopet Dag earthquake shakes the Iran–Turkmenistan border region with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing up to 3,800 and injuring 1,121.
- 1930 – “Pluto” is officially proposed for the name of the newly-discovered dwarf planet Pluto by Vesto Slipher in the Lowell Observatory Observation Circular. The name quickly catches on.
- 1931 – The Empire State Building is dedicated in New York City.
- 1941 – World War II: German forces launch a major attack during the siege of Tobruk.
- 1944 – World War II: Two hundred Communist prisoners are shot by the Germans at Kaisariani, Athens in reprisal for the killing of General Franz Krech by partisans at Molaoi.
- 1945 – World War II: A German newsreader officially announces that Adolf Hitler has “fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany”. The Soviet flag is raised over the Reich Chancellery, by order of Stalin.
- 1945 – World War II: Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda commit suicide in the Reich Garden outside the Führerbunker. Their children are also killed by having cyanide pills inserted into their mouths by their mother, Magda.
- 1945 – World War II: Forces of the Soviet Red Army liberate Allied prisoners of war imprisoned at Stalag Luft I near Barth, Germany.
- 1945 – World War II: Up to 2,500 people die in a mass suicide in Demmin following the advance of the Red Army.
- 1945 – World War II: Yugoslav Partisans liberate Trieste.
- 1946 – Start of three-year Pilbara strike of Indigenous Australians.
- 1946 – The Paris Peace Conference concludes that the islands of the Dodecanese should be returned to Greece by Italy.
- 1947 – Portella della Ginestra massacre against May Day celebrations in Sicily by the bandit and separatist leader Salvatore Giuliano where 11 persons are killed and 33 wounded.
- 1956 – The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public.
- 1956 – A doctor in Japan reports an “epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system”, marking the official discovery of Minamata disease.
- 1957 – Thirty-four people are killed when a Vickers Viking airliner crashes in Hampshire, England.
- 1960 – Formation of the western Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra; also known as “Maharashtra Day”.
- 1960 – Cold War: U-2 incident: Francis Gary Powers, in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, is shot down over the Sverdlovsk Oblast, Soviet Union, sparking a diplomatic crisis.
- 1961 – The Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro, proclaims Cuba a socialist nation and abolishes elections.
- 1965 – Cross-Strait relations: Battle of Dong-Yin, a naval conflict between the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China, takes place.
- 1967 – Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu are married in Las Vegas.
- 1970 – Vietnam War: Protests erupt following the announcement by Richard Nixon that the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces would attack Vietnamese communists in a Cambodian Campaign.
- 1971 – Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) takes over operation of U.S. passenger rail service.
- 1974 – The Argentine terrorist organization Montoneros is expelled from Plaza de Mayo by president Juan Perón.
- 1977 – Thirty-six people are killed in Taksim Square, Istanbul, during the Labour Day celebrations.
- 1978 – Japan’s Naomi Uemura, travelling by dog sled, becomes the first person to reach the North Pole alone.
- 1982 – Operation Black Buck: The Royal Air Force attacks the Argentine Air Force during Falklands War.
- 1983 – The Sydney Entertainment Centre is opened.
- 1987 – Pope John Paul II beatifies Edith Stein, a Jewish-born Carmelite nun who was gassed in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.
- 1989 – Disney-MGM Studios opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, United States.
- 1990 – The former Philippine Episcopal Church (supervised by the Episcopal Church of the United States of America) is granted full autonomy and raised to the status of an Autocephalous Anglican Province and renamed the Episcopal Church in the Philippines.
- 1993 – Dingiri Banda Wijetunga became president of Sri Lanka automatically after killing of R Premadasa in LTTE bomb explosion.
- 1994 – Three-time Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna is killed in an accident whilst leading the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola.
- 1995 – Croatian War of Independence: Croatian forces launch Operation Flash.
- 1999 – The body of British climber George Mallory is found on Mount Everest, 75 years after his disappearance in 1924
- 1999 – SpongeBob SquarePants premieres on Nickelodeon.
- 2001 – Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declares the existence of “a state of rebellion”, hours after thousands of supporters of her arrested predecessor, Joseph Estrada, storm towards the presidential palace at the height of the EDSA III rebellion.
- 2002 – OpenOffice.org released version 1.0, the first stable version of the software.
- 2003 – Invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the “Mission Accomplished” speech, on board the USS Abraham Lincoln (off the coast of California), U.S. President George W. Bush declares that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended”.
- 2004 – Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia join the European Union, celebrated at the residence of the Irish President in Dublin.
- 2009 – Same-sex marriage is legalized in Sweden.
- 2011 – Pope John Paul II is beatified by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI.
- 2019 – Naxalite attack in Gadchiroli district of India: Sixteen army soldiers, including a driver, killed in an IED blast. Naxals targeted an anti-Naxal operations team.
Births on May 1
- 1218 – John I, Count of Hainaut (d. 1257)
- 1218 – Rudolf I of Germany (d. 1291)
- 1285 – Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel, English politician (d. 1326)
- 1326 – Rinchinbal Khan, Mongolian emperor (d. 1332)
- 1488 – Sidonie of Bavaria, eldest daughter of Duke Albrecht IV of Bavaria-Munich (d. 1505)
- 1527 – Johannes Stadius, German astronomer, astrologer, mathematician (d. 1579)
- 1545 – Franciscus Junius, French theologian (d. 1602)
- 1579 – Wolphert Gerretse, Dutch-American farmer, co-founded New Netherland (d. 1662)
- 1582 – Marco da Gagliano, Italian composer (d. 1643)
- 1585 – Sophia Olelkovich Radziwill, Belarusian saint (d. 1612)
- 1591 – Johann Adam Schall von Bell, German missionary and astronomer (d. 1666)
- 1594 – John Haynes, English-American politician, 1st Governor of the Colony of Connecticut (d. 1653)
- 1602 – William Lilly, English astrologer (d. 1681)
- 1672 – Joseph Addison, English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician (d. 1719)
- 1730 – Joshua Rowley, English admiral (d. 1790)
- 1735 – Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen, Dutch admiral and philanthropist (d. 1819)
- 1751 – Judith Sargent Murray, American poet and playwright (d. 1820)
- 1764 – Benjamin Henry Latrobe, English-American architect, designed the United States Capitol (d. 1820)
- 1769 – Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Irish-English field marshal and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1852)
- 1783 – Phoebe Hinsdale Brown, American hymnwriter (d. 1861)
- 1803 – James Clarence Mangan, Irish poet and author (d. 1849)
- 1821 – Henry Ayers, English-Australian politician, 8th Premier of South Australia (d. 1897)
- 1824 – Alexander William Williamson, English chemist and academic (d. 1904)
- 1825 – Johann Jakob Balmer, Swiss mathematician and physicist (d. 1898)
- 1825 – George Inness, American painter and educator (d. 1894)
- 1827 – Jules Breton, French painter (d. 1906)
- 1829 – José de Alencar, Brazilian author and playwright (d. 1877)
- 1829 – Frederick Sandys, English painter and illustrator (d. 1904)
- 1830 – Guido Gezelle, Belgian priest and poet (d. 1899)
- 1831 – Emily Stowe, Canadian physician and activist (d. 1903)
- 1847 – Henry Demarest Lloyd, American journalist and politician (d. 1903)
- 1848 – Adelsteen Normann, Norwegian painter (d. 1919)
- 1850 – Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (d. 1942)
- 1851 – Laza Lazarević, Serbian psychiatrist and neurologist (d. 1891)
- 1852 – Calamity Jane, American frontierswoman and professional scout (d. 1903)
- 1852 – Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish neuroscientist and pathologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1934)
- 1853 – Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin, Jewish Ukrainian-American journalist, actor, and playwright (d. 1909)
- 1855 – Cecilia Beaux, American painter and academic (d. 1942)
- 1857 – Theo van Gogh, Dutch art dealer (d. 1891)
- 1859 – Jacqueline Comerre-Paton, French painter and sculptor (d. 1955)
- 1862 – Marcel Prévost, French novelist and playwright (d. 1941)
- 1864 – Anna Jarvis, American founder of Mother’s Day (d. 1948)
- 1871 – Seakle Greijdanus, Dutch theologian and scholar (d. 1948)
- 1871 – Emiliano Chamorro Vargas, President of Nicaragua (d. 1966)
- 1872 – Hugo Alfvén, Swedish composer, conductor, violinist, and painter (d. 1960)
- 1872 – Sidónio Pais, Portuguese soldier and politician, 4th President of Portugal (d. 1918)
- 1874 – Romaine Brooks, American-French painter and illustrator (d. 1970)
- 1874 – Paul Van Asbroeck, Belgian target shooter (d. 1959)
- 1875 – Dave Hall, American runner (d. 1972)
- 1881 – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French priest, palaeontologist, and philosopher (d. 1955)
- 1884 – Francis Curzon, 5th Earl Howe, English race car driver and politician (d. 1964)
- 1885 – Clément Pansaers, Belgian poet (d. 1922)
- 1885 – Ralph Stackpole, American sculptor and painter (d. 1973)
- 1887 – Alan Cunningham, Anglo-Irish general and diplomat, High Commissioners for Palestine and Transjordan (d. 1983)
- 1890 – Clelia Lollini, Italian physician (d. 1963 or 1964)
- 1891 – Lillian Estelle Fisher, American historian of Spanish America (d. 1988)
- 1895 – Nikolai Yezhov, Soviet secret police official, head of the NKVD (d. 1940)
- 1895 – May Hollinworth, Australian theatre producer and director (d. 1968)
- 1896 – Herbert Backe, German agronomist and politician (d. 1947)
- 1896 – Mark W. Clark, American general (d. 1984)
- 1896 – J. Lawton Collins, American general (d. 1987)
- 1898 – Alfred Schmidt, Estonian weightlifter (d. 1972)
- 1900 – Ignazio Silone, Italian journalist and politician (d. 1978)
- 1900 – Aleksander Wat, Polish poet and writer (d. 1967)
- 1901 – Sterling Allen Brown, American poet, academic, and critic (d. 1989)
- 1901 – Heinz Eric Roemheld, American pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1985)
- 1901 – Antal Szerb, Hungarian scholar and author (d. 1945)
- 1905 – Henry Koster, German-American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1988)
- 1906 – Horst Schumann, German SS officer and physician (d. 1983)
- 1907 – Hayes Alvis, American bassist (d. 1972)
- 1907 – Kate Smith, American singer and actress (d. 1986)
- 1908 – Giovannino Guareschi, Italian journalist and author (d. 1968)
- 1908 – Morris Kline, American mathematician and academic (d. 1992)
- 1909 – Endel Puusepp, Estonian-Soviet military pilot and politician (d. 1996)
- 1909 – Yiannis Ritsos, Greek poet and playwright (d. 1990)
- 1910 – Behice Boran, Turkish sociologist and politician (d. 1987)
- 1910 – Raya Dunayevskaya, Ukrainian-American philosopher and activist (d. 1987)
- 1910 – Dirk Andries Flentrop, Dutch organ builder (d. 2003)
- 1910 – J. Allen Hynek, American astronomer and ufologist (d. 1986)
- 1910 – Nejdet Sançar, Turkish literature teacher (d. 1975)
- 1911 – Wilfred Watson, English-Canadian poet, playwright and educator (d. 1998)
- 1912 – Otto Kretschmer, German admiral (d. 1998)
- 1913 – Louis Nye, American actor (d. 2005)
- 1913 – Walter Susskind, Czech-English pianist, conductor, and educator (d. 1980)
- 1914 – Jaap van der Poll, Dutch javelin thrower (d. 2010)
- 1915 – Hanns Martin Schleyer, German businessman (d. 1977)
- 1916 – Antoni Bazaniak, Polish sprint canoeist (d. 1979)
- 1916 – Glenn Ford, Canadian-American actor and producer (d. 2006)
- 1917 – John Beradino, American baseball player and actor (d. 1996)
- 1917 – Ulric Cross, Trinidadian navigator, judge, and diplomat (d. 2013)
- 1917 – Danielle Darrieux, French actress and singer (d. 2017)
- 1917 – Ahron Soloveichik, Russian rabbi and scholar (d. 2001)
- 1918 – Gersh Budker, Ukrainian-Russian physicist and academic (d. 1977)
- 1918 – Jack Paar, American comedian, author and talk show host (d. 2004)
- 1919 – Manna Dey, Indian singer and composer (d. 2013)
- 1919 – Mohammed Karim Lamrani, Moroccan businessman and politician, 7th Prime Minister of Morocco (d. 2018)
- 1919 – Dan O’Herlihy, Irish-American actor (d. 2005)
- 1921 – Vladimir Colin, Romanian journalist and author (d. 1991)
- 1922 – Alastair Gillespie, Canadian scholar and politician (d. 2018)
- 1923 – Joseph Heller, American novelist, short story writer, and playwright (d. 1999)
- 1923 – Antônio Maria Mucciolo, Italian-Brazilian archbishop (d. 2012)
- 1923 – Marcel Rayman, Polish soldier (d. 1944)
- 1924 – Evelyn Boyd Granville, American mathematician, computer scientist, and academic
- 1924 – Karel Kachyňa, Czech director and screenwriter (d. 2004)
- 1924 – Terry Southern, American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter (d. 1995)
- 1925 – Chuck Bednarik, American lieutenant and football player (d. 2015)
- 1925 – Scott Carpenter, American commander, pilot, and astronaut (d. 2013)
- 1925 – Sardar Fazlul Karim, Bangladeshi philosopher, scholar, and academic (d. 2014)
- 1926 – Peter Lax, Hungarian-American mathematician and academic
- 1927 – Gary Bertini, Israeli conductor and composer (d. 2005)
- 1927 – Laura Betti, Italian actress (d. 2004)
- 1927 – Albert Zafy, Malagasy politician, 3rd President of Madagascar (d. 2017)
- 1927 – Bernard Vukas, Yugoslav-Croatian footballer (d. 1983)
- 1928 – Sonny James, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2016)
- 1928 – Delfim Netto, Brazilian economist
- 1929 – Ralf Dahrendorf, German-English sociologist and politician (d. 2009)
- 1929 – Sonny Ramadhin, Trinidadian cricketer
- 1930 – Ollie Matson, American sprinter and football player (d. 2011)
- 1930 – Richard Riordan, American lieutenant and politician, 39th Mayor of Los Angeles and publisher
- 1930 – Little Walter Jacobs, American blues harp player and singer (d. 1968)
- 1931 – Naim Attallah, Palestinian author
- 1932 – Sandy Woodward, English admiral (d. 2013)
- 1932 – Tabibar Rahman Sarder, Bangladeshi politician. (d. 2010)
- 1934 – Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Mexican politician
- 1934 – Tang Chang, Thai artist (d. 1990)
- 1934 – Shirley Horn, American singer and pianist (d. 2005)
- 1934 – Phillip King, Tunisian-English sculptor
- 1934 – John Meillon, Australian actor (d. 1989)
- 1936 – Danièle Huillet, French filmmaker (d. 2006)
- 1936 – Hans E. Wallman, Swedish director, producer, and composer (d. 2014)
- 1937 – Una Stubbs, English actress and dancer
- 1939 – Judy Collins, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1939 – Wilhelmina Cooper, Dutch model (d. 1980)
- 1939 – Victor Davies, Canadian pianist, composer, and conductor
- 1943 – Vassal Gadoengin, Nauruan politician (d. 2004)
- 1943 – Joe Walsh, Irish politician, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (d. 2014)
- 1945 – Rita Coolidge, American singer-songwriter
- 1945 – Carson Whitsett, American keyboard player, songwriter, and producer (d. 2007)
- 1946 – Joanna Lumley, English actress, voice-over artist, author, and activist
- 1946 – John Woo, Hong Kong director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1947 – Jacob Bekenstein, Mexican-born Israeli-American theoretical physicist (d. 2015)
- 1947 – Sergio Infante, Chilean-Swedish poet and author
- 1948 – Györgyi Balogh, Hungarian sprinter
- 1948 – Patricia Hill Collins, American sociologist and scholar
- 1949 – Jim Clench, Canadian bass player (d. 2010)
- 1949 – Tim Hodgkinson, English saxophonist, clarinet player, and composer
- 1949 – Paul Teutul, Sr., American motorcycle designer, co-founded Orange County Choppers
- 1950 – Dann Florek, American actor and director
- 1950 – Danny McGrain, Scottish footballer and coach
- 1951 – Gordon Greenidge, Barbadian cricketer and coach
- 1951 – Geoff Lees, English race car driver
- 1951 – Sally Mann, American photographer
- 1952 – Richard Blundell, English economist and academic
- 1952 – Kim Lewison, English lawyer and judge
- 1952 – Peter Smith, Malaysian-born English academic and judge
- 1953 – Glen Ballard, American songwriter and producer
- 1954 – Ray Parker, Jr., American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
- 1954 – Joel Rosenberg, Canadian-American author and activist (d. 2011)
- 1955 – Alex Cunningham, Scottish politician
- 1955 – Martin O’Donnell, American composer
- 1955 – Ray Searage, American baseball player and coach
- 1956 – Catherine Frot, French actress
- 1956 – Phil Foglio, American illustrator
- 1957 – Rick Darling, Australian cricketer
- 1957 – Uberto Pasolini, Italian banker, director, and producer
- 1959 – Yasmina Reza, French actress and playwright
- 1959 – Lawrence Seeff, South African cricketer and basket weaver
- 1960 – Steve Cauthen, American jockey and sportscaster
- 1961 – Sultan Günal-Gezer, Dutch politician
- 1961 – Clint Malarchuk, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1961 – Marilyn Milian, American judge
- 1961 – Vasiliy Sidorenko, Russian hammer thrower
- 1962 – Maia Morgenstern, Romanian actress
- 1962 – Ted Sundquist, American football player, coach, and manager
- 1964 – Yvonne van Gennip, Dutch speed skater
- 1966 – Olaf Thon, German footballer and manager
- 1967 – Tim McGraw, American singer-songwriter and actor
- 1968 – Oliver Bierhoff, German footballer and manager
- 1968 – D’arcy Wretzky, American bass player and singer
- 1969 – Wes Anderson, American director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1969 – Mary Lou McDonald, Irish politician
- 1969 – Billy Owens, American basketball player
- 1970 – Bernard Butler, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
- 1971 – Ethan Albright, American football player
- 1971 – Stuart Appleby, Australian golfer
- 1971 – Kim Grant, South African tennis player
- 1971 – Artur Kohutek, Polish hurdler and soldier
- 1971 – Ajith Kumar, Indian film actor in Tamil cinema and race car driver
- 1972 – Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Yemeni terrorist
- 1972 – Julie Benz, American actress
- 1972 – Yoon Hae-young, South Korean actress
- 1973 – Peter Baah, English footballer and manager
- 1973 – Mike Jesse, German footballer
- 1973 – Curtis Martin, American football player
- 1973 – Oliver Neuville, German footballer
- 1975 – Austin Croshere, American basketball player and sportscaster
- 1975 – Marc-Vivien Foé, Cameroonian footballer (d. 2003)
- 1975 – Nina Hossain, English journalist
- 1975 – Alexey Smertin, Russian international footballer
- 1976 – Patricia Stokkers, Dutch swimmer
- 1977 – Vera Lischka, Austrian swimmer and politician
- 1978 – James Badge Dale, American actor
- 1979 – Mauro Bergamasco, Italian rugby player
- 1979 – Roman Lyashenko, Russian ice hockey player (d. 2003)
- 1980 – Marvin Cabrera, Mexican footballer
- 1980 – Rob Davison, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1980 – Inês Henriques, Portuguese race walker
- 1980 – Jan Heylen, Belgian race car driver
- 1980 – Jay Reatard, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2010)
- 1980 – Yuliya Tabakova, Russian athlete
- 1981 – Manny Acosta, Panamanian baseball player
- 1981 – Derek Asamoah, Ghanaian footballer
- 1981 – Alexander Hleb, Belarusian footballer
- 1981 – Wes Welker, American football player
- 1982 – Beto, Portuguese footballer
- 1982 – Jamie Dornan, Northern Irish model and actor
- 1982 – Mark Farren, Irish footballer (d. 2016)
- 1982 – Katya Zamolodchikova, American drag queen
- 1982 – Tommy Robredo, Spanish tennis player
- 1982 – Darijo Srna, Croatian footballer
- 1983 – Alain Bernard, French swimmer
- 1983 – Human Tornado, American wrestler
- 1983 – Park Hae-jin, South Korean actor
- 1984 – David Backes, American ice hockey player
- 1984 – Mišo Brečko, Slovenian footballer
- 1984 – Patrick Eaves, American ice hockey player
- 1984 – Alexander Farnerud, Swedish footballer
- 1984 – Farah Fath, American actress
- 1984 – Keiichiro Koyama, Japanese singer and actor
- 1984 – Víctor Montaño, Colombian footballer
- 1984 – Mark Seaby, Australian footballer
- 1985 – Shahriar Nafees, Bangladeshi cricketer
- 1986 – Christian Benítez, Ecuadorian footballer (d. 2013)
- 1986 – Adam Casey, Australian footballer
- 1986 – Cassie Jaye, American actress and film director
- 1986 – Jesse Klaver, Dutch politician
- 1986 – Lee Chang-min, South Korean singer
- 1986 – Brent Stanton, Australian footballer
- 1987 – Leonardo Bonucci, Italian footballer
- 1987 – Glen Coffee, American football player
- 1987 – Iván DeJesús Jr., Puerto Rican baseball player
- 1987 – Marcus Drum, Australian footballer
- 1987 – Amir Johnson, American basketball player
- 1987 – Ryan Mathews, American football player
- 1987 – Saidi Ntibazonkiza, Burundian footballer
- 1987 – Shahar Pe’er, Israeli tennis player
- 1988 – Maria Balaba, Latvian figure skater
- 1988 – Maxim Gustik, Belarusian freestyle skier
- 1988 – Teodor Peterson, Swedish cross-country skier
- 1989 – Alejandro Arribas, Spanish footballer
- 1989 – Poļina Jeļizarova, Latvian runner
- 1990 – Uriel Álvarez, Mexican footballer
- 1990 – Caitlin Stasey, Australian actress
- 1990 – Diego Contento, German footballer
- 1990 – Scooter Gennett, American baseball player
- 1991 – Marcus Stroman, American baseball player
- 1991 – Daniel Talbot, British sprinter
- 1992 – Trevor Philp, Canadian alpine skier
- 1992 – Bradley Roby, American football player
- 1993 – Jean-Christophe Bahebeck, French footballer
- 1993 – Ifeoma Nwoye, Nigerian wrestler
- 1994 – Wallace Oliveira, Brazilian footballer
- 1995 – Collin Seedorf, Dutch footballer
- 1996 – Christopher J. Alexis Jr., Grenadian road cyclist
- 1996 – Daniel Saifiti, Australian-Fijian rugby league player
- 1996 – Jacob Saifiti, Australian-Fijian rugby league player
- 1996 – Michael Seaton, Jamaican footballer
- 2004 – Charli D’Amelio, American social media influencer and dancer
Deaths on May 1
- 408 – Arcadius, Byzantine emperor (b. 377)
- 558 – Marcouf, missionary and saint
- 908 – Wang Zongji, Chinese prince and pretender
- 1118 – Matilda of Scotland (b. 1080)
- 1171 – Diarmait Mac Murchada, King of Leinster (b. 1110)
- 1187 – Roger de Moulins, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller
- 1255 – Walter de Gray, English prelate and statesman
- 1277 – Stefan Uroš I of Serbia (b. 1223)
- 1278 – William II of Villehardouin
- 1308 – Albert I of Germany (b. 1255)
- 1312 – Paul I Šubić of Bribir
- 1539 – Isabella of Portugal (b. 1503)
- 1555 – Pope Marcellus II (b. 1501)
- 1572 – Pope Pius V (b. 1504)
- 1668 – Frans Luycx, Flemish painter (b. 1604)
- 1730 – François de Troy, French painter and engraver (b. 1645)
- 1731 – Johann Ludwig Bach, German violinist and composer (b. 1677)
- 1738 – Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, English politician, First Lord of the Treasury (b. 1669)
- 1772 – Gottfried Achenwall, Polish-German historian, economist, and jurist (b. 1719)
- 1813 – Jean-Baptiste Bessières, French general (b. 1768)
- 1838 – Antoine Louis Dugès, French obstetrician and naturalist (b. 1797)
- 1856 – John Wilbur, American minister and theologian (b. 1774)
- 1873 – David Livingstone, Scottish-English missionary and explorer (b. 1813)
- 1899 – Ludwig Büchner, German physiologist and physician (b. 1824)
- 1904 – Antonín Dvořák, Czech composer and academic (b. 1841)
- 1913 – John Barclay Armstrong, American lieutenant (b. 1850)
- 1920 – Princess Margaret of Connaught (b. 1882)
- 1935 – Henri Pélissier, French cyclist (b. 1889)
- 1943 – Johan Oscar Smith, Norwegian religious leader, founded the Brunstad Christian Church (b. 1871)
- 1945 – Joseph Goebbels, German lawyer and politician, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1897)
- 1945 – Magda Goebbels, German wife of Joseph Goebbels (b. 1901)
- 1953 – Everett Shinn, American painter and illustrator (b. 1876)
- 1956 – LeRoy Samse, American pole vaulter (b. 1883)
- 1960 – Charles Holden, English architect, designed the Bristol Central Library (b. 1875)
- 1963 – Lope K. Santos, Filipino lawyer and politician (b. 1879)
- 1965 – Spike Jones, American singer and bandleader (b. 1911)
- 1968 – Jack Adams, Canadian-American ice hockey player, coach, and manager (b. 1895)
- 1968 – Harold Nicolson, English author and politician (b. 1886)
- 1970 – Yi Un, Korean prince (b. 1897)
- 1973 – Asger Jorn, Danish painter and sculptor (b. 1914)
- 1976 – T. R. M. Howard, American surgeon and activist (b. 1908)
- 1976 – Alexandros Panagoulis, Greek poet and politician (b. 1939)
- 1978 – Aram Khachaturian, Armenian composer and conductor (b. 1903)
- 1982 – William Primrose, Scottish viola player and educator (b. 1903)
- 1984 – Jüri Lossmann, Estonian-Swedish runner (b. 1891)
- 1985 – Denise Robins, English journalist and author (b. 1897)
- 1986 – Hylda Baker, English comedian, actress and music hall performer (b. 1905)
- 1986 – Hugo Peretti, American songwriter and producer (b. 1916)
- 1988 – Ben Lexcen, Australian sailor and architect (b. 1936)
- 1989 – Sally Kirkland, American journalist (b. 1912)
- 1989 – V. M. Panchalingam, Sri Lankan civil servant (b. 1930)
- 1989 – Patrice Tardif, Canadian farmer and politician (b. 1904)
- 1990 – Sergio Franchi, Italian-American tenor and actor (b. 1926)
- 1991 – Richard Thorpe, American director and screenwriter (b. 1896)
- 1993 – Pierre Bérégovoy, French metallurgist and politician, Prime Minister of France (b. 1925)
- 1993 – Ranasinghe Premadasa, Sri Lankan politician, 3rd President of Sri Lanka (b. 1924)
- 1994 – Ayrton Senna, Brazilian race car driver (b. 1960)
- 1995 – Antonio Salemme, Italian-American painter (b. 1892)
- 1997 – Fernand Dumont, Canadian sociologist, philosopher, and poet (b. 1927)
- 1998 – Eldridge Cleaver, American author and activist (b. 1935)
- 2000 – Steve Reeves, American bodybuilder and actor (b. 1926)
- 2002 – Ebrahim Al-Arrayedh, Indian poet and author (b. 1908)
- 2003 – Miss Elizabeth, American wrestler and manager (b. 1960)
- 2003 – Wim van Est, Dutch cyclist (b. 1923)
- 2005 – Kenneth Clark, American psychologist and academic (b. 1914)
- 2008 – Anthony Mamo, Maltese judge and politician, 1st President of Malta (b. 1909)
- 2008 – Philipp von Boeselager, German soldier and economist (b. 1917)
- 2010 – Helen Wagner, American actress (b. 1918)
- 2011 – Henry Cooper, English boxer (b. 1934)
- 2011 – Ted Lowe, English sportscaster (b. 1920)
- 2012 – James Kinley, Canadian engineer and politician, 29th Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia (b. 1925)
- 2012 – Mordechai Virshubski, German-Israeli lawyer and politician (b. 1930)
- 2013 – Chris Kelly, American rapper (b. 1978)
- 2013 – Pierre Pleimelding, French footballer and manager (b. 1952)
- 2014 – Adamu Atta, Nigerian lawyer and politician, 5th Governor of Kwara State (b. 1927)
- 2014 – Radhia Cousot, Tunisian-American computer scientist and academic (b. 1947)
- 2014 – Assi Dayan, Israeli actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1945)
- 2014 – Juan de Dios Castillo, Mexican footballer and coach (b. 1951)
- 2015 – Geoff Duke, English-Manx motorcycle racer (b. 1923)
- 2015 – Vafa Guluzade, Azerbaijani political scientist, academic, and diplomat (b. 1940)
- 2015 – María Elena Velasco, Mexican actress, singer, director, and screenwriter (b. 1940)
- 2015 – Grace Lee Whitney, American actress (b. 1930)
Holidays and observances on May 1
- Christian feast day:
- Andeolus
- Augustin Schoeffler, Jean-Louis Bonnard (part of Vietnamese Martyrs)
- Benedict of Szkalka
- Brioc
- James the Less (Anglican Communion)
- Joseph the Worker (Roman Catholic)
- Blessed Klymentiy Sheptytsky (Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
- Marcouf
- Philip the Apostle (Anglican Communion, Lutheran Church)
- Richard Pampuri
- Sigismund of Burgundy
- Ultan
- May 1 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Earliest day on which Mother’s Day can fall, while May 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday in May. (Samoa)
- Earliest day on which Mother’s Day can fall, while May 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Sunday in May. (Hong Kong, Hungary, Lithuania, Mozambique, Portugal, Spain, Romania)
- Earliest day on which National Day of Prayer can fall, while May 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Thursday in May. (United States)
- Earliest day on which World Asthma Day can fall, while May 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Tuesday in May. (International)
- Armed Forces Day (Mauritania)
- Constitution Day (Argentina, Latvia, Marshall Islands)
- Commemoration of the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat following the foundation of Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti (India):
- International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day
- Lei Day (Hawaii)
- International Workers’ Day or Labour Day (International), and its related observances:
- Earliest day on which Labour Day can fall, while May 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of May. (Barbados, Dominica)
- Law Day (United States), formerly intended to counterbalance the celebration of Labour Day. (United States)
- Loyalty Day, formerly intended to counterbalance the celebration of Labour Day. (United States)
- May Day (beginning of Summer) observances in the Northern hemisphere (see April 30):
- Beltane (Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Celtic neopagans and Wiccans in the Northern hemisphere)
- Earliest day on which Beltane can fall, while May 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday in May. (Ireland, Scotland)
- Calan Mai (Wales)
- Samhain (Celtic neopagans and Wiccans in the Southern Hemisphere)
-
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 26 in History
- 590 – Emperor Maurice proclaims his son Theodosius as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
- 1027 – Pope John XIX crowns Conrad II as Holy Roman Emperor.
- 1169 – Saladin becomes the emir of Egypt.
- 1344 – The Siege of Algeciras, one of the first European military engagements where gunpowder was used, comes to an end.
- 1351 – Combat of the Thirty: Thirty Breton knights call out and defeat thirty English knights.
- 1484 – William Caxton prints his translation of Aesop’s Fables.
- 1552 – Guru Amar Das becomes the Third Sikh guru.
- 1636 – Utrecht University is founded in the Netherlands.
- 1697 – Safavid government troops take control of Basra
- 1812 – An earthquake devastates Caracas, Venezuela.
- 1812 – A political cartoon in the Boston Gazette coins the term “gerrymander” to describe oddly shaped electoral districts designed to help incumbents win reelection.
- 1830 – The Book of Mormon is published in Palmyra, New York.
- 1839 – The first Henley Royal Regatta is held.
- 1871 – The elections of Commune council of the Paris Commune are held.
- 1885 – The Métis people of the District of Saskatchewan under Louis Riel begin the North-West Rebellion against Canada.
- 1913 – First Balkan War: Bulgarian forces capture Adrianople.
- 1915 – The Vancouver Millionaires win the 1915 Stanley Cup Finals, the first championship played between the Pacific Coast Hockey Association and the National Hockey Association.
- 1917 – World War I: First Battle of Gaza: British troops are halted after 17,000 Turks block their advance.
- 1922 – The German Social Democratic Party is founded in Poland.
- 1931 – Swissair is founded as the national airline of Switzerland.
- 1931 – Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union is founded in Vietnam.
- 1934 – The United Kingdom driving test is introduced.
- 1939 – Spanish Civil War: Nationalists begin their final offensive of the war.
- 1942 – World War II: The first female prisoners arrive at Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland.
- 1945 – World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ends as the island is officially secured by American forces.
- 1954 – Nuclear weapons testing: The Romeo shot of Operation Castle is detonated at Bikini Atoll. Yield: 11 megatons.
- 1958 – The United States Army launches Explorer 3.
- 1958 – The African Regroupment Party is launched at a meeting in Paris.
- 1967 – Ten thousand people gather for one of many Central Park be-ins in New York City.
- 1970 – South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu implements a land reform program to solve the problem of land tenancy.
- 1971 – East Pakistan declares its independence from Pakistan to form Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Liberation War begins.
- 1975 – The Biological Weapons Convention comes into force.
- 1979 – Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter sign the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C.
- 1981 – Social Democratic Party (UK) is founded as a party.
- 1982 – A groundbreaking ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is held in Washington, D.C.
- 1991 – Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay sign the Treaty of Asunción, establishing Mercosur, the South Common Market.
- 1997 – Thirty-nine bodies are found in the Heaven’s Gate mass suicides.
- 1998 – During the Algerian Civil War, the Oued Bouaicha massacre sees fifty-two people, mostly infants, killed with axes and knives.
- 2005 – Around 200,000 to 300,000 Taiwanese demonstrate in Taipei in opposition to the Anti-Secession Law of China.
- 2010 – The South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan is torpedoed, killing 46 sailors. After an international investigation, the President of the United Nations Security Council blames North Korea.
- 2017 – Russia-wide anti-corruption protests in 99 cities. The Levada Center survey showed that 38% of surveyed Russians supported protests and that 67 percent held Putin personally responsible for high-level corruption.
Births on March 26
- 1031 – Malcolm III, king of Scotland (d. 1093)
- 1516 – Conrad Gessner, Swiss botanist and zoologist (d. 1565)
- 1554 – Charles of Lorraine, duke of Mayenne (d. 1611)
- 1584 – John II, duke of Zweibrücken (d. 1635)
- 1633 – Mary Beale, British artist (d. 1699)
- 1634 – Domenico Freschi, Italian priest and composer (d. 1710)
- 1656 – Nicolaas Hartsoeker, Dutch mathematician and physicist (d. 1725)
- 1687 – Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, queen consort of Prussia (d. 1757)
- 1698 – Prokop Diviš, Czech priest, scientist and inventor (d. 1765)
- 1749 – William Blount, American politician (d. 1800)
- 1753 – Benjamin Thompson, American-French physicist and politician, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (d. 1814)
- 1773 – Nathaniel Bowditch, American mathematician and navigator (d. 1838)
- 1794 – Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, German painter (d. 1872)
- 1804 – David Humphreys Storer, American physician and academic (d. 1891)
- 1824 – Julie-Victoire Daubié, French journalist (d. 1874)
- 1829 – Théodore Aubanel, French poet (d. 1886)
- 1842 – Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, French occultist (d. 1909)
- 1850 – Edward Bellamy, American author, socialist, and utopian visionary (d. 1898)
- 1852 – Élémir Bourges, French author (d. 1925)
- 1854 – Maurice Lecoq, French target shooter (d. 1925)
- 1856 – William Massey, Irish-New Zealand farmer and politician, 19th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1925)
- 1857 – Théodore Tuffier, French surgeon (d. 1929)
- 1859 – A. E. Housman, English poet and scholar (d. 1936)
- 1859 – Adolf Hurwitz, Jewish German-Swiss mathematician and academic (d. 1919)
- 1860 – André Prévost, French tennis player (d. 1919)
- 1866 – Fred Karno, English producer and manager (d. 1941)
- 1868 – King Fuad I of Egypt (d. 1936)
- 1873 – Dorothea Bleek, South African-German anthropologist and philologist (d. 1948)
- 1874 – Robert Frost, American poet and playwright (d. 1963)
- 1875 – Max Abraham, Polish-German physicist and academic (d. 1922)
- 1875 – Syngman Rhee, South Korean journalist and politician, 1st President of South Korea (d. 1965)
- 1876 – William of Wied, prince of Albania (d. 1945)
- 1876 – Kate Richards O’Hare, American Socialist Party activist and editor (d. 1948)
- 1879 – Othmar Ammann, Swiss-American engineer, designed the George Washington Bridge and Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge (d. 1965)
- 1879 – Waldemar Tietgens, German rower (d. 1917)
- 1881 – Guccio Gucci, Italian fashion designer, founded Gucci (d. 1953)
- 1882 – Hermann Obrecht, Swiss politician (d. 1940)
- 1884 – Wilhelm Backhaus, German pianist and educator (d. 1969)
- 1884 – Georges Imbert, French chemical engineer and inventor (d. 1950)
- 1886 – Hugh Mulzac, Vincentian-American soldier and politician (d. 1971)
- 1888 – Elsa Brändström, Swedish nurse and philanthropist (d. 1948)
- 1893 – James Bryant Conant, American chemist, academic, and diplomat, 1st United States Ambassador to West Germany (d. 1978)
- 1893 – Palmiro Togliatti, Italian journalist and politician, Italian Minister of Justice (d. 1964)
- 1894 – Viorica Ursuleac, Ukrainian-Romanian soprano and actress (d. 1985)
- 1895 – Vilho Tuulos, Finnish triple jumper (d. 1967)
- 1898 – Rudolf Dassler, German businessman, founded Puma SE (d. 1974)
- 1898 – Charles Shadwell, English conductor and bandleader (d. 1979)
- 1900 – Angela Maria Autsch, German nun, died in Auschwitz helping Jewish prisoners (d. 1941)
- 1904 – Joseph Campbell, American mythologist and author (d. 1987)
- 1904 – Emilio Fernández, Mexican actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 1986)
- 1904 – Attilio Ferraris, Italian footballer (d. 1947)
- 1905 – Monty Berman, English cinematographer and producer (d. 2006)
- 1905 – André Cluytens, Belgian-French conductor and director (d. 1967)
- 1905 – Viktor Frankl, Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist (d. 1997)
- 1906 – Rafael Méndez, Mexican trumpet player and composer (d. 1981)
- 1907 – Azellus Denis, Canadian lawyer and politician, Postmaster General of Canada (d. 1991)
- 1907 – Mahadevi Varma, Indian poet and activist (d. 1987)
- 1908 – Franz Stangl, Austrian-German SS officer (d. 1971)
- 1909 – Chips Rafferty, Australian actor (d. 1971)
- 1910 – K. W. Devanayagam, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician, 10th Sri Lankan Minister of Justice (d. 2002)
- 1911 – Lennart Atterwall, Swedish javelin thrower (d. 2001)
- 1911 – J. L. Austin, English philosopher and academic (d. 1960)
- 1911 – Bernard Katz, German-English biophysicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2003)
- 1911 – Tennessee Williams, American playwright, and poet (d. 1983)
- 1913 – Jacqueline de Romilly, Jewish Franco-Greek philologist, author, and scholar (d. 2010)
- 1913 – Paul Erdős, Hungarian-Polish mathematician and academic (d. 1996)
- 1914 – Toru Kumon, Japanese mathematician and academic (d. 1995)
- 1914 – William Westmoreland, American general (d. 2005)
- 1915 – Lennart Strandberg, Swedish sprinter (d. 1989)
- 1915 – Hwang Sun-won, North Korean author and poet (d. 2000)
- 1916 – Christian B. Anfinsen, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1995)
- 1916 – Bill Edrich, English cricketer and footballer (d. 1986)
- 1916 – Sterling Hayden, American actor and author (d. 1986)
- 1917 – Rufus Thomas, American R&B singer-songwriter (d. 2001)
- 1919 – Strother Martin, American actor (d. 1980)
- 1919 – Roger Leger, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1965)
- 1920 – Sergio Livingstone, Chilean footballer and journalist (d. 2012)
- 1922 – William Milliken, American politician, 44th Governor of Michigan (d. 2019)
- 1922 – Oscar Sala, Italian-Brazilian physicist and academic (d. 2010)
- 1922 – Guido Stampacchia, Italian mathematician and academic (d. 1978)
- 1923 – Gert Bastian, German general and politician (d. 1992)
- 1923 – Bob Elliott, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter (d. 2016)
- 1925 – Maqsood Ahmed, Pakistani cricketer (d. 1999)
- 1925 – Pierre Boulez, French pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 2016)
- 1925 – Vesta Roy, American politician, Governor of New Hampshire (d. 2002)
- 1925 – Edward Graham, Baron Graham of Edmonton, English soldier and politician (d. 2020)
- 1925 – Ben Mondor, Canadian-American businessman (d. 2010)
- 1925 – James Moody, American saxophonist and composer (d. 2010)
- 1927 – Harold Chapman, English photographer
- 1929 – Edward Sorel, American illustrator and caricaturist
- 1929 – Edwin Turney, American businessman, co-founded Advanced Micro Devices (d. 2008)
- 1930 – Sandra Day O’Connor, American lawyer and jurist
- 1930 – Gregory Corso, American poet (d. 2001)
- 1931 – Leonard Nimoy, American actor (d. 2015)
- 1932 – Leroy Griffith, American businessman
- 1932 – James Andrew Harris, American chemist and academic (d. 2000)
- 1933 – Tinto Brass, Italian director and screenwriter
- 1934 – Alan Arkin, American actor
- 1934 – Edvaldo Alves de Santa Rosa, Brazilian footballer (d. 2002)
- 1937 – Wayne Embry, American basketball player and manager
- 1937 – Barbara Jones, American sprinter
- 1937 – James Lee, Canadian businessman and politician, 26th Premier of Prince Edward Island
- 1938 – Norman Ackroyd, English painter and illustrator
- 1938 – Anthony James Leggett, English-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1940 – James Caan, American actor and singer
- 1940 – Nancy Pelosi, American lawyer and politician, 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
- 1941 – Richard Dawkins, Kenyan-English ethologist, biologist, and academic
- 1941 – Lella Lombardi, Italian racing driver (d. 1992)
- 1942 – Erica Jong, American novelist and poet
- 1943 – Mustafa Kalemli, Turkish physician and politician, Turkish Minister of the Interior
- 1943 – Bob Woodward, American journalist and author
- 1944 – Diana Ross, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
- 1945 – Paul Bérenger, Mauritian politician, Prime Minister of Mauritius
- 1945 – Mikhail Voronin, Russian gymnast and coach (d. 2004)
- 1946 – Johnny Crawford, American actor and singer
- 1946 – Alain Madelin, French politician, French Minister of Finance
- 1947 – Subhash Kak, Indian-American professor and author
- 1947 – John Rowles, New Zealand-Australian singer-songwriter
- 1948 – Kyung-wha Chung, South Korean violinist and educator
- 1948 – Richard Tandy, English pianist and keyboard player (Electric Light Orchestra)
- 1948 – Steven Tyler, American singer-songwriter and actor
- 1949 – Jon English, English-Australian singer-songwriter and actor (d. 2016)
- 1949 – Rudi Koertzen, South African cricketer and umpire
- 1949 – Vicki Lawrence, American actress, comedian, talk show host, and singer
- 1949 – Fran Sheehan, American bass player
- 1949 – Patrick Süskind, German author and screenwriter
- 1949 – Ernest Lee Thomas, American actor
- 1950 – Teddy Pendergrass, American singer-songwriter (d. 2010)
- 1950 – Graham Barlow, English cricketer
- 1950 – Martin Short, Canadian-American actor, screenwriter, and producer
- 1950 – Alan Silvestri, American composer and conductor
- 1951 – Željko Pavličević, Croatian professional basketball coach and former professional player
- 1951 – Carl Wieman, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1952 – Didier Pironi, French racing driver (d. 1987)
- 1953 – Lincoln Chafee, American academic and politician, 74th Governor of Rhode Island
- 1953 – Elaine Chao, Taiwanese-American banker and politician, 24th United States Secretary of Labor
- 1953 – Tatyana Providokhina, Russian runner
- 1954 – Clive Palmer, Australian businessman and politician
- 1954 – Curtis Sliwa, American talk show host and activist, founded Guardian Angels
- 1954 – Dorothy Porter, Australian poet and playwright (d. 2008)
- 1956 – Charly McClain, American country singer
- 1956 – Park Won-soon, South Korean lawyer and politician, 35th Mayor of Seoul
- 1957 – Fiona Bruce, Scottish lawyer and politician
- 1957 – Leeza Gibbons, American talk show host and television personality
- 1957 – Paul Morley, English journalist, producer, and author
- 1957 – Shirin Neshat, Iranian visual artist
- 1958 – Elio de Angelis, Italian racing driver (d. 1986)
- 1960 – Marcus Allen, American football player and sportscaster
- 1960 – Jennifer Grey, American actress and dancer
- 1960 – Graeme Rutjes, Australian-Dutch footballer
- 1961 – William Hague, English historian and politician, First Secretary of State
- 1962 – Richard Coles, English pianist, saxophonist, and priest
- 1962 – Kevin Seitzer, American baseball player and coach
- 1962 – Yuri Gidzenko, Russian pilot and cosmonaut
- 1962 – John Stockton, American basketball player and coach
- 1962 – Eric Allan Kramer, American-Canadian actor
- 1963 – Natsuhiko Kyogoku, Japanese author
- 1964 – Martin Bella, Australian rugby league player
- 1964 – Martin Donnelly, Irish racing driver
- 1964 – Maria Miller, English businessman and politician, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
- 1964 – Ulf Samuelsson, Swedish-American ice hockey player and coach
- 1965 – Trey Azagthoth, American guitarist, songwriter, and producer
- 1965 – Violeta Szekely, Romanian runner
- 1966 – Michael Imperioli, American actor and screenwriter
- 1967 – Jason Chaffetz, American politician
- 1968 – Laurent Brochard, French cyclist
- 1968 – Kenny Chesney, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1968 – James Iha, American guitarist and songwriter
- 1969 – Alessandro Moscardi, Italian rugby player
- 1970 – Paul Bosvelt, Dutch footballer
- 1970 – Jelle Goes, Dutch footballer and coach
- 1970 – Thomas Kyparissis, Greek footballer
- 1970 – Martin McDonagh, English-born Irish playwright, screenwriter, and director
- 1971 – Behzad Ghorbani, Iranian zoologist
- 1971 – Martyn Day, Scottish politician
- 1971 – Erick Morillo, Colombian-American DJ and producer
- 1971 – Rennae Stubbs, Australian tennis player and sportscaster
- 1971 – Paul Williams, English footballer and manager
- 1972 – Leslie Mann, American actress
- 1972 – Jason Maxwell, American baseball player
- 1973 – Larry Page, American computer scientist and businessman, co-founder of Google
- 1973 – T. R. Knight, American actor
- 1973 – Matt Burke, Australian rugby player and sportscaster
- 1974 – Irina Spîrlea, Romanian tennis player
- 1974 – Vadimas Petrenko, Lithuanian footballer
- 1974 – Michael Peca, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1976 – Amy Smart, American actress and former model
- 1976 – Alex Varas, Chilean footballer
- 1976 – Eirik Verås Larsen, Norwegian sprint kayaker
- 1977 – Kevin Davies, English footballer
- 1977 – Bianca Kajlich, American actress
- 1977 – Sylvain Grenier, Canadian wrestler
- 1978 – Anastasia Kostaki, Greek basketball player
- 1979 – Nacho Novo, Spanish footballer
- 1979 – Ben Blair, New Zealand rugby union footballer
- 1979 – Hiromi Uehara, Japanese pianist and composer
- 1979 – Pierre Womé, Cameroonian footballer
- 1979 – Juliana Paes, Brazilian actress
- 1980 – Margaret Brennan, American journalist
- 1980 – Son Ho-young, South Korean singer
- 1980 – Richie Wellens, English footballer
- 1981 – Sébastien Centomo, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1981 – Baruch Dego, Ethiopian-Israeli footballer
- 1981 – Massimo Donati, Italian footballer
- 1981 – Josh Wilson, American baseball player
- 1982 – Mikel Arteta, Spanish footballer
- 1982 – Brendan Ryan, American baseball player
- 1982 – Nate Kaeding, American football player
- 1983 – Andreas Hinkel, German footballer
- 1983 – Floriana Lima, American actress
- 1983 – Roman Bednář, Czech footballer
- 1983 – Mike Mondo, American wrestler
- 1984 – Jimmy Howard, American ice hockey player
- 1984 – Drew Mitchell, Australian rugby player
- 1984 – Felix Neureuther, German skier
- 1984 – Marco Stier, German footballer
- 1984 – Gregory Strydom, Zimbabwean cricketer
- 1984 – Sara Jean Underwood, American model, television host, and actress
- 1985 – Keira Knightley, English actress
- 1985 – Matt Grevers, American swimmer
- 1985 – Jonathan Groff, American actor and singer
- 1985 – Prosper Utseya, Zimbabwean cricketer
- 1986 – Maxime Biset, Belgian footballer
- 1986 – Rob Kearney, Irish rugby player
- 1986 – Emma Laine, Finnish tennis player
- 1987 – Kim Dong-suk, South Korean footballer
- 1987 – Jermichael Finley, American football player
- 1987 – Steven Fletcher, Scottish footballer
- 1989 – Simon Kjær, Danish footballer
- 1990 – Choi Woo-shik, South Korean actor
- 1990 – Patrick Ekeng, Cameroonian footballer (d. 2016)
- 1990 – Yuya Takaki, Japanese idol, singer, dancer, model and actor
- 1990 – Xiumin, South Korean singer and actor, member of South Korean boy band EXO
- 1991 – Matt Davidson, American baseball player
- 1992 – Nina Agdal, Danish model
- 1992 – Stoffel Vandoorne, Belgian racing driver
- 1994 – Jed Wallace, English footballer
- 1996 – Zane Musgrove, New Zealand rugby league player
- 1996 – Kathryn Bernardo, Filipino actress
- 1998 – Satoko Miyahara, Japanese figure skater
- 2003 – Bhad Bhabie, American rapper and social media personality
Deaths on March 26
- 752 – Pope-elect Stephen
- 809 – Ludger, Frisian missionary
- 903 – Sugawara no Michizane, Japanese poet
- 908 – Ai, emperor of the Tang Dynasty (b. 892)
- 922 – Mansur Al-Hallaj, Persian mystic and poet (b. 858)
- 929 – Wang Du, Chinese warlord and governor (jiedushi)
- 973 – Guntram (“the Rich”), Frankish nobleman
- 983 – ‘Adud al-Dawla, Iranian ruler (b. 936)
- 1091 – Wallada bint al-Mustakfi, Andalusian poet
- 1130 – Sigurd the Crusader, Norwegian king (b. 1090)
- 1132 – Geoffrey of Vendôme, French cardinal and theologian (b. 1065)
- 1212 – Sancho I of Portugal (b. 1154)
- 1242 – William de Forz, 3rd Earl of Albemarle
- 1324 – Marie de Luxembourg, Queen of France (b. 1304)
- 1326 – Alessandra Giliani, anatomist (b. c. 1307)
- 1402 – David Stewart, Duke of Rothesay, heir to the throne of Scotland (b. 1378)
- 1437 – Walter Stewart, Earl of Atholl, Scottish nobleman and regicide
- 1517 – Heinrich Isaac, Flemish composer (b. 1450)
- 1535 – Georg Tannstetter, Austrian mathematician, astronomer, and cartographer (b. 1482)
- 1546 – Thomas Elyot, English scholar and diplomat (b. 1490)
- 1566 – Antonio de Cabezón, Spanish organist and composer (b. 1510)
- 1625 – Giambattista Marini, Italian poet (b. 1569)
- 1649 – John Winthrop, English lawyer and politician, 2nd Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
- 1679 – Johannes Schefferus, Swedish historian and author (b. 1621)
- 1697 – Godfrey McCulloch, Scottish politician (b. 1640)
- 1726 – John Vanbrugh, English playwright and architect, designed Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard (b. 1664)
- 1772 – Charles Pinot Duclos, French author and politician (b. 1704)
- 1776 – Samuel Ward, American jurist and politician, 31st Governor of the Colony of Rhode Island (b. 1725)
- 1780 – Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (b. 1713)
- 1793 – John Mudge, English physician and engineer (b. 1721)
- 1797 – James Hutton, Scottish geologist and physician (b. 1726)
- 1814 – Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, French physician and politician (b. 1738)
- 1827 – Ludwig van Beethoven, German pianist and composer (b. 1770)
- 1858 – John Addison Thomas, American lieutenant, engineer, and politician, 3rd United States Assistant Secretary of State (b. 1811)
- 1862 – Uriah P. Levy, American commander (b. 1792)
- 1881 – Roman Sanguszko, Polish general and activist (b. 1800)
- 1885 – Anson Stager, American general and businessman, co-founded Western Union (b. 1825)
- 1888 – Barghash bin Said of Zanzibar (b. 1837)
- 1892 – Walt Whitman, American poet, essayist, and journalist (b. 1819)
- 1902 – Cecil Rhodes, English-South African colonialist, businessman and politician, 6th Prime Minister of the Cape Colony (b. 1853)
- 1905 – Maurice Barrymore, American actor (b. 1849)
- 1910 – Auguste Charlois, French astronomer (b. 1864)
- 1920 – William Chester Minor, American surgeon and lexicographer (b. 1834)
- 1923 – Sarah Bernhardt, French actress and screenwriter (b. 1844)
- 1926 – Constantin Fehrenbach, German lawyer and politician, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1852)
- 1932 – Henry M. Leland, American machinist, inventor, engineer, automotive entrepreneur and founded of Cadillac and Lincoln (b. 1843)
- 1934 – John Biller, American jumper and discus thrower (b. 1877)
- 1940 – Wilhelm Anderson, German-Estonian astrophysicist (b. 1880)
- 1940 – Spyridon Louis, Greek runner (b. 1873)
- 1942 – Jimmy Burke, American baseball player and manager (b. 1874)
- 1942 – Carolyn Wells, American novelist and poet (b. 1862)
- 1945 – David Lloyd George, English-Welsh lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1863)
- 1951 – James F. Hinkle, American banker and politician, 6th Governor of New Mexico (b. 1864)
- 1954 – Charles Perrin, French rower (b. 1875)
- 1957 – Édouard Herriot, French politician, Prime Minister of France (b. 1872)
- 1958 – Phil Mead, English cricketer and footballer (b. 1887)
- 1959 – Raymond Chandler, American crime novelist and screenwriter (b. 1888)
- 1966 – Victor Hochepied, French swimmer (b. 1883)
- 1969 – John Kennedy Toole, American novelist (b. 1937)
- 1973 – Noël Coward, English playwright, actor, and composer (b. 1899)
- 1973 – Johnny Drake, American football player (b. 1916)
- 1979 – Beauford Delaney, American-French painter (b. 1901)
- 1979 – Jean Stafford, American author and academic (b. 1915)
- 1980 – Roland Barthes, French linguist and critic (b. 1915)
- 1983 – Anthony Blunt, English historian and spy (b. 1907)
- 1984 – Ahmed Sékou Touré, Guinean politician, 1st President of Guinea (b. 1922)
- 1987 – Eugen Jochum, German conductor (b. 1902)
- 1987 – Walter Abel, American actor (b. 1898)
- 1990 – Halston, American fashion designer (b. 1932)
- 1992 – Barbara Frum, American-Canadian journalist and radio host (b. 1937)
- 1993 – Louis Falco, American dancer and choreographer (b. 1942)
- 1995 – Eazy-E, American rapper and producer (b. 1964)
- 1996 – Edmund Muskie, American lieutenant, lawyer, and politician, 58th United States Secretary of State (b. 1914)
- 1996 – David Packard, American engineer and businessman, co-founded Hewlett-Packard (b. 1912)
- 2000 – Alex Comfort, English physician and author (b. 1920)
- 2002 – Randy Castillo, American drummer and songwriter (b. 1950)
- 2003 – Daniel Patrick Moynihan, American sociologist and politician, 12th United States Ambassador to the United Nations (b. 1927)
- 2004 – Jan Sterling, American actress (b. 1921)
- 2005 – James Callaghan, English lieutenant and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1912)
- 2005 – Frederick Rotimi Williams, Nigerian lawyer and politician (b. 1920)
- 2006 – Anil Biswas, Indian journalist and politician (b. 1944)
- 2006 – Paul Dana, American racing driver (b. 1975)
- 2006 – Nikki Sudden, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1956)
- 2008 – Robert Fagles, American poet and academic (b. 1933)
- 2008 – Manuel Marulanda, Colombian rebel leader (b. 1930)
- 2009 – Shane McConkey, Canadian skier and BASE jumper (b. 1969)
- 2009 – Arne Bendiksen, Norwegian singer and composer (b. 1926)
- 2010 – Charles Ryskamp, American art collector and curator (b. 1928)
- 2011 – Roger Abbott, English-Canadian actor, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1946)
- 2011 – Geraldine Ferraro, American lawyer and politician (b. 1935)
- 2011 – Diana Wynne Jones, English author (b. 1934)
- 2012 – Sisto Averno, American football player (b. 1925)
- 2012 – Michael Begley, Irish carpenter and politician (b. 1932)
- 2012 – Thomas M. Cover, American theorist and academic (b. 1938)
- 2012 – David Craighead, American organist and educator (b. 1924)
- 2012 – Manik Godghate, Indian poet and educator (b. 1937)
- 2012 – Helmer Ringgren, Swedish theologian and academic (b. 1917)
- 2013 – Tom Boerwinkle, American basketball player and sportscaster (b. 1945)
- 2013 – Krzysztof Kozłowski, Polish journalist and politician, Polish Minister of Interior (b. 1931)
- 2013 – Dave Leggett, American baseball player (b. 1933)
- 2013 – Don Payne, American screenwriter and producer (b. 1964)
- 2014 – Roger Birkman, American psychologist and author (b. 1919)
- 2014 – Dick Guidry, American businessman and politician (b. 1929)
- 2014 – Marcus Kimball, Baron Kimball, English politician (b. 1928)
- 2015 – Dinkha IV, Iraqi patriarch (b. 1935)
- 2015 – Friedrich L. Bauer, German mathematician, computer scientist, and academic (b. 1924)
- 2015 – Tomas Tranströmer, Swedish poet, translator, and psychologist Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1931)
- 2016 – Jim Harrison, American novelist, essayist, and poet (b. 1937)
- 2018 – Fabrizio Frizzi, Italian television presenter (b. 1958)
Holidays and observances on March 26
- Christian feast days:
- Castulus
- Emmanuel and companions
- Felicitas
- Harriet Monsell (Church of England)
- Larissa
- Ludger
- Richard Allen (Episcopal Church (USA))
- March 26 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Independence Day and National Day (Bangladesh), celebrates the declaration of independence from Pakistan in 1971.
- Martyr’s Day or Day of Democracy (Mali)
- Prince Kūhiō Day (Hawaii, United States)
- Purple Day (Canada and United States)
- Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel (Eastern Christianity)
-
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 23 in History
- 303 – Roman emperor Diocletian orders the destruction of the Christian church in Nicomedia, beginning eight years of Diocletianic Persecution.
- 532 – Byzantine emperor Justinian I orders the building of a new Orthodox Christian basilica in Constantinople – the Hagia Sophia.
- 1455 – Traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed with movable type.
- 1554 – Mapuche forces, under the leadership of Lautaro, score a victory over the Spanish at the Battle of Marihueñu in Chile.
- 1653 – The Ballet Royal de la Nuit is first performed at the Salle du Petit-Bourbon in Paris
- 1739 – At York Castle, the outlaw Dick Turpin is identified by his former schoolteacher. Turpin had been using the name Richard Palmer.
- 1778 – American Revolutionary War: Baron von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to help to train the Continental Army.
- 1820 – Cato Street Conspiracy: A plot to murder all the British cabinet ministers is exposed.
- 1836 – Texas Revolution: The Siege of the Alamo (prelude to the Battle of the Alamo) begins in San Antonio, Texas.
- 1847 – Mexican–American War: Battle of Buena Vista: In Mexico, American troops under future president General Zachary Taylor defeat Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna.
- 1854 – The official independence of the Orange Free State is declared.
- 1861 – President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.
- 1870 – Reconstruction Era: Post-U.S. Civil War military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union.
- 1883 – Alabama becomes the first U.S. state to enact an anti-trust law.
- 1885 – Sino-French War: French Army gains an important victory in the Battle of Đồng Đăng in the Tonkin region of Vietnam.
- 1886 – Charles Martin Hall produced the first samples of aluminium from the electrolysis of aluminium oxide, after several years of intensive work. He was assisted in this project by his older sister, Julia Brainerd Hall.
- 1887 – The French Riviera is hit by a large earthquake, killing around 2,000.
- 1898 – Émile Zola is imprisoned in France after writing J’Accuse…!, a letter accusing the French government of antisemitism and wrongfully imprisoning Captain Alfred Dreyfus.
- 1900 – Second Boer War: During the Battle of the Tugela Heights, the first British attempt to take Hart’s Hill fails.
- 1903 – Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States “in perpetuity”.
- 1905 – Chicago attorney Paul Harris and three other businessmen meet for lunch to form the Rotary Club, the world’s first service club.
- 1909 – The AEA Silver Dart makes the first powered flight in Canada and the British Empire.
- 1917 – First demonstrations in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The beginning of the February Revolution (March 8 in the Gregorian calendar).
- 1927 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs a bill by Congress establishing the Federal Radio Commission (later replaced by the Federal Communications Commission) which was to regulate the use of radio frequencies in the United States.
- 1927 – German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg writes a letter to fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli, in which he describes his uncertainty principle for the first time.
- 1934 – Leopold III becomes King of Belgium.
- 1941 – Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.
- 1942 – World War II: Japanese submarines fire artillery shells at the coastline near Santa Barbara, California.
- 1943 – A fire breaks out at Saint Joseph’s Orphanage, County Cavan, Ireland, killing 35 children and one adult.
- 1943 – Greek Resistance: The United Panhellenic Organization of Youth is founded in Greece.
- 1944 – The Soviet Union begins the forced deportation of the Chechen and Ingush people from the North Caucasus to Central Asia.
- 1945 – World War II: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag.
- 1945 – World War II: The 11th Airborne Division, with Filipino guerrillas, free all 2,147 captives of the Los Baños internment camp, in what General Colin Powell later would refer to as “the textbook airborne operation for all ages and all armies.”
- 1945 – World War II: The capital of the Philippines, Manila, is liberated by combined Filipino and American forces.
- 1945 – World War II: Capitulation of German garrison in Poznań. The city is liberated by Soviet and Polish forces.
- 1945 – World War II: The German town of Pforzheim is annihilated in a raid by 379 British bombers.
- 1947 – International Organization for Standardization is founded.
- 1954 – The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.
- 1966 – In Syria, Ba’ath Party member Salah Jadid leads an intra-party military coup that replaces the previous government of General Amin al-Hafiz, also a Baathist.
- 1974 – The Symbionese Liberation Army demands $4 million more to release kidnap victim Patty Hearst.
- 1980 – Iran hostage crisis: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini states that Iran’s parliament will decide the fate of the American embassy hostages.
- 1981 – In Spain, Antonio Tejero attempts a coup d’état by capturing the Spanish Congress of Deputies.
- 1983 – The United States Environmental Protection Agency announces its intent to buy out and evacuate the dioxin-contaminated community of Times Beach, Missouri.
- 1987 – Supernova 1987a is seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
- 1991 – In Thailand, General Sunthorn Kongsompong leads a bloodless coup d’état, deposing Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan.
- 1998 – In the United States, tornadoes in central Florida destroy or damage 2,600 structures and kill 42 people.
- 1999 – Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Öcalan is charged with treason in Ankara, Turkey.
- 2007 – A train derails on an evening express service near Grayrigg, Cumbria, England, killing one person and injuring 88. This results in hundreds of points being checked over the UK after a few similar accidents.
- 2008 – A United States Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber crashes on Guam, marking the first operational loss of a B-2.
- 2010 – Unknown criminals pour more than 21⁄2 million liters of diesel oil and other hydrocarbons into the river Lambro, in northern Italy, sparking an environmental disaster.
- 2012 – A series of attacks across Iraq leave at least 83 killed and more than 250 injured.
- 2017 – The Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army captures Al-Bab from ISIL.
- 2019 – Atlas Air Flight 3591, a Boeing 767 freighter, crashes into Trinity Bay near Anahuac, Texas, killing all three people on board.
Births on February 23
- 1417 – Pope Paul II (d. 1471)
- 1417 – Louis IX, Duke of Bavaria (d. 1479)
- 1443 – Matthias Corvinus, Hungarian king (d. 1490)
- 1529 – Onofrio Panvinio, Italian historian (d. 1568)
- 1539 – Henry XI of Legnica, thrice Duke of Legnica (d. 1588)
- 1539 – Salima Sultan Begum, Empress of the Mughal Empire (d. 1612)
- 1583 – Jean-Baptiste Morin, French mathematician, astrologer, and astronomer (d. 1656)
- 1592 – Balthazar Gerbier, Dutch painter (d. 1663)
- 1633 – Samuel Pepys, English diarist and politician (d. 1703)
- 1646 – Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, Japanese shōgun (d. 1709)
- 1680 – Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, Canadian politician, 2nd Colonial Governor of Louisiana (d. 1767)
- 1685 – George Frideric Handel, German-English organist and composer (d. 1759)
- 1723 – Richard Price, Welsh-English minister and philosopher (d. 1791)
- 1744 – Mayer Amschel Rothschild, German banker and businessman (d. 1812)
- 1792 – José Joaquín de Herrera, Mexican politician and general. President three times (1844–1854) (d. 1854)
- 1831 – Hendrik Willem Mesdag, Dutch painter (d. 1915)
- 1840 – Carl Menger, Austrian economist and educator (d. 1921)
- 1842 – Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann, German philosopher and author (d. 1906)
- 1850 – César Ritz, Swiss businessman, founded The Ritz Hotel, London and Hôtel Ritz Paris (d. 1918)
- 1868 – W. E. B. Du Bois, American sociologist, historian, and activist (d. 1963)
- 1868 – Anna Hofman-Uddgren, Swedish actress, singer, and director (d. 1947)
- 1873 – Liang Qichao, Chinese journalist, philosopher, and scholar (d. 1929)
- 1874 – Konstantin Päts, Estonian lawyer and politician, 1st President of Estonia (d. 1956)
- 1878 – Kazimir Malevich, Ukrainian painter and theorist (d. 1935)
- 1883 – Karl Jaspers, German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher (d. 1969)
- 1883 – Guy C. Wiggins, American painter (d. 1962)
- 1889 – Musidora, French actress and director (d. 1957)
- 1889 – Cyril Delevanti, English-American actor (d. 1975)
- 1889 – Victor Fleming, American director, cinematographer, and producer (d. 1949)
- 1889 – John Gilbert Winant, American captain, pilot, and politician, 60th Governor of New Hampshire (d. 1947)
- 1892 – Kathleen Harrison, English actress (d. 1995)
- 1892 – Agnes Smedley, American journalist and writer (d. 1950)
- 1894 – Harold Horder, Australian rugby league player and coach (d. 1978)
- 1899 – Erich Kästner, German author and poet (d. 1974)
- 1899 – Norman Taurog, American director and screenwriter (d. 1981)
- 1904 – Terence Fisher, English director and screenwriter (d. 1980)
- 1904 – William L. Shirer, American journalist and historian (d. 1993)
- 1908 – William McMahon, Australian lawyer and politician, 20th Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1988)
- 1915 – Jon Hall, American actor and director (d. 1979)
- 1915 – Paul Tibbets, American general and pilot (d. 2007)
- 1919 – Johnny Carey, Irish footballer and manager (d. 1995)
- 1920 – Paul Gérin-Lajoie, Canadian lawyer and politician (d. 2018)
- 1923 – Rafael Addiego Bruno, Uruguayan jurist and politician, President of Uruguay (d. 2014)
- 1923 – Harry Clarke, English international footballer, defender (d. 2000)
- 1923 – Ioannis Grivas, Greek judge and politician, 176th Prime Minister of Greece (d. 2016)
- 1923 – Dante Lavelli, American football player (d. 2009)
- 1923 – Clarence D. Lester, African-American fighter pilot (d.1986)
- 1923 – Mary Francis Shura, American author (d. 1991)
- 1924 – Allan McLeod Cormack, South-African-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1998)
- 1925 – Louis Stokes, American lawyer and politician (d. 2015)
- 1927 – Régine Crespin, French soprano and actress (d. 2007)
- 1928 – Hans Herrmann, German race car driver
- 1928 – Vasily Lazarev, Russian colonel, physician, and astronaut (d. 1990)
- 1929 – Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow (d. 2008)
- 1929 – Elston Howard, American baseball player and coach (d. 1980)
- 1930 – Paul West, English-American author, poet, and academic (d. 2015)
- 1931 – Tom Wesselmann, American painter and sculptor (d. 2004)
- 1932 – Majel Barrett, American actress and producer (d. 2008)
- 1937 – Tom Osborne, American football player, coach, and politician
- 1938 – Sylvia Chase, American broadcast journalist (d. 2019)
- 1938 – Paul Morrissey, American director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1938 – Diane Varsi, American actress (d. 1992)
- 1940 – Peter Fonda, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2019)
- 1940 – Jackie Smith, American football player
- 1941 – Ron Hunt, American baseball player
- 1943 – Fred Biletnikoff, American football player and coach
- 1943 – Bobby Mitchell, American golfer (d. 2018)
- 1944 – Bernard Cornwell, English author and educator
- 1944 – Florian Fricke, German keyboard player and composer (d. 2001)
- 1944 – Johnny Winter, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (d. 2014)
- 1945 – Allan Boesak, South African cleric and politician
- 1946 – Rusty Young, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1947 – Pia Kjærsgaard, Danish politician, Speaker of the Danish Parliament
- 1947 – Anton Mosimann, Swiss chef and author
- 1948 – Bill Alexander, English director and producer
- 1948 – Trevor Cherry, English footballer (d. 2020)
- 1948 – Steve Priest, English singer-songwriter and bass player
- 1949 – César Aira, Argentinian author and translator
- 1949 – Marc Garneau, Canadian engineer, astronaut, and politician
- 1950 – Rebecca Goldstein, American philosopher and author
- 1951 – Eddie Dibbs, American tennis player
- 1951 – Debbie Friedman, American singer-songwriter of Jewish melodies (d. 2011)
- 1951 – Ed “Too Tall” Jones, American football player and boxer
- 1951 – Patricia Richardson, American actress
- 1952 – Brad Whitford, American guitarist and songwriter
- 1953 – Kenny Bee, Hong Kong singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
- 1953 – Satoru Nakajima, Japanese race car driver
- 1954 – Rajini Thiranagama, Sri Lankan physician and academic (d. 1989)
- 1954 – Viktor Yushchenko, Ukrainian captain and politician, 3rd President of Ukraine
- 1955 – Howard Jones, English singer-songwriter
- 1955 – Flip Saunders, American basketball player and coach (d. 2015)
- 1956 – Sandra Osborne, Scottish politician
- 1958 – David Sylvian, English singer-songwriter
- 1959 – Clayton Anderson, American engineer and astronaut
- 1959 – Nick de Bois, English politician
- 1959 – Ian Liddell-Grainger, Scottish soldier and politician
- 1959 – Linda Nolan, Irish singer and actress
- 1960 – Naruhito, Emperor of Japan
- 1962 – Michael Wilton, American guitarist
- 1963 – Bobby Bonilla, American baseball player
- 1963 – Radosław Sikorski, Polish journalist and politician, 11th Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland
- 1964 – John Norum, Norwegian guitarist and songwriter
- 1965 – Michael Dell, American businessman
- 1965 – Helena Suková, Czech-Monacan tennis player
- 1967 – Steve Stricker, American golfer
- 1967 – Chris Vrenna, American drummer, songwriter, and producer
- 1969 – Michael Campbell, New Zealand golfer
- 1969 – Martine Croxall, English journalist and television news presenter
- 1969 – Daymond John, American fashion designer and businessman, founded FUBU
- 1970 – Niecy Nash, American actress and producer
- 1971 – Carin Koch, Swedish golfer
- 1971 – Melinda Messenger, English model and television host
- 1971 – Joe-Max Moore, American soccer player
- 1972 – Alessandro Sturba, Italian footballer
- 1972 – Rondell White, American baseball player
- 1973 – Jeff Nordgaard, American-Polish basketball player
- 1974 – Herschelle Gibbs, South African cricketer
- 1974 – Robbi Kempson, South African rugby player
- 1975 – Michael Cornacchia, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1975 – Ryan McCourt, Canadian artist
- 1976 – Scott Elarton, American baseball player and coach
- 1976 – Kelly Macdonald, Scottish actress
- 1976 – Jeff O’Neill, Canadian ice hockey player and sportscaster
- 1977 – Kristina Šmigun-Vähi, Estonian skier
- 1978 – Residente, Puerto Rican-American singer-songwriter
- 1978 – Dan Snyder, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2003)
- 1979 – S. E. Cupp, American journalist and author
- 1981 – Gareth Barry, English footballer
- 1981 – Josh Gad, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
- 1981 – Charles Tillman, American football player
- 1982 – Adam Hann-Byrd, American actor and screenwriter
- 1983 – Mido, Egyptian footballer, striker, manager and sportscaster
- 1983 – Aziz Ansari, American comedian, actor, producer, and screenwriter
- 1983 – Emily Blunt, English actress
- 1986 – Emerson Conceição, Brazilian footballer
- 1986 – Skylar Grey, American singer-songwriter
- 1986 – Kazuya Kamenashi, Japanese singer-songwriter and actor
- 1986 – Jerod Mayo, American football player
- 1986 – Ola Svensson, Swedish singer-songwriter
- 1987 – Ab-Soul, American rapper
- 1987 – Theophilus London, Trinidadian-American singer-songwriter and producer
- 1987 – Zak Kirkup, Member of the Parliament of Western Australia
- 1988 – Nicolás Gaitán, Argentinian footballer
- 1989 – Evan Bates, American ice dancer
- 1989 – Jérémy Pied, French footballer
- 1990 – Kevin Connauton, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1990 – Terry Hawkridge, English footballer
- 1990 – Marco Scandella, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1992 – Casemiro, Brazilian footballer
- 1992 – Kyriakos Papadopoulos, Greek footballer
- 1993 – Chris Grevsmuhl, Australian rugby league player
- 1994 – Dakota Fanning, American actress
- 1995 – Andrew Wiggins, Canadian basketball player
- 1996 – D’Angelo Russell, American basketball player
- 1997 – Jamal Murray, Canadian basketball player
Deaths on February 23
- 715 – Al-Walid I, Umayyad caliph (b. 668)
- 908 – Li Keyong, Shatuo military governor during the Tang Dynasty in China (b. 856)
- 943 – Herbert II, Count of Vermandois, (b. 884)
- 943 – David I, prince of Tao-Klarjeti (Georgia)
- 1011 – Willigis, German archbishop (b. 940)
- 1100 – Emperor Zhezong of Song (b. 1076)
- 1270 – Isabel of France (b. 1225)
- 1447 – Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (b. 1390)
- 1447 – Pope Eugene IV (b. 1383)
- 1464 – Emperor Yingzong of Ming (b. 1427)
- 1473 – Arnold, Duke of Gelderland (b. 1410)
- 1526 – Diego Colón, Spanish Viceroy of the Indies (b. c. 1479)
- 1554 – Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire (b. 1515)
- 1603 – Andrea Cesalpino, Italian philosopher, physician, and botanist (b. 1519)
- 1603 – Franciscus Vieta, French mathematician (b. 1540)
- 1620 – Nicholas Fuller, English politician (b. 1543)
- 1704 – Georg Muffat, French organist and composer (b. 1653)
- 1766 – Stanisław Leszczyński, Polish king (b. 1677)
- 1781 – George Taylor, Irish-American blacksmith and politician (b. 1716)
- 1792 – Joshua Reynolds, English painter and academic (b. 1723)
- 1821 – John Keats, English poet (b. 1795)
- 1848 – John Quincy Adams, American politician, 6th President of the United States (b. 1767)
- 1855 – Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician, astronomer, and physicist (b. 1777)
- 1859 – Zygmunt Krasiński, Polish poet and playwright (b. 1812)
- 1879 – Albrecht von Roon, Prussian soldier and politician, 10th Minister President of Prussia (b. 1803)
- 1897 – Woldemar Bargiel, German composer and educator (b. 1828)
- 1900 – Ernest Dowson, English poet, novelist, and short story writer (b. 1867)
- 1908 – Friedrich von Esmarch, German surgeon and academic (b. 1823)
- 1918 – Adolphus Frederick VI, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (b. 1882)
- 1930 – Horst Wessel, German SA officer (b. 1907)
- 1931 – Nellie Melba, Australian soprano and actress (b. 1861)
- 1934 – Edward Elgar, English composer and academic (b. 1857)
- 1944 – Leo Baekeland, Belgian-American chemist and engineer (b. 1863)
- 1946 – Tomoyuki Yamashita, Japanese general (b. 1885)
- 1948 – John Robert Gregg, Irish-American publisher and educator (b. 1866)
- 1955 – Paul Claudel, French poet and playwright (b. 1868)
- 1965 – Stan Laurel, English actor and comedian (b. 1890)
- 1969 – Madhubala, Indian actress and producer (b. 1933)
- 1969 – Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, 2nd King of Saudi Arabia (b. 1902)
- 1973 – Dickinson W. Richards, American physician and physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1895)
- 1974 – Harry Ruby, American composer and screenwriter (b. 1895)
- 1976 – L. S. Lowry, English painter (b. 1887)
- 1979 – W. A. C. Bennett, Canadian businessman and politician, 25th Premier of British Columbia (b. 1900)
- 1983 – Herbert Howells, English organist and composer (b. 1892)
- 1990 – José Napoleón Duarte, Salvadoran engineer and politician, President of El Salvador (b. 1925)
- 1995 – James Herriot, English veterinarian and author (b. 1916)
- 1997 – Tony Williams, American drummer, composer, and producer (b. 1945)
- 1998 – Philip Abbott, American actor and director (b. 1924)
- 1999 – The Renegade, American wrestler (b. 1965)
- 2000 – Ofra Haza, Israeli singer-songwriter and actress (b. 1957)
- 2000 – Stanley Matthews, English footballer and manager (b. 1915)
- 2003 – Howie Epstein, American bass player, songwriter, and producer (b. 1955)
- 2003 – Robert K. Merton, American sociologist and academic (b. 1910)
- 2004 – Vijay Anand, Indian director, producer, screenwriter, and actor (b. 1934)
- 2004 – Sikander Bakht, Indian politician, Indian Minister of External Affairs (b. 1918)
- 2006 – Telmo Zarra, Spanish footballer (b. 1921)
- 2007 – John Ritchie, English footballer (b. 1941)
- 2008 – Janez Drnovšek, Slovenian economist and politician, 2nd President of Slovenia (b. 1950)
- 2008 – Paul Frère, Belgian race car driver and journalist (b. 1917)
- 2010 – Orlando Zapata, Cuban plumber and activist (b. 1967)
- 2011 – Nirmala Srivastava, Indian religious leader, founded Sahaja Yoga (b. 1923)
- 2012 – William Raggio, American lawyer and politician (b. 1926)
- 2012 – David Sayre, American physicist and mathematician (b. 1924)
- 2012 – Kazimierz Żygulski, Polish sociologist and activist (b. 1919)
- 2013 – Eugene Bookhammer, American soldier and politician, 18th Lieutenant Governor of Delaware (b. 1918)
- 2013 – Joseph Friedenson, Holocaust survivor, Holocaust historian, Yiddish writer, lecturer and editor (b. 1922)
- 2013 – Julien Ries, Belgian cardinal (b. 1920)
- 2013 – Lotika Sarkar, Indian lawyer and academic (b. 1945)
- 2014 – Alice Herz-Sommer, Czech-English Holocaust survivor, pianist and educator (b. 1903)
- 2014 – Roger Hilsman, American soldier, academic, and politician (b. 1919)
- 2015 – James Aldridge, Australian-English journalist and author (b. 1918)
- 2015 – Rana Bhagwandas, Pakistani lawyer and judge, Chief Justice of Pakistan (b. 1942)
- 2015 – W. E. “Bill” Dykes, American soldier and politician (b. 1925)
- 2016 – Peter Lustig, German television host and author (b. 1937)
- 2016 – Jacqueline Mattson, American baseball player (b. 1928)
- 2019 – Katherine Helmond, American actress (b. 1929)
Holidays and observances on February 23
- Christian feast day:
- Polycarp of Smyrna
- Serenus the Gardener
- February 23 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- The Emperor’s Birthday, birthday of Naruhito, the current Emperor of Japan (Japan)
- Mashramani-Republic Day (Guyana)
- Meteņi (Latvia)
- National Day (Brunei)
- Red Army Day or Day of Soviet Army and Navy in the former Soviet Union, also held in various former Soviet republics:
- Defender of the Fatherland Day (Russia)
- Defender of the Fatherland and Armed Forces day (Belarus)
- Armed Forces Day (Tajikistan) (Tajikistan)