Who was born on December 31?
December 31 is packed with notable birthdays. Explore 118 famous birthdays, sorted by recent English Wikipedia pageviews. Top ranked names include Alex Salmond, Alycia Parks, Ameer Muhammad Akram Awan, Amy Cure, Andreas Vesalius. Filter by actor, musician, athlete, and more — or open any other calendar day.
December 31
118 people
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Alex Salmond
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (31 December 1954 – 12 October 2024) was a Scottish politician who served as First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014. A prominent figure in the Scottish nationalist movement, he was Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) on two occasions, from 1990 to 2000 and from 2004 to 2014. He then served as leader of the Alba Party from 2021 until his death in 2024. A graduate of the University of St Andrews, he worked as an economist in the Scottish Office, and later, the Royal Bank of Scotland. He was elected to the British House of Commons in 1987, serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Banff and Buchan from 1987 to 2010. In 1990, he successfully defeated Margaret Ewing in the SNP leadership contest. Salmond led the party through the first election to the Scottish Parliament in 1999, where the SNP emerged as the largest opposition party. He was elected as the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Banff and Buchan in that year's election. He resigned as leader in 2000 and stood down as an MSP the following year, when he was appointed leader of the SNP's Westminster group. Salmond was re-elected as leader of the SNP in the 2004 leadership contest, after running on a joint ticket with Nicola Sturgeon. She led the SNP at Holyrood until Salmond was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2007 for Gordon (later Aberdeenshire East). The SNP placed first, ahead of the governing Labour Party in the 2007 election by one seat, with Salmond securing support from the Scottish Greens, resulting in Salmond's appointment as first minister. Salmond led an SNP minority government in his first term. His government passed landmark legislation, including the abolition of university tuition fees, the scrapping of prescription charges and commitment to renewable energy. Salmond was the first nationalist first minister. At the 2011 Scottish Parliament election the SNP won with an overall majority, a feat previously thought almost impossible under the additional member system used in elections for the Scottish Parliament. As of 2024, this is the only election in which a party has won a majority in the Scottish Parliament. Salmond used this mandate to negotiate the Edinburgh Agreement which led to a 2014 referendum on Scottish independence that failed due to insufficient support. As a result, Salmond resigned and was succeeded by his deputy Sturgeon, who had led the Yes Scotland campaign during the referendum. Returning to Westminster, Salmond was elected MP for Gordon in the 2015 general election. He was the SNP International Affairs and Europe spokesperson from 2015 to 2017. He left the House of Commons at the 2017 general election after losing his seat to the Scottish Conservative Party candidate Colin Clark. In August 2018, Salmond resigned from the party to fight allegations of rape and sexual assault, which he denied. In January 2019, he was charged with 14 offences, including attempted rape and sexual assault, but he was awarded compensation of £500,000 by the Scottish Government in August 2019 and later acquitted of all charges after trial in March 2020. In 2021, he criticised Sturgeon for her government's flawed investigations into these allegations which resulted in a political scandal. Salmond later was announced as the leader of a new pro-independence party, the Alba Party. The party failed to gain any seats in the 2021 national and 2022 local elections. He led the party until his death in 2024.
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Alycia Parks
Alycia Michelle Parks (born December 31, 2000) is an American professional tennis player. She has a career-high WTA singles ranking of No. 40, achieved August 14, 2023, and a career-high doubles ranking of world No. 27, set on September 11, 2023. Parks has won one singles title and two doubles titles on the WTA Tour, including a WTA 1000 doubles title at the 2023 Western & Southern Open. She has also won five singles titles and three doubles titles on the WTA Challenger Tour.
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Ameer Muhammad Akram Awan
Ameer Muhammad Akram Awan (Urdu: امیر محمد اکرم اعوان, Amīr Muḥammad Akram A'wān; 31 December 1934 in Noorpur Sethi, British India – 7 December 2017 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan) was an Islamic scholar and spiritual leader of the Naqshbandia Owaisiah order of Sufism. He belonged to Awan tribe. As a mufassir, he authored four exegeses (tafsir) of the Qur'an, including Asrar at-Tanzeel. Awan was dean of the Siqarah Education System and patron of the magazine Al-Murshid and of the Al-Falah Foundation.
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Amy Cure
Amy Louise Cure (born 31 December 1992) is an Australian former professional track cyclist. She cycles for Team Jayco–AIS. She has set several world records. She won a junior world championship race in 2009, and represented Australia at the 2012 Summer Olympics. She is the first person in history to medal at every endurance track event at world championship level; with three newly gained medals in the team pursuit, omnium, and madison at 2017 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Hong Kong. While Cure was considered a typical Tasmanian type of racer, with a never-give-up attitude during races, she was considered the latest cycling talent in Tasmania, following legendary 5-time world champion Danny Clark, Olympic gold medallist Michael Grenda and road cyclist Richie Porte.
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Andreas Vesalius
Andries van Wezel (31 December 1514 – 15 October 1564), Latinized as Andreas Vesalius (), was an anatomist and physician who wrote De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (On the fabric of the human body in seven books), which is considered one of the most influential books on human anatomy and a major advance over the long-dominant work of Galen. Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy. He was born in Brussels, which was then part of the Habsburg Netherlands. He was a professor at the University of Padua (1537–1542) and later became Imperial physician at the court of Emperor Charles V.
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Arima Yoriyuki
Arima Yoriyuki (有馬 頼徸; December 31, 1714 – December 16, 1783) was a Japanese mathematician of the Edo period. He was the lord of Kurume Domain. He approximated the value of π {\displaystyle \pi } and its square, π 2 {\displaystyle \pi ^{2}} . In 1766, he found the following rational approximation of π {\displaystyle \pi } , correct to 29 digits: π ≈ 428224593349304 136308121570117 = 3.14159265358979323846264338327 ( 569... ) . {\displaystyle \pi \approx {\frac {428224593349304}{136308121570117}}=3.14159265358979323846264338327(569...).}
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Avram Hershko
Avram Hershko (Hebrew: אברהם הרשקו, romanized: Avraham Hershko, Hungarian: Herskó Ferenc Ábrahám; born December 31, 1937) is a Hungarian-born Israeli biochemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2004.
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Bob Gilder
Robert Bryan Gilder (born December 31, 1950) is an American professional golfer. He won six tournaments on the PGA Tour and currently plays on the Champions Tour, where he has ten wins since joining in 2001.
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Bob Shaw
Robert Shaw (31 December 1931 – 11 February 1996) was a science fiction writer and fan from Northern Ireland, noted for his originality and wit. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 1979 and 1980. His short story "Light of Other Days" was a Hugo Award nominee in 1967, as was his novel The Ragged Astronauts in 1987.
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Bobby Byrne
Robert Matthew Byrne (December 31, 1884 – December 31, 1964) was an American third baseman in Major League Baseball. From 1907 through 1917, he played for the St. Louis Cardinals (1907–1909), Pittsburgh Pirates (1909–1913), Philadelphia Phillies (1913–1917) and Chicago White Sox (1917). Byrne batted and threw right-handed. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri.
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Brent Barry
Brent Robert Barry (born December 31, 1971), nicknamed "Bones", is an American professional basketball coach, executive, broadcaster and former player. He is a game analyst for Amazon Prime's coverage of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The shooting guard played professionally in the NBA, winning two league championships with the Spurs in 2005 and 2007, and also won the Slam Dunk Contest in 1996. He is the son of Basketball Hall of Famer Rick Barry. After retiring, Barry worked as a sports commentator for the NBA on TNT and was a studio host for the NBA TV show NBA Gametime. In 2018, he returned to the Spurs as an executive. In 2024, he joined the Phoenix Suns as an assistant coach. He is also a commentator of the NBA 2K series and has been a commentator since the release of NBA 2K21.
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Calvin Bassey
Calvin Chinedu Bassey (né Ughelumba, born 31 December 1999) is a professional footballer who plays as a left-back or a centre-back for Premier League club Fulham and the Nigeria national team. Born in Italy to parents from Nigeria, Bassey was a product of Leicester City's youth system but did not make a senior appearance for the club before joining Rangers on a free transfer in July 2020. He made 65 appearances over two seasons for Rangers and won the Scottish Premiership and the Scottish Cup. In July 2022, he signed for Dutch club Ajax, with Rangers receiving the highest transfer fee in their history. The following July, he signed for English club Fulham.
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Carl Dudley
Carl Ward Dudley (1910–1973) was an American film director and producer. He was best known for directing and producing short travelogues.
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Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis
General Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis (31 December 1738 – 5 October 1805) was a British Army officer, Whig politician and colonial administrator. In the United States and United Kingdom, he is best known as one of the leading British general officers in the American War of Independence. His surrender in 1781 to a combined Franco-American force at the siege of Yorktown ended significant hostilities in North America. Cornwallis later served as a civil and military governor in Ireland, where he helped to bring about the Act of Union; and in India, where he helped to enact the Cornwallis Code and the Permanent Settlement. Born into an aristocratic family and educated at Eton College and the University of Cambridge, Cornwallis joined the British Army in 1757, seeing action in the Seven Years' War. Upon his father's death in 1762 he succeeded to his peerage and entered the House of Lords. From 1766 to 1805 he was colonel of the 33rd Regiment of Foot. Cornwallis next saw military action in 1776 in the American War of Independence. Active in the advance forces of many campaigns, in 1780 he inflicted a major defeat on the Continental Army at the Battle of Camden. He also commanded British forces in the March 1781 Pyrrhic victory at Guilford Court House. Cornwallis surrendered his army at Yorktown in October 1781 after an extended campaign through the Southern colonies, marked by disagreements between him and his superior, Sir Henry Clinton. Despite this defeat, Cornwallis retained the confidence of successive British governments and continued to enjoy an active career. Knighted in 1786, he was in that year appointed to be Governor-General and commander-in-chief in India. There he enacted numerous significant reforms within the East India Company and its territories, including the Cornwallis Code, part of which implemented important land taxation reforms known as the Permanent Settlement. From 1789 to 1792 he led British and Company forces in the Third Anglo-Mysore War to defeat the Mysorean ruler Tipu Sultan. Returning to Britain in 1794, Cornwallis was given the post of Master-General of the Ordnance. In 1798 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant and Commander-in-chief of Ireland, where he oversaw the response to the 1798 Irish Rebellion, including a French invasion of Ireland, and was instrumental in bringing about the Union of Great Britain and Ireland. Following his Irish service, Cornwallis was the chief British signatory to the 1802 Treaty of Amiens and was reappointed to India in 1805. He died in India not long after his arrival.
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Charles Edward Stuart
Charles Edward Louis John Sylvester Maria Casimir Stuart (31 December 1720 – 30 January 1788) was the elder son of James Francis Edward Stuart, making him the grandson of James VII and II, and the Stuart claimant to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1766. He is also known as the Young Pretender, the Young Chevalier and Bonnie Prince Charlie, and to Jacobites as Charles III. He led the failed Jacobite Rising of 1745 in an attempt to restore the Stuart dynasty to power. Born in Rome to the exiled Stuart court, he spent much of his early and later life in Italy. In 1744, he travelled to France to take part in a planned invasion of England to restore the Stuart monarchy under his father. When storms partly wrecked the French fleet, Charles resolved to proceed to Scotland following discussion with leading Jacobites. This resulted in Charles landing by ship on the west coast of Scotland, leading to the Jacobite rising of 1745. The Jacobite forces under Charles initially achieved several victories in the field, including the Battle of Prestonpans in September 1745 and the Battle of Falkirk Muir in January 1746. However, by April 1746, Charles was defeated at Culloden, effectively ending the Stuart cause. Although there were subsequent attempts such as a planned French invasion in 1759, Charles was unable to restore the Stuart monarchy. With the Jacobite cause lost, Charles spent the remainder of his life on the continent, except for one secret visit to London. On his return, Charles lived briefly in France before he was exiled in 1748 under the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Charles eventually returned to Italy, where he spent much of his later life living in Florence and Rome. He had a number of mistresses before marrying Princess Louise of Stolberg-Gedern in 1772. In his later life, Charles's health declined greatly, and he was said to be an alcoholic. However, his escapades during the 1745 and 1746 uprisings and his escape from Scotland led to his portrayal as a romantic figure of heroic failure. His life and the once possible prospects of a restored Stuart monarchy left an enduring historical legend that continued to have a legacy as of the late 20th century.
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Connie Willis
Constance Elaine Trimmer "Connie" Willis (born December 31, 1945) is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She has won more major genre awards than any other writer, including eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards. Most recently, she won the "Best Novel" Hugo and Nebula Awards for Blackout/All Clear (2010). She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Science Fiction Writers of America named her its 28th SFWA Grand Master in 2011. Several of her works feature time travel by history students at the future University of Oxford, called the Time Travel series or the Oxford Time Travel Series. They are the short story "Fire Watch" (1982, also in several anthologies and the 1985 collection of the same name), the novels Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog (1992 and 1997), and the two-part novel Blackout/All Clear (2010). All four won the annual Hugo Award, and Doomsday Book and Blackout/All Clear won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, making her the first author to win Hugo awards for all books in a series.
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Corey Crawford
Corey Crawford (born December 31, 1984) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey goaltender. Nicknamed "Crow" by teammates and fans, he played his entire professional career with the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL), who selected him in the second round, 52nd overall, of the 2003 NHL Draft. Crawford made his NHL debut for Chicago in 2006 and played with the team through the 2019–20 NHL season. He won the Stanley Cup and William M. Jennings Trophy twice with the Blackhawks in 2013 and 2015.
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Dal Stivens
Dallas George "Dal" Stivens (31 December 1911 – 15 June 1997) was an Australian writer who produced six novels and eight collections of short stories between 1936, when The Tramp and Other Stories was published, and 1976, when his last collection The Unicorn and Other Tales was released.
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Dennis Everberg
Dennis Everberg (born 31 December 1991) is a Swedish professional ice hockey player who is a winger for Rögle BK of the Swedish Hockey League (SHL). He has played in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Colorado Avalanche.
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Don James
Donald Earl James (December 31, 1932 – October 20, 2013) was an American college football coach and player. He served as the head coach at Kent State University from 1971 to 1974 and at the University of Washington from 1975 to 1992, compiling a career college football record of 178–76–3 (.698). His 1991 Washington team won a share of the national championship after completing a 12–0 season with a decisive win over Michigan in the Rose Bowl. James was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1997.
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Edward Bunker
Edward Heward Bunker (December 31, 1933 – July 19, 2005) was an American author of crime fiction, screenwriter, and actor. He wrote numerous books, some of which have been adapted into films. He wrote the scripts for—and acted in—Straight Time (1978) (adapted from his debut novel No Beast So Fierce), Runaway Train (1985), and Animal Factory (2000) (adapted from his sophomore novel of the same name). He also played a minor role in Reservoir Dogs (1992). Bunker began running away from home when he was five years old, and developed a pattern of criminal behavior, earning his first conviction when he was fourteen, leading to a cycle of incarceration, parole, re-offending, and further jail time. He was convicted of bank robbery, drug dealing, extortion, armed robbery, and forgery. Bunker was released from prison for the last time in 1975, after which he focused on a career as a writer and actor. The character Nate, a career criminal who fences stolen goods in the 1995 heist movie Heat, played by Jon Voight, was based on Bunker, who was consultant to director Michael Mann.
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Elizabeth Arden
Elizabeth Arden (December 31, 1881 – October 18, 1966), also known as Elizabeth N. Graham, was a Canadian-American businesswoman who founded what is now Elizabeth Arden, Inc., and built a cosmetics empire in the United States.
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Ellen Datlow
Ellen Datlow (born December 31, 1949) is an American science fiction, fantasy, and horror editor and anthologist. She is a winner of the World Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award (Horror Writers Association).
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Evelyn Knight
Evelyn Knight (born Evelyn Davis, December 31, 1917 – September 28, 2007) was an American singer of the 1940s and 1950s. Damon Runyon, in one of his newspaper columns, described Knight as "a lissome blonde lassie with a gentle little voice and a face mother would not mind having brought home to her."
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Fred Beebe
Frederick Leonard Beebe (December 31, 1879 – October 30, 1957) was an American professional baseball player. He played for the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, Philadelphia Phillies and Cleveland Indians.
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Fred Marriott
Fred Marriott (31 December 1872, Needham, Massachusetts - 28 April 1956) was an American race car driver. In 1906, he set the world land speed record at 127.659 mph (205.5 km/h) at the Daytona Beach Road Course, while driving the Stanley Land Speed Record Car. This garnered Stanley Motor Carriage Company the Dewar Trophy. A crew of four accompanied the car to Daytona, Marriott was chosen to be driver because he was the only bachelor. An attempt to break the record at Daytona in 1907 used an improved version of the car but the car hit a rut at an estimated speed of 140-150 mph. The car sailed in the air, breaking in half upon impact: Marriott was injured and did not make another attempt to break the record after he recovered. Marriott's mark for the steam land speed record, which had become the longest-standing such record, was finally broken more than 100 years later in August 2009 when Charles Burnett III of the British "Inspiration" team recorded an average speed of 139.843 mph (225.06 km/h) at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
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Friedrich Robert Faehlmann
Friedrich Robert Faehlmann (Fählmann) (31 December 1798 in Ao, Kreis Jerwen, Governorate of Estonia – 22 April 1850 in Tartu) was an Estonian writer, medical doctor and philologist. He was a co-founder of the Learned Estonian Society and its chairman (1843-1850). Friedrich Robert Faehlmann was born in 1798 in the Ao manor (now in Väike-Maarja Parish, Estonia) where his father was the estate manager. In 1825, he graduated from the medical department of the University of Tartu (Dorpat). In 1827, he earned the Doctor of Medicine degree and become a practicing physician in Tartu. In addition, he worked as an Estonian language lecturer at the university in 1842–1850. In the 1820s he started to research Estonian culture, and in 1838 he became a co-founder of the Learned Estonian Society at the university. Faehlmann brought attention to Estonian folklore, notably he recorded a number of tales about Kalevipoeg. After his death, another Estophile, Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (1803–1882) compiled the Kalevipoeg legends into what became the Estonian national epic. In 1840, Faehlmann's story "Koit ja Hämarik" (Dawn and Dusk) was first published. He died at April 22, 1850 of tuberculosis in Tartu.
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Gabby Douglas
Gabrielle Christina Victoria Douglas (born December 31, 1995) is an American artistic gymnast. She is the 2012 Olympic all-around gold medalist and the 2015 World all-around silver medalist. She was a member of the gold-winning teams at both the 2012 and the 2016 Summer Olympics, dubbed the "Fierce Five" and the "Final Five" by the media, respectively. She was also a member of the gold-winning American teams at the 2011 and the 2015 World Championships. Additionally, she is the 2012 U.S. champion on the uneven bars and the 2016 American Cup all-around champion. Douglas is the first African American to win an Olympic individual all-around title, and the first U.S. gymnast to win gold in both the individual all-around and team competitions at the same Olympic Games. With a total of six Olympic and World Championship medals, she is the 11th most decorated U.S. female gymnast of all time. Douglas's gymnastics successes have led to her life story adaptation in the 2014 Lifetime biopic film, The Gabby Douglas Story, as well as her own reality television series, Douglas Family Gold. She is the author of two books: Grace, Gold, and Glory: My Leap of Faith and Raising the Bar. In 2021, she won the first season of The Masked Dancer.
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Geoff Marsh
Geoffrey Robert Marsh (born 31 December 1958) is an Australian former cricketer, coach and selector. He played 50 Test matches and 117 One Day Internationals for Australia as an opening batsman. Marsh was a part of the Australian team that won their first world title during the 1987 Cricket World Cup. As the coach of Australia he was in charge when Australia won the 1999 Cricket World Cup in England. He later coached Zimbabwe (2001–2004) and Sri Lanka (2011–12).
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George Meade
George Gordon Meade (December 31, 1815 – November 6, 1872) was an American military officer who served in the United States Army and the Union army as a major general in command of the Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War from 1863 to 1865. He fought in many of the key battles of the eastern theater and defeated the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia led by General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg. He was born in Cádiz, Spain, to a wealthy Philadelphia merchant family and graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1835. He fought in the Second Seminole War and the Mexican–American War. He served in the United States Army Corps of Topographical Engineers and directed construction of lighthouses in Florida and New Jersey from 1851 to 1856 and the United States Lake Survey from 1857 to 1861. His Civil War service began as brigadier general with the Pennsylvania Reserves, building defenses around Washington, D.C. He fought in the Peninsula Campaign and the Seven Days Battles. He was severely wounded at the Battle of Glendale and returned to lead his brigade at the Second Battle of Bull Run. As a division commander, he won the Battle of South Mountain and assumed temporary command of the I Corps at the Battle of Antietam. Meade's division broke through the lines at the Battle of Fredericksburg but were forced to retreat due to lack of support. Meade was promoted to major general and commander of the V Corps, which he led during the Battle of Chancellorsville. He was appointed to command the Army of the Potomac just three days before the Battle of Gettysburg and arrived on the battlefield after the first day's action on July 1, 1863. He organized his forces on favorable ground to fight an effective defensive battle against Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and repelled a series of massive assaults throughout the next two days. While elated about the victory, President Abraham Lincoln was critical of Meade due to his perception of an ineffective pursuit during the retreat, which allowed Lee and his army to escape back to Virginia. That fall, Meade's troops had a minor victory in the Bristoe Campaign but a stalemate at the Battle of Mine Run. Meade's cautious approach prompted Lincoln to look for a new commander of the Army of the Potomac. In 1864–1865, Meade continued to command the Army of the Potomac through the Overland Campaign, the Richmond–Petersburg Campaign, and the Appomattox Campaign, but he was overshadowed by the direct supervision of the general-in-chief, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who accompanied him throughout these campaigns. Grant conducted most of the strategy during these campaigns, leaving Meade with significantly less influence than before. After the war, Meade commanded the Military Division of the Atlantic from 1865 to 1866 and again from 1869 to 1872. He oversaw the formation of the state governments and reentry into the United States for five southern states through his command of the Department of the South from 1866 to 1868 and the Third Military District in 1872. Meade was subjected to intense political rivalries within the Army, notably with Major Gen. Daniel Sickles, who tried to discredit Meade's role in the victory at Gettysburg. He had a notoriously short temper which earned him the nickname of "Old Snapping Turtle".
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Gerry Dee
Gerry Dee (born Gerard Francis-John Donoghue; December 31, 1968) is a Canadian actor, stand-up comedian, game show host, director, producer, and writer. He is also the host of Family Feud Canada. He placed third on the fifth season of Last Comic Standing, and he wrote and starred in the sitcom Mr. D, which aired on CBC Television.
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Giannis Dalianidis
Giannis Dalianidis (Greek: Γιάννης Δαλιανίδης; 31 December 1923 – 16 October 2010) was a Greek film director. His first film was Mousitsa, released in 1959, which was followed by a series of musicals. Between 1974 and 1981, he produced the television series Luna Park. In 2002, he was dubbed a "national film hero" at the International Thessaloniki Film Festival.
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Giovanni Boldini
Giovanni Boldini (31 December 1842 – 11 January 1931) was an Italian genre and portrait painter who lived and worked in Paris for most of his career. According to a 1933 article in Time magazine, he was known as the "Master of Swish" because of his flowing style of painting.
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Giovanni Pascoli
Giovanni Placido Agostino Pascoli (Italian: [dʒoˈvanni ˈpaskoli]; 31 December 1855 – 6 April 1912) was an Italian poet, classical scholar and an emblematic figure of Italian literature in the late nineteenth century. Alongside Gabriele D'Annunzio, he was one of the greatest Italian decadent poets. The first publication of "Il Fanciullino" in 1897 reveals an intimate and introspective understanding of poetic sentiment. It emphasizes the importance of the particular and the everyday, while also evoking a childlike, almost primal dimension. According to Pascoli, only the poet can articulate the 'childishness' inherent in everyone. This notion enables him to assume the somewhat anachronistic role of a poet-vate and to reaffirm poetry's moral (particularly its consolatory) and civic value. Although he did not actively participate in any literary movement of the time nor show any particular inclination towards contemporary European poetry (unlike Gabriele D'Annunzio), he manifested predominantly spiritualistic and symbolistic tendencies in his production, typical of the decadentist culture of the end of the century, marked by the progressive fading away of positivism. Overall, his work is characterized by a constant tension between the classical tradition inherited from his teacher, Giosuè Carducci, and emerging decadent themes. Understanding the true meaning of his most significant works is challenging without considering the painful and tormented biographical and psychological elements he obsessively restructured throughout his life, forming the foundational semantic system of his poetic and artistic world.
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Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba
Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba y Cardona-Anglesola (31 December 1585 – 16 February 1635) was one of the main Spanish military leaders during the Eighty Years' War, Thirty Years' War, and the War of the Mantuan Succession.
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Gottfried August Bürger
Gottfried August Bürger (31 December 1747 – 8 June 1794) was a German poet. His ballads were very popular in Germany. His most noted ballad, Lenore, found an audience beyond readers of the German language in an English and Russian adaptation and a French translation.
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Grégory Coupet
Grégory Coupet (French pronunciation: [ɡʁeɡɔʁi kupɛ]; born 31 December 1972) is a French former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Coupet is most well known for his lengthy career at Lyon where he won seven Ligue 1 titles. He also played for Saint-Étienne, Atlético Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain, as well as the France national team.
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Helen Dodson Prince
Helen Dodson Prince (December 31, 1905 – February 4, 2002) was an American astronomer who pioneered work in solar flares at the University of Michigan.
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Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (French: [ɑ̃ʁi emil bənwa matis]; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso, as one of the artists who best helped to define the revolutionary developments in the visual arts throughout the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. The intense colourism of the works he painted between 1900 and 1905 brought him notoriety as one of the Fauves (French for "wild beasts"). Many of his finest works were created in the decade or so after 1906, when he developed a rigorous style that emphasized flattened forms and decorative pattern. In 1917, he relocated to a suburb of Nice on the French Riviera, and the more relaxed style of his work during the 1920s gained him critical acclaim as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. After 1930, he adopted a bolder simplification of form. When ill health in his final years prevented him from painting, he created an important body of work in the medium of cut paper collage. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.
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Henry Carter Adams
Henry Carter Adams (December 31, 1851 – August 11, 1921) was a U.S. economist and Professor of Political Economy and finance at the University of Michigan.
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Herman Boerhaave
Herman Boerhaave (Dutch: [ˈɦɛrmɑm ˈbuːrˌɦaːvə], 31 December 1668 – 23 September 1738) was a Dutch chemist, botanist, Christian humanist, and physician. He is sometimes regarded as the founder of clinical teaching and of the modern academic hospital along with Venetian physician Santorio Santorio (1561–1636). Boerhaave introduced the quantitative approach into medicine, along with his pupil Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777). He is often hailed as the "Dutch Hippocrates". He was the first to isolate the chemical urea from urine. He was also the first physician to put thermometer measurements to clinical practice. His motto was Simplex veri sigillum: 'Simplicity is the sign of the truth'. As a professor at Leiden, Boerhaave also influenced many students. Some in their experiments upheld and furthered his philosophy, while others rejected it and proposed alternative theories of human physiology. He produced a great many textbooks and writings through which the digested brilliance of his lectures at Leiden was circulated widely in Europe. In 1708 his publication of the Institutiones Medicae was issued in over five languages, and went into approximately ten editions. His Elementa Chemia, a world-renowned chemistry textbook, was published in 1732.
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Hugh Nelson
Sir Hugh Muir Nelson, (31 December 1833 – 1 January 1906) was an Australian politician who was Premier of Queensland from 1893 to 1898. Hugh Nelson was born at Kilmarnock, Scotland, the son of William Lambie Nelson. Nelson died at Toowoomba on 1 January 1906.
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Irina Korschunow
Irina Korschunow (31 December 1925 – 31 December 2013) was a German writer. Her oeuvre comprises short stories, novels theatrical works and film scripts. Born in Stendal, she started her career as a journalist and writer for children's books and young adult literature but focused predominantly on writing novels in her later years since about 1983. She was also a translator.
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Isma'il Pasha
Isma'il Pasha (Arabic: إسماعيل باشا Ismā‘īl Bāshā; 25 November 1830 or 31 December 1830 – 2 March 1895), also known as Ismail the Magnificent, was the Khedive of Egypt and ruler of Sudan from 1863 to 1879, when he was removed at the behest of Great Britain and France. Sharing the ambitious outlook of his grandfather, Muhammad Ali Pasha, he greatly modernized Egypt and Sudan during his reign, investing heavily in industrial and economic development, urbanization, and the expansion of the country's boundaries in Africa. His philosophy can be glimpsed in a statement that he made in 1879: "My country is no longer only in Africa; we are now part of Europe, too. It is therefore natural for us to abandon our former ways and to adopt a new system adapted to our social conditions". In 1867, in exchange of a hefty financial compensation to the Ottoman Sultan, he secured a firman for the recognition for his title of Khedive (Great Master/Sovereign Prince) in preference to Wāli (Governor), which was previously used by his predecessors in the Eyalet of Egypt and Sudan (1517–1867), and also for the exclusivity of the transfer of this title to only his direct descendants, thereby excluding all other members of Muhammed Ali's family from the line of succession. However, Isma'il's policies placed the Khedivate of Egypt and Sudan (1867–1914) in severe debt, leading to the sale of the country's shares in the Suez Canal Company to the British government, and his ultimate toppling from power in 1879 under British and French pressure. The city of Ismailia is named in his honor.
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J. J. Arcega-Whiteside
José Joaquín Arcega-Whiteside ( ar-THAY-gə; born December 31, 1996) is a Spanish former professional gridiron football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Stanford Cardinal and was selected by the Philadelphia Eagles in the second round of the 2019 NFL draft. He was also a member of the Seattle Seahawks, Atlanta Falcons, and Toronto Argonauts.
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Jacques Cartier
Jacques Cartier (Breton: Jakez Karter; 31 December 1491 – 1 September 1557) was a French maritime explorer from Brittany. Jacques Cartier was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "Canada" after the Iroquoian names for the two big settlements he saw at Stadacona (Quebec City) and at Hochelaga (Montreal Island). Jacques Cartier, author of now-lost maps and accounts of his voyages, was the first European to describe and name this region and its inhabitants—at a time when the Spanish had already settled in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America, and were beginning their conquest of Peru.
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Jaime Escalante
Jaime Alfonso Escalante Gutiérrez (December 31, 1930 – March 30, 2010) was a Bolivian-American educator known for teaching students calculus from 1974 to 1991 at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. Escalante was the subject of the 1988 film Stand and Deliver, in which he is portrayed by Edward James Olmos.
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James Bunbury White
James Bunbury White (December 31, 1774 – October 1, 1819) was an American politician and millwright. He was a member of both chambers of the North Carolina General Assembly, was the first to represent Columbus County in the North Carolina Senate, and was the founder of Whiteville, North Carolina.
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Jana Veselá
Jana Veselá (Czech pronunciation: [ˈjana ˈvɛsɛlaː]; born on 31 December 1983) is a Czech professional basketball player currently playing in the Czech League for ZVVZ USK Prague. She has played the Summer Olympics, the World Championship and the Eurobasket with the Czech Republic women's national basketball team, and she has won the Euroleague Women twice with Gambrinus Brno and Ros Casares Valencia, and the 2010 WNBA with Seattle Storm. She is 1.94 meters tall and plays as a forward.
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Jane Badler
Jane Badler (born December 31, 1953) is an American-Australian actress and singer. She is known for her role as Diana, the main antagonist in NBC's science fiction series V between 1983 and 1985. Following this, she had roles in the primetime soap opera Falcon Crest and the 1988 revival of Mission: Impossible, the latter of which was filmed in Australia which has since become Badler's home. She has also become an established nightclub singer in Australia, where she still resides, and has released three albums.
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Jason Campbell
Jason S. Campbell (born December 31, 1981) is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Auburn Tigers and was selected by the Washington Redskins in the first round of the 2005 NFL draft. Campbell also played for the Oakland Raiders, Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, and Cincinnati Bengals. After his playing career, he became an analyst for Auburn Sports Network.
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Javaris Crittenton
Javaris Cortez Crittenton (born December 31, 1987) is an American former professional basketball player. During his four year career, Crittenton played for the Los Angeles Lakers, Memphis Grizzlies, and Washington Wizards of the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Zhejiang Lions of the Chinese Basketball Association, and the Dakota Wizards of the NBA D-League. He played college basketball for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. On August 26, 2011, Crittenton was charged with the murder of Jullian Jones, a 22-year-old mother of four. After pleading guilty to manslaughter in 2015, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison, though it was later reduced to 10 years. He was released from prison on April 21, 2023.
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Jesse Carlson
Jesse Craig Carlson (born December 31, 1980) is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Toronto Blue Jays.
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Johann Spurzheim
Johann Gaspar Spurzheim (31 December 1776 – 10 November 1832) was a German medical doctor who became one of the chief proponents of phrenology, which was developed c. 1800 by Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828).
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John Frost
Major-General John Dutton Frost, (31 December 1912 – 21 May 1993) was an airborne officer of the British Army, best known for being the leader of the small group of British airborne troops that actually arrived at Arnhem bridge during the Battle of Arnhem in Operation Market Garden, in the Second World War. He was one of the first to join the newly formed Parachute Regiment and served with distinction in many wartime airborne operations, such as in North Africa and Sicily and Italy, until his injury and subsequent capture at Arnhem. He retired from the army in 1968 to become a beef cattle farmer in West Sussex.
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John Radcliffe
Sir John Radcliffe (31 December 1539 – 9 November 1568), was the son of Robert Radcliffe, 1st Earl of Sussex, and his third wife, Mary Arundell.
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Jonah Jones
Jonah Jones (born Robert Elliott Jones; December 31, 1909 – April 30, 2000) was a jazz trumpeter who created concise versions of jazz and swing and jazz standards that appealed to a mass audience. In the jazz community, he is known for his work with Stuff Smith. He was sometimes referred to as "King Louis II", a reference to Louis Armstrong. Jones started playing alto saxophone at the age of 12 in the Booker T. Washington Community Center band in Louisville, Kentucky, before quickly transitioning to trumpet, where he excelled.
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Jonathan Horton
Jonathan Alan Horton (born December 31, 1985) is a former American artistic gymnast. He was a member of the United States men's national artistic gymnastics team and is the 2008 Olympic silver medalist on horizontal bar, the 2010 World all-around bronze medalist, a two-time Olympian, a two-time U.S. National All-Around Champion, and a 17-time medalist at the U.S. National Championships. At the 2008 Olympics, he also won a bronze medal with his U.S. teammates in the team competition. He also competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, where he qualified for the horizontal bar event final and finished in sixth place. In 2016, he had surgery on his left rotator cuff and as a result was unable to qualify for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
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Jorjão
Jorge Alberto da Costa Silva (literally Big Jorge; born 31 December 1970), known as Jorjão or sometimes Jorgeao, is a former Brazilian footballer.
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Joseph S. Cullinan
Joseph Stephen Cullinan (December 31, 1860 – March 11, 1937) was a U.S. oil industrialist. Although he was a native of Pennsylvania, his lifetime business endeavors would help shape the early phase of the oil industry in Texas. He founded The Texas Company, which would eventually be known as Texaco Incorporated.
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Julio DePaula
Julio César DePaula (born December 31, 1982) is a Dominican former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Minnesota Twins and in the KBO League for the Hanwha Eagles.
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Julius Meier
Julius L. Meier (December 31, 1874 – July 14, 1937) was an American businessman, civic leader, and politician in the state of Oregon. The son of the Meier & Frank department store founder, he would become a lawyer before entering the family business in Portland. Politically an independent, Meier served a single term as the 20th governor of Oregon from 1931 to 1935. He is the only independent to be elected Governor of Oregon, as well as the state’s first Jewish governor.
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Karl-August Fagerholm
Karl-August Fagerholm (31 December 1901, in Siuntio – 22 May 1984, in Helsinki) was a Finnish politician. Fagerholm served as Speaker of Parliament and three times as Prime Minister of Finland (1948–50, 1956–57, and 1958–59). Fagerholm became one of the leading politicians of the Social Democrats after the armistice in the Continuation War. As a Scandinavia-oriented Swedish-speaking Finn, he was believed to be more to the taste of the Soviet Union's leadership than his predecessor, Väinö Tanner. Fagerholm's postwar career was, however, marked by fierce opposition from both the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of Finland. He narrowly lost the presidential election to Urho Kekkonen in 1956.
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Katie Volynets
Katie Volynets (born December 31, 2001) is an American professional tennis player. She has a career-high singles ranking of world No. 56 by the WTA, achieved on July 29, 2024.
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Kenny Roberts
Kenneth Leroy Roberts (born December 31, 1951) is an American former professional motorcycle racer and racing team owner. In 1978, he became the first American to win a Grand Prix motorcycle racing world championship. He was also a two-time winner of the A.M.A. Grand National Championship. Roberts is one of only four riders in American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) racing history to win the AMA Grand Slam, representing Grand National wins at a mile, half-mile, short-track, TT Steeplechase and road race events. Roberts left his mark on Grand Prix motorcycle racing as a world championship winning rider, a safety advocate, a racing team owner, and as a motorcycle engine and chassis constructor. His dirt track-based riding style changed the way Grand Prix motorcycles were ridden. Roberts' proposal to create a rival motorcycle championship in 1979 broke the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) hegemony and increased the political clout of Grand Prix racers, which subsequently led to improved safety standards and a new era of professionalism in the sport. In 2000, Roberts was named a Grand Prix Legend by the FIM. He is also the father of 2000 Grand Prix world champion Kenny Roberts Jr.
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King Kelly
Michael Joseph "King" Kelly (December 31, 1857 – November 8, 1894), also commonly known as "$10,000 Kelly", was an American baseball outfielder, catcher, and player-manager in various professional American baseball leagues including the National League, International Association, Players' League, and the American Association. He spent the majority of his 16-season playing career with the Chicago White Stockings and the Boston Beaneaters. Kelly was a player-manager three times in his career – in 1887 for the Beaneaters, in 1890 leading the Boston Reds to the pennant in the only season of the Players' League's existence, and in 1891 for the Cincinnati Kelly's Killers – before his retirement in 1893. He is also often credited with helping to popularize various strategies as a player such as the hit and run, the hook slide, and the catcher's practice of backing up first base. In 1945, Kelly was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In concluding where to truly give Kelly credit as an innovator, a 2004 book devoted to 19th-century rule bending in baseball—and which came close to exhaustively accounting for all contemporary reporting on various subjects—placed stress on the following: "Kelly's hook slide does sound special, and players probably tried to copy it. Also, he seems to have been the first big leaguer to successfully cut a base (when the usually lone umpire wasn't looking), at least according to the newspaper record." And, "Kelly could have been the first to foul off lots of pitches on purpose. Doing so was a top trick of some Baltimore players of the 1890s. At the turn of the century, that trick was defused when all foul balls began counting as strikes." Kelly holds the record for stolen bases in a season by a primary catcher, with 56 in 1888. Kelly's autobiography Play Ball: Stories of the Ball Field was published while he was with the Beaneaters in 1888, the first autobiography by a baseball player; it was ghostwritten by Boston baseball writer John J. "Jack" Drohan. Kelly also became a vaudeville performer during his playing career, first performing in Boston where he would recite the now-famous baseball poem "Casey at the Bat", sometimes butchering it. Kelly's baserunning innovations are also the subject of the hit 1889 song entitled "Slide, Kelly, Slide" and a 1927 comedy film of the same name.
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Konstantin Konik
Konstantin Konik (31 December [O.S. 19 December] 1873 – 3 August 1936) was an Estonian politician and surgeon who served as a member of the Estonian Salvation Committee. Konstantin Konik was born to a working-class family in Tartu; his father made living as a carter. After studying at the Governorate Gymnasium in Tartu, Konstantin Konik graduated from the faculty of Medicine of the Imperial University of Dorpat (now University of Tartu) in 1873, and made his doctorate degree at the Odessa University in 1903. On 8 March 1920 Konik made history at the University of Tartu by giving the first lecture ever made on medicine in Estonian. The University of Tartu was established as an Estonian institution only in 1919, it had been the University of Dorpat, a Baltic German institution, before, where only German and since the 1880s–90s Russian language had been used.
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Lawrence Beesley
Lawrence Beesley (31 December 1877 – 14 February 1967) was an English science teacher and author who was a survivor of the sinking of RMS Titanic.
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Lionel Daunais
Noël Ferdinand Lionel Daunais, (December 31, 1901 – July 18, 1982) was a French Canadian baritone and composer.
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Liveris Andritsos
Liveris Andritsos (Greek: Λιβέρης Ανδρίτσος; born December 31, 1959, in Athens, Greece) is a retired Greek professional basketball player and coach. At a height of 2.02 m (6'7 1⁄2") tall, he could play at both the small forward and power forward positions.
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Ludovic Blas
Ludovic Régis Arsène Blas (born 31 December 1997) is a French professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Ligue 1 club Rennes.
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Luís Carreira
Luis Filipe de Sousa Carreira (31 December 1976 – 15 November 2012) was a Portuguese motorcycle road racer. He died on 15 November 2012 after an accident during qualifying in the 2012 Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix.
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Mani Neumeier
Mani Neumeier (Manfred Neumeier, born 31 December 1940 in Munich) is a German rock musician, free-jazz drummer, artist, and frontman (singer and drummer) of the German Krautrock-band Guru Guru. Probably best known for his work with Guru Guru, Neumeier collaborated with numerous bands and artists, such as Dieter Möbius, Damo Suzuki, Harmonia, Hans-Karsten Raecke, Irène Schweizer, Peter Brötzmann, Sonny Sharrock, Uchihashi Kazuhisa, Jojo Hiroshige, Kawabata Makoto, Yoshida Tatsuya, and Luigi Archetti. Neumeier has lived in Germany and Japan. The wax museum of Tokyo has a wax figure of him. He has also regularly collaborated with Japanese jam and noise bands Acid Mothers Temple and Hijokaidan.
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Marie d'Agoult
Marie Catherine Sophie, Comtesse d'Agoult (born de Flavigny; 31 December 1805 – 5 March 1876), was a French romantic author and historian, known also by her pen name, Daniel Stern.
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Mario Aerts
Mario Aerts (born 31 December 1974 in Herentals, Belgium) is a former professional road bicycle racer, who competed between 1996 and 2011. He competed for three teams: Vlaanderen 2002, Team Telekom and the Lotto team through various sponsorships, competing with that particular team for twelve seasons during his career. During this time, he raced in the Tours de France, the Giro d'Italia, and the Vuelta a España. In the 2007 cycling season, he finished in these three major stage races in cycling. He was only the 25th racer in the history of cycling to achieve this. Aerts won the Grand Prix d'Isbergues in 1996, Circuit Franco Belge in 2001, the Giro della Provincia di Lucca in 2001, and most notably La Flèche Wallonne in 2002; he did not win a professional race after that. In June 2011, he announced his retirement as a professional cyclist at the end of the year, citing heart problems as the major cause. After retiring he would become an assistant for the team he rode for under its present name: Lotto-Soudal.
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Mary Logan Reddick
Mary Logan Reddick (December 31, 1914 – October 1, 1966) was an American neuroembryologist who earned her PhD from Radcliffe College, Harvard University in 1944. She was a full professor, first at Morehouse College, and then at the University of Atlanta from 1953 to her death. Her doctoral dissertation was on the study of chick embryos, and she went on to do research with time-lapse microscopy (then called motion picture microphotography) in tissue cultures. In 1952, Reddick received a Ford science fellowship to study at Cambridge University. Reddick was possibly the first African-American woman scientist to receive this fellowship for study abroad, and she was the first female biology instructor at Morehouse College.
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Max Pechstein
Hermann Max Pechstein (German pronunciation: [ˈmaks ˈpɛçʃtaɪn] ; 31 December 1881 – 29 June 1955) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and a member of the Die Brücke group. He fought on the Western Front during World War I and his art was classified as Degenerate Art by the Nazis. More than 300 paintings were removed from German Museums during the Nazi era.
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Michal Řepík
Michal Řepík (born 31 December 1988) is a Czech professional ice hockey left winger. He is currently under contract with HC Sparta Praha of the Czech Extraliga (ELH). Repik was selected by the Florida Panthers in the 2nd round (40th overall) of the 2007 NHL entry draft.
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Mies Bouwman
Maria Antoinette "Mies" Bouwman (31 December 1929 – 26 February 2018) was a Dutch television presenter.
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Muhammad ibn al-Qasim
Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim al-Thaqafī (Arabic: مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ الْقَاسِمِ الثَّقَفِيِّ; (695-12-31)31 December 695–(715-07-18)18 July 715) was an Arab military commander in service of the Umayyad Caliphate who led the Muslim conquest of Sindh (and Punjab, part of ancient Sindh), inaugurating the Umayyad campaigns in India. His military exploits led to the establishment of the Islamic province of Sindh, and the takeover of the region from the Sindhi Brahman dynasty and its ruler, Raja Dahir, who was subsequently decapitated with his head sent to al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf in Basra. With the capture of the then-capital of Aror by Arab forces, Muhammad ibn al-Qasim became the first Muslim to have successfully captured Indian land, which marked the beginning of Muslim rule in South Asia. Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim al-Thaqafī belonged to the Banu Thaqif, an Arab tribe that is concentrated around the city of Taif in western Arabia. After the Muslim conquest of Persia, he was assigned as the governor of Fars, likely succeeding his uncle Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Thaqafi. From 708 to 711, Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim al-Thaqafī led the Sindh conquest. He established Islamic rule throughout the region, serving as governor of Sindh from 712 until his death in 715. After his last conquest of Multan (Punjab), he returned to Arabia where on the way he died in Mosul, in modern Iraq, though some sources record that his body was buried in Makran, a semi-desert coastal region in Balochistan.
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Nate Freiman
Nathan Samuel Freiman (born December 31, 1986) is an American former professional baseball first baseman who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Oakland Athletics in 2013 and 2014. In 2013, baseball writer Tim Brown wrote of his 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m) frame, "Near as anyone can tell, there's never been a taller major-league position player than Freiman." Freiman holds Duke University's career home run record, and the school's second-highest all-time batting average. In the minor leagues, playing in the San Diego Padres organization, he led the Northwest League in runs batted in (RBIs) and extra base hits in 2009, was a Midwest League midseason All-Star in 2010, and was a California League postseason All-Star in 2011. In 2012, Freiman led the Texas League in RBIs and hits, and was both a midseason and postseason All-Star. In December 2012, the Astros picked Freiman in the Rule 5 draft and added him to their 40-man roster. In March 2013, the Athletics claimed him off waivers, and he made his major league debut for the Athletics the following month. Freiman was voted American League Rookie of the Month for May 2013, and for the season he batted .274. He started 2014 in Triple-A. But after leading the Pacific Coast League in RBIs through June 29, while tying for seventh in the league in home runs, he was called back up to the A's. On July 2, 2015, the A's designated Freiman for assignment. He played for Team Israel at the 2017 World Baseball Classic. Freiman is married to golfer Amanda Blumenherst. The two were Duke's ACC Senior Male and Female Athletes of the Year in 2009.
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Paul McGregor
Paul "Mary" McGregor (born 31 December 1967) is an Australian professional rugby league coach who was until August 2020, the head coach of the St. George Illawarra Dragons in the NRL, and a former professional rugby league footballer who played as a centre in the 1990s and 2000s. McGregor played his club football for the Illawarra Steelers and the St. George Illawarra Dragons at the commencement of their joint venture in 1999. He remained with the club and was appointed interim coach following the sacking of Steve Price part-way through the 2014 NRL season. He played for the Country Origin, New South Wales and Australia at international level. McGregor was the assistant coach for the New South Wales Blues between 2021 and 2023.
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Paul O'Neill
Paul O'Neill (born 31 December 1979) is a British former racing driver and commentator who currently serves as one of ITV Sport's lead commentators on the British Touring Car Championship and ToCA package, alongside Nicki Shields, Jade Edwards, Tim Harvey and David Addison. O'Neill is half-siblings with former Spice Girls member Melanie C, who helped him discover his diabetes diagnosis.
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Pierre-Charles Villeneuve
Vice-Admiral Pierre-Charles-Jean-Baptiste-Silvestre de Villeneuve (31 December 1763 – 22 April 1806) was a French Navy officer who served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He was in command of a Franco-Spanish fleet which was defeated by the British Royal Navy at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
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Pula Nikolao Pula
Pulaali'i Tuiteleleapaga Iuli Nikolao Pula (born December 31, 1955) is an American Samoan politician who is currently serving as the ninth governor of American Samoa since 2025. He ran in the 2024 American Samoan gubernatorial election and defeated incumbent Lemanu Peleti Mauga in the runoff. He is the first Republican Governor of American Samoa since 1993. Previously, he had served from 1993 to 2022 in the Office of Insular Affairs (OIA), being the OIA Director from 2002 to 2022.
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Rami Alanko
Rami Alanko (born 31 December 1975) is a Finnish former professional ice hockey player. He is former hockey player for the Espoo Blues in the Finnish SM-liiga. He joined the club in May 2007. He started his career in 1995 and has played with several Finnish clubs including HPK, Espoo Blues, Jokerit and Haukat. With Jokerit Alanko won Finnish championship and Continental Cup. He has also played a short stint in Switzerland for Kloten Flyers in 1997. He played with Swedish club Färjestad BK between 2005 and November 2006, during that time he won the Swedish Championship with them in April 2006. When he left Färjestad he signed with German club Frankfurt Lions and played with them until the end of the 2006/07 season. He then moved back home to Finland and signed for Espoo Blues. In August 2008, the Dutch continued to contract until spring 2011. He represented the Blues during the period 2008-2009 in the Champions League. Netherlands during the period was twice kuitekin bad concussion. He was awarded for the third year in a concussion for the period 2009-2010, however, in the second match against carp Oulu, when Mikko Alikoski tackled Alanko rules against the side. The match was the last of Alanko's career.
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Ray Graves
Samuel Ray Graves (December 31, 1918 – April 10, 2015) was an American professional football player and college football coach. He was a native of Tennessee and a graduate of the University of Tennessee, where he was the starting center and team captain for the Volunteers under head coach Robert Neyland. After playing in the National Football League (NFL) for three seasons, he returned to Tennessee to serve as an assistant football coach, then left for a longer stint as an assistant at Georgia Tech under head coach Bobby Dodd. He was the head football coach at the University of Florida from 1960 until 1969, where he led the Gators to their most successful decade in program history up to that point. While at Florida, he recruited and coached Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Steve Spurrier, who often praised Graves as a role model and mentor during his own successful coaching career. Graves also served as Florida's athletic director from 1960 until his retirement in 1979.
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Rex Allen
Rex Elvie Allen Sr. (December 31, 1920 – December 17, 1999), known as "The Arizona Cowboy," was an American film and television actor, singer and songwriter; he was also the narrator of many Disney nature and Western productions. For his contributions to the film industry, Allen received a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1975, located at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard.
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Rick Aguilera
Richard Warren Aguilera (born December 31, 1961) is an American former professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as a right-handed pitcher from 1985 to 2000. Aguilera won a world championship as a member of the New York Mets in 1986, then won a second world championship as a member of the Minnesota Twins in 1991. He also played for the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs. In 2008, Aguilera was inducted into the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame.
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Rita Lee
Rita Lee Jones de Carvalho (31 December 1947 – 8 May 2023), known as Rita Lee, was a Brazilian singer, songwriter, author, actress and television host. Dubbed the "Queen of Brazilian Rock", she became one of the most influential figures in the country's popular music. Renowned for her constant reinvention and versatility across musical and audiovisual production, Lee was a pioneer of both rock and pop in Brazil. She blended international and national styles, creating a distinctive hybrid sound. Her songs and performances celebrated pleasure and female agency, establishing her as a cornerstone of artistic resistance during the military dictatorship. Lee remains a major influence on multiple generations of artists, particularly women. Born and raised in São Paulo, she began her musical career in 1963 with Tulio's Trio and later the Teenage Singers, which evolved into Os Seis. She rose to national prominence as vocalist and multi-instrumentalist for the tropicalist group Os Mutantes. Solo stardom came with the album Fruto Proibido (1975), recorded with the band Tutti Frutti and regarded as a landmark of Brazilian rock. Her popularity continued to grow through a string of successful albums that helped popularize pop music in Brazil, most of them created in partnership with her husband Roberto de Carvalho, with whom she co-wrote much of her repertoire. Key releases include Rita Lee (1979), Rita Lee (1980), Saúde (1981), and Rita Lee & Roberto de Carvalho (1982), the latter one of the best-selling albums in Brazilian music history. Her songs became staples on the charts. Lee's visibility increased through year-end TV specials on TV Globo, such as Rita Lee Jones (1980), Rita Lee Jones (1981), O Circo (1982), Rita Lee e Roberto de Carvalho (1985), and Rita Lee Especial (1995). She also worked as a host on programs including TVLeezão (1991), Saia Justa (2002), and Madame Lee (2005). As a writer, she published 11 books during her lifetime and two posthumously, most notably her first autobiography, which sold 70 times the average print run of a book in Brazil in its first year. She also acted in films and series and hosted radio programs. Her acting work earned awards such as Best Male Performer at the Rio Cine Festival and the Troféu Calunga for Best Supporting Actress. A committed vegan, she advocated for animal rights, women's rights, and the LGBT community. With more than 55 million records sold, Lee is the best-selling female singer in Brazilian history and one of the highest-selling Latin music artists of all time. A pioneer of large-scale national tours, she became the first Brazilian artist to tour gymnasiums and stadiums, drawing 500,000 spectators during the highly successful Tour Brasil 83; the Tour 87/88 enjoyed similar acclaim. Among her honors are 12 Brazilian Music Awards, four APCA Awards, three Troféus Imprensa, two Latin Grammys, the Shell Music Award, and an honorary award from the União Brasileira de Compositores (UBC). Rolling Stone Brasil also ranked her among the greatest Brazilian voices and artists of all time.
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Robert Goodwill
Sir Robert Goodwill, PC (born 31 December 1956) is a British Conservative Party politician and farmer who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Scarborough and Whitby from 2005 to 2024. He was previously a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Yorkshire and the Humber. Goodwill served in Theresa May's government as Minister of State at the Home Office, the Department for Education, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Goodwill is a member of the Cornerstone Group of Conservative MPs. He describes himself as a "staunch Eurosceptic" but supported Remain in the EU referendum.
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Robert Grant Aitken
Robert Grant Aitken (December 31, 1864 – October 29, 1951) was an American astronomer.
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Rosalind Cash
Rosalind Cash (December 31, 1938 – October 31, 1995) was an American actress. Her best-known film role is in the 1971 science-fiction film The Omega Man. Cash also had another notable role as Mary Mae Ward in ABC's General Hospital, a role she portrayed from 1994 until her death in 1995.
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Ross Barbour
Ross Edwin Barbour (December 31, 1928 – August 20, 2011) was an American singer with the vocal quartet The Four Freshmen. The Four Freshmen originated in early 1948 when brothers Ross and Don Barbour, then at Butler University's Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music in Indianapolis, Indiana, formed a barbershop quartet called Hal's Harmonizers. The Harmonizers also included Marvin Pruitt — soon replaced by Ross and Don's cousin Bob Flanigan — and Hal Kratzsch (1925–70), replaced in 1953 by Ken Errair. The quartet soon adopted a more jazz-oriented repertoire and renamed itself the Toppers. At first, they were influenced by Glenn Miller's The Modernaires and Mel Tormé's Mel-Tones, but soon developed their own style of improvised vocal harmony. In September 1948, the quartet went on the road as The Four Freshmen, and soon drew the admiration of jazz legends such as Dizzy Gillespie and Woody Herman. In 1950, The Four Freshmen got a break when band leader Stan Kenton heard the quartet in Dayton, Ohio, and arranged for an audition with his label, Capitol Records, which signed The Four later that year. In 1952, they released their first hit single "It's a Blue World". Further hits included "Mood Indigo" in 1954, "Day by Day" in 1955, and "Graduation Day" in 1956. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, The Four Freshmen released a number of recordings, made film and television appearances, and performed in concert. The group eventually lost their mainstream following with the advent of the British pop bands of the 1960s. After Barbour's retirement in 1977, the Freshmen continued under the management of Flanigan, who kept the rights to The Four Freshmen name. Flanigan died on May 15, 2011, at the age of 84. Barbour died of cancer on August 20, 2011, aged 82.
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Roy Greenslade
Roy Greenslade (born 31 December 1946) is a British author and freelance journalist, and a former professor of journalism. He worked in the UK newspaper industry from the 1960s onwards. As a media commentator, he wrote a daily blog from 2006 to 2018 for The Guardian and a column for London's Evening Standard from 2006 to 2016. Under a pseudonym, Greenslade also wrote for the Sinn Féin newspaper An Phoblacht during the late 1980s whilst also working on Fleet Street. In 2021, it was reported in The Times newspaper, citing an article by Greenslade in the British Journalism Review, that he supported the bombing campaign of the Provisional IRA. Following this revelation, Greenslade resigned as Honorary Visiting Professor at City, University of London.
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Ryan Flamingo
Ryan Flamingo (born 31 December 2002) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a central defender for Eredivisie club PSV.
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Ryo Aitaka
Ryo Aitaka (愛鷹 亮, Aitaka Ryō; born 31 December 1989) is a Japanese professional wrestler and former kickboxer, who competed in the cruiserweight and heavyweight divisions of K-1. He was a one-time K-1 Cruiserweight title challenger, having challenged for the title in 2020. In 2023, he took up professional wrestling, training at the Ibushi Prowrest Lab, and made his debut for Gleat on 30 December, under the ring name Riki Aitaka (愛鷹 力, Aitaka Riki), and later under his real name.
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Sam Ragan
Samuel Talmadge Ragan (December 31, 1915 – May 11, 1996) was an American journalist, author, poet, and arts advocate from North Carolina.
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Sandy Jardine
William "Sandy" Pullar Jardine (31 December 1948 – 24 April 2014) was a Scottish professional footballer who played for Rangers, Hearts and represented Scotland. He played over 1000 professional games and twice won the Scottish Football Writers Association Player of the Year award. He won several honours with Rangers, including two domestic trebles in 1976 and 1978, and was part of the Rangers team that won the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1972. He won 38 caps for Scotland and played in the 1974 and 1978 World Cups. Jardine was also co-manager of Hearts with Alex MacDonald and later worked for Rangers. Jardine died in April 2014, 18 months after being diagnosed with liver cancer.
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Shandon Anderson
Shandon Rodriguez Anderson (born December 31, 1973) is an American former professional basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1996 to 2006. He is the younger brother of former Spurs, Knicks and Heat player Willie Anderson. Anderson attended Alonzo A. Crim High School in Atlanta, then played basketball at the University of Georgia. A shooting guard and small forward, he was drafted in the second round (54th overall) of the 1996 NBA draft by the Utah Jazz while ultimately playing for the Jazz, the Houston Rockets, the New York Knicks, and the Miami Heat. His best season was in 1999–2000, when he averaged 12.3 points per game with the Rockets. In 2001, Anderson signed a 6-year, $42 million deal (valued at $79.2 million in 2026) with the Knicks as a facet of a larger trade sending star Glen Rice to Houston from New York. Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy noted the positional versatility Anderson would offer while also being more of a slasher and defender than Rice. General manager Scott Layden - familiar with Anderson while in the Jazz organization - praised his professionalism and ability to adapt to different roles. In January 2004, Anderson reached 543 consecutive games played, which was the longest streak in the league at the time. By the fall of 2004, the 30 year-old veteran had worn out his welcome under president Isiah Thomas and had the rest of his remaining contract bought out by the team. He was waived with three years left at $24 million of the original amount while he was shopped unsuccessfully in trade talks. It was a result of disagreements about Anderson playing through migraines, his failure to show at their playoff loss exit interview, and not appearing at mandatory charity events. Anderson won an NBA championship in 2006 with the Miami Heat as a backup, and subsequently retired. He is now the head basketball coach at Dunbar High School in Fort Myers, Florida.
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Silvestre Revueltas
Silvestre Revueltas Sánchez (December 31, 1899 – October 5, 1940) was a Mexican classical music composer, a violinist, and conductor.
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Simon Forman
Simon Forman (31 December 1552 – 5 or 12 September 1611) was an Elizabethan astrologer, occultist and herbalist active in London during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and James I of England. His reputation, however, was severely tarnished after his death when he was implicated in the plot to kill Thomas Overbury. Astrologers continued to revere him, while writers from Ben Jonson to Nathaniel Hawthorne came to characterise him as either a fool or an evil magician in league with the Devil.
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Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal (31 December 1908 – 20 September 2005) was an Austrian Holocaust survivor, Nazi hunter, and writer. He studied architecture, and was living in Lwów at the outbreak of World War II. He survived the Janowska concentration camp (late 1941 to September 1944), the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp (September to October 1944), the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, a death march to Chemnitz, Buchenwald, and the Mauthausen concentration camp (February to May 1945). After the war, Wiesenthal dedicated his life to tracking down and gathering information on fugitive Nazi war criminals, so that they could be brought to trial. In 1947, he co-founded the Jewish Historical Documentation Centre in Linz, Austria, where he and others gathered information for future war crime trials and aided Jewish refugees in their search for lost relatives. He opened the Documentation Centre of the Association of Jewish Victims of the Nazi Regime in Vienna in 1961, and continued to try to locate missing Nazi war criminals. He may have played a small role in locating Adolf Eichmann who was captured by Mossad in Buenos Aires in 1960 and worked closely with the Austrian justice ministry to prepare a dossier on Franz Stangl, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1971. In the 1970s and 1980s, Wiesenthal was involved in two high-profile events involving Austrian politicians. Shortly after Bruno Kreisky was inaugurated as Austrian chancellor in April 1970, Wiesenthal pointed out to the press that four of his new cabinet appointees had been members of the Nazi Party. Kreisky, angry, called Wiesenthal a "Jewish fascist", likened his organisation to the Mafia, and accused him of collaborating with the Nazis. Wiesenthal successfully sued for libel, the suit ending in 1989. In 1986, Wiesenthal was involved in the case of Kurt Waldheim, whose service in the Wehrmacht and probable knowledge of the Holocaust were revealed in the lead-up to the 1986 Austrian presidential elections. Wiesenthal, embarrassed that he had previously cleared Waldheim of any wrongdoing, suffered negative publicity as a result of this event. With a reputation as a storyteller, Wiesenthal was the author of several memoirs containing tales that are only loosely based on actual events. In particular, he exaggerated his role in the capture of Eichmann in 1960. Wiesenthal died in his sleep at age 96 in Vienna in 2005, and was buried in the city of Herzliya in Israel. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, headquartered in Los Angeles, is named in his honour.
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Steve Bruce
Stephen Roger Bruce (born 31 December 1960) is an English professional football manager and former player who was a centre-back in a twenty-year playing career. He was most recently the head coach of EFL League One club Blackpool. Born in Corbridge, Northumberland, Bruce was a promising schoolboy footballer but was rejected by several professional clubs. He was on the verge of quitting the game altogether when he was offered a trial with Gillingham. He was offered an apprenticeship and went on to play more than 200 games for the club before joining Norwich City in 1984, winning the League Cup in 1985. In 1987, he moved to Manchester United, with whom he achieved great success, winning twelve trophies including three Premier League titles, three FA Cups, one League Cup and the European Cup Winners' Cup. He also became the first English player of the 20th century to captain a team to the Double. Despite his success on the field, he was never selected to play for the England national team. Commentators and contemporaries have described him as one of the best English players of the 1980s and 1990s never to play for his country at full international level. Bruce began his managerial career with Sheffield United, and spent short periods of time managing Huddersfield Town, Wigan Athletic and Crystal Palace before joining Birmingham City in 2001. He twice led Birmingham to promotion to the Premier League during his tenure of nearly six years, but resigned in 2007 to begin a second spell as manager of Wigan. At the end of the 2008–09 season, he resigned to take over as manager of Sunderland, a post he held until he was dismissed in November 2011. Seven months later, he was appointed manager of Hull City and led the club to two promotions to the Premier League, as well as the 2014 FA Cup Final, before leaving in July 2016. He took over at Aston Villa four months later but was dismissed in October 2018. He became manager of Sheffield Wednesday in February 2019, and left in July that year to take over at Newcastle United. He managed the club through the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping them in the Premier League, and left in November 2021 following the club's takeover by the Public Investment Fund. His final match in charge was his 1,000th in club management. In February 2022, Bruce took over as manager of West Bromwich Albion but was dismissed in October of the same year due to a poor start to the 2022–23 season. He was appointed head coach of Blackpool in September 2024 but was later sacked in October 2025.
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Taylor Hackford
Taylor Edwin Hackford (born December 31, 1944) is an American film director and former president of the Directors Guild of America. He won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for Teenage Father (1979). Hackford went on to direct a number of highly regarded feature films, including An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), The Devil's Advocate (1997) and Ray (2004), for the latter of which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director and Academy Award for Best Picture.
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Taylor Mead
Taylor Mead (December 31, 1924 – May 8, 2013) was an American writer, actor and performer. Mead appeared in several of Andy Warhol's underground films filmed at Warhol's Factory, including Tarzan and Jane Regained... Sort of (1963) and Taylor Mead's Ass (1964).
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Tommy Byrne
For other people named Thomas Byrne, see Thomas Byrne (disambiguation) Thomas Joseph Byrne (December 31, 1919 – December 20, 2007) was an American left-handed starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for four American League teams from 1943 through 1957, primarily the New York Yankees. He also played for the St. Louis Browns (1951–52), Chicago White Sox (1953) and Washington Senators (1953). Byrne batted and threw left-handed.
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Tomás Balduino
Tomás Balduíno, O.P. (born Paulo Balduino de Sousa Décio, December 31, 1922 – May 2, 2014) was a diocesan bishop of the Catholic Church in Brazil.
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Tony Dorigo
Anthony Robert Dorigo (born 31 December 1965) is a former professional footballer, sports pundit and co-commentator. As a player, he was a defender from 1983 to 2001. He had lengthy spells in the old First Division for both Aston Villa and Chelsea before signing with Leeds United in 1991 where he won the title and went on to feature in the Premier League from 1992 to 1997. He later had spells in Serie B with Torino before returning to top-flight English football with Derby County. He retired in the Football League with Stoke City in 2001. Despite being born and raised in Australia, he represented the England national team receiving 15 caps. He was also capped at England U21 and England B team level. Since retirement, Dorigo has worked in the media and has worked as a pundit and commentator for Eurosport, Bravo, Channel 5, ESPN and Sky Sports, amongst others.
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Tyrone Corbin
Tyrone Kennedy Corbin (born December 31, 1962) is an American former professional basketball player who last worked as an assistant coach for the Charlotte Hornets. He was first appointed the assistant coach of the Phoenix Suns, then was named the Utah Jazz’s head coach, on February 10, 2011, following the resignation of longtime coach Jerry Sloan. He was also the brief interim head coach of the Sacramento Kings in the 2014–15 season before being replaced by George Karl. Prior to that, Corbin played 16 seasons in the NBA.
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Valerie Pearl
Valerie Louise Pearl (née Bence; 31 December 1926 – 29 January 2016) was a British historian who was noted for her work on the English Civil War. She was the second President of New Hall, Cambridge.
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Vaughan Jones
Sir Vaughan Frederick Randal Jones (31 December 1952 – 6 September 2020) was a New Zealand mathematician known for his work on von Neumann algebras and knot polynomials. He was awarded a Fields Medal in 1990.
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Vishnudevananda Saraswati
Vishnudevananda Saraswati (31 December 1927 – 9 November 1993, birth name Kuttan Nair) was an Indian yoga guru known for his teaching of asanas, a disciple of Sivananda Saraswati, and founder of the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres and Ashrams (ISYVC). He established the Sivananda Yoga Teachers' Training Course, possibly the first yoga teacher training programs in the West. His books The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga (1960) and Meditation and Mantras (1978) established him as an authority on Hatha and Raja yoga. Vishnudevananda was a peace activist who rode in several "peace flights" over places of conflict, including the Berlin Wall prior to German reunification. In 2007, his long-serving assistant, Julie Salter, reported sexual abuse against her by the guru; she published details of her experiences in 2019, leading at least 3 other women to report their experiences of similar abuse by Vishnudevananda.
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Wardy Alfaro
Wardy Alfaro Pizarro (born 31 December 1977) is a retired Costa Rican football player, who currently is goalkeeper coach at Alajuelense. He played as a goalkeeper, and was one of three that were named in the Costa Rica national squad for the 2006 World Cup held in Germany.
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William Heynes
William 'Bill' Munger Heynes CBE (31 December 1903 – July 1989), born in Leamington Spa, was an English automotive engineer. Heynes was educated at Warwick School from 1914 to 1921 before joining the Humber Car Company in Coventry in 1922 as a student where he worked in the drawing office before becoming head of the technical department in 1930. During this time he oversaw the introduction of significant models including the Humber Snipe and the Humber Pullman. In April 1935, after the Rootes Group takeover, he was chosen by William Lyons to join SS Cars Ltd. Initially he worked on the chassis and suspension but was also responsible for increasing the power output of the modified Standard Motor Company engines then being used. He worked on development of an overhead-valve conversion for the Standard 6-cylinder engine. One of the first cars to ever have it installed was the SS Jaguar 100. Following World War II, SS Cars was renamed Jaguar. Heynes, who was appointed to the main Board of Director as Technical Director and Chief Engineer (1946), had earlier persuaded the chairman William Lyons that the company should make its own range of engines. During late war time the XK engine was designed and later developed with a launch in 1948 at the London Motor Show with the new XK120 sports car. The XK engine remained in production in 2.4, 2.8, 3.4, 3.8 and 4.2 models and was a significant design as the mainstay of the company for 35 years. With Dunlop he was responsible for the Disc Brake joint development in 1952 and later Heynes following racing experience pioneered and introduced the system on all Jaguar cars. The Mk 1 2.4 saloon 1954/55 with monocoque body construction followed the forward design thinking of Heynes and his engineers, post war. This was later in 1961 followed by a world leading independent rear suspension designed by Heynes and developed with R J Knight. This unit remained the standard rear suspension thirty years in E-Type, Mark X, S-Type, 420, XJ6 and XJ12 Series 1, 2 and 3, and XJS. The Heynes design with Walter Hassan development of torsion bar front suspension was introduced on Mark V 1947 and XK120 1948 and was used on all XK sports cars and Mark VII, VIII and IX saloon cars. A similar design was introduced on all E-Types from 1961 to 1975. His team of engineers including Harry Weslake (consultant), Walter Hassan and Claude Baily designed the 6-cylinder XK engine, that proved to be the biggest and longest lived success of Jaguar. In 1964 the first V12 engine prototypes were produced and developed and tested. A prototype race car was initiated for Le Mans. A single V12 car XJ13 was completed and tested in 1966 with competitive lap times at Silverstone prior to the project being cancelled. The V12 engine continued to be developed in line with emerging emission regulations for Series 3 E-Type and XJ12 / XJS. Heynes was Chief Engineer from 1935 until his retirement. As Chief Engineer and Technical Director he was responsible for all Jaguar design / engineering from 1935 up to and including XJS. Heynes designed the XK range of sports cars XK120 XK140 XK150, including full design of the C-Type 1951 followed by his monocoque body design of the D-Type 1954, followed by the E-Type 1961. Sir William Lyons was persuaded by William Heynes to enter motor racing in 1950 with XK120 works prepared, privately entered cars at Le Mans; this was followed by winning the Le Mans 24 hour race in 1952 1953 with the C Type and 1955 /56 /57 with his monocoque designed D type. Heynes continued to support private race entrants from the experimental competition section, including Briggs Cunningham in the USA with a single prototype E2A, the forerunner of the E Type, and Lister Jaguar in 1958/59 Le Mans and with the full race lightweight E Type 3.8 in 1962/63/64. A mid engined V12 race prototype XJ13 was designed 1964 and tested until cancellation of this last Heynes engineered race car during the company merger with BMC in July 1966. Heynes designed the first British monocoque (unitary) saloon 2.4 and 3.4 models 1955, followed by Mk 2 models with 3.8 litre XK engine. The earlier Jaguar saloon cars from 1950 Mk7 Mk8 Mk9 continued in production with 3.4 3.8 engines until 1961. Heynes was responsible for the Mk 10 saloon October 1961, which incorporated new front suspension in conjunction with a new independent rear suspension also designed for the E Type introduced earlier in 1961. Introducing two new models in the same year determines his great engineering and design strength from a small talented engineering team. Heynes with Sir William Lyons designed and engineered the XJ6 saloon, launched in September 1968. The model was voted best car of the year and laid the foundation for the next seventeen years. The XJ6 success was followed by XJS using similar chassis platform and V12 power units designed and initiated by Heynes before retirement. Heynes always acknowledged his engineering team which he had directed and built up from 1935 and their contribution to the success of Jaguar. At the end of 1969 he retired as Vice Chairman and Technical Director of Jaguar, after 35 years. Following his retirement it was reported that he intended to "devote enthusiasm to his farm whilst maintaining strong motor industry links and advising and assisting his close factory relationship with William Lyons and the Jaguar directors, F.R.W "Lofty" England and Bob Knight." Shortly before his retirement he was honoured with a CBE for his services to exports and vehicle design. His responsibilities were taken over by R. J. ("Bob") Knight (Chief Vehicle Engineer) and W.T.F. ("Wally") Hassan (Chief Engineer, Power Units), both of whom were appointed to the company's board as part of their promotion.
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Willye White
Willye Brown White (December 31, 1939 – February 6, 2007) was an American track and field athlete who took part in five Olympics from 1956 to 1972. She was America's best female long jumper of the time and also competed in the 100 meters sprint. White was a Tennessee State University Tigerbelle under Coach Ed Temple. An African-American, White was the first U.S. athlete to compete in track in five Olympics. White is an inductee in the United States Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame. A public park in Chicago is named in her honor.
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Winston Benjamin
Winston Keithroy Matthew Benjamin (born 31 December 1964) is a former Antiguan cricketer who played 21 Tests and 85 One Day Internationals for the West Indies. He is the father of Olympic gold medalist hurdler Rai Benjamin.
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Émile Loubet
Émile François Loubet (French: [emil lubɛ]; 30 December 1838 – 20 December 1929) was the 45th Prime Minister of France from February to December 1892 and later President of France from 1899 to 1906. Trained in law, he became mayor of Montélimar, where he was noted as a forceful orator. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1876 and the Senate in 1885. He was appointed as a Republican minister under Carnot and Ribot. He was briefly Prime Minister of France in 1892. As President, he saw the successful Paris Exhibition of 1900, and the forging of the Entente Cordiale with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, resolving their sharp differences over the Boer War and the Dreyfus Affair.
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