Who was born on December 20?
December 20 is packed with notable birthdays. Explore 108 famous birthdays, sorted by recent English Wikipedia pageviews. Top ranked names include Alain de Botton, Alan Parsons, Andrea Belotti, Antoine Mbary-Daba, Anžejs Pasečņiks. Filter by actor, musician, athlete, and more — or open any other calendar day.
December 20
108 people
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Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton (; born 20 December 1969) is a British author and public speaker. His books discuss various contemporary subjects and themes, emphasizing philosophy's relevance to everyday life. He published Essays in Love (1993), which went on to sell two million copies. Other bestsellers include How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997), Status Anxiety (2004), and The Architecture of Happiness (2006). He co-founded The School of Life in 2008 and Living Architecture in 2009. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2011. In 2015, he was awarded "The Fellowship of Schopenhauer", an annual writers' award from the Melbourne Writers Festival, for that work.
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Alan Parsons
Alan Parsons (born 20 December 1948) is an English audio engineer, songwriter, musician, singer and record producer. Parsons was the sound engineer on albums including the Beatles' Abbey Road (1969) and Let It Be (1970), Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (1973), and the eponymous debut album by Ambrosia in 1975. Parsons's own group, The Alan Parsons Project, as well as his subsequent solo recordings, have also been commercially successful. He has been nominated for 13 Grammy Awards, with his first win occurring in 2019 for Best Immersive Audio Album for Eye in the Sky (35th Anniversary Edition).
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Andrea Belotti
Andrea Belotti (Italian pronunciation: [anˈdrɛːa beˈlɔtti]; born 20 December 1993) is an Italian professional footballer who plays as a striker. Belotti started his career with AlbinoLeffe. He was later signed by Palermo, where he won a Serie B title in the 2013–14 season, before being joining Torino in 2015. Belotti left the club in 2022 as their eighth-highest goalscorer of all time, and joined Roma on a free transfer. A former Italy under-19, under-20 and under-21 international, Belotti took part in the UEFA European Under-21 Championship in 2015. He made his debut with the senior national team in 2016 and was included in the Italy squad that won UEFA Euro 2020.
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Antoine Mbary-Daba
Antoine Mbary-Daba (20 December 1932 - c. 1997) was a Central African politician, bureaucrat, and diplomat.
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Anžejs Pasečņiks
Anžejs Pasečņiks (Latvian pronunciation: ['an.ʒɛ͡is 'pa.sɛt͡ʃ.ɲiks]; born 20 December 1995) is a Latvian professional basketball player for the Hsinchu Toplus Lioneers of the Taiwan Professional Basketball League (TPBL).
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Arthur Lee
Arthur Lee (20 December 1740 – 12 December 1792) was an American physician, diplomat, and abolitionist who was born in the British Colony of Virginia. He helped negotiate and signed the 1778 Treaty of Alliance with France, along with Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, which allied France and the United States in fighting the war. Lee was educated in medicine and law at respectively the University of Edinburgh and in London. After passing the bar, he practiced law in London for several years. He stayed in London during the American Revolutionary War, represented the colonies to Britain and France, and served as an American spy to track their activities. After his return to Virginia, he served as a delegate to the Continental Congress.
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Arturo Márquez
Arturo Márquez Navarro (born 20 December 1950) is a Mexican composer of orchestral music who uses musical forms and styles of his native Mexico and incorporates them into his compositions. His best known work is Danzón No. 2.
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Aziz Nesin
Aziz Nesin (pronounced [ˈaziz ˈne.sin]; born Mehmet Nusret,¶ 20 December 1915 – 6 July 1995) was a Turkish writer, humorist and the author of more than 100 books. Born in a time when Turks did not have official surnames, he had to adopt one after the Surname Law of 1934 was passed. Although his family carried the nickname "Topalosmanoğlu", after an ancestor named "Topal Osman", he chose the surname "Nesin". In Turkish, Nesin? means, What are you?.
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Bartosz Bosacki
Bartosz Bosacki (born 20 December 1975) is a Polish former professional footballer who played as a centre-back.
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Benito Lorenzi
Benito "Veleno" Lorenzi (Italian pronunciation: [beˈniːto veˈleːno loˈrɛntsi]; 20 December 1925 – 3 March 2007) was an Italian footballer born in Borgo a Buggiano, province of Pistoia. He played as a striker.
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Beverly Pepper
Beverly Pepper (née Stoll; December 20, 1922 – February 5, 2020) was an American sculptor known for her monumental works, site specific and land art. She remained independent from any particular art movement. She lived in Italy, primarily in Todi, since the 1950s.
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Bill O'Reilly
William Joseph O'Reilly (20 December 1905 – 6 October 1992) was an Australian cricketer, rated as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game. Following his retirement from playing, he became a well-respected cricket writer and broadcaster. O'Reilly was one of the best spin bowlers ever to play cricket. He delivered the ball from a two-fingered grip at close to medium pace with great accuracy, and could produce leg breaks, googlies, and top spinners, with no discernible change in his action. A tall man for a spinner (around 188 cm, 6 ft 2 in), he whirled his arms to an unusual extent and had a low point of delivery that meant it was very difficult for the batsman to read the flight of the ball out of his hand. When O'Reilly died, Sir Donald Bradman said that he was the greatest bowler he had ever faced or watched. In 1935, Wisden wrote of him: "O'Reilly was one of the best examples in modern cricket of what could be described as a 'hostile' bowler." In 1939, Wisden reflected on Bill O'Reilly's successful 1938 Ashes tour of England: "He is emphatically one of the greatest bowlers of all time." As a batsman, O'Reilly was a competent right-hander, usually batting well down the order. O'Reilly's citation as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1935 said: "He had no pretensions to grace of style or any particular merit, but he could hit tremendously hard and was always a menace to tired bowlers." As well as his skill, O'Reilly was also known for his competitiveness, and he bowled with the aggression of a paceman. In a short biographical essay on O'Reilly for the Barclays World of Cricket book, contemporary England cricketer Ian Peebles wrote that "any scoring-stroke was greeted by a testy demand for the immediate return of the ball rather than a congratulatory word. Full well did he deserve his sobriquet of 'Tiger'."
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Billy Bragg
Stephen William Bragg (born 20 December 1957) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, author and political activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, with lyrics that mostly span political or romantic themes. His activism is centred on social change and left-wing political causes.
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Bob Morley
Robert Alfred Morley (born 20 December 1984) is an Australian actor. He is known for his role as Bellamy Blake in The CW's The 100 (2014–2020). He first became known as Drew Curtis in the Australian soap opera Home and Away (2006), appeared on the Australian music talent show It Takes Two in 2007, and joined the cast of drama series The Strip in 2008. He played Aidan Foster in Neighbours from 2011 to 2013, and starred in the Australian sports drama film Blinder in 2013.
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Branch Rickey
Wesley Branch Rickey (December 20, 1881 – December 9, 1965) was an American professional baseball catcher, manager, sports executive, and team owner. He was instrumental in breaking the baseball color line by signing black player Jackie Robinson. He also created the framework for the modern minor league farm system, encouraged the major leagues to add new teams through his involvement in the proposed Continental League, introduced the batting helmet, and created the standard 20-80 scouting scale. He was posthumously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967. Rickey played 4 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis Browns and New York Highlanders. After struggling as a player, Rickey returned to college, graduating from the University of Michigan. Back in the major leagues in 1913, he embarked on a successful career variously as a manager, executive, and owner, starting with the St. Louis Browns, then the St. Louis Cardinals, Brooklyn Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates. The Cardinals elected him to their team Hall of Fame in 2014. Rickey also had a career in football, as a player for the professional Shelby Blues and as a coach at Ohio Wesleyan University and Allegheny College. He received the nickname "Mahatma" after sportswriter Tom Meany read an article describing Mahatma Gandhi as a combination of "your father and Tammany Hall."
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Calvin Ridley
Calvin Orin Ridley (born December 20, 1994) is an American professional football wide receiver for the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Alabama Crimson Tide, where he was a part of the national championship-winning teams in 2015 and 2017. Drafted by the Atlanta Falcons in the first round of the 2018 NFL draft, he was named to the PFWA All-Rookie Team and earned second-team All-Pro honors in 2020. After announcing midway through the 2021 season that he would be stepping away from football due to mental health reasons, it was later revealed that Ridley would be suspended indefinitely through at least the conclusion of the 2022 season for violating the league's gambling policy. While suspended, he was traded from the Atlanta Falcons to the Jacksonville Jaguars and was reinstated the following year.
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Charley Grapewin
Charles Ellsworth Grapewin (December 20, 1869 – February 2, 1956) was an American vaudeville and circus performer, writer, and stage and film actor. As a character actor, he worked in over one-hundred motion pictures during the silent and sound eras, mostly as a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player during the 1930s and is best known to modern audiences for portraying Uncle Henry in MGM's film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz (1939), "Grandpa" William James Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Jeeter Lester in Tobacco Road (1941), Uncle Salters in Captains Courageous (1937), Gramp Maple in The Petrified Forest (1936), Wang's Father in The Good Earth (1937), and California Joe in They Died With Their Boots On (1941).
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Charlie Callas
Charlie Callas (born Charles Callias; December 20, 1927 – January 27, 2011) was an American actor and comedian. He was most commonly known for his work with Mel Brooks, Jerry Lewis, and Dean Martin, and his many stand-up appearances on television talk shows in the 1970s. He was also known for his role as Malcolm Argos, the restaurant owner and former con man, on the Eddie Albert and Robert Wagner television series Switch (1975–1978). Callas was also known as the voice of Elliott the Dragon in Disney's live-action/animated musical film Pete's Dragon (1977).
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Chay Genoway
Charles "Chay" Genoway (born December 20, 1986) is a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman. He is currently playing with EC Red Bull Salzburg of the ICE Hockey League (ICEHL). He was selected and played for the Canadian men's ice hockey team at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
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David Bohm
David Joseph Bohm (; 20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was an American physicist who has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th century and who contributed unorthodox ideas to quantum theory, neuropsychology and the philosophy of mind. Among his many contributions to physics is his causal and deterministic interpretation of quantum theory known as De Broglie–Bohm theory. Bohm advanced the view that quantum physics meant that the old Cartesian model of reality—that there are two kinds of substance, the mental and the physical, that somehow interact—was too limited. To complement it, he developed a mathematical and physical theory of "implicate" and "explicate" order. He also believed that the brain, at the cellular level, works according to the mathematics of some quantum effects, and postulated that thought is distributed and non-localised just as quantum entities are. Bohm's main concern was with understanding the nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular as a coherent whole, which according to Bohm is never static or complete. Bohm warned of the dangers of rampant reason and technology, advocating instead the need for genuine supportive dialogue, which he claimed could bridge and unify conflicting and troublesome divisions in the social world. Born in the United States, Bohm obtained his Ph.D. under J. Robert Oppenheimer at the University of California, Berkeley. Due to his Communist affiliations, he was the subject of a federal government investigation in 1949, leading to his suspension from Princeton University and prompting him to leave the U.S. He pursued his career in several countries, becoming first a Brazilian and then a British citizen. He abandoned Marxism in the wake of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956.
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De'Aaron Fox
De'Aaron Martez Fox (born December 20, 1997) is an American professional basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Kentucky Wildcats before being selected fifth overall by the Sacramento Kings in the 2017 NBA draft. Fox had a breakout season in 2023, earning his first All-Star selection, an All-NBA Team nod, and was named NBA Clutch Player of the Year while leading the Kings to their first postseason berth since 2006. He also led the league in steals in 2024. Traded to the Spurs at the 2025 trade deadline, Fox earned his second All-Star selection in 2026 and reached the NBA Finals with the team later that season.
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Dennis Morgan
Dennis Morgan (born Earl Stanley Morner; December 20, 1908 – September 7, 1994) was an American actor-singer. He used the acting pseudonym Richard Stanley before adopting the name under which he gained his greatest fame. According to one obituary, he was "a twinkly-eyed handsome charmer with a shy smile and a pleasant tenor voice in carefree and inconsequential Warner Bros musicals of the forties, accompanied by Jack Carson." Another said, "for all his undoubted star potential, Morgan was perhaps cast once too often as the likeable, clean-cut, easy-going but essentially uncharismatic young man who typically loses his girl to someone more sexually magnetic." David Shipman said he "was comfortable, good-looking, well-mannered: the antithesis of the gritty Bogart."
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Die
Dir En Grey (stylized as DIR EN GREY and previously as Dir en grey) is a Japanese heavy metal band formed in February 1997 and currently signed to Firewall Div., a sub-division of Free-Will. With a consistent lineup of vocalist Kyo, guitarists Kaoru and Die, bassist Toshiya, and drummer Shinya, they have released twelve full-length albums. Numerous stylistic changes have made the genre of their music difficult to determine, though it is generally considered to be a form of metal. Originally a visual kei band, the members later opted for more subtle attire, but have continued to maintain a dramatic image on stage.
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Don Sunderlage
Don J. Sunderlage (December 20, 1929 – July 15, 1961) was an American basketball player. A 6'1" point guard from Roselle, Illinois, Sunderlage played collegiately at the University of Illinois, earning the Chicago Tribune Silver Basketball award in 1951. From 1953 to 1955, he played in the National Basketball Association as a member of the Milwaukee Hawks and Minneapolis Lakers. He averaged 7.7 points per game in his career and represented the Hawks at the 1954 NBA All-Star Game.
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Doug Nordquist
Douglas Nordquist (born December 20, 1958, in San Gabriel, California) is a retired male high jumper from the United States, who competed at the 1984 Summer Olympics where he ended up in fifth place with a jump of 2.29 metres, one place behind distant cousin Dwight Stones. He was TAC high jump champion in 1986 and 1988, and placed second at the 1984 Olympic Trials behind Stones. He competed for Sonora High School, finishing a three-way tie for third place at the 1977 CIF California State Meet. While at Fullerton Community College he won the 1979 California Community College Championships, Washington State University where he was coached by 1968 Olympian Rick Sloan. After graduation he was coached by Jim Kiefer and competed for and Tiger International. He was a practitioner of Washington State's specialized weight training for high jumpers He set his personal record of 2.36m while finishing second in a jumpoff at the USATF National Championships at Cerritos College in Norwalk, California on June 15, 1990. Alan Hankle and Athleticorp was his coach. That jump currently ranks Nordquist tied as the 25th best performer in history. For his athletic achievements, Nordquist was inducted into the Washington State University Hall of Fame in 2015 and was an inaugural inductee to the Fullerton College Track and Field Wall of Fame in 2019. Doug Nordquist was a highly decorated director for the California High School Entertainment Unit, winning first place awards with the band. Nordquist retired from teaching at the end of the 2019–2020 school year and was honored as the Whittier Teacher of the Year, an award previously given to his father in 1986. His personal bests in the event are 2.36 metres outdoors (Norwalk 1990) and 2.31 metres indoors (Genk 1987). 1993 at age 34, Nordquist competed at the Masters level winning high jump. Nordquist competed at the 1993 Masters National Outdoor Championship, winning the M30 high jump.
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Edwin Abbott Abbott
Edwin Abbott Abbott (20 December 1838 – 12 October 1926) was an English schoolmaster, theologian, and Anglican priest, best known as the author of the novella Flatland (1884).
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Elsie de Wolfe
Elsie de Wolfe, Lady Mendl (born Ella Anderson de Wolfe; December 20, c. 1859 – July 12, 1950) was an American actress who became a prominent interior designer and author. Born in New York City, de Wolfe was acutely sensitive to her surroundings from her earliest years and became one of the first female interior decorators, replacing dark and ornate Victorian decor with lighter, simpler styles and uncluttered room layouts. Her 1926 marriage to English diplomat Sir Charles Mendl was seen as a marriage of convenience, although she was proud to be called Lady Mendl. Since 1892, de Wolfe had been living openly in a lesbian relationship with Elisabeth Marbury, with whom she lived in New York and Paris. Lady Mendl was a prominent social figure, and she entertained in the most distinguished circles.
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Erik Almlöf
Erik Albin Almlöf (20 December 1891 – 18 January 1971) was a Swedish athlete who specialized in the triple jump. He competed at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, where he won the bronze medal. Due to World War I no Olympics were held in 1916, but Almlöf returned to the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, where he won his second Olympic bronze medal.
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Facundo Pellistri
Facundo Pellistri Rebollo (Spanish pronunciation: [faˈkundo peˈlistɾi]; born 20 December 2001) is a Uruguayan professional footballer who plays as a winger for Greek Super League club Panathinaikos and the Uruguay national team. Born in Montevideo, Pellistri is a graduate of Peñarol's youth system. He made 37 first-team appearances for the club and was named in the Uruguayan Primera División Team of the Season in 2019. He transferred to Manchester United in October 2020, for a fee of £9 million. After joining United, he had two loan spells at Spanish club Alavés, where he made 35 appearances in total, before a further loan spell at fellow La Liga side Granada in 2024. He joined Panathinaikos F.C. for a fee of around £5.1 million in August 2024. Pellistri represented Uruguay at under-16 level, before making his senior international debut in January 2022. He played for Uruguay at the 2022 FIFA World Cup and the 2024 Copa América.
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Ferdinand Bonn
Ferdinand Bonn (20 December 1861 – 24 September 1933) was a German stage and film actor. Bonn was born in Donauwörth, Kingdom of Bavaria and died at age 71 in Berlin.
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Ferdinand Buisson
Ferdinand Édouard Buisson (French pronunciation: [fɛʁdinɑ̃ edwaʁ bɥisɔ̃]; 20 December 1841 – 16 February 1932) was a French educational public servant, pacifist, and Radical-Socialist (left liberal) politician. He presided over the League of Education from 1902 to 1906 and over the Human Rights League (LDH) from 1914 to 1926. In 1927, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to him jointly with Ludwig Quidde. A philosopher and educator, he was Director of Primary Education. He was the author of a thesis on Sebastian Castellio, in whom he saw a "liberal Protestant" in his image. Ferdinand Buisson was the president of the National Association of Freethinkers. In 1905, he chaired the parliamentary committee to implement the separation of church and state. Famous for his fight for secular education through the League of Education, he coined the term laïcité ("secularism").
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Gaboro
Ninos Moses Khouri (20 December 2000 – 19 December 2024), better known as Gaboro, was a Swedish rapper and songwriter. Gaboro was considered a rising star in the Swedish hip-hop scene. He wore a distinct black ski mask featuring the Syriac-Aramean eagle, representing his ethnicity, along with sunglasses in his music videos, which became his trademark image. He was murdered in a gang shooting in his hometown in December 2024.
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Gavin McKenna
Gavin McKenna (born December 20, 2007) is a Canadian professional ice hockey player who is a forward for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL). McKenna was selected by the Maple Leafs with the first-overall pick in the 2026 NHL entry draft. He played college hockey for the Penn State Nittany Lions. McKenna also played three seasons, from 2022 to 2025, in the Western Hockey League (WHL) with the Medicine Hat Tigers.
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Geoffrey Howe
Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe, Baron Howe of Aberavon, (20 December 1926 – 9 October 2015), known from 1970 to 1992 as Sir Geoffrey Howe, was a British barrister and politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1989 to 1990. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Margaret Thatcher's longest-serving Cabinet minister, successively holding the posts of chancellor of the Exchequer, foreign secretary, and finally leader of the House of Commons, deputy prime minister and lord president of the Council. His resignation from Cabinet on 1 November 1990 is widely considered to have precipitated the leadership challenge that led to Thatcher's resignation three weeks later. Born in Port Talbot, Wales, Howe was educated at Bridgend Preparatory School, Abberley Hall School, Winchester College, and – after serving in the army as a lieutenant – Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he read law. He was called to the bar in 1952 and practised in Wales, after which he was elected as the Conservative member of Parliament (MP) for Bebington in 1964, but lost his seat in 1966, returning to the bar. Howe became an MP again at the 1970 general election and represented various constituencies in the House of Commons until 1992. In Edward Heath's government, he was solicitor general and a minister of state; after Labour's victory in 1974, Howe became the shadow chancellor of the Exchequer in Margaret Thatcher's shadow cabinet. Howe became Chancellor of the Exchequer upon Thatcher's victory in the 1979 general election, with his tenure characterised by a programme of radical policies with the stated intent to restore the public finances, reduce inflation and liberalise the economy. As chancellor, Howe delivered five budgets. After the 1983 general election, Howe was appointed foreign secretary, serving six years. In 1989, Thatcher replaced Howe with John Major, giving Howe the role of deputy prime minister. He resigned from the government on 1 November 1990; in his resignation letter, he criticised Thatcher's handling of relations with the EEC and further attacked Thatcher in his resignation speech to the Commons on 13 November. The speech was widely seen as the key catalyst for the leadership challenge mounted by Michael Heseltine a few days later, which led to Thatcher's resignation and her replacement by Major. Howe retired as an MP in 1992 and was made a life peer in June of that year. Following his retirement from the Commons, Howe took on several non-executive directorships in business and advisory posts in law and academia. He retired from the House of Lords in May 2015 and died in October of the same year, aged 88.
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George Coupland
George Michael Coupland FRS (born 20 December 1959, in Dumfries) is a Scottish plant scientist, and Research Scientist and Director of the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research.
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George Roy Hill
George Roy Hill (December 20, 1921 – December 27, 2002) was an American film director. His films include Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973), both starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Both films also earned him nominations for the Academy Award for Best Director; he won for the latter. Hill also directed The World of Henry Orient (1964), Hawaii (1966), Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), Slaughterhouse-Five (1972), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), Slap Shot (1977), A Little Romance (1979), The World According to Garp (1982) and his final film Funny Farm (1988). According to one obituary "few directors achieved such fame and success... even fewer enjoyed such eminence for such a short period of time."
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Gigliola Cinquetti
Gigliola Cinquetti (Italian pronunciation: [dʒiʎˈʎɔːla tʃiŋˈkwetti]; born Giliola Cinquetti, 20 December 1947) is an Italian singer, songwriter and television presenter.
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Harry F. Byrd Jr.
Harry Flood Byrd Jr. (December 20, 1914 – July 30, 2013) was an American newspaper publisher, white supremacist and politician. He served in the Senate of Virginia and then represented Virginia in the United States Senate, succeeding his father, Harry F. Byrd Sr. His public service spanned 36 years, while he was a publisher of several Virginia newspapers. After the decline of the Byrd Organization due to its massive resistance to racial integration of public schools, he abandoned the Democratic Party in 1970, citing concern about its leftward tilt. He rehabilitated his political career, becoming the first independent in the history of the U.S. Senate to be elected by a majority of the popular vote.
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Harvey Samuel Firestone
Harvey Samuel Firestone Sr. (December 20, 1868 – February 7, 1938) was an American businessman, and the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, one of the first global makers of automobile tires.
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Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman
Hazel Virginia Hotchkiss Wightman, CBE (née Hotchkiss; December 20, 1886 – December 5, 1974) was an American tennis player and founder of the Wightman Cup, an annual team competition for British and American women. She dominated American women's tennis before World War I and won 45 U.S. titles during her life.
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Henry Kimball Hadley
Henry Kimball Hadley (20 December 1871 – 6 September 1937) was an American composer and conductor.
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Hortense Calisher
Hortense Calisher (December 20, 1911 – January 13, 2009) was an American writer of fiction and the second female president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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Israel Castro
Israel Castro Macías (born 20 December 1980) is a Mexican former professional footballer who played as a defensive midfielder.
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Jan Čaloun
Jan Čaloun (born 20 December 1972) is a Czech former professional hockey player. He is 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) tall, 80 kg (180 lb) in weight. He shoots right and plays right wing. He was drafted by the San Jose Sharks in the fourth round, 75th overall in the 1992 NHL entry draft. Čaloun experienced success at the minor pro level, playing for the Kansas City Blades and Kentucky Thoroughblades, but was unable to make the big jump to the NHL. However, he did manage to score goals on his first four shots while playing for the Sharks. In 1998 he was a member of the Czech Olympic Team, which won the gold medal in Nagano.
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Jarrod Bowen
Jarrod Bowen (born 20 December 1996) is an English professional footballer who plays as a right winger or forward for EFL Championship club West Ham United and the England national team. He previously played for Hereford United and Hull City, earning a total of 131 appearances and 54 goals for the latter, before joining then-Premier League side West Ham in January 2020, making his debut in February of that year.
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Jean Marchand
Jean Marchand (December 20, 1918 – August 28, 1988) was a Québécois public figure, trade unionist and politician in Quebec, Canada.
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Jenny Agutter
Jennifer Ann Agutter (born 20 December 1952) is an English actress. She began her career as a child actress in 1964, appearing in East of Sudan, Star!, and two adaptations of The Railway Children: the BBC's 1968 television serial and the 1970 film version. In 1971 she also starred in the critically acclaimed film Walkabout and the TV film The Snow Goose, for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama. She relocated to the United States in 1974 to pursue a Hollywood career and subsequently appeared in Logan's Run (1976), Amy (1981), An American Werewolf in London (1981), and Child's Play 2 (1990). During the same period, Agutter continued appearing in high-profile British films, such as The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Equus (1977)—for which she won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role—and The Riddle of the Sands (1979). In 1981, she co-starred in The Survivor, an Australian adaptation of the James Herbert novel by that name, and was nominated for an AACTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. After returning to Britain in the early 1990s to pursue family life, Agutter shifted her focus to television, appearing in the 2000 version of the television adaptation of The Railway Children, this time as the mother, and since 2012 she has had an ongoing role in the BBC's Call the Midwife. Her film work in recent years includes The Avengers (2012) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), and in 2022, Agutter returned to the world of The Railway Children once more by reprising her role from the 1970 film 52 years later in a sequel, The Railway Children Return. Agutter is widowed, and has one adult son. She supports several charitable causes, mostly ones related to cystic fibrosis, a condition from which her niece suffers, and for her service to those causes was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours.
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JoJo
Joanna Noëlle "JoJo" Levesque (la-VEK; born December 20, 1990) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She began performing in singing competitions and local talent shows as a child. In 2003, record producer Vincent Herbert noticed her after she competed on the television show America's Most Talented Kids and asked her to audition for his record label Blackground Records. After signing with the label, JoJo released her debut album JoJo in 2004. It peaked at number four on the U.S. Billboard 200 and was later certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), selling over four million copies worldwide to date. With her debut single "Leave (Get Out)" peaking atop the U.S. Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart, JoJo, aged just 13 at release, became the youngest solo artist in history to top the chart. The song peaked at 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified gold by the RIAA along with its follow-up single "Baby It's You". Her second studio album The High Road (2006) spawned her first top-five Hot 100 hit "Too Little Too Late". The album was later certified gold, selling over three million copies worldwide. By 2007, JoJo had sold more than seven million records worldwide, including 2.1 million albums in the United States. Record label disputes delayed JoJo from commercially releasing her third studio album; she released two mixtapes independently, Can't Take That Away from Me (2010) and Agápē (2012). After her contractual release, JoJo signed with Atlantic Records in 2014 and released her first commercial EP III (2015), followed by her third studio album Mad Love (2016), which became her third top-ten album in the U.S. She left Atlantic in 2017 and founded her record label Clover Music through a joint venture with Warner Records, where she re-recorded and re-released her debut and second albums as the label's first project in 2018. In 2020, JoJo released her fourth and fifth studio albums Good to Know and December Baby, followed by her sixth studio album Trying Not to Think About It in 2021. In addition to her music career, JoJo has also pursued an acting career. In 2006, she made her on-screen feature film debut in Aquamarine and later starred in R.V.. She has also had guest appearances on the television shows The Bernie Mac Show (2002), American Dreams (2004), Romeo! (2006), Hawaii Five-0 (2011) and Lethal Weapon (2017). Other films JoJo has appeared in include the Lifetime Television film True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet (2008) and G.B.F. (2013). Her Broadway credits include starring in Moulin Rouge! The Musical.
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Joel Gretsch
Joel Gretsch (born December 20, 1963) is an American actor. His credits include The 4400 (2004–2007), Taken (2002), V (2009–2011), Friends (1995), Saved by the Bell: The New Class (1994), JAG (1999), Silk Stalkings, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, Burn Notice, NCIS, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Journeyman, The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), Minority Report (2002), The Emperor's Club (2002), National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007), The Vampire Diaries (2016–2017), and All Rise (2020).
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John Hillerman
John Benedict Hillerman (December 20, 1932 – November 9, 2017) was an American actor best known for his starring role as Jonathan Quayle Higgins III on the television series Magnum, P.I. that aired from 1980 to 1988. For his role as Higgins, Hillerman earned five Golden Globe nominations, winning in 1981, and four Emmy nominations, winning in 1987. He retired from acting in 1999.
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John III of Sweden
John III (Swedish: Johan III; 20 December 1537 – 17 November 1592) was King of Sweden from 1569 until his death. He ascended the Swedish throne after successfully rebelling against his older half-brother Erik XIV. He is mainly remembered for his attempts to close the gap between the newly established Lutheran Church of Sweden and the Catholic Church, as well as his conflict with and possible murder of his brother. John was also, quite autonomously, the Duke of Finland from 1556 to 1563. In 1581, he assumed the title Grand Duke of Finland. His first wife was Catherine Jagiellon of the Polish–Lithuanian ruling family, and their son Sigismund eventually ascended both the Polish–Lithuanian and Swedish thrones. He ended the Northern Seven Years' War, but instead, Sweden was drawn into the 25 Years' War with Russia, where minor gains were eventually made. He worked for closer relations with Poland. John III was interested in religion and culture. During his reign, he countered the growing Lutheran tendencies of the Church of Sweden under the influence of Duke Charles, and worked for a reunion with the Catholic Church and the Pope in Rome. John III was the son of King Gustav I of Sweden and his second wife Margaret Leijonhufvud. He was the brother of Charles IX and Magnus Vasa and half-brother of Erik XIV. He was married from 4 October 1562 to Catherine Jagiellon (1526–1583), with whom he had a daughter Anna Vasa in addition to Sigismund, and from 21 February 1585 to Gunilla Johansdotter (Bielke) (1568–1597).
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John Menkes
John Hans Menkes (December 20, 1928 – November 22, 2008) was an Austrian-American pediatric neurologist and author of fictional novels and plays. He identified two inherited diseases: maple syrup urine disease which is a defect in amino acid metabolism, and a defect in copper transport which bears his name. In addition to a career in academic medicine, he pursued a career in writing, publishing novels and plays.
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John Sarkander
Jan Sarkander (Czech and Polish: Jan Sarkander) (20 December 1576 – 17 March 1620) was a Polish-Czech Roman Catholic priest. Sarkander was married for a short period of time before he became widowed and pursued a path to the priesthood where he became active in defence of Catholicism during a period of anti-Catholic sentiment and conflict. He himself was arrested on false accusations as a means of silencing him and he refused to give in to his tormenters who tortured him for around a month before he died. Pope Pius IX beatified Sarkander at Saint Peter's Basilica in 1860 and Pope John Paul II canonized him as a saint in 1995 on his visit to the Czech Republic.
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Jonah Hill
Jonah Hill (born Jonah Hill Feldstein; December 20, 1983) is an American actor and filmmaker. Hill ranked 28th on Forbes's list of highest-paid actors from June 2014 to June 2015, at $16 million. Among his accolades are nominations for two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. Hill had comedic roles in films including The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Knocked Up (2007), Superbad (2007), Get Him to the Greek (2010), 21 Jump Street (2012), This Is the End (2013), and 22 Jump Street (2014). For his performances in Moneyball (2011) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He also had roles in Cyrus (2010), War Dogs (2016), Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (2018), and Don't Look Up (2021). Hill voiced characters in the animated films Horton Hears a Who! (2008), the How to Train Your Dragon franchise (2010–2019), Megamind (2010), The Lego Movie franchise (2014–2019), and Sausage Party (2016). As a screenwriter, he contributed to the stories of 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street, Sausage Party, Why Him? (2016), and You People (2023). He starred in the Netflix miniseries Maniac (2018) and made his directorial debut with the film Mid90s (2018), for which he also wrote the screenplay. He directed and produced the documentary Stutz (2022).
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Joseph ha-Kohen
Joseph ben Joshua ben Meïr ha-Kohen (1496–1575/80) was a Jewish physician, historian and Renaissance scholar.
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Kan'ichi Asakawa
Kan'ichi Asakawa (朝河 貫一, Asakawa Kan'ichi; December 20, 1873 – August 11, 1948) was a Japanese academic, author, historian, curator and peace advocate. Asakawa was Japanese by birth and citizenship though he lived the majority of his life in the United States.
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Karl Wendlinger
Karl Wendlinger (German pronunciation: [kaʁl ˈvɛndlɪŋɐ]; born 20 December 1968) is an Austrian professional racing and former Formula One driver.
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Kathryn Joosten
Kathryn Joosten (née Rausch; December 20, 1939 – June 2, 2012) was an American actress. Her best known roles include Delores Landingham on NBC's The West Wing from 1999 to 2002 and Karen McCluskey on ABC's Desperate Housewives from 2005 to 2012, for which she won two Primetime Emmy Awards in 2005 and 2008.
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Khalid Ibadulla
Khalid "Billy" Ibadulla (20 December 1935 – 12 July 2024) was a Pakistani-New Zealander cricketer, cricket coach and umpire who later worked as a cricket commentator for TVNZ. He represented Pakistan four times at Test match level between 1964 and 1967, and was the first Pakistani to play in the County Championship. Khalid Ibadulla was born in Lahore, the youngest of six children. His father, Masood, had been a noted field hockey player. He was introduced to cricket at the Lahore Gymkhana Club by his elder brother, and was attracted by the aesthetic beauty of the game. At Mozang High School, he was coached by former first-class wicket-keeper Nissar Ahmed.
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Knut Wicksell
Johan Gustaf Knut Wicksell (December 20, 1851 – May 3, 1926) was a Swedish economist of the Stockholm school. He was professor at Uppsala University and Lund University. He made contributions to theories of population, value, capital and money, as well as methodological contributions to econometrics. His economic contributions would influence both the Keynesian and Austrian schools of economic thought. He was married to the noted feminist Anna Bugge.
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Konstantinos Dovas
Konstantinos Dovas (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Δόβας; 20 December 1898 – 24 July 1973) was a Greek general and interim Prime Minister. Dovas was born in Konitsa, in the Janina Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire (present-day northwestern Greece). In 1918, Dovas graduated from the Hellenic Military Academy. During the Greek Civil War between the government and the communist Democratic Army of Greece, he led the resistance of the Konitsa garrison during the Battle of Konitsa. Subsequently, he rose from the rank of Lieutenant General (1954) to Chief of the Hellenic National Defense General Staff. During his term of office, on 25 March 1955 an agreement between the Army and the CIA on the establishment of a special force entitled "Sheepskin" was made, which subsequently became the Greek component of Gladio, a secret organisation of NATO, CIA and MI6. After his retirement from the army, he was Chief of the Royal Household of King Paul of Greece. From 20 September to 4 November 1961, Dovas was prime minister in a transitional government. Following the 1967 coup d'etat, he was part of a failed counter-coup planned by King Constantine II.
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Ksenia Makarova
Ksenia Olegovna Makarova (Russian: Ксения Олеговна Макарова, born 20 December 1992) is a retired Russian, later an American, figure skater. She is the 2010 Skate Canada International silver medalist, 2009 Cup of Nice champion, and 2010 Russian national champion. She represented Russia at the 2010 Winter Olympics, where she placed 10th.
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Kylian Mbappé
Kylian Mbappé Lottin (French pronunciation: [kiljan mbape lɔtɛ̃]; born 20 December 1998) is a French professional footballer who plays as a forward for La Liga club Real Madrid and captains the France national team. Widely regarded as one of the best players in the world and one of the greatest French players of all time, he is known for his pace, dribbling, and finishing. Mbappé has scored over 400 goals in his senior career, ranking as the all-time top goalscorer for Paris Saint-Germain (256), the France national team (66), and the FIFA World Cup (22). Born in Paris and raised in Bondy, Mbappé began his senior career in 2015 with Monaco, where he won the 2016–17 Ligue 1 title, the club's first league title in 17 years. In 2017, at age 18, he signed for Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) on an eventual permanent transfer worth €180 million, making him the second-most-expensive player in the world. He won 15 trophies with PSG, including six Ligue 1 titles and four Coupes de France, and helped them reach the Champions League final in 2020. He also finished as the league's top goalscorer a record six times, and won Ligue 1 Player of the Year a record five times. In 2024, Mbappé joined Real Madrid on a free transfer. In his debut season, he scored in the UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Intercontinental Cup as Madrid won both titles. He won the European Golden Shoe in 2025. He was the top scorer in La Liga in 2025 and 2026, and in the Champions League in 2026. Mbappé made his senior debut for France in 2017. At the 2018 FIFA World Cup, he became the second teenager, after Pelé, to score in a World Cup final and win the World Cup, being honoured as the World Cup Best Young Player and French Player of the Year. He helped France win the UEFA Nations League in 2021, ranking as top scorer in the finals. At the 2022 World Cup, Mbappé led France to a second consecutive final, in which he scored a hat-trick. He set the record for most goals scored in World Cup finals (4), and won the tournament's Golden Boot and Silver Ball. At the 2026 World Cup, Mbappé won the Golden Boot as his 10 goals made him the third-highest scorer in a single World Cup, tied with Gerd Müller. Mbappé also became the first player to win multiple World Cup Golden Boots. Mbappé was runner-up for The Best FIFA Men's Player in 2022, and finished third for the 2023 Ballon d'Or. He has been the UEFA Champions League top scorer in a season twice and was awarded IFFHS World's Best Top Goal Scorer twice. He has been named in the FIFPRO World 11 six times and the IFFHS Men's World Team five times. He was awarded the Golden Boy in 2017 and the Kopa Trophy in 2018. During the 2021–22 season, he became the first player to finish as both the Ligue 1 top scorer and the top assist provider. Mbappé was named one of Time's 100 most influential people in the world in 2023 and was listed by Forbes as one of the world's ten highest-paid athletes in 2023 and 2024.
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Laura M. Hawley Thurston
Laura M. Thurston (née, Hawley; pen name, Viola; December 20, 1812 – July 21, 1842) was an American poet and educator. A prolific writer, most of her works were originally published in the Louisville Journal, and in William D. Gallagher's Hesperian. Among Indiana's early poets, she was a contemporary of Amanda Ruter Dufour, while among Kentucky poets, she was a friend of Amelia B. Coppuck Welby.
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Lissy Arna
Lissy Arna (born Elisabeth Arndt, 20 December 1900 – 22 January 1964) was a German film actress. She appeared in 63 films between 1918 and 1962. She starred in the 1931 film The Squeaker, which was directed by Martin Frič and Karel Lamač. She entered U.S. films in 1930 under the direction of William Dieterle, appearing in German-language versions of American films.
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Mala Powers
Mary Ellen "Mala" Powers (December 20, 1931 – June 11, 2007) was an American actress.
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Malcolm Jenkins
Malcolm Jenkins (born December 20, 1987) is an American former professional football player who was a safety for 13 seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Ohio State Buckeyes, earning consensus All-American honors, and winning the Jim Thorpe Award as a senior. He was selected by the New Orleans Saints in the first round of the 2009 NFL draft and played for the Philadelphia Eagles from 2014 to 2019.
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Marcel Douzima
Marcel Douzima (20 December 1926 - 2 February 2012) was a Central African politician and teacher who served in various ministerial positions under the David Dacko Presidency.
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Martin Schulz
Martin Schulz (born 20 December 1955) is a German politician who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Germany from 1994 to 2017 and a Member of the Bundestag (MdB) from 2017 to 2021. During his tenure he was Leader of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats from 2004 to 2012, President of the European Parliament from 2012 to 2017 and Leader of the Social Democratic Party from 2017 to 2018. In November 2016, Schulz announced he would not seek a third term as President of the European Parliament, but instead would stand in 2017 as the SPD candidate for the German Chancellorship. In January 2017, Sigmar Gabriel announced he would not stand for re-election as party leader and as the SPD candidate for the German Chancellorship, Gabriel recommended Schulz as his replacement. After the elections of September 2017, which resulted in a postwar low for the SPD, Schulz declared the end of the existing Grand coalition under Angela Merkel and explicitly refused to serve in a Merkel government. On 7 February 2018, coalition talks concluded and Schulz announced he would succeed Sigmar Gabriel as Foreign minister and leave his party chairmanship to Andrea Nahles. After heavy public and internal criticism, Schulz decided not to enter the new cabinet. On 13 February 2018 Schulz stepped down as party chair.
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Martyn Lloyd-Jones
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (20 December 1899 – 1 March 1981) was a Welsh Congregationalist minister and medical doctor who was influential in the Calvinist wing of the British evangelical movement in the 20th century. For almost 30 years, he was the minister of Westminster Chapel in London.
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Martín Carrera
Antonio Martín Mariano Carrera Sabat (20 December 1806 – 22 April 1871) was a Mexican general, senator, and interim president of the country for about a month in 1855. He was a moderate liberal. Martin Carrera was a Mexican soldier and politician who briefly served as president during the fall of Santa Anna's last dictatorship in 1854. His career as a soldier began while he was still a child, and he played an active role in Mexico's military throughout his whole life. He began to play political roles during the Centralist Republic of Mexico and served in congress, while also serving more than once as a member of the council of state. His presidency came about as the Plan of Ayutla was succeeding against Santa Anna. The latter left the capital, and a junta of representatives proclaimed their loyalty towards the Plan of Ayutla and elected Carrera as president. He sought to compromise between the remaining elements of the Santa Anna administration and the revolution. Despite his making many concessions towards them, the revolutionary leaders did not trust Carrera, and unable to secure the loyalty of the departments, Carrera resigned after about a month in office.
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Mary Ann Bevan
Mary Ann Bevan (née Webster; 20 December 1874 – 26 December 1933) was an English nurse and sideshow performer. After developing acromegaly, she became internationally known in the 1920s and 1930s for being exhibited as "the ugliest woman in the world" in American sideshows. Born into a working-class family in Plaistow, East London, Bevan worked as a nurse before marrying Thomas Bevan in 1902. Following the onset of acromegaly and her husband's death in 1914, she entered and won an "Ugliest Woman" contest in order to support her four children. In 1920, she was recruited by American showman Samuel W. Gumpertz to perform at Dreamland at Coney Island, later appearing with the Ringling Brothers Circus while also working as a nurse.
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Michael Badalucco
Michael Badalucco (born December 20, 1954) is an American actor. He made his screen debut in the film Raging Bull (1980) and subsequently appeared in many films such as Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Miller's Crossing (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Mac (1992), Léon: The Professional (1994), Summer of Sam (1999), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023). His breakthrough role came as attorney Jimmy Berlutti in the television series The Practice (1997–2004), for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1999.
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Michael Beaumont, 22nd Seigneur of Sark
Seigneur John Michael Beaumont (20 December 1927 – 3 July 2016) was the 22nd Seigneur of Sark in the Channel Islands. He worked as a civil engineer before succeeding his paternal grandmother, Sibyl Hathaway, the 21st Dame of Sark, in 1974. During his rule, Beaumont saw the loss of many feudal rights enjoyed by the seigneurs, and he was consequently often described as the "last feudal baron".
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Michael Rogers
Michael Rogers (born 20 December 1979) is an Australian retired professional road bicycle racer who competed professionally between 1999 and 2016, for the Mapei–Quick-Step, Quick-Step–Innergetic, Team HTC–Columbia, Team Sky and Tinkoff teams. He is a three-time World Time Trial Champion, winning consecutively in 2003 (after David Millar was stripped for doping), 2004 and 2005, and won Grand Tour stages at the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia. In April 2016, Rogers announced via Twitter, that he was being forced to retire from professional cycling due to a congenital heart defect condition which had been worsening.
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Michel Chartrand
Michel Chartrand (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl ʃaʁtʁɑ̃]; 20 December 1916 – 12 April 2010) was a Canadian trade union leader from Quebec. Born in Outremont and trained as a typography and print worker, Chartrand became involved in union activism in the 1940s. During the Grande Noirceur, he took part in major strike actions such as the Asbestos strike in 1949, the Louiseville Strike in 1952 and the Murdochville strike in 1957. In 1968, he became president of the Montreal central council of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN). In 1970, during the October crisis, he was arrested without a warrant and put in jail for four months. He was president of the CSN Montreal central council until 1978. During the 1980s, he took action for the rights of injured workers; he created the Fondation pour l’aide aux travailleuses et travailleurs accidentés (FATA) in 1984. He promoted progressive values and syndicalism in the media until the end of his life. He endorsed Québec solidaire. Chartrand is considered to have been a promoter of socialism, a severe critic of capitalism, and a leading figure of syndicalism in Quebec. He was married to feminist writer and union activist Simonne Monet-Chartrand.
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Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz
Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz (Arabic: محمد ولد عبد العزيز, romanized: Muḥammad Wald 'Abd al-'Azīz; born 20 December 1956) is a retired Mauritanian military officer and politician who served as the 8th President of Mauritania from 2009 to 2019. A career soldier and high-ranking officer, he was a leading figure in the August 2005 coup that ousted President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, and later in August 2008, he led another coup, that removed President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. After the 2008 coup, Mohamed became president of the High Council of State as part of what was described as a political transition leading to a new election. He resigned from that post in April 2009 in order to stand as a candidate in the July 2009 presidential election, which he won. He took office in August 2009. He was subsequently re-elected in 2014, then did not seek re-election in 2019. He was succeeded by Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, who assumed office in August 2019. Mohamed also held the role of chairman of the African Union from 2014 to 2015. In June 2021, Mohamed was arrested and detained on charges of corruption. He was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in December 2023, which was extended to 15 years in May 2025.
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Mohammad Asif
Mohammad Asif (Punjabi: محمد آصف, born 20 December 1982) is a Pakistani former cricketer who played for the Pakistani national cricket team between 2005 and 2010. A native of Sheikhupura, Asif played first-class cricket for Khan Research Labs, the National Bank, Quetta, Sheikhupura, Sialkot and Leicestershire. He made his Test match debut for the Pakistan cricket team against Australia in January 2005. In 2010, Asif was ranked the second leading Test bowler in the world, behind South Africa's Dale Steyn. In 2006, Asif tested positive for anabolic steroid Nandrolone, leading to the imposition of a ban which was later overturned on appeal. He was later withdrawn from Pakistan's World Cup squad with an unrelated injury. Further cricket controversy followed when in 2008 he was detained in Dubai suspected of having drugs on his person and was then found to have tested positive for a banned substance during the Indian Premier League. In August 2010 he was accused by the News of the World of deliberately bowling no-balls in return for payment from a betting syndicate. On 5 February 2011 a 3-man tribunal, appointed by the International Cricket Council (ICC) gave the verdict that he was to be banned for 7 years, with 2 of those suspended if no further offences were committed. In November 2011, Asif was convicted, along with Salman Butt and Mohammad Amir, of conspiracy charges relating to spot-fixing. On 3 November 2011, Asif was given a one-year prison sentence for his role in the scandal. On 19 August 2015, the ICC suspended its previous orders and allowed Asif to play all formats of the game, effective as of 2 September 2015. He played in his first match after the ban when he represented Water and Power Development Authority in the third round of the 2016–17 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy in October 2016.
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Mohammad Fouad
Mohamed Fouad Abd El Hamid Hassan (Arabic: محمد فؤاد عبد الحميد حسن; born December 20, 1961) is an Egyptian singer, actor and songwriter.
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Nalo Hopkinson
Nalo Hopkinson (born 20 December 1960) is a Jamaican-born Canadian speculative fiction writer and editor. Her novels – Brown Girl in the Ring (1998), Midnight Robber (2000), The Salt Roads (2003), The New Moon's Arms (2007) – and short stories such as those in her collection Skin Folk (2001) often draw on Caribbean history and language, and its traditions of oral and written storytelling. Hopkinson has edited two fiction anthologies: Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction and Mojo: Conjure Stories. She was the co-editor with Uppinder Mehan of the 2004 anthology So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Visions of the Future, and with Geoff Ryman co-edited Tesseracts 9. Hopkinson defended George Elliott Clarke's novel Whylah Falls on the CBC's Canada Reads 2002. She was the curator of Six Impossible Things, an audio series of Canadian fantastical fiction on CBC Radio One. As of 2021, she lives and teaches in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 2020, Hopkinson was named the 37th Damon Knight Grand Master, in recognition of "lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy".
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Nenad Vučković
Nenad Vučković (born 20 December 1976) is a Croatian retired footballer. Vučković played 12 games in the 2004–05 Slovenian PrvaLiga for NK Drava Ptuj, scoring three goals.
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Nicolas Toussaint Charlet
Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet (20 December 1792 – 30 October 1845) was a French painter and printmaker, more especially of military subjects.
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Nicole de Boer
Nicole de Boer (born 20 December 1970) is a Canadian actress. She is best known for starring in the cult film Cube as Joan Leaven, playing Ezri Dax on the final season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1998–1999), and as Sarah Bannerman on the series The Dead Zone (2002–2007). From 2016 to 2021, she had a recurring role as Becca D' Orsay, ex-wife of one of the series leads on the Canadian-produced crime drama Private Eyes.
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Nuala O'Loan, Baroness O'Loan
Nuala Patricia O'Loan, Baroness O'Loan, (born 20 December 1951), is a public figure in Northern Ireland. From 1999 to 2007, she was the first Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. In July 2009, it was announced that she was to be appointed to the House of Lords and she was so appointed in September 2009. In December 2010, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, appointed her as the chairwoman of its governing authority. She is a columnist with The Irish Catholic.
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Olavi Salonen
Olavi Salonen (20 December 1933 – 6 March 2025) was a Finnish athlete who was a world record holder of men's 1500-metre run.
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Oronce Finé
Oronce Fine (or Finé; Latin: Orontius Finnaeus or Finaeus; Italian: Oronzio Fineo; 20 December 1494 – 8 August 1555) was a French mathematician, cartographer, editor and book illustrator.
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Paul Francis Webster
Paul Francis Webster (December 20, 1907 – March 18, 1984) was an American lyricist who won three Academy Awards for Best Original Song, and was nominated 16 times for the award.
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Peter Criss
Peter George John Criscuola (born December 20, 1945), better known by his stage name Peter Criss, is an American musician, best known as a co-founder, original drummer, and a vocalist of the hard rock band Kiss. Criss established the Catman character for his Kiss persona. In 2014 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Kiss.
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Pieter de Hooch
Pieter Hendricksz. de Hooch (Dutch: [ˈpitər ˈɦɛndrɪksoːn də ˈɦoːx]; also spelled Hoogh or Hooghe; bapt. 20 December 1629 – in or after 1679), was a Dutch Golden Age painter famous for his genre works of quiet domestic scenes with an open doorway. He was a contemporary, in the Delft Guild of St. Luke, of Jan Vermeer with whom his work shares themes and style. De Hooch was first recorded in Delft on 5 August 1652, when he and another painter, Hendrick van der Burgh witnessed the signing of a will. He was last documented in 1679, but his date of death is unknown (his son Pieter died in 1684, a date often wrongly given for the father).
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Pietro Raimondi
Pietro Raimondi (December 20, 1786, Rome – October 30, 1853) was an Italian composer, transitional between the Classical and Romantic eras. While he was famous at the time as a composer of operas and sacred music, he was also as an innovator in contrapuntal technique as well as in creation of gigantic musical simultaneities. He was the director of the Palermo Conservatory from 1833-1852. Raimondi was born in Rome, and received his early education in Naples. He spent part of his early career in Genoa, and then in Sicily, where he had operas performed in Catania and Messina; however he moved back to Naples in 1820, and began a career as an opera composer there. While he was best known as an opera composer during this time, he was obsessed with counterpoint, and spent his spare time writing fugues for many voices, as well as simultaneous fugues in different keys and modes for multiple groups of different instruments. He considered this work to be experimental, and did not incorporate his experimentation, early in his career, into his operas. Few of Raimondi's operas were successful, and as soon as he realized he was being eclipsed by Rossini, and later by Bellini and Donizetti, he changed his compositional direction from production of operas to sacred music; in that domain he had a better opportunity to indulge his love of counterpoint. He published a counterpoint treatise in 1836, around the same time as the first of his experimental compositions for multiple choruses and orchestras; from this year forward he devoted most of his energies to such creations. However he had not forgotten his previous career as an operatic composer, and made a few last attempts to achieve a success on the operatic stage. One of the most spectacular of his experiments in musical simultaneity was his triple oratorio, Putifar-Giuseppe-Giacobbe (1848). This work was a set of three independent oratorios designed to be performed first consecutively, and then simultaneously, one of the few such experiments before the music of Charles Ives in the twentieth century. Unlike the music of Ives, however, Raimondi's musical language was conservative, even anachronistic, using only the tonal language of the eighteenth century. The parts of the oratorios were designed to fit together tightly, all obeying the standard rules of counterpoint. The triple oratorio was first performed in Rome in 1852, in a concert lasting six hours, and requiring 430 performers. According to the contemporary account, Raimondi was so overcome with the colossal sound of the three oratorios together at the end that he fainted, and the concert caused the sensation he had desired for so long. As a result of this success he was honored by the Pope, receiving from him the position of maestro di cappella at St. Peter's, a level of acknowledgement he had never achieved in the operatic realm. Raimondi followed the triple oratorio with the composition of a double opera, one serious and one comical, which like the triple oratorio was designed to be performed either consecutively or simultaneously. This work (Adelasia/I quattro rustici) was left incomplete at his death in 1853; however, much of the orchestration, counterpoint, and many of the scene changes had been worked out. As conceived, each opera would have served as a commentary on the other. This double opera has never been completed or staged, and along with Raimondi's other late music is an example of an experimental trend in the middle nineteenth century which was never followed up by anyone else. In his actual musical language, Raimondi was conservative, and his simultaneities work by following traditional rules of counterpoint, as well as by staying in a limited tonal universe. Raimondi makes a dramatic appearance in Michael Ayrton's satirical novel Tittivulus.
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Rachael Boyle
Rachael Boyle (née Small; born 20 December 1991) is a Scottish international footballer who currently plays as midfielder for Hibernian in the Scottish Women's Premier League.
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Rana Bhagwandas
Rana Bhagwandas (20 December 1942 – 23 February 2015) was a Pakistani jurist who served as a judge and acting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (CJP). He enjoyed extremely high reputation as a judge. He remained the acting CJP during the 2007 judicial crisis in Pakistan, and also briefly became the acting Chief Justice of Pakistan when the incumbent Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry went on foreign tours in 2005 and 2006, and thus became the first Hindu and the second non-Muslim to serve as chief of the highest court in Pakistan. Rana Bhagwandas also worked as the Chairman of Federal Public Service Commission of Pakistan. He headed the interview panel for the selection of the federal civil servants in 2009.
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Ray Martin
Raymond George Martin AM (né Grace, 20 December 1944) is an Australian television journalist and entertainment personality. Having won the Gold Logie five times, he is the most awarded star of Australian television, along with Graham Kennedy (although Kennedy won the 'Star of the Year Award', the forerunner of the Gold Logie in 1959). He is best known for his various on-air roles on Nine Network from 1978, particularly his stint on A Current Affair and his long tenure as host of the variety/talk show The Midday Show, after original host Mike Walsh left as host of a similar midday format with The Mike Walsh Show. In 2011, he returned to the current affairs show 60 Minutes, in which he had been an original presenter, albeit only in a part-time capacity.
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Robert J. Van de Graaff
Robert Jemison Van de Graaff (December 20, 1901 – January 16, 1967) was an American applied physicist and inventor. He is best known for developing the Van de Graaff generator, a high-voltage electrostatic machine that became a fundamental tool in nuclear physics research. Raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Van de Graaff earned his DPhil degree at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. In Europe, exposure to Marie Curie, Ernest Rutherford, and J. Robert Oppenheimer encouraged him to develop methods for accelerating particles to nuclear energies. He built his first electrostatic generator at Princeton University in 1929 and demonstrated a 1.5-million-volt model in 1931, more than twice the highest direct current voltage previously achieved. After joining the Massachusetts Institute of Technology he constructed the 5-megavolt Round Hill generator. He collaborated with John G. Trump, his former student, on creating compact, gas-insulated machines, which became the first accelerators used in clinical medicine. During World War II, he directed development of high-voltage X-ray equipment for the U.S. Navy. A high school football injury, aggravated by wartime overwork and later accidents, left Van de Graaff with chronic health problems in his later career. Nevertheless, in 1946 he joined Trump and Denis M. Robinson in organizing the High Voltage Engineering Corporation, the first company to manufacture particle accelerators. As Chief Scientist, he guided development of commercial accelerators. In the 1950s, he invented the insulating-core transformer and was instrumental in commercializing HVEC's tandem accelerators. By 1967, more than 500 high-voltage Van de Graaff generators were operating worldwide, and HVEC had installed accelerators in hospitals and labs in 30 countries. He received the Tom W. Bonner Prize in 1966 for his contributions to electrostatic accelerator development.
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Robert Menzies
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies (20 December 1894 – 15 May 1978) was an Australian politician and lawyer who served as the 12th prime minister of Australia from 1939 to 1941 and from 1949 to 1966. He held office as the leader of the United Australia Party (UAP) in his first term, and subsequently as the inaugural leader of the Liberal Party of Australia in his second. He was the member of parliament (MP) for the Victorian division of Kooyong from 1934 to 1966. He is the longest-serving prime minister in Australian history. Menzies studied law at the University of Melbourne and became one of Melbourne's leading lawyers. He was Deputy Premier of Victoria from 1932 to 1934, and then transferred to Federal Parliament, subsequently becoming Attorney-General of Australia and Minister for Industry in the government of Joseph Lyons. In April 1939, following Lyons's death, Menzies was elected leader of the United Australia Party (UAP) and sworn in as prime minister. He authorised Australia's entry into World War II in September 1939, and spent four months in Britain to participate in meetings of Churchill's war cabinet. On his return to Australia in August 1941, Menzies found that he had lost the support of his party and consequently resigned as prime minister. He subsequently helped to create the new Liberal Party, and was elected its inaugural leader in August 1945. At the 1949 federal election, Menzies led the Liberal–Country coalition to victory and returned as prime minister. His appeal to the home and family, promoted via reassuring radio talks, matched the national zeitgeist as the economy grew and middle-class values prevailed; the Australian Labor Party's support had also been eroded by Cold War scares. After 1955, his government also received support from the Democratic Labor Party, a breakaway group from the Labor Party. Menzies won seven consecutive elections during his second period, eventually retiring as prime minister in January 1966. Despite the failures of his first administration, his government is remembered for its development of Australia's capital city of Canberra, its expanded post-war immigration scheme, emphasis on higher education, and national security policies, which saw Australia contribute troops to the Korean War, the Malayan Emergency, the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation, and the Vietnam War.
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Royal Ivey
Royal Terence Ivey ( roy-AL; born December 20, 1981) is an American professional basketball coach and former player who is an assistant coach for the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is also the head coach of the South Sudan national team, who he coached at the 2023 World Cup and 2024 Olympics. He played college basketball for the Texas Longhorns before spending 10 years in the NBA.
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Ruhana Kuddus
Ruhana Kuddus, or Rohana Kudus (Old Spelling: Roehana Koeddoes; 20 December 1884 – 16 August 1972) was the first female Indonesian journalist, founder of the newspaper Soenting Melajoe, and an activist for women's emancipation.
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Soumaïla Cissé
Soumaïla Cissé (20 December 1949 – 25 December 2020) was a Malian politician who served in the government of Mali as Minister of Finance from 1993 to 2000. He thrice stood unsuccessfully as a presidential candidate, in 2002, 2013 and 2018; on all three occasions he was defeated in a second round of voting. From 2014 until his death he was President of the Union for the Republic and Democracy, a political party.
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Spud Davis
Virgil Lawrence "Spud" Davis (December 20, 1904 – August 14, 1984) was an American professional baseball player, coach, scout and manager. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati Reds, and Pittsburgh Pirates. Davis' .308 career batting average ranks fourth all-time among major league catchers.
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Urban Hjärne
Urban Hjärne (20 December 1641 – 10 March 1724) was a Swedish chemist, geologist, physician and writer.
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Uri Geller
Uri Geller ( OOR-ee GHEL-ər; Hebrew: אורי גלר; born 20 December 1946) is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other illusions. Geller uses conjuring tricks to simulate the effects of psychokinesis and telepathy. Geller's career as an entertainer has spanned more than four decades, with television shows and appearances in many countries. Several magicians have dismissed Geller’s claims of possessing psychic powers, arguing that his effects can be replicated by others using standard stage magic techniques.
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Vakkom Majeed
Vakkom Majeed (born S. Abdul Majeed; 20 December 1909 – 10 July 2000) was an Indian freedom fighter, politician and a former member of the Travancore-Cochin State Assembly. He was born into one of the most prominent aristocratic Muslim families in Travancore. Influenced by the works of his uncle, Vakkom Moulavi, he became involved in social and political reform movements. Majeed was one of the early architects of the Indian National Congress in Travancore, eventually becoming the Member of the Legislative Assembly for Attingal constituency (1948–1952). Regarded as one of the great Indian nationalists of 20th century, Majeed belonged to a tradition of politics that was intrinsically value-based, secular and humanistic.
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Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff
Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff or Seckendorf (December 20, 1626 – December 18, 1692), German statesman and scholar, was a member of the House of Seckendorff, a noble family which took its name from the village of Seckendorf between Nuremberg and Langenzenn. The family was divided into eleven distinct lines, widely distributed throughout Prussia, Württemberg, and Bavaria.
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Veronica Pershina
Veronica Petrovna Pershina or Voyk (Russian: Вероника Петровна Першина, born December 20, 1966) is a former competitive pair skater who competed for the Soviet Union. With Marat Akbarov, she is the 1985 European bronze medalist and 1979 World Junior champion.
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Väinö Linna
Väinö Valtteri Linna (pronounced [ˈʋæi̯nø ˈlinːɑ] ; 20 December 1920 – 21 April 1992) was a Finnish author and a former soldier who fought in the Continuation War (1941–44). Linna gained literary fame with his third novel, Tuntematon sotilas (The Unknown Soldier, published in 1954), and consolidated his position with the trilogy Täällä Pohjantähden alla (Under the North Star, published in 1959–1963 and translated into English by Richard Impola). Both have been adapted to a film format on several occasions; The Unknown Soldier was first adapted into a film in 1955 and Under the North Star in 1968 as Here, Beneath the North Star, both directed by Edvin Laine.
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Yitzhak Baer
Yitzhak (Fritz) Baer (Also known as Fritz Bär, Hebrew: יצחק בער; 20 December 1888 – 22 January 1980) was a German-Israeli historian and an expert on medieval Spanish Jewish history.
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Yoon Kye-sang
Yoon Kye-sang (Korean: 윤계상; born December 20, 1978) is a South Korean actor and singer. He began his career in 1999 as part of the K-pop boy band g.o.d, then left the group in 2004 and pursued an acting career. He made his acting debut in the film Flying Boys (2004), for which he won Best New Actor at the Baeksang Arts Awards. Yoon became active in both television and film, with leading roles in romantic comedies such as My 19 Year Old Sister-in-Law (2004) and Who Are You? (2008) and the melodrama Crazy for You (2007), as well as more serious fare in The Moonlight of Seoul (2008) and The Executioner (2009). After a supporting turn in the hit series The Greatest Love (2011), he returned to the big screen in the well-received indie Poongsan (2011).
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Yvonne Arnaud
Germaine Yvonne Arnaud (20 December 1890 – 20 September 1958) was a French-born pianist, singer and actress, who was well known for her career in Britain, as well as her native land. After beginning a career as a concert pianist as a child, Arnaud acted in musical comedies. She switched to non-musical comedy and drama around 1920 and was one of the players in the second of the Aldwych farces, A Cuckoo in the Nest, a hit in 1925. She also had dramatic roles and made films in the 1930s and 1940s, and continued to act into the 1950s. She occasionally performed as a pianist later in her career. The Yvonne Arnaud Theatre was named in her memory in Guildford, Surrey.
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