Who was born on December 17?
December 17 is packed with notable birthdays. Explore 125 famous birthdays, sorted by recent English Wikipedia pageviews. Top ranked names include Abdul Rahim Khan-I-Khana, Alan Voorhees, Alex Cintrón, Alexander Emanuel Agassiz, Alexander Wassilko von Serecki. Filter by actor, musician, athlete, and more — or open any other calendar day.
December 17
125 people
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Abdul Rahim Khan-I-Khana
Khanzada Mirza Khan Abdul Rahim (17 December 1556 – 1 October 1627), popularly known as simply Rahim and titled Khan-i-Khanan, was a poet who lived in India during the rule of Mughal emperor Akbar, who was Rahim's mentor. He was one of the nine important ministers (dewan) in Akbar's court, known as the Navaratnas. Rahim was known for his Hindustani dohe (couplets) and his books on astrology.
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Alan Voorhees
Alan Manners Voorhees (December 17, 1922 – December 18, 2005) was an American transportation engineer and urban planner who designed many large public works in the United States and elsewhere.
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Alex Cintrón
Alexander Cintrón (born December 17, 1978) is a Puerto Rican former professional baseball infielder who is currently the hitting coach for the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball (MLB). He played in MLB for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles, and Washington Nationals and was also the hitting coach for the Houston Astros.
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Alexander Emanuel Agassiz
Alexander Emmanuel Rodolphe Agassiz (December 17, 1835 – March 27, 1910), was an American scientist and engineer. He was the son of Louis Agassiz and stepson of Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz.
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Alexander Wassilko von Serecki
Freiherr Alexander Wassilko von Serecki (17 December 1827 – 20 August 1893) was an Austro-Hungarian ethnic Romanian statesman, Landeshauptmann of the Duchy of Bukovina and member of the Herrenhaus, the Upper House of the Imperial Council of Austria.
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Alison Uttley
Alison Jane Uttley (née Taylor; 17 December 1884 – 7 May 1976) was an English writer of over 100 books. She is best known for a children's series about Little Grey Rabbit and Sam Pig. She is also remembered for a pioneering time slip novel for children, A Traveller in Time, about the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots.
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André Ayew
André Morgan Rami Ayew ( ; born 17 December 1989), also known as Dede Ayew in Ghana, is a professional footballer who plays as a winger or forward. Ayew began his career in Germany, playing for 1860 Munich, while debuting for the club at age seven. In 2006, he signed with his father's former club, Marseille, and spent two seasons in the club's youth academy before making his debut in the 2007–08 season. Ayew spent the following two seasons on loan with Lorient and Arles-Avignon, helping the latter team earn promotion to Ligue 1 for the first time. In 2010, he returned to Marseille and became an integral part of the first team under manager Didier Deschamps, making over 200 appearances and winning consecutive Trophée des Champions and Coupe de la Ligues in both 2010 and 2011. Born in France, Ayew has been a full international for Ghana since 2008 and has earned 120 caps. At youth level, he starred for and captained the under-20 team that won both the 2009 African Youth Championship and the 2009 FIFA U-20 World Cup. He has played in three FIFA World Cups (2010, 2014 and 2022), as well as eight Africa Cup of Nations (2008, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023), helping them finish runners-up in 2010 and 2015, and was top goalscorer at the latter tournament. Ayew is the second-born son of three-time African Footballer of the Year and FIFA 100 member Abedi "Pele" Ayew and has two brothers, Ibrahim and Jordan, who also are professional footballers. In 2011, Ayew was named the BBC African Footballer of the Year and Ghanaian Footballer of the Year.
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Anthony Wood
Anthony Wood (17 December 1632 – 28 November 1695), who styled himself Anthony à Wood in his later writings, was an English antiquary. He was responsible for a celebrated Hist. and Antiq. of the Universitie of Oxon. He meticulously researched and documented the history of Oxford, producing significant works such as the Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis and the Athenae Oxonienses. Despite criticism for errors and suspected biases, his works remain invaluable. Wood had free access to university records, consulted with notable scholars, and faced controversy, including banishment from the University of Oxford. Unmarried, he led a life devoted to scholarship and antiquarian pursuits.
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Arnaud Clément
Arnaud Clément (French pronunciation: [aʁno klemɑ̃]; born 17 December 1977) is a French former professional tennis player and Davis Cup captain. Clément reached the final of the 2001 Australian Open and achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 10 in April 2001. He also had a career-high doubles ranking of No. 8. He won four ATP singles titles (Lyon 2000, Metz 2003, Marseille 2006, Washington 2006), and twelve doubles titles including 2007 Wimbledon, partnering Michaël Llodra, and two Masters titles. He was the French Davis Cup captain from 2013 to 2015.
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Arthur Fiedler
Arthur Fiedler (December 17, 1894 – July 10, 1979) was an American conductor known for his association with both the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops orchestras. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one of the best-known orchestras in the United States. Fiedler was sometimes criticized for over-popularizing music, particularly when adapting popular songs or editing portions of the classical repertoire, but he kept performances informal and sometimes self-mocking to attract a bigger audience.
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Aubrey Faulkner
George Aubrey Faulkner (17 December 1881 – 10 September 1930) was a South African cricketer who played 25 Test matches for South Africa and fought in both the Second Boer War and World War I. In cricket, he was an all-rounder who was among the best batsmen in the world at his peak and was one of the first leg spin bowlers to use the googly. Faulkner played Test cricket for South Africa from 1906 to 1912. His greatest achievements as a Test cricketer included taking six wickets in eleven overs against England and the first-ever double century by a South African. He was the best all-rounder in the world during his career. Following his Test career, he played club cricket in Nottingham. Faulkner was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Order of the Nile for his bravery in World War I. During the war, he contracted malaria multiple times, which physically deteriorated his body. Unable to play cricket at the same level as before the war, he turned instead to coaching, starting a cricket school, and training several future Test cricketers. Faulkner likely suffered from undiagnosed bipolar disorder, and he committed suicide in September 1930. In June 2021, he was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame as one of the special inductees to mark the inaugural edition of the ICC World Test Championship final.
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Bill Pullman
William Pullman (born December 17, 1953) is an American actor. After graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree in theater, he was an adjunct professor at Montana State University before deciding to pursue acting. Pullman made his film debut in Ruthless People (1986), and starred in Spaceballs (1987), The Accidental Tourist and The Serpent and the Rainbow (both 1988), Newsies (1992), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Wyatt Earp (1994), Casper, While You Were Sleeping (both 1995), Independence Day (1996), Lost Highway (1997), Zero Effect (1998) and Lake Placid (1999). He also voiced Captain Joseph Korso in Titan A.E.(2000). He has also appeared frequently on television, usually in TV films. Since the 21st century began, Pullman has also acted in miniseries and regular series such as Torchwood (2011), playing starring roles in 1600 Penn (2012–13) and The Sinner (2017–2021). In 2021, he had a recurring role in the miniseries Halston. Pullman also has a long stage acting career. He has appeared on Broadway several times, including in Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (2002).
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Bob Guccione
Robert Charles Joseph Edward Sabatini Guccione ( goo-chee-OH-nee; December 17, 1930 – October 20, 2010) was an American visual artist, photographer and publisher. He founded the adult magazine Penthouse in 1965. This was aimed at competing with Playboy, but with more explicit erotic content, a special style of soft focus photography, and in-depth reporting of government corruption scandals and the art world. By 1982 Guccione was listed in the Forbes 400 wealth list, and owned one of the biggest mansions in Manhattan. However, he made some extravagant investments that failed, and the growth of free online pornography in the 1990s greatly diminished his market. In 2003, Guccione's publishers filed for bankruptcy and he resigned as chairman.
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Bob Stinson
Robert Neil Stinson (December 17, 1959 – February 18, 1995) was an American musician best known as a founding member and lead guitarist of the rock band the Replacements.
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Brad Davis
Bradley Ernest Davis (born December 17, 1955) is an American former professional basketball player who spent the bulk of his National Basketball Association (NBA) career with the Dallas Mavericks. He has been associated with the Mavericks for the team's entire existence as either a player, assistant coach or broadcaster.
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Brian Hayes
Brian Hayes (17 December 1937 – 29 November 2025) was an Australian-British radio presenter who was known in the United Kingdom for his phone-in shows. He worked as a presenter on Capital Radio, LBC and BBC.
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Brian Langford
Brian Anthony Langford (17 December 1935 – 12 February 2013) was an English first-class cricketer who played as an off-spin bowler for Somerset. He captained the county from 1969 until 1971 and his career tally of 1,390 wickets ranks him third in the county's history, behind only Jack White and Arthur Wellard. Langford made his debut for Somerset in 1953 at the Recreation Ground, Bath with an unremarkable appearance against Lancashire, taking just one wicket in an innings and 24 run loss. In the next match against Kent, starting the following day on the same ground, he took 8/96 in the first innings, bowling a 41 over spell to see the innings through. He helped secure victory for Somerset with another 6 wickets in the second innings. At only 17 years and 5 months, this ten-wicket haul made him the youngest player to do so in the County Championship, a record that stood until May 2007, when James Harris completed the feat a few days after his 17th birthday. A third game without break on the ground against Leicestershire brought further success for Langford, although his 6/53 in the first innings and 5/81 in the second weren't enough to prevent Somerset from slipping to a 144 run loss. Unfortunately for Somerset and Langford, the 26 wickets he took his opening three matches for the county accounted for just over half of his season's total, as he took just 25 more in the remaining 15 matches in 1953. In a game against Lancashire in 1958, Langford finished the match with 15 wickets for 54 runs. This is the second best match figures for Somerset and his first innings' 9/26 is the third best performance in an innings. He finished the year with 116 wickets, a career best. In 1969, he had the following remarkable analysis in the John Player League (40 over List A match) against Essex at Yeovil: 8 overs, 8 maidens, 0 runs, 0 wickets. He remains the only person to have bowled a full complement of overs in a List A match without conceding a single run.
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Burt Baskin
Burton Leo Baskin (December 17, 1913 – December 24, 1967) was an American businessman who co-founded the Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor chain in 1946 with business partner and brother-in-law Irv Robbins.
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Calvin Tomkins
Calvin Tomkins II (December 17, 1925 – March 20, 2026) was an American author and art critic for The New Yorker magazine.
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Castello Lukeba
Junior Castello Lukeba (born 17 December 2002) is a French professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Bundesliga club RB Leipzig.
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Charl Langeveldt
Charl Kenneth Langeveldt (born 17 December 1974) is a South African cricket coach and former cricketer who is currently a bowling coach with the Zimbabwe national cricket team. As a cricket player, he played all formats of the game. A right-arm fast-medium bowler, he played for South Africa between 2001 and 2010, primarily in One Day Internationals. Langeveldt was the first South African to take a hat-trick in the ODI format. He was the bowling coach for the national team.
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Charles C. Banks
Captain Charles Chaplin Banks (17 December 1893 – 21 December 1971) was a World War I flying ace credited with thirteen aerial victories. He scored a pioneering night fighter victory on 31 May 1918, when he shot down a German Friedrichshafen G bomber.
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Charles-Louis Mion
Charles-Louis Mion (17 December 1699 – 12 September 1775) was a French composer of the Baroque era. He was the grand-nephew of Michel Richard Delalande who also taught him music. Between 1710 and 1718 he was a choirboy at the Sainte-Chapelle du Palais (for the French royal family). Later in life he became music teacher to his patroness Madame de Pompadour. In 1755 he was appointed master of music to Les Enfants de France. He wrote motets and operas, one of which (L'année galante) earned him a royal pension of 2,000 livres.
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Claire Forlani
Claire Antonia Forlani (born December 17, 1971) is an English actress. She became known in the mid-1990s for her leading role in the film Mallrats, and in the Jean-Michel Basquiat 1996 biopic Basquiat. In 1998, she achieved wide recognition for starring in the fantasy romance film Meet Joe Black. Her other notable films include Mystery Men (1999), Boys and Girls (2000), Antitrust (2001), The Medallion (2003), and In the Name of the King (2007). She appeared in numerous TV films and series, including a starring role on the historical-fantasy-drama series Camelot, and recurring roles on the CBS action series CSI: NY, NCIS: Los Angeles, and Hawaii Five-0. She played the role of Meredith Newman in the 2019 film Five Feet Apart.
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Claudio Suárez
Claudio Suárez Sánchez (locally [ˈklawðjo ˈswaɾes ˈsantʃes]; born 17 December 1968) is a Mexican former professional footballer who played as a centre-back. With 177 caps for the Mexico national team, he is regarded as one of the best North American players of all time.
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Craig Berube
Craig Berube (; born December 17, 1965) is a Canadian professional ice hockey coach and former player who was most recently the head coach for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL). Nicknamed "Chief", Berube played 17 seasons in the NHL for the Philadelphia Flyers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Calgary Flames, Washington Capitals and New York Islanders. His role was primarily that of an enforcer. After retirement, Berube served as head coach of the Flyers for two seasons, and the St. Louis Blues for parts of six seasons, winning the Stanley Cup in 2019 as then-interim head coach. Berube additionally served as a national team scout for Canada at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, under Blues general manager Doug Armstrong.
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Dave Dee
David John Harman, known professionally as Dave Dee (17 December 1941 – 9 January 2009), was an English singer-songwriter, musician, A&R manager, fundraiser and businessman. He was the frontman for the 1960s pop band Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich.
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Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa (Italian: [Domenico Cimarosa] ; 17 December 1749 – 11 January 1801) was an Italian composer of the Neapolitan School and of the Classical period. He wrote more than eighty operas, the best known of which is Il matrimonio segreto (1792); most of his operas are comedies. He also wrote instrumental works and church music. Cimarosa was principally based in Naples, but spent some of his career in various other parts of Italy, composing for the opera houses of Rome, Venice, Florence and elsewhere. He was engaged by Catherine the Great of Russia as her court composer and conductor between 1787 and 1791. In his later years, returning to Naples, he backed the losing side in the struggle to overthrow the monarchy there, and was imprisoned and then exiled. He died in Venice at the age of 51.
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Eddie Fisher
Eddie Ray Fisher (born December 17, 1973) is an American musician and songwriter. He is the drummer for the pop rock band OneRepublic. Eddie grew up in Mission Viejo, California and currently resides in Denver, Colorado, where OneRepublic is based. Fisher joined OneRepublic in 2005, and has been the band's drummer ever since.
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Edward Short, Baron Glenamara
Edward Watson Short, Baron Glenamara, (17 December 1912 – 4 May 2012) was a British Labour Party politician and deputy leader of the Labour Party. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and served as a minister during the Labour governments under Harold Wilson, before being appointed to the House of Lords shortly after James Callaghan became Prime Minister. Following the death of James Allason on 16 June 2011, Short was the oldest living former member of the British House of Commons. He died just under a year later, aged 99. At the time of his death he was the oldest member of the House of Lords.
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Eknath Easwaran
Eknath Easwaran (December 17, 1910 – October 26, 1999) was an Indian-born spiritual teacher, author, and translator and interpreter of Indian religious texts such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. Easwaran was a professor of English literature at the University of Nagpur in India when he came to the United States in 1959 on the Fulbright Program at the University of Minnesota before moving to Berkeley and registering as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1961, Easwaran founded the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, based in northern California. In 1968 Easwaran established Nilgiri Press. Nilgiri Press has published over thirty books that he authored. Easwaran was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, whom he met when he was a young man. Easwaran developed a method of meditation – silent repetition in the mind of memorized inspirational passages from the world's major religious and spiritual traditions – which later came to be known as Passage Meditation. His teachings inspired some of his students to create the 1976 vegetarian cookbook Laurel's Kitchen.
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Elizaveta Tuktamysheva
Elizaveta Sergeyevna Tuktamysheva ( tuuk-TAH-mih-shə-və; Russian: Елизавета Серге́евна Туктамы́шева, IPA: [jɪlʲɪzɐˈvʲetə tʊktɐˈmɨʂɨvə]; born 17 December 1996) is a Russian retired figure skater. She is the 2015 World champion, the 2021 World silver medalist, the 2015 European champion and the 2013 European bronze medalist. She has medaled 16 times on the Grand Prix series, including 5 gold medals and including gold at the 2014–15 Grand Prix Final and bronze at the 2018–19 Grand Prix Final. On national level she is an 8-time medalist in the Russian Championships and the 2013 Russian national champion, as well as 4-time medalist in the Russian Cup Finals. On the junior level, she is the 2012 Youth Olympic champion, 2011 World Junior silver medalist, and 2010–11 JGP Final silver medalist. At the 2015 World Championships, she landed a triple axel in competition for the first time, making her the sixth woman, and second Russian woman to do so, and she became the first female skater to land four triple jumps in a short program (triple Axel, triple Lutz, and a triple toe-triple toe combination). At the 2018–19 Grand Prix Final, she landed the maximum eight triple jumps cleanly in the free skate allowed under the Zayak rule, becoming the third woman to do so after Japanese Rika Kihira and American Mirai Nagasu. She, therefore, also became the first woman to land the maximum twelve triple jumps in one international competition, albeit with the triple Axel in her short program deemed under-rotated. In the final event of the 2018–19 season, the 2019 World Team Trophy, she successfully landed all twelve jumps cleanly, becoming the first woman to accomplish this feat in an official international competition. She is also one of only four women to achieve a Grand Slam, when winning all major competitions in the 2014-15 season. Tuktamysheva's career is notable for its consistency and longevity, especially in contrast with the young ages and high turnover of elite Russian women's skaters in her era („System Tutberidze“). Throughout 16 different seasons, she competed in 70 international events and 15 Russian Nationals, and never finished off the top 10. Additionally, she has maintained a triple axel for 8 years, landing it first in 2015, and still incorporating it in competitions in 2023.
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Emma Bell
Emma Jean Bell (born December 17, 1986) is an American actress, best known for her role as Parker O'Neal in the films Frozen and Hatchet II (both 2010), as Molly Harper in Final Destination 5 (2011), and for playing Amy in the first and third season of the AMC post apocalyptic series The Walking Dead (2010; 2012), and Emma Judith Ryland Brown on the TNT drama series Dallas (2013–2014).
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Ernest of Bavaria
Wittelsbach-Hapsburg aristocrat Ernest of Bavaria (German: Ernst von Bayern) (17 December 1554 – 17 February 1612) was Prince-Elector-Archbishop of the Archbishopric of Cologne and, as such, Archchancellor of the Holy Roman Empire and Duke of Westphalia, from 1583 to 1612 as successor of the expelled Archbishop Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg. He was also simultaneously Prince-Bishop of Münster, Hildesheim, Freising, and Liège, Count of Loon, and Prince-Abbot of Stavelot. In Freising he had already become bishop by the age of 12.
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Ernie Hudson
Earnest Lee Hudson (born December 17, 1945 or 1946) is an American actor. He is known for his role as Winston Zeddemore in the Ghostbusters franchise. Hudson has also acted in the films Leviathan (1989), The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992), The Crow (1994), Airheads (1994), The Basketball Diaries (1995), Congo (1995), Miss Congeniality (2000), and The Ron Clark Story (2006). On television, his most prominent role was Warden Leo Glynn on HBO's Oz (1997–2003). Hudson has also appeared in the television shows St. Elsewhere (1984), The Last Precinct (1986), 10-8: Officers on Duty (2003–2004), Desperate Housewives (2006–2007), The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008–2013), Law & Order (2009–2010), the voice of Agent Bill Fowler in Transformers: Prime (2010–2013), Franklin & Bash (2012–2014), Grace and Frankie (2015–2020), and L.A.'s Finest (2019–2020). From 2022 to 2024, Hudson appeared as Herbert "Magic" Williams on the NBC drama Quantum Leap.
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Erskine Caldwell
Erskine Preston Caldwell (December 17, 1903 – April 11, 1987) was an American novelist and short story writer. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native Southern United States, in novels such as Tobacco Road (1932) and God's Little Acre (1933), won him critical acclaim. With cumulative sales of 10 million and 14 million copies, respectively, Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre rank as two of the best-selling American novels of all time, with the former being adapted into a 1933 play that set a Broadway record for consecutive performances, since surpassed.
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Eva Nansen
Eva Helene Nansen (née Sars; 17 December 1858 – 9 December 1907) was a celebrated Norwegian mezzo-soprano singer. She was also a pioneer of women's skiing.
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Fernando Abad
Fernando Antonio Abad (; born December 17, 1985) is a Dominican professional baseball pitcher for the Conspiradores de Querétaro of the Mexican League. He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Houston Astros, Washington Nationals, Oakland Athletics, Minnesota Twins, Boston Red Sox, San Francisco Giants, Baltimore Orioles, and Colorado Rockies.
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Fernando Lopes-Graça
Fernando Lopes-Graça (17 December 1906 – 27 November 1994) was a Portuguese composer, conductor and musicologist. Lopes-Graça was born in Tomar, and was influenced by Portuguese popular music, which he also studied, continuing the work of the composer and musicologist Francisco de Lacerda. He was a member of the Portuguese Communist Party and strenuously opposed the Estado Novo and its leader António de Oliveira Salazar. He completed the Dicionário de Música (Dictionary of Music), started by his teacher, Tomás Borba, himself a composer. He died in Parede, near Cascais.
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Ford Madox Ford
Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( HEF-ər); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals The English Review and The Transatlantic Review were important in the development of early 20th-century English and American literature. Ford is now remembered for his novels The Good Soldier (1915), the Parade's End tetralogy (1924–1928) and The Fifth Queen trilogy (1906–1908). The Good Soldier is frequently included among the great literature of the 20th century, including the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, The Observer's "100 Greatest Novels of All Time", and The Guardian's "1,000 novels everyone must read".
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Frank Musil
František Musil (born December 17, 1964), more commonly known in North America as Frank Musil, is a Czech former professional ice hockey player who spent several seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Minnesota North Stars, Calgary Flames, Ottawa Senators, and Edmonton Oilers. Musil is currently an amateur scout for the Sabres and assistant coach for the Czech national ice hockey team.
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Gerald Finnerman
Gerald Perry Finnerman (December 17, 1931 – April 6, 2011) was an American cinematographer who worked on TV series such as Moonlighting and the original Star Trek. He served as vice president of the American Society of Cinematographers, and won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography in Entertainment Programming for a Special.
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Gerald Patterson
Gerald Leighton Patterson MC (17 December 1895 – 13 June 1967) was an Australian tennis player. Patterson was active in the decade following World War I. During his career he won three Grand Slam tournaments in the singles event as well as six titles in the doubles competition and one title in mixed doubles. He was born in Melbourne, educated at Scotch College and Trinity Grammar School and died in Melbourne on 13 June 1967. He was the co-World No. 1 player for 1919 along with Bill Johnston.
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Graham Rogers
Graham Rogers (born December 17, 1990) is an American actor, known for his roles as Scott Thomas in the comedy film Struck by Lightning (2012), Danny Matheson in NBC's science fiction series Revolution, Al Jardine in the biopic Love and Mercy (2014), Carson in the thriller Careful What You Wish For (2015), and Tyler Stone in Hulu's comedy series Resident Advisors. Rogers had a recurring role as Evan Chapin in the Netflix series Atypical, and previously starred as Caleb Haas in ABC's drama-thriller series Quantico.
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Gregory Campbell
Gregory James Campbell (born December 17, 1983) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey centre and current Assistant General Manager of the Florida Panthers. He was drafted by the Panthers in the third round, 67th overall, in the 2002 NHL entry draft. Campbell is the son of former NHL player and current NHL Director of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell.
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Guerschon Yabusele
Guerschon Yabusele (French pronunciation: [ɡɛʁʃɔn jabuzele]; GAIR-shun YAH-boo-ZELL-ay; born December 17, 1995) is a French professional basketball player for Panathinaikos of the Greek Basketball League (GBL) and the EuroLeague. He primarily plays at the power forward position. Yabusele represents the French national team in international competitions, with whom he won silver medals at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics. Yabusele was considered one of the best international prospects for the 2016 NBA draft. He was drafted with the 16th overall pick by the Boston Celtics and played for them from 2017 to 2019, splitting time with Boston's NBA G League affiliate, the Maine Red Claws. While in Boston, Yabusele became a fan favorite despite playing few minutes and was nicknamed the "Dancing Bear." Yabusele has also played in the Chinese Basketball Association and the lower-level French LNB Pro B. He signed with Real Madrid in 2021, and won a EuroLeague title in 2023. After an impressive performance for France during the 2024 Olympics, he returned to the NBA and signed with the Philadelphia 76ers. Yabusele has also played for the New York Knicks and the Chicago Bulls.
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Holly Humberstone
Holly Ffion Humberstone (born 17 December 1999) is an English singer and songwriter. She released her debut EP Falling Asleep at the Wheel in 2020, before signing a recording contract with Interscope and Polydor Records. Her first EP following the signings, The Walls Are Way Too Thin, was released in November 2021; she subsequently won the Brit Award for Rising Star at the 2022 Brit Awards. She has since released two studio albums, Paint My Bedroom Black (2023) and Cruel World (2026), both of which received positive reviews.
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Humphry Davy
Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet (17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829) was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and an early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several elements for the first time: potassium and sodium in 1807 and calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium and boron the following year, as well as for discovering the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Davy also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry. He is credited with discovering clathrate hydrates. In 1799, he experimented with nitrous oxide and was astonished at how it made him laugh. He nicknamed it "laughing gas" and wrote about its potential as an anaesthetic to relieve pain during surgery. Davy was a baronet, President of the Royal Society (PRS), Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA), a founder member and Fellow of the Geological Society of London, a member of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, and a member of the American Philosophical Society. Berzelius called Davy's 1806 Bakerian Lecture "On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity" "one of the best memoirs which has ever enriched the theory of chemistry."
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Irving Petlin
Irving Petlin (December 17, 1934 – September 1, 2018) was an American artist and painter renowned for his mastery of the pastel medium and collaborations with other artists (including Mark di Suvero and Leon Golub) and for his work in the "series form" in which he employed the raw materials of pastel, oil paint and unprimed linen, and found inspiration in the work of writers and poets including Primo Levi, Bruno Schulz, Paul Celan, Michael Palmer and Edmond Jabès. Petlin attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1953 to 1956, where he received his BFA during the height of the Chicago Imagist movement. Petlin was awarded a fellowship at Yale, where he studied under Josef Albers and earned his MFA in 1960. In 1964, his work was shown at the Hanover Gallery in London and Galerie du Dragon in Paris, where he influenced the Nouvelle figuration movement. That same year, Petlin was invited to teach at UCLA as a visiting artist, along with artists Richard Diebenkorn and Llyn Foulkes. While in California, he was a principal organizer of the "Artist’s Protest movement against the war in Vietnam." In open meetings held at the Dwan Gallery, of which John Weber was the director, he founded the Artists' Protest Committee. In 1966, Petlin planned the Peace Tower with help of Mark di Suvero, as well as Philip Lieder, Craig Kauffman, Larry Bell, Walter Hopps, Rolf Nelson, Judy Chicago, Lloyd Hamrol, Hardy Hanson, Eric Orr, Tanya Nuefeld, and others. "The Artists’ Call" for the tower is published in four languages, and works arrive from all over the world to be attached to it. The finished tower, was dedicated by Susan Sontag and ultimately attacked overnight. The following year, in 1965, Petlin had his first major one-man exhibition held at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels. Shortly thereafter, he returned to New York City with his family and moved into an apartment on West 11th Street. At this time, his growing commitment to the American milieu resulted in the completion of the painting The Burning of Los Angeles. During this period, Petlin Was a founder and a participant in Artists and Writers Against the War in Vietnam. He also toom part in the Art Workers Coalition, the Art Strike, the Moratorium and the Venice Biennale. The Burning of Los Angeles (1965–1967) (Collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco) From the 1960s, when he became one of the founding members of "Artists and Writers Against the War in Vietnam," Petlin was a leader in political activism by visual artists. He created the iconic anti-Vietnam War poster And babies in 1969. Petlin continued his militant interventions after the 1960s through such activities as his participation in the "Artists' Call Against the U.S. Intervention in Central America". Petlin taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, the Cooper Union in New York, as well as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He lived in Paris, New York and Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Petlin died of liver cancer in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts on September 1, 2018, at the age of 83.
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Jack L. Chalker
Jack Laurence Chalker (December 17, 1944 – February 11, 2005) was an American science fiction author. Chalker was also a Baltimore City Schools history teacher in Maryland for 12 years, retiring during 1978 to write full-time. He also was a member of the Washington Science Fiction Association and was involved in the founding of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society.
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James Booker
James Carroll Booker III (December 17, 1939 – November 8, 1983) was an American New Orleans rhythm and blues keyboardist and singer. Flamboyant in personality and style, and a pianist of extraordinary technical skill, he was dubbed "the Black Liberace." His 1960 recording "Gonzo" reached No. 43 on the Billboard magazine record chart and No. 3 in R&B, and he toured internationally in the 1970s. After being mainly a rhythm and blues artist, Booker later fused this genre with jazz and with popular music such as that of the Beatles, playing these in his signature backbeat. He profoundly influenced the New Orleans music scene, where his renditions and originals have been revived and are performed.
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Jaroslav Pelikan
Jaroslav Jan Pelikan Jr. (; December 17, 1923 – May 13, 2006) was an American scholar of the history of Christianity, Christian theology, and medieval intellectual history at Yale University.
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Jasmine Armfield
Jasmine Armfield (born 17 December 1998) is an English actress, known for playing Bex Fowler in the BBC soap opera EastEnders from 2014 to 2020, with a brief stint in 2025. Following her leaving the soap, she has made appearances in fellow BBC series Doctors and Casualty, as well as making her stage debut in Jumping the Shark in 2023.
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Jerry Hsu
Jerry Hsu (born December 17, 1981) is a Taiwanese-American skateboarder, photographer and owner/operator of the skate company "Sci-Fi Fantasy".
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Joel Brooks
Joel Brooks is an American actor, known for his roles in Stir Crazy, My Sister Sam, Six Feet Under, The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green and Phil of the Future. Brooks also had a recurring role as a psychologist in Ally McBeal.
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John Abraham
John Abraham (born 17 December 1972) is an Indian actor and film producer who works in Hindi films. He is a recipient of one National Film Award along with four Filmfare Awards nominations. Abraham has appeared in Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list since 2017. After a modelling career, Abraham made his acting debut with the erotic thriller film Jism (2003), a sleeper hit. In the same year, he appeared in the supernatural romantic thriller film Saaya and crime thriller film Paap. He rose to prominence with the action film Dhoom (2004) and the comedies Garam Masala (2005), Taxi No. 9211 (2006), and Dostana (2008). He then starred in the critically acclaimed dramas Water (2005), Kabul Express (2006) and New York (2009), the last of which also turned out to be a commercial success. Despite several commercial failures in the subsequent decade, Abraham achieved success with the 2013 action thrillers Race 2 and drama Madras Cafe; along with the ensemble comedies Housefull 2 (2012) and Welcome Back (2015). Abraham then had commercial successes with the action dramas Dishoom (2016), Parmanu (2018), Satyameva Jayate (2018), Batla House (2019) and Pathaan (2023). Abraham ventured into film production under his banner J.A. Entertainment with Vicky Donor (2012), which won him the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. He has since produced several of his films, and also wrote the story of Attack: Part 1 (2022). Outside of his film career, he is the co-owner of the Indian Super League football team NorthEast United FC, and the European T20 Premier League cricket team Rotterdam Dockers. He is also a vegetarian bodybuilder and is an advocate for animal rights.
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John Bond
John Frederick Bond (17 December 1932 – 25 September 2012) was an English professional football player and manager. He played from 1950 until 1966 for West Ham United, making 444 appearances in all competitions and scoring 37 goals. He was a member of the West Ham side which won the 1957–58 Second Division and the 1964 FA Cup. He also played for Torquay United until 1969. He managed seven different Football League clubs, and was the manager of the Norwich City side which made the 1975 Football League Cup Final and the Manchester City side which made the 1981 FA Cup Final. He is the father of Kevin Bond, a former footballer and coach.
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John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier (December 17, 1807 – September 7, 1892) was an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Frequently listed as one of the fireside poets, he was influenced by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Whittier is remembered particularly for his anti-slavery writings, as well as his 1866 book Snow-Bound.
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Jordan Rankin
Jordan Rankin (born 17 December 1991) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who last played as a fullback, five-eighth or halfback for the Huddersfield Giants in the Super League. He previously played for the Gold Coast Titans and the Wests Tigers in the National Rugby League, and Hull F.C. and the Huddersfield Giants in the Super League. He spent time at Doncaster in the Championship on dual registration from Hull, as well as two separate loans from Huddersfield at the Castleford Tigers in the Super League.
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Josef Lada
Josef Lada (17 December 1887 – 14 December 1957) was a Czech painter, illustrator, cartoonist and writer. He was pioneer of the Czech comicbook tradition and founder of the "Czech modern fairytale" genre. He is considered one of the greatest Czech artists of all times – which is also what the artist Pablo Picasso had claimed him to be. He is best known for his children's books and as the illustrator of Jaroslav Hašek's World War I novel The Good Soldier Švejk. He's an author of over 15,000 illustrations (both colour and black and white) and more than 600 paintings. The main themes and motives of his work include the following: home village Hrusice, water goblins and sprites, night watchmen, pub fights and the traditional pig-slaughter.
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Joseph Henry
Joseph Henry (December 17, 1797– May 13, 1878) was an American physicist and inventor who served as the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He was the secretary for the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, a precursor of the Smithsonian Institution. He also served as president of the National Academy of Sciences from 1868 to 1878. While building electromagnets, Henry discovered the electromagnetic phenomenon of self-inductance. He also discovered mutual inductance independently of Michael Faraday, though Faraday was the first to make the discovery and publish his results. Henry developed the electromagnet into a practical device. He invented a precursor to the electric doorbell (specifically a bell that could be rung at a distance via an electric wire, 1831) and electric relay (1835). His work on the electromagnetic relay was the basis of the practical electrical telegraph, invented separately by Samuel F. B. Morse and Sir Charles Wheatstone. In his honor, the SI unit of inductance is named the henry (plural: henries; symbol: H).
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Josh Barfield
Joshua LaRoy Barfield (born December 17, 1982) is an American professional baseball executive and former second baseman. He is the son of former major league outfielder Jesse Barfield. Barfield was born in Venezuela during his mother's two-week winterball visit with his father. He attended Klein High School, located near Houston, Texas, and holds the District 5 single season home run record. His younger brother Jeremy Barfield was drafted by the Oakland Athletics in the eighth round (244th overall) of the 2008 Major League Baseball draft.
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Jules de Goncourt
Jules Alfred Huot de Goncourt (pronounced [ʒyl də ɡɔ̃kuʁ]; 17 December 1830 – 20 June 1870) was a French writer, who published books together with his brother Edmond. Jules was born and died in Paris. His death at the age of 39 was at Auteuil of a stroke brought on by syphilis. The Prix Goncourt is awarded annually in his honor.
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Kazys Grinius
Kazys Grinius ([kɐˈzʲiːs ˈɡʲrʲɪnʲʊs] , 17 December 1866 – 4 June 1950) was the third President of Lithuania, holding the office from 7 June 1926 to 17 December 1926. Previously, he had served as the fifth Prime Minister of Lithuania, from 19 June 1920 until his resignation on 18 January 1922. He was posthumously awarded the Lithuanian Life Saving Cross for saving people during the Holocaust and was recognised as a Righteous Among the Nations in 2016. Grinius was born in Selema, near Marijampolė, in the Augustów Governorate of Congress Poland, which was part of the Russian Empire. He studied medicine at the Imperial Moscow University and became a physician. As a young man, he became involved in Lithuanian political activities, and was persecuted by the Tsarist authorities. In 1896, he was one of the founders of the Lithuanian Democratic Party (LDP) and Lithuanian Popular Peasants' Union (LVLS) party. That same year he married Joana Pavalkytė. For some time they lived in Virbalis. In 1899, their son Kazys (later head of the Lithuanian National Council) was born, and in 1902, their daughter Gražina was born. During World War I they lived in Kislovodsk. In 1918, during a Red Army attack, his wife and daughter were murdered by Russian terrorists. They were buried in Kislovodsk cemetery. When Lithuania regained its independence in 1918, Grinius became a member of the Constituent Assembly as a member of the Lithuanian Popular Peasants' Union party. He served as prime minister from 1920 until 1922, and signed a treaty with the Soviet Union. He was elected president by the Third Seimas, but served for only six months, as he was deposed in a coup led by Antanas Smetona on the pretext of an imminent communist plot to take over Lithuania. Grinius then practiced medicine in Kaunas. When Nazi Germany invaded Lithuania in 1941, Grinius refused to collaborate with the Germans because of his opposition to the occupation of Lithuania by any foreign power. He fled to the West when the Soviet army reoccupied Lithuania in 1944, and he emigrated to the United States in 1947. He died in Chicago in 1950. After Lithuania regained its independence in 1990, his remains were returned and buried near his home village.
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Kenneth Dike
Kenneth Onwuka Dike (17 December 1917 – 26 October 1983) was a Nigerian educationist, historian and the first Nigerian vice-chancellor of the University of Ibadan. During the Nigerian Civil War, he moved to Harvard University. He was a founder of the Ibadan School that dominated the writing of the History of Nigeria until the 1970s. Dike was a pioneer in the movement towards utilising oral traditions in a multi-disciplinary approach in African historiography. He is credited with "having played the leading role in creating a generation of African historians who could interpret their own history without being influenced by Eurocentric approaches." He has been called the "father of modern African historiography".
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Kenneth E. Iverson
Kenneth Eugene Iverson (17 December 1920 – 19 October 2004) was a Canadian computer scientist noted for the development of the programming language APL. He was honored with the Turing Award in 1979 "for his pioneering effort in programming languages and mathematical notation resulting in what the computing field now knows as APL; for his contributions to the implementation of interactive systems, to educational uses of APL, and to programming language theory and practice".
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Kiersey Clemons
Kiersey Nicole Clemons (born December 17, 1993) is an American actress. She is known for her role in the 2015 comedy-drama film Dope, playing Cassandra "Diggy" Andrews. Subsequently, she went on to co-star in Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016), Flatliners (2017), Hearts Beat Loud (2018), and played Iris West in both Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) and The Flash (2023). Clemons had recurring roles in numerous television series, including Austin & Ally (2013), Transparent (2014–2015), Extant (2015), and Easy (2016–2019), and had a main role in the final season of the comedy series Angie Tribeca (2018).
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Kujō Yoritsugu
Kujō Yoritsugu (九条 頼嗣; 17 December 1239 – 14 October 1256; r. 1244–1252), also known as Fujiwara no Yoritsugu (藤原 頼嗣), was the fifth shōgun of the Kamakura shogunate of Japan. His father was the 4th Kamakura shōgun, Kujō Yoritsune. The Kujō family was one of the five branches of the historically powerful Fujiwara clan of imperial courtiers.
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Kåre Valebrokk
Kåre Valebrokk (17 December 1940 – 9 February 2013) was a Norwegian journalist and television executive. He was editor-in-chief and administrative director of TV 2 from October 1999 until June 2007, when he retired. He was the father of economist and editor Per Valebrokk. Valebrokk started his media career as a journalist in Morgenbladet from 1962 to 1968, and was later a journalist in Verdens Gang from 1979 to 1985. In 1985, Valebrokk was appointed editor-in-chief of the newspaper Dagens Næringsliv, a position he held until he joined TV 2 in 1999. From 1989 he was also the CEO of Norges Handels- og Sjøfartstidende AS, the company that published the newspaper. He has advocated libertarian views, like flat tax. After his retirement from TV 2, Valebrokk wrote a weekly column for Aftenposten, and, among other tasks, was chairman of the Bergen Art Museum. According to his son, Valebrokk died in his sleep on 9 February 2013. He was 72 years old.
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Laurence F. Johnson
Larry Johnson (born December 17, 1950, in Corpus Christi, Texas) is an American futurist, author, and educator. Currently, Johnson serves as the Founder and CEO of EdFutures.org, an international think tank, and as a Senior Fellow of the Center for Digital Education. From 2001 to 2016, he served as chief executive officer of the New Media Consortium an international consortium of hundreds of universities, colleges, museums, research centers, and technology companies.
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Laurie Holden
Heather Laurie Holden (born December 17, 1969) is an American-Canadian actress, producer, model, and human rights activist. She is best known for portraying Marita Covarrubias in The X-Files (1996–2002) and Andrea in AMC's The Walking Dead (2010–2013). She has also had recurring roles in acclaimed television series such as The Shield (2008), The Americans (2017–2018), and The Boys (2022). In film, she played Cybil Bennett in Silent Hill (2006) and Amanda Dumfries in The Mist (2007).
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Liisa Ehrberg
Liisa Ehrberg (born 17 December 1988) is an Estonian racing cyclist. She rode at the 2014 UCI Road World Championships.
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Lloyd Perrett
Lloyd Perrett (born 17 December 1994) is a professional rugby league footballer who plays as a prop for the Ormeau Shearers DMC side. He previously played for the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles in the National Rugby League.
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Lore Berger
Lore Berger (17 December 1921 – 14 August 1943) was a Swiss writer who committed suicide at the age of 21.
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Loren Murchison
Loren C. Murchison (December 17, 1898 – June 11, 1979) was an American athlete, double gold medal winner in 4 × 100 m relay at the Olympic Games.
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Luis Alfageme
Luis Maria Alfageme (born 17 December 1984) is an Argentine footballer who plays as a forward for F.C. Matese in Italy's Serie D.
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Mansoor al-Jamri
Mansoor al-Jamri (also Mansour; Arabic: منصور الجمري; born 17 December 1961) is a Bahraini columnist, author, human rights activist and former opposition leader. He is the editor-in-chief of Al-Wasat, an Arabic language independent daily newspaper. He is also the second son of the Shia spiritual leader Sheikh Abdul-Amir al-Jamri, who died in 2006. A few months after he was born in the village of Bani Jamra, al-Jamri moved with his family to Iraq where his father continued his religious studies. To his delight, al-Jamri returned to Bahrain in 1973 and five years later graduated from high school. In 1979 he moved to the United Kingdom (UK) to continue his higher education. Between 1987 and 2001, al-Jamri lived in self-imposed exile in UK where he became the spokesman of a UK-based opposition group. Following a series of reforms of which he was initially skeptical of, al-Jamri returned to Bahrain in December 2001. He co-founded Al-Wasat in September 2002 and became its editor-in-chief since then. The newspaper, said to be the only one offering independent and non-sectarian coverage in Bahrain was a success, becoming the country's most popular and profitable. Al-Jamri writes daily columns described to be moderate and non-sectarian. When the Bahraini uprising started in February 2011, Al-Wasat and al-Jamri covered both sides of the conflict. Al-Jamri was involved in reconciliation talks until 15 March when Saudi troops entered Bahrain. That day, Al-Wasat printing facility was destroyed. Its employees which already faced harassment by groups of youths began remote work. The next month, the newspaper was charged by government to publishing fabricated news about the uprising and was suspended. Al-Jamri acknowledged his mistake, but said he was set up and downplayed the impact of the false news. He resigned from his position and the newspaper was allowed to publish the next day. He was subsequently charged and convicted of publishing false news. In August, Al-Wasat board of directors reinstated him back to his position. In June 2017, the Information Affairs Ministry indefinitely suspended the newspaper, forcing the paper's closure. Amnesty International termed the government's actions an "all-out campaign to end independent reporting".
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Marilyn Beck
Marilyn Beck (December 17, 1928 – May 31, 2014) was a syndicated Hollywood columnist and author.
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Mary Cartwright
Dame Mary Lucy Cartwright (17 December 1900 – 3 April 1998) was a British mathematician. She was one of the pioneers of what would later become known as chaos theory. Along with J. E. Littlewood, Cartwright saw many solutions to a problem which would later be seen as an example of the butterfly effect.
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Maryna Arzamasova
Maryna Aliaksandrauna Arzamasova (née Katowich, Belarusian: Марына Аляксандраўна Арзамасава (Катовіч), Russian: Марина Александровна Арзамасова; born 17 December 1987) is a Belarusian middle-distance runner. Arzamasova was banned from 2019 to 2023 after testing positive for using ligandrol.
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Matt Murley
Matt Murley (born December 17, 1979) is an American former professional ice hockey forward who played with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Phoenix Coyotes in the National Hockey League (NHL). He is currently a Sports betting expert for Barstool Sports' hockey podcast, Spittin' Chiclets and appears on the spin-off podcast Chiclets Game Notes with former teammate Colby Armstrong.
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Mike Mills
Michael Edward Mills (born December 17, 1958) is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and composer who was a founding member of the alternative rock band R.E.M. Though known primarily as the bass guitarist and backing vocalist of R.E.M., his musical repertoire also includes keyboards and occasional lead vocals. He contributed to a majority of the band's musical compositions and is the only member to have had formal musical training.
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Muhammadu Buhari
Muhammadu Buhari ( 17 December 1942 – 13 July 2025) was a Nigerian general and politician who ruled as military dictator of Nigeria from 1983 to 1985, and later served as the democratically elected civilian president of Nigeria from 2015 to 2023. Buhari joined the Nigerian Army fighting in the Nigerian Civil War, before advancing in subsequent military governments. Buhari earned a taciturn reputation during the presidency of Shehu Shagari due to his leading troops in the Chadian–Nigerian War. Buhari was a main figure behind the 1983 Nigerian coup d'état which led to the overthrow of the Second Republic. Although not the ringleader, Buhari became head of the military junta amid a period of deep economic crisis and widespread corruption. Citing economic mismanagement and a lack of discipline under the civilian administration, Buhari adopted a strict and austere approach to governance, with a strong emphasis on discipline, anti-corruption, and economic recovery through what became known as the War Against Indiscipline (WAI). The authoritarian political system he created is known as Buharism. Ultimately, Buhari's rigid style of governance and strained economic measures led to growing dissatisfaction within the military. On 27 August 1985, he was overthrown in a palace coup led by General Ibrahim Babangida. Buhari ran for president of Nigeria on the platform and support of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in 2003 and 2007, and on the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) platform in 2011. In December 2014, he emerged as the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress party for the 2015 general election. Buhari won the election, defeating incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. It was the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost a re-election bid. He was sworn in on 29 May 2015. In February 2019, Buhari was re-elected, defeating his closest rival, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, by over 3 million votes.
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Mushtaq Ali
Syed Mushtaq Ali (; 17 December 1914 – 18 June 2005) was an Indian cricketer, a right-handed opening batsman who holds the distinction of scoring the first overseas Test century by an Indian player when he scored 112 against England at Old Trafford in 1936. Mushtaq Ali was noted for his graceful batting style and a flair which often cost him his wicket by being over-adventurous too soon in an innings. He received the C. K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995, the highest honour bestowed by the BCCI on a former player. He batted right-handed and bowled slow left-arm orthodox spin. He bowled frequently enough in domestic matches to be classified as an all-rounder but only occasionally in Test matches.
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Naiktha Bains
Naiktha Bains (born 17 December 1997) is an Australian-British tennis player. Bains has won two singles titles and 28 doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit. In January 2020, she reached her best WTA ranking of 199 in singles. On 9 October 2023, she peaked at No. 87 in the WTA doubles rankings.
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Nick Dinsmore
Nicholas David Dinsmore (born December 17, 1975), better known by his ring name Eugene, is an American professional wrestler. Dinsmore's career began in 1996 in Ohio Valley Wrestling, where he became the OVW Heavyweight Champion a record eight times as well as the OVW Southern Tag Team Champion eleven times. He is best known for his time in WWE from 2004 to 2007 under the ring name Eugene, where he portrayed an intellectually disabled wrestling savant. During his time in the company, he was involved in various storylines and competed against such wrestlers like Triple H and Kurt Angle. He also won the World Tag Team Championship with William Regal. Upon Dinsmore's release from his WWE contract in 2007, he returned to OVW, where he won the Heavyweight Championships twice more. He made a brief return to WWE in 2013, but he was released the next year. In 2015, he opened his own promotion, Midwest All Pro Wrestling.
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Nozu Michitsura
Field Marshal Marquess Nozu Michitsura (野津 道貫; 17 December 1840 – 18 October 1908) was a Japanese field marshal and leading figure in the early Imperial Japanese Army.
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Pat Hill
Lawrence Patrick Hill (born December 17, 1951) is an American football coach, former player, and broadcaster. He served as the head football coach at Fresno State from 1997 until his dismissal following the 2011 season. In 15 seasons as head coach as Fresno State, he led the Bulldogs to a record of 112–80, 11 bowl game appearances, and a share of the 1999 Western Athletic Conference title.
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Paul Cadmus
Paul Cadmus (December 17, 1904 – December 12, 1999) was an American artist widely known for his egg tempera paintings of gritty social interactions in urban settings. He also produced many highly finished drawings of single nude male figures. His paintings combine elements of eroticism and social critique in a style often called magic realism.
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Paul César Helleu
Paul César Helleu (17 December 1859 – 23 March 1927) was a French oil painter, pastel artist, drypoint etcher, and designer, best known for his numerous portraits of beautiful society women of the Belle Époque. He also conceived the ceiling mural of night sky constellations for Grand Central Terminal in New York City. He was also the father of Jean Helleu and the grandfather of Jacques Helleu, both artistic directors for Parfums Chanel.
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Paul Dobson
Paul Dobson (17 December 1962 – July 2026) was an English professional footballer. He was a prolific striker in the lower leagues during the 1980s and early 1990s, notably for Torquay United. Dobson began his career as a junior with Newcastle United, but on failing to make the grade joined Hartlepool United on a free transfer in November 1981. He scored 8 times in 31 games before leaving the Victoria Ground. However, he returned in December 1983, signing from Horden Colliery, and went on to play a further 80 league games, in which he scored 24 goals. In July 1986, Dobson moved to Torquay United on a free transfer and was top scorer in his first season as Torquay struggled to remain in the league. The fact that they managed to do so was down to Dobson's goal in injury time against Crewe Alexandra in the final game of the season, injury time only awarded after Torquay defender Jim McNichol had been bitten by a police dog. Dobson's equaliser meant that Torquay stayed in Fourth Division on goal difference, with Lincoln City the first side to suffer automatic relegation to the Conference. He left Plainmoor in August 1988, joining Doncaster Rovers for £20,000. After scoring 10 goals in 24 games for Doncaster, Scarborough stepped in and paid £40,000 for his services. He scored 22 times in 61 games for Scarborough but was out of favour at the beginning of the 1990–91 season, joining first Halifax Town on loan in October 1990, with a further loan spell at Hereford United the following month. In January 1991, he moved to Lincoln City for £40,000. He scored 5 goals in 21 league appearances. In August 1992, he moved to Darlington, playing 14 league games (10 of which were as a substitute), scoring twice before joining Conference side Gateshead, initially on loan, in February 1993, and signing permanently for a fee of £3,500. He won the Conference Golden Boot as top-scorer in the 1993–94 and 1994–95 seasons, but after starting the first three games of the following season, Dobson lost his place in the team and featured only as a substitute until leaving to join Bishop Auckland in November 1995, Gateshead making a profit on the sale. He ended his football career with Spennymoor United. In May 2001, the Torquay Herald Express reported that Dobson, at that point diagnosed as a diabetic, was living in Newton Aycliffe in County Durham and working as a welder. Dobson died in July 2026, at the age of 63.
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Pedro Téllez-Girón, 3rd Duke of Osuna
Pedro Téllez-Girón, 3rd Duke of Osuna (17 December 1574 – 24 September 1624) was a Spanish nobleman and politician. He was the 2nd Marquis of Peñafiel, 7th Count of Ureña, Spanish Viceroy of Sicily (1611–1616), Viceroy of Naples (1616–1620), a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece since 1608, Grandee of Spain, member of the Spanish Supreme Council of War, and the subject of several poems by his friend, counselor and assistant, Francisco de Quevedo. He served as a footsoldier and climbed the ranks, an unusual career for an aristocrat, during the Eighty Years' War. As Viceroy of Sicily and Naples, Osuna reorganized the local administration with new strategies and ships, and implemented a highly profitable and successful privateering system against the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Venice and the Barbary corsairs. Despite counting solely on local resources, he maintained Spanish dominance in the Mediterranean during the ten years of his mandates, producing victories like Cape Corvo, Cape Gelidonya, Constantinople and Ragusa. At his peak, his individual naval power is believed to have rivaled that of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Although a favourite of King Philip III, he faced much obstruction from his court, which he ameliorated by buying political influence with booty from his campaigns. Osuna was eventually deposed in 1620, undoing most of his work, in midst of the unstability caused by the fall of the royal minister Francisco de Sandoval, Duke of Lerma. Venetians claimed Osuna had participated in a conspiracy to take over Venice, while the Neapolitan aristocracy purported he intended to secede from Spain and become King of Naples. He denied all accusations and died in prison while awaiting judgement.
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Penelope Fitzgerald
Penelope Mary Fitzgerald (17 December 1916 – 28 April 2000) was a Booker Prize-winning novelist, poet, essayist and biographer from Lincoln, England. In 2008 The Times listed her among "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945". The Observer in 2012 placed her final novel, The Blue Flower, among "the ten best historical novels". A.S. Byatt called her, "Jane Austen’s nearest heir for precision and invention."
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Peter Farrelly
Peter John Farrelly (born December 17, 1956) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and novelist. Along with his brother Bobby, the Farrelly brothers are mostly famous for directing and producing quirky comedy and romantic comedy films such as Dumb and Dumber; Shallow Hal; Me, Myself and Irene; There's Something About Mary; and the 2007 remake of The Heartbreak Kid. Farrelly solo-directed and co-wrote the comedy-drama Green Book (2018), which won the Audience Award at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018, the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay, and the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.
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Peter Snell
Sir Peter George Snell (17 December 1938 – 12 December 2019) was a New Zealand middle-distance runner. He won three Olympic gold medals, and is the only man since 1920 to have won the 800 and 1500 metres at the same Olympics, in 1964. Snell had a relatively short career as a world-famous international sportsman, 1960–1965, yet achieved so much that he was voted New Zealand's "Sports Champion of the (20th) Century" and was one of 24 inaugural members of the International Association of Athletics Federations Hall of Fame named in 2012. A protégé of the New Zealand athletics coach Arthur Lydiard, Snell is known for the three Olympic and two Commonwealth Games gold medals he won, and the several world records he set.
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Pierre Paul Émile Roux
Pierre Paul Émile Roux FRS (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ pɔl emil ʁu]; 17 December 1853 – 3 November 1933) was a French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist. Roux was one of the closest collaborators of Louis Pasteur (1822–1895), a co-founder of the Pasteur Institute, and responsible for the institute's production of the anti-diphtheria serum, the first effective therapy for this disease. Additionally, he investigated cholera, chicken-cholera, rabies, and tuberculosis. Roux is regarded as a founder of the field of immunology.
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Pope Francis
Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 13 March 2013 until his death in 2025. He was the first Jesuit pope, the first Latin American, and the first pope born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century Syrian pope Gregory III. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to a family of Italian origin, Bergoglio was inspired to join the Jesuits in 1958 after recovering from a severe illness. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969, and from 1973 to 1979 he was the Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina. He became the archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II. Following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, the 2013 papal conclave elected Bergoglio as pope on 13 March. He chose Francis as his papal name in honor of Francis of Assisi. Throughout his papacy, Francis was noted for his humility, emphasis on God's mercy, international visibility, commitment to interreligious dialogue, and concern for the poor, migrants, and refugees. He made women and laymen full members of dicasteries in the Roman Curia. He believed the Catholic Church should demonstrate more inclusivity to LGBTQ people, and permitted non-liturgical blessings of individuals in same-sex relationships in the Latin Church. He also convened the Synod on Synodality, which was described as the culmination of his papacy and the most important event in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council. He was well known for having a less formal approach to the papacy than his predecessors by, for instance, choosing to reside in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse rather than in the papal apartments of the Apostolic Palace used by previous popes. In addition, due to both his Jesuit and Ignatian aesthetic, he was known for favoring simpler vestments devoid of ornamentation, including refusing the traditional papal mozzetta cape upon his election, choosing silver instead of gold for his piscatory ring, and keeping the same iron pectoral cross he had as cardinal. Concerning global governance, Francis was a critic of trickle-down economics, consumerism, and overdevelopment; he made action on climate change a leading focus of his papacy. He viewed capital punishment as inadmissible in all cases, and committed the Catholic Church to its worldwide abolition. Francis criticized the rise of right-wing populism and anti-immigration politics, calling the protection of migrants a "duty of civilization", and called for the decriminalization of homosexuality. In international diplomacy, he also helped to restore diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, negotiated a deal with China to define Communist Party influence in appointing Chinese bishops, and encouraged peace between Israel and Palestinians, signing the Vatican's first treaty with Palestine and condemning Israel's military operations in Gaza, as well as calling for investigations of war crimes. In 2022, he apologized for the Church's role in the Canadian Indian residential school system. Following a period of declining health and multiple scares, Francis made his last public appearance on Easter Sunday before dying on 21 April 2025, Easter Monday. The 2025 conclave elected Leo XIV as Francis's successor on 8 May, becoming the second pope from the Americas, after Francis.
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Quinton de Kock
Quinton de Kock (born 17 December 1992) is a South African international cricketer and former captain of the South Africa national team in all three formats. He currently plays for Titans at the domestic level and for South Africa in white ball cricket. He was named the Cricketer of the Year at Cricket South Africa's 2017 Annual Awards, and is considered as one of the best wicket keeper batsmen of his generation. An opening batsman and wicket-keeper, de Kock made his domestic debut for the Highveld Lions during the 2012/2013 season. He quickly caught the national selectors' eye when he starred in a match-winning partnership with Neil McKenzie in the Champions League T20 against the Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He also finished fourth on the first-class rankings, despite playing only six of the 10 matches that summer. De Kock made his international debut in the first match of South Africa's home Twenty20 International series against the touring New Zealanders during the 2012/13 season. He was asked to keep wickets in place of AB de Villiers, who asked to be rested. He has since played regularly for the team at both One Day International (ODI) and Twenty20 International (T20I) level. In February 2014, he also made his Test debut for South Africa, playing solely as a batsman. By his 20th ODI match, de Kock had already scored five centuries. He became the fourth player to score three successive one-day centuries and the second player to score four ODI centuries before his 21st birthday. In his 74th ODI, against Sri Lanka on 10 February 2017, he became the fastest player to complete 12 ODI hundreds, bettering Hashim Amla, who had achieved the landmark in 81 innings. Before joining the Titans in 2015, de Kock played domestic cricket for Gauteng and the Highveld Lions. He has also played in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for Sunrisers Hyderabad, Delhi Daredevils, Royal Challengers Bangalore, and Mumbai Indians. Although he opens the batting in One Day International and T20 cricket, he primarily bats in the middle order in Test cricket. In July 2020, he was named South Africa's Men's Cricketer of the Year at Cricket South Africa's annual awards ceremony. In December 2020, in the series against Sri Lanka, de Kock captained South Africa for the first time in Test cricket.
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Ray Jablonski
Raymond Leo Jablonski (December 17, 1926 – November 25, 1985) was an American professional baseball third baseman. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for all or parts of eight MLB seasons between 1953 and 1960. A 1954 National League All-Star, Jablonski appeared in 812 games for the St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Redlegs, New York / San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Athletics. The native of Chicago, Illinois, threw and batted right-handed and was listed as 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) tall and 175 pounds (79 kg).
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Richard Long
Richard McCord Long (December 17, 1927 – December 21, 1974) was an American actor best known for his leading roles in three ABC television series, The Big Valley, Nanny and the Professor, and Bourbon Street Beat. He was also a series regular on ABC's 77 Sunset Strip during the 1961–1962 season.
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Roger L'Estrange
Sir Roger L'Estrange (17 December 1616 – 11 December 1704) was an English pamphleteer, author, courtier and press censor. Throughout his life L'Estrange was frequently mired in controversy and acted as a staunch ideological defender of King Charles II's regime during the Restoration era. His works played a key role in the emergence of a distinct 'Tory' bloc during the Exclusion Crisis of 1679–81. Perhaps his best known polemical pamphlet was An Account of the Growth of Knavery, which ruthlessly attacked the parliamentary opposition to Charles II and his successor James, Duke of York (later King James II), placing them as fanatics who misused contemporary popular anti-Catholic sentiment to attack the Restoration court and the existing social order in order to pursue their own political ends. Following the Exclusion Crisis and the failure of the nascent Whig faction to disinherit James, Duke of York in favour of Charles II's illegitimate son James, 1st Duke of Monmouth, L'Estrange used his newspaper The Observator to harangue his opponents and act as a voice for a popular provincial Toryism during the 'Tory Reaction' of 1681–85. Despite serving as an MP from 1685 to 1687 his stock fell under James II's reign as his staunch hostility to religious nonconformism conflicted with James's goals of religious tolerance for both Catholics and Nonconformists. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the collapse of the Restoration political order heralded the end of L'Estrange's career in public life, although his greatest translation work, that of Aesop's Fables, saw publication in 1692.
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Ron Geesin
Ronald Frederick Geesin (born 17 December 1943) is a Scottish musician, composer and writer known for his unusual creations and novel applications of sound. He is also well known for his collaborations with Pink Floyd and Roger Waters.
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Sam Barry
Justin McCarthy "Sam" Barry (December 17, 1892 – September 23, 1950) was an American collegiate coach who achieved significant accomplishments in three major sports - football, baseball, and basketball. He remains one of only three coaches to lead teams to both the Final Four and the College World Series. Barry, and four of his USC players (Jack Gardner, Alex Hannum, Tex Winter and Bill Sharman), have been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as coaches; Sharman was also inducted as a player.
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Sean Patrick Thomas
Sean Patrick Thomas is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Derek Reynolds in the 2001 film Save the Last Dance and as Jimmy James in Barbershop (2002), Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004), and Barbershop: The Next Cut (2016), as well as his television role as Detective Temple Page in The District and as Professor Macalester in Vixen (2015–2016).
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Sergejus Jovaiša
Sergejus Jovaiša (born 17 December 1954) is a Lithuanian former professional basketball player. He played at the shooting guard position and won the bronze medal with Lithuania national team at the 1992 Summer Olympics. He was also a member of the Soviet national team that won the bronze medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics.
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Simo Häyhä
Simo Häyhä (17 December 1905 – 1 April 2002), often referred to by his nickname The White Death, was a Finnish military sniper during the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union in World War II. He used a Finnish-produced M/28-30 rifle (a variant of the Mosin–Nagant) and a Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun. Häyhä is believed to have killed more than 500 enemy soldiers during the conflict, the highest number of sniper kills in any major war. Consequently, he is generally regarded as the deadliest sniper in history. Häyhä estimated in his private war memoir that he shot around 500 Soviet soldiers. Written in 1940, a few months after he was wounded, his Sotamuistoja (lit. 'War Memories') recounts his experiences before and during the Winter War, from 13 November 1939 to 13 March 1940. Hidden for decades, the memoir was discovered in 2017. After his death, sudden historical events—such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Finland's subsequent NATO membership—have increased interest in Häyhä. Over the years, Häyhä's cult reputation has grown not only among those interested in military history but also among various subcultures; Häyhä has found his way into the lyrics of metal bands and into Japanese manga comics.
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Simon Bates
Simon Philip Bates (born 17 December 1946) is an English disc jockey and radio presenter. Between 1976 and 1993 he worked at BBC Radio 1, presenting the station's weekday mid-morning show for most of this period. He was a regular presenter of Top of the Pops from 1979 to 1988. He was the first presenter of BBC Two's Food and Drink programme in 1982. In 1997 he became a regular presenter on Classic FM. He later hosted the breakfast show on Smooth Radio from January 2011 until March 2014, and took on the same role at BBC Radio Devon from January 2015 until January 2017. Known for his distinctive deep voice, he currently presents weekend shows in the afternoon on Boom Radio.
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Sophus Lie
Marius Sophus Lie ( LEE; Norwegian: [liː]; 17 December 1842 – 18 February 1899) was a Norwegian mathematician. He largely created the theory of continuous symmetry and applied it to the study of geometry and differential equations. He also made substantial contributions to the development of algebra.
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Suzy Batkovic
Suzy Batkovic (born 17 December 1980) is an Australian professional basketball player and politician. Suzy played her junior basketball with the Port Hunter Basketball Club in Newcastle. She has played basketball for several European clubs including the French Valenciennes, the Spanish side Ros Casares, the Russian side UMMC Ekaterinburg, and Italian side Cras Basket. In the United States, she has played for the Seattle Storm after having been selected as a first round draft pick in 2003. She has played professional basketball domestically for the Australian Institute of Sport in 1996–1999, the Sydney Uni Flames from 1999–2001, and 2009–2010, the Townsville Fire in 2001–2002, the Canberra Capitals in 2010–2011, and the Adelaide Lightning in 2011–2013; she returned to the Fire for the 2013–14 season. She has been a member of the Australia women's national basketball team, being named to the team for the first time in 1999. She won a silver medal with the team at the 2004 Summer Olympics and the 2008 Summer Olympics and a bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. After retiring from professional basketball, Batkovic was elected as a Townsville City Councillor in 2020.
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Thomas Chandler Haliburton
Thomas Chandler Haliburton (17 December 1796 – 27 August 1865) was a Nova Scotia-born judge, author, novelist, and Conservative MP in Britain. He was the first internationally bestselling fiction author from what is now Canada. He was a cousin of the pre-eminent London property developer James Burton, whose sons James Burton Junior, the Egyptologist, and Decimus Burton, the architect, hosted him in London. He was the father of the British civil servant Lord Haliburton, who was the first native Canadian to be raised to the Peerage of the United Kingdom, and of the anthropologist Robert Grant Haliburton, who founded the Canada First organization that contended that English Canadians were the "heirs of Aryan northmen" and that French Canadians were a "bar to progress".
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Thomas Tickell
Thomas Tickell (17 December 1685 – 23 April 1740) was a minor English poet and man of letters.
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Tracy Byrd
Tracy Lynn Byrd (born December 17, 1966) is an American country music artist. Signed to MCA Nashville Records in 1992, Byrd broke through on the country music scene that year with his 1993 single "Holdin' Heaven", which reached Number One on Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks. Although he did not land a second Number One until 2002's "Ten Rounds with Jose Cuervo", Byrd has charted more than thirty hit singles in his career, including eleven additional Top Ten hits. He has also released ten studio albums and two greatest-hits albums, with four gold certifications and one double-platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America. He was the on-air spokesman for the TNN Outdoors block from 1998 to 2000.
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Valery Belousov
Valery Konsantinovich Belousov (Russian: Валерий Константинович Белоусов; 17 December 1948 – 16 April 2015) was a Russian professional ice hockey coach and player.
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Vilhelm Petersen
Vilhelm Peter Carl Petersen (17 December 1812 – 25 July 1880) was a Danish landscape painter. He was one of the first Danish landscape painters to work on Bornholm and in the moorlands of Jutland. Small fishing villages were especially attractive to him.
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Vincent Damphousse
Vincent François Damphousse (DAM-fus; born December 17, 1967) is a Canadian former professional hockey player who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for 18 seasons. He primarily played centre for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Edmonton Oilers, Montreal Canadiens, and San Jose Sharks. Damphousse excelled as a junior hockey player with the Laval Voisins/Titan and was drafted as the sixth overall pick by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1986. Debuting in the NHL at nineteen in the 1986–87 season, he recorded 46 points in 80 games. In five seasons with Toronto, he had three 20-goal seasons before he was included as part of a blockbuster trade to the Edmonton Oilers in September 1991 and was traded again the following year to the Montreal Canadiens, where he had his most success. He recorded 23 points in 20 games of the 1993 Stanley Cup playoffs as the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup Final for Damphousse's first and only championship. He recorded his only 40-goal season in the 1993–94 campaign. In March 1999, the team traded him to the San Jose Sharks for a couple of draft picks. He recorded his 1,000th career point in the 2000–01 season. After six years in San Jose, he signed a free agency deal with the Colorado Avalanche before the 2004–05 NHL lockout cancelled the season. In 2005, he announced his retirement; he recorded over 400 goals and 700 assists in 1,378 games. Currently, Damphousse is a hockey analyst with the French language television network RDS in his native Quebec.
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Wendy Hoyte
Wendy Patricia Hoyte (née Clarke; born 17 December 1957) is a British former sprinter, who won a 1982 Commonwealth Games gold medal and a 1982 European Championships silver medal in the 4 x 100 metres relay. She also competed at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games. She is the holder of the United Kingdom indoor 50 m record, which she set in 1981. As of 2016, the record still stands.
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Wes Studi
Wesley Studi (Cherokee: ᏪᏌ ᏍᏚᏗ; born December 17, 1947) is a Cherokee actor and film producer. He has garnered critical acclaim and awards throughout his career, particularly for his portrayal of Native Americans in film. In 2019, he received an Academy Honorary Award, becoming the first Native American as well as the first Indigenous person from North America to be honored by the academy. Studi has appeared in Academy Award-winning films, such as Dances with Wolves (1990) and The Last of the Mohicans (1992), and in the Academy Award-nominated films Geronimo: An American Legend (1993) and The New World (2005). He is also known for portraying Sagat in Street Fighter (1994). Other films he has appeared in are Heat, Hostiles, Mystery Men, Avatar, A Million Ways to Die in the West, and the television series Penny Dreadful. In December 2020, The New York Times ranked him No. 19 in its list of the "25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century (So Far)".
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Wesley Fofana
Wesley Tidjan Fofana (born 17 December 2000) is a French professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Premier League club Chelsea.
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Wilhelmine von Wrochem
Wilhelmine von Wrochem (née Schulz; 17 December 1798 – 18 November 1839) was a German flutist, soprano opera singer and stage actress.
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Willard Libby
Willard Frank Libby (December 17, 1908 – September 8, 1980) was an American physical chemist noted for his role in the 1949 development of radiocarbon dating, a process which revolutionized archaeology and palaeontology. For his contributions to the team that developed this process, Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960. A 1931 chemistry graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, from which he received his doctorate in 1933, he studied radioactive elements and developed sensitive Geiger counters to measure weak natural and artificial radioactivity. During World War II he worked in the Manhattan Project's Substitute Alloy Materials (SAM) Laboratories at Columbia University, developing the gaseous diffusion process for uranium enrichment. After the war, Libby accepted a professorship at the University of Chicago's Institute for Nuclear Studies, where he developed the technique for dating organic compounds using carbon-14. He also discovered that tritium similarly could be used for dating water, and therefore wine. In 1950, he became a member of the General Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). He was appointed a commissioner in 1954, becoming its sole scientist. He sided with Edward Teller on pursuing a crash program to develop the hydrogen bomb, participated in the Atoms for Peace program, and defended the administration's atmospheric nuclear testing. Libby resigned from the AEC in 1959 to become professor of chemistry at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a position he held until his retirement in 1976. In 1962, he became the director of the University of California statewide Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP). He started the first Environmental Engineering program at UCLA in 1972, and as a member of the California Air Resources Board, he worked to develop and improve California's air pollution standards.
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William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King (December 17, 1874 – July 22, 1950) was the tenth prime minister of Canada for three non-consecutive terms from 1921 to 1926, 1926 to 1930, and 1935 to 1948. A Liberal, he was the dominant politician in Canada from the early 1920s to the late 1940s. With a total of 21 years and 154 days in office, he remains the longest-serving prime minister in Canadian history. King studied law and political economy in the 1890s and later obtained a PhD, the first Canadian prime minister to have done so. In 1900, he became deputy minister of the Canadian government's new Department of Labour. He entered the House of Commons in 1908 before becoming the first federal minister of labour in 1909 under Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier. After losing his seat in the 1911 federal election, King worked for the Rockefeller Foundation before briefly working as an industrial consultant. Following the death of Laurier in 1919, King won the leadership of the Liberal Party. Taking the helm of a party torn apart by the Conscription Crisis of 1917, he unified both the pro-conscription and anti-conscription factions of the party, leading it to victory in the 1921 federal election. King established a post-war agenda which lowered wartime taxes and tariffs. He sought to strengthen Canadian autonomy by refusing to support Britain in the Chanak Crisis without Parliament's consent and negotiating the Halibut Treaty with the United States without British interference. His government also passed the Chinese Immigration Act, 1923, which banned most forms of Chinese immigration to Canada. In the 1925 federal election, the Conservatives won a plurality of seats, but the Liberals negotiated support from the Progressive Party and stayed in office as a minority government. In 1926, facing a Commons vote that could force his government to resign, King asked Governor General Lord Byng to dissolve Parliament and call an election. Byng refused and invited the Conservatives to form government, who briefly held office but lost a motion of no confidence. This sequence of events triggered a major constitutional crisis, the King–Byng affair. King and the Liberals won the resulting election. Afterwards, King pursued a more independent foreign policy, including by expanding the Department of External Affairs. His government also introduced old-age pensions based on need. King's slow reaction to the Great Depression led to a defeat at the polls in the 1930 federal election. In the 1935 federal election, King's Liberal Party returned to power in a landslide victory, defeating R.B. Bennett's Conservative government whose response to the depression was unpopular. King negotiated the 1935 Canada-United States Reciprocal Trade Agreement, nationalized the Bank of Canada, and passed the 1938 National Housing Act to improve housing affordability. His government also established the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Trans-Canada Air Lines, and the National Film Board. Days after World War II broke out, King deployed Canadian troops. The Liberals' second landslide victory in the 1940 federal election allowed King to continue leading Canada through the war. Soon after, his government signed the Ogdensburg Agreement with the United States which established the Permanent Joint Board on Defense. King oversaw the internment of Japanese Canadians on the domestic front and delayed introducing overseas conscription until late 1944 to satisfy French Canadians. He also introduced unemployment insurance and family allowances—Canada's first universal welfare program. Following the Allies' victory in 1945, King called a post-war election, in which the Liberals lost their majority government. In his final years in office, King oversaw Canada's entry into the United Nations, partnered Canada with Western nations in the deepening Cold War, introduced Canadian citizenship, and successfully negotiated Newfoundland's entry into Confederation. King retired from politics in late 1948 and died of pneumonia in July 1950. He is best known for his leadership of Canada throughout the Great Depression and World War II, and he played a major role in developing the Canadian welfare state and establishing Canada's international position as a middle power. Meanwhile, King kept secret his beliefs in spiritualism and the use of mediums to stay in contact with departed associates, particularly with his mother, and allowed his intense spirituality to distort his understanding of Adolf Hitler throughout the late 1930s. Historian Jack Granatstein notes, "the scholars expressed little admiration for King the man but offered unbounded admiration for his political skills and attention to Canadian unity." In multiple surveys, scholars have ranked King among the top three Canadian prime ministers.
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William Safire
William Lewis Safire (; né Safir; December 17, 1929 – September 27, 2009) was an American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He was a long-time syndicated political columnist for The New York Times and wrote the "On Language" column in The New York Times Magazine about popular etymology, new or unusual usages, and other language-related topics.
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Émile Faguet
Auguste Émile Faguet (French pronunciation: [emil faɡɛ]; 17 December 1847 – 7 June 1916) was a French author and literary critic.
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Émilie du Châtelet
Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet (French: [emili dy ʃɑtlɛ] ; 17 December 1706 – 10 September 1749) was a French mathematician and physicist. Her most recognized achievement is her philosophical magnum opus, Institutions de Physique (Paris, 1740, first edition; Foundations of Physics). She then revised the text substantially for a second edition with the slightly modified title Institutions physiques (Paris, 1742). It circulated widely, generated heated debates, and was translated into German and Italian in 1743. The Institutions covers a wide range of topics, including the principles of knowledge, the existence of God, hypotheses, space, time, matter and the forces of nature. Several chapters treat Newton's theory of universal gravity and associated phenomena. Later in life, she translated into French, and wrote an extensive commentary on, Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. The text, published posthumously in 1756, is still considered the standard French translation to this day. Du Châtelet participated in the famous vis viva debate, concerning the best way to measure the force of a body and the best means of thinking about conservation principles. Posthumously, her ideas were represented prominently in the most famous text of the French Enlightenment, the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert, first published shortly after du Châtelet's death. She is also known as the intellectual collaborator with and romantic partner of Voltaire. In the two centuries since her death, numerous biographies, books, and plays have been written about her life and work. In the early twenty-first century, her life and ideas have generated renewed interest.
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Éric Bédard
Éric Bédard (born December 17, 1976, in Sainte-Thècle, Quebec) is a Canadian short track speed skater who has won 4 Olympic medals (2 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze). He participated in three individual events at the 2006 Winter Olympics and finished fourth in the 500 meters. He also led a team into the 5000 meter relay, winning the silver medal. He has been a longtime member of Canada's short track team and has won four medals in three Olympic games: bronze in the 1,000 meters in Nagano, and two golds and a silver in the 5,000 meter relay. He has also had a lot of success at the World Championships, capturing 10 medals, including three golds (5,000 m relay in 2005 and 1998 and 500 m in 2000). Bédard was national squad coach of Germany from 2008 until 2010. From 2010 until 2014 he coached the Italy national team. From 2018 to 2020 Bédard coached the Canadian national team. Since 2020, Bédard has worked for Nagano Skate.
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