Who was born on February 17?
February 17 is packed with notable birthdays. Explore 118 famous birthdays, sorted by recent English Wikipedia pageviews. Top ranked names include Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Denise Richards, Lou Diamond Phillips, Billie Joe Armstrong, Michael Bay. Filter by actor, musician, athlete, and more — or open any other calendar day.
February 17
118 people
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Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt (; born February 17, 1981) is an American actor. He has received various accolades, including nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for his leading performances in 500 Days of Summer (2009) and 50/50 (2011). He is the founder of the online media platform HitRecord whose projects such as HitRecord on TV (2014–15) and Create Together (2020) won him two Primetime Emmy Awards in the category of Outstanding Interactive Program. Born in Los Angeles to a Jewish family, Gordon-Levitt began his acting career as a child, appearing in the films A River Runs Through It (1992), Holy Matrimony (1994), and Angels in the Outfield (1994), which earned him a Young Artist Award and a Saturn Award nomination. He played the role of Tommy Solomon in the TV series 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996–2001). He had a supporting role in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), starred in Manic (2001), and voiced Jim Hawkins in the Disney animated film Treasure Planet (2002) before taking a break from acting to study at Columbia University, but he dropped out in 2004 to resume his acting career. Since returning to acting, Gordon-Levitt has starred in Mysterious Skin (2004), Brick (2005), G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009), Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Looper (2012), and Lincoln (2012). He portrayed Philippe Petit in the Robert Zemeckis-directed film The Walk (2015) and whistleblower Edward Snowden in the Oliver Stone film Snowden (2016). In 2020, he had a supporting role in the legal drama The Trial of the Chicago 7. In 2024, he portrayed Detective Bobby Abbott in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. In 2013, he wrote and directed Don Jon, a comedy-drama film that was released to positive reviews and earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Screenplay. He previously directed and edited two short films, both of which were released in 2010: Morgan M. Morgansen's Date with Destiny and Morgan and Destiny's Eleventeenth Date: The Zeppelin Zoo. In 2021, he wrote, directed, and starred in a comedy-drama series Mr. Corman on Apple TV+.
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Denise Richards
Denise Lee Richards (born February 17, 1971) is an American actress, model and television personality. She rose to prominence with roles in the science fiction film Starship Troopers (1997), the erotic thriller film Wild Things (1998) and the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough (1999). Her performance as the Bond girl Christmas Jones, gave Richards her mainstream breakthrough. Richards has appeared in films such as the comedies Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), Undercover Brother (2002), Scary Movie 3 (2003), Love Actually (2003) and Madea's Witness Protection (2012), the slasher Valentine (2001), the dramas Edmond (2005) and Jolene (2008) and the musical thriller American Satan (2017). Her television roles include the sitcom Blue Mountain State (2010–2011), the mystery thriller series Twisted (2013–2014) and the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful (2019–2022). She returned to the soap in May of 2026. Richards has starred on reality series such as Denise Richards: It's Complicated (2008–2009), The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (2019–2020, 2023–2024, 2026) and Denise Richards & Her Wild Things (2025). In 2011, she published a memoir, The Real Girl Next Door, which became a New York Times Best Seller.
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Lou Diamond Phillips
Louis Diamond Phillips (né Upchurch; born February 17, 1962) is an American actor, director, and writer. His breakthrough came when he starred as Ritchie Valens in the biographical drama film La Bamba (1987). For his performance as Angel David Guzman in Stand and Deliver (1988), he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture and won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male. Phillips made his Broadway debut with the 1996 revival of The King and I, earning a Tony Award nomination for his portrayal of King Mongkut of Siam. Phillips's other notable films include Young Guns (1988), Young Guns II (1990), Courage Under Fire (1996), The Big Hit (1998), Brokedown Palace (1999), Che (2008), and The 33 (2015). In the A&E/Netflix television series Longmire, he played a main character named Henry Standing Bear. He played New York City Police Lieutenant Gil Arroyo on Prodigal Son on FOX from 2019 to 2021.
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Billie Joe Armstrong
Billie Joe Armstrong (born February 17, 1972) is an American musician, songwriter and actor. He is best known for being the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the rock band Green Day, which he co-founded with Mike Dirnt in 1987. He is also a guitarist and vocalist for the punk rock band Pinhead Gunpowder, and provides lead vocals for Green Day's side projects Foxboro Hot Tubs, the Network, the Longshot and the Coverups. Armstrong has been considered by critics as one of the greatest punk rock guitarists of all time, as well as one of the greatest punk rock singers of all time. Armstrong developed an interest in music at a young age, and recorded his first song at the age of five. He met Dirnt while attending elementary school, and the two instantly bonded over their interest in music, forming the band Sweet Children when the two were 14 years old. The band later changed its name to Green Day. Armstrong has also pursued musical projects including numerous collaborations with other musicians. Armstrong has acted in several films and TV series, including Like Sunday, Like Rain, Ordinary World, King of the Hill, Haunted, and Drunk History. In addition to co-writing the book and lyrics for American Idiot, a jukebox musical featuring several of Green Day's songs, Armstrong portrayed the role of St. Jimmy in the show for several weeks during its run on Broadway. Armstrong's business ventures include founding Adeline Records to help support other bands in 1997, coinciding with the release of Nimrod. Adeline signed acts such as the Frustrators, AFI, and Dillinger Four. Armstrong also co-founded Punk Bunny Coffee (formerly Oakland Coffee Works) in 2015.
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Michael Bay
Michael Benjamin Bay (born February 17, 1965) is an American film director and producer. He is best known for making big-budget high-concept action films with fast cutting, stylistic cinematography and visuals, and extensive use of special effects, including frequent depictions of explosions. The films he has directed include Bad Boys (1995) and its sequel Bad Boys II (2003), The Rock (1996), Armageddon (1998), Pearl Harbor (2001), the first five films in the Transformers film series, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016) and Ambulance (2022). Armageddon and Pearl Harbor each received four Academy Award nominations, the latter winning for Best Sound Editing. His films have grossed over US$6.6 billion worldwide, making him the fifth-most commercially successful director in history. Bay studied English and film at Wesleyan University, graduating in 1986, and did graduate work at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He began his career at Propaganda Films directing commercials and music videos, winning a Clio Award for a 1992 Red Cross spot and a Grand Prix Clio for the 1993 "Aaron Burr" Got Milk? commercial. He was later hired by Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson to direct Bad Boys, the first of five collaborations with Bruckheimer. Bay is co-founder of the production house the Institute, through which he has directed commercials for brands including Victoria's Secret, Lexus and Nike. He co-owns Platinum Dunes, a production house which has remade horror films. From 2006 to 2012, Bay was a co-owner of the visual effects company Digital Domain. Despite commercial success, Bay's work is critically divisive, and his name has been used pejoratively in art-house circles. Reviewers have often faulted Bay's preference for action and spectacle over story and character, his broad humor, extensive product placement, and his use of racial stereotypes for comic effect. Six of his films have been nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture and Worst Director, with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) and Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) winning the latter. He has also been criticized for objectifying women in his films, and Megan Fox and Kate Beckinsale have publicly described being mistreated by him during production. Other commentators, including the film historian Jeanine Basinger and Variety's Scott Foundas, have praised the scale and fluency of his filmmaking.
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Madison Keys
Madison Keys (born February 17, 1995) is an American professional tennis player. She has been ranked as high as world No. 5 by the WTA. Keys has won eleven career singles titles, including a Major at the 2025 Australian Open. She was also a finalist at the 2017 US Open. Keys was inspired to start playing tennis after watching Venus Williams at Wimbledon on TV. Keys turned professional on her 14th birthday, becoming one of the youngest players to win a WTA Tour-level match a few months later. Keys first entered the top 100 of the WTA rankings in 2013 at the age of 17. She had her first breakthrough at a major in early 2015 when she reached the semifinals of the Australian Open as a teenager. Keys debuted in the top 10 of the WTA rankings in 2016, becoming the first American woman to achieve this milestone since Serena Williams in 1999. She reached the US Open final in 2017, losing to Sloane Stephens. Following years of injury struggles and lower results, Keys won her first major title at the 2025 Australian Open, defeating world No. 2 Iga Świątek and world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinal and final, respectively. Keys' playing style has allowed her to become a leader of American tennis, using a fast serve and powerful forehand. She plays well on all court surfaces, having at least one title per surface, and has reached the quarterfinals at every major.
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Wu Zetian
Empress Zetian (17 February 624 – 16 December 705), personal name Wu Zhao, was the only undisputed female sovereign in the history of China. She had previously held power as the empress consort of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang dynasty from 660 to 683 and as empress dowager during the reigns of her sons, Emperors Zhongzong and Ruizong, between 683 and 690. She was the sole ruler of the self-styled Zhou dynasty from 690 to 705. In her early life, Wu served as a concubine of Emperor Taizong. After his death, she married his successor, Emperor Gaozong, becoming empress in 655. Wu exercised substantial political influence even before her elevation and gradually came to dominate court affairs. After Gaozong suffered a debilitating stroke in 660, she effectively administered the empire on his behalf until his death in 683. Breaking with precedent, Wu then consolidated power and prevented her sons from ruling. In 690, she proclaimed the Zhou dynasty in place of the Tang and crowned herself emperor. During her 45-year de facto rule over China, Wu institutionalized the use of informants and enforced stringent legal measures, purged members of the Tang royal house and veteran officials from earlier administrations, reformed the civil service system to promote merit, patronized Buddhism as well as literature and the arts, and conducted military campaigns against Turkic and Tibetan incursions. Her rule formed part of the High Tang period, a historic peak in China's political power and cultural influence. In her later years, her governance became increasingly autocratic and extravagant. She was removed from power in the Shenlong Coup, which abolished the Zhou dynasty and restored the Tang, and she died a few months later.
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Marc Márquez
Marc Márquez Alentà (born 17 February 1993) is a Spanish Grand Prix motorcycle road racer who races for the Ducati Lenovo Team in MotoGP. He previously raced for Honda's factory team from 2013 to 2023, and for the Ducati satellite team Gresini Racing in 2024. Widely considered one of the greatest motorcycle racers of all time, he has won nine Grand Prix World Championships, including seven in the MotoGP class (2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2025). As a teenager, Márquez won the 125cc World Championship in 2010, and the Moto2 World Championship in 2012. He moved into the MotoGP class in 2013 to ride for Repsol Honda. He won the title in his rookie season, becoming the first rider since Kenny Roberts in 1978 to do so, and the youngest to win it overall, at 20 years and 266 days. He received the Laureus World Sports Award for Breakthrough of the Year. In 2014 Márquez defended his title dominantly, winning the first ten races of the season back-to-back. He was ruled out of championship contention early in 2015 due to several crashes, with the season overshadowed by his tumultuous feud with Valentino Rossi. In 2016, aged 23, Márquez equalled the all-time Grand Prix record for pole positions. He secured a further four consecutive championships in 2016, 2017, 2018, and a particularly dominant 2019. He was the youngest rider to win his seventh and eighth Grand Prix championships. At the delayed 2020 season-opener in Jerez, Márquez crashed and broke his right humerus. A premature attempt to return to competition further damaged his arm, and he sat out the rest of the season due to three surgeries. The injury continued to plague Márquez in 2021. Despite winning races in Germany, Austin, and Misano, he finished the season seventh. Márquez underwent a more successful fourth surgery on his arm at the Mayo Clinic in 2022. Struggling with an increasingly adrift RC213V, Márquez severed his contract with Honda in 2023 and joined the satellite Gresini Ducati team for 2024. After a 1,043 day drought, Márquez won three races. He finished the championship in third place and negotiated a two-year factory Ducati contract. In 2025, Márquez dominated the championship on the factory bike. His six-year drought between titles was the longest in history, and at 32 he became the oldest world champion in the four-stroke era. His younger brother Álex Márquez was runner-up, making them the first siblings to place first and second in the premier class. One race after securing the title, Márquez suffered another injury which forced him to sit out for the rest of the season, and resulted in further surgeries in 2025 and 2026.
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Rory Kinnear
Rory Michael Kinnear (born 17 February 1978) is an English actor. He won two Olivier Awards, both at the National Theatre, in 2008 for his portrayal of Sir Fopling Flutter in The Man of Mode, and for playing the William Shakespeare villain Iago in Othello in 2014. He played Bill Tanner in four James Bond films: Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015), and No Time to Die (2021); and in various video games of the franchise. Kinnear also played Dave Fishwick in Bank of Dave (2023) and Bank of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger (2025). His other film roles include Broken (2012), for which he won a British Independent Film Award, The Imitation Game (2014), Men (2022), and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024). Television roles include Michael Callow in the debut episode of the anthology Black Mirror, "The National Anthem" (2011), Michael Baker in the sitcom Count Arthur Strong (2013–2017), Lord Lucan in the two-part thriller Lucan (2013), the Creature in the horror drama Penny Dreadful (2014–2016), Stephen in the dystopian mini-series Years and Years (2019), and Tom Bombadil in the Amazon Prime Video series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2024).
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Dominic Purcell
Dominic Haakon Myrtvedt Purcell (born 17 February 1970) is an Australian actor. He is best known as Lincoln Burrows in Prison Break (2005–09; 2017), Mick Rory / Heat Wave in The Flash (2014–16) and Legends of Tomorrow (2016–21), and Drake / Dracula in Blade: Trinity (2004). He is also known for his role as Lewis "Lew" Brookbank in Three Way. In August 2023, he married Tish Cyrus, the ex-wife of country music star Billy Ray Cyrus, in Malibu, California after they were engaged in April 2023, becoming the stepfather of Brandi, Trace, Miley, and Noah Cyrus; he has four biological children from his first marriage.
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Larry the Cable Guy
Daniel Lawrence Whitney (born February 17, 1963), known professionally as Larry the Cable Guy, is an American stand-up comedian, actor and former radio personality. He was one of the members of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, a comedy troupe which included Bill Engvall, Ron White, and Jeff Foxworthy (with whom he has starred on Blue Collar TV). Whitney has released seven comedy albums, two of which have been certified platinum by the RIAA for shipments of 1,000,000 copies and one of which has been certified gold for shipments of 500,000 copies. He has starred in three Blue Collar Comedy Tour related films, alongside Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, Delta Farce and Witless Protection, and provides the voice of Mater in Disney/Pixar's Cars franchise. Whitney's catchphrase "Git-R-Done!" is also the title of his book.
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Jim Brown
James Nathaniel Brown (February 17, 1936 – May 18, 2023) was an American professional football player, civil rights activist, and actor. He played as a fullback for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL) from 1957 to 1965. Widely considered one of the greatest running backs of all time, as well as one of the greatest players in NFL history, Brown was selected to a Pro Bowl and All-Pro team every season he was in the league, and was recognized as the AP NFL Most Valuable Player three times. Brown won an NFL championship with the Browns in 1964. He led the league in rushing yards in eight out of his nine seasons, and by the time he retired, he held most major rushing records. In 1999, he was named the greatest professional football player ever by The Sporting News and the Associated Press. Brown earned unanimous All-America honors playing college football at Syracuse University, where he was an all-around player when he played for the Syracuse Orangemen football team. The team later retired his number 44 jersey, and he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1995. He is also widely considered one of the greatest lacrosse players of all time, and the Premier Lacrosse League MVP Award is named in his honor. Brown also excelled in basketball and track and field. In his professional career, Brown carried the ball 2,359 times for 12,312 rushing yards and 106 touchdowns, which were all records when he retired. He averaged 104.3 rushing yards per game and is the only player in NFL history to average over 100 rushing yards per game for his career. Brown was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971. He was named to the NFL's 50th, 75th, and 100th Anniversary All-Time Teams, composed of the best players in NFL history. Brown was honored at the 2020 College Football Playoff National Championship as the greatest college football player of all time. His number 32 jersey is retired by the Browns. Shortly before the end of his football career, Brown became an actor. He retired at the peak of his football career to pursue an acting career. He obtained 53 acting credits and several leading roles throughout the 1970s. He has been described as Hollywood's first black action hero and his role in the 1969 film 100 Rifles made cinematic history for featuring interracial love scenes. Brown was one of the few athletes, and among the most prominent African Americans, to speak out on racial issues as the civil rights movement was growing in the 1950s. He participated in the Cleveland Summit after Muhammad Ali faced imprisonment for refusing to enter the draft for the Vietnam War, and he founded the Black Economic Union to help promote economic opportunities for minority-owned businesses. Brown later launched a foundation focused on diverting at-risk youth from violence through teaching them life skills, through which he facilitated the Watts truce between rival street gangs in Los Angeles.
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Adriano
Adriano Leite Ribeiro (born 17 February 1982) is a Brazilian former professional footballer. He had four prolific seasons in Italy with Italian clubs Parma and Inter Milan, being considered one of the best strikers in the world during this time and earning the nickname of L'Imperatore ("the Emperor"). Adriano finished within the top 10 of the Ballon d'Or in 2004 and 2005 and was awarded the IFFHS World's Top Goal Scorer of 2005 and was also a three-time winner of Bidone d'Oro award. He was a key figure in Inter's 2005–06 Scudetto win before his career was marked by inconsistency and performance decline which coincided with the death of his father in 2004. He moved back to his native Brazil in 2009 and went on to win a Brasileirão with both Flamengo and Corinthians. He retired in 2016 at the age of 34. Making his Brazil debut at 18, Adriano was considered the long-term successor to Ronaldo. In the absence of Ronaldo, he led Brazil to the 2004 Copa América, receiving the Golden Boot as the competition's leading scorer with seven goals. He also won the 2005 FIFA Confederations Cup with Brazil, receiving the Golden Boot Award as the competition's leading scorer with five goals. Before the 2006 World Cup he was part of Brazil's much-vaunted "magic quartet" of offensive players alongside Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Kaká, which ultimately was not successful at the tournament.
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Huey P. Newton
Huey Percy Newton (February 17, 1942 – August 22, 1989) was an African American revolutionary and political activist who co-founded the Marxist–Leninist political and militant organization the Black Panther Party (BPP) with fellow activist Bobby Seale in 1966. He ran the party as its main leader and crafted its ten-point manifesto with Seale. Under his leadership, the party organized numerous social programs and community events and advocated for collective defense. Newton stated that Plato's Republic influenced his philosophy of activism. He went on to earn a PhD in social philosophy from the University of California, Santa Cruz's History of Consciousness program in 1980. He was tried for, but ultimately not convicted of, the criminal homicides of a police officer and a sex worker. He was convicted of, and incarcerated on separate occasions for, weapons and embezzlement offenses. He was accused of rape, and complicity in other targeted violence. He was murdered in 1989.
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Richard Karn
Richard Karn (born Richard Karn Wilson; February 17, 1956) is an American actor, author and former game show host. He starred as Al Borland in the ABC series Home Improvement and as Fred Peters in the Hulu series Pen15. Karn was also the fourth host of Family Feud from 2002 to 2006.
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Lindy Ruff
Lindy Cameron Ruff (born February 17, 1960) is a Canadian professional ice hockey coach and former player who is the head coach for the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League (NHL). Ruff was previously the head coach of the Sabres from 1997 to 2013, winning the Jack Adams Award in 2006, and has also served as head coach of the Dallas Stars and New Jersey Devils. Ruff has won over 600 games with the Sabres, making him one of three coaches to win that many games for one team in NHL history. During his playing career, Ruff played in the NHL for the Sabres and New York Rangers, the former of which he captained. Internationally, Ruff was an assistant coach for the Canadian national team at the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics, winning gold medals at both.
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Alejandro Jodorowsky
Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky (Spanish: [xoðoˈɾofski]; born 17 February 1929) is a Chilean and French avant-garde filmmaker. Known for his films El Topo (1970), The Holy Mountain (1973) and Santa Sangre (1989), Jodorowsky has been "venerated by cult cinema enthusiasts" for his work which "is filled with violently surreal images and a hybrid blend of mysticism and religious provocation". Dropping out of college, he became involved in theater and in particular mime, working as a clown before founding his own theater troupe, the Teatro Mímico, in 1947. Moving to Paris in the early 1950s, Jodorowsky studied traditional mime under Étienne Decroux, and put his miming skills to use in the silent film Les têtes interverties (1957), directed with Saul Gilbert and Ruth Michelly. From 1960 onwards he divided his time between Mexico City and Paris, where he co-founded Panic Movement, a surrealist performance art collective that staged violent and shocking theatrical events. In 1966 he created his first comic strip, Anibal 5, and in 1967 he directed his first feature film, the surrealist Fando y Lis, which caused a major scandal in Mexico, eventually being banned. His next film, the acid western El Topo (1970), became a hit on the midnight movie circuit in the United States, considered the first-ever midnight cult film, and garnered high praise from John Lennon, who convinced former Beatles manager Allen Klein to provide Jodorowsky with $1 million to finance his next film. The result was The Holy Mountain (1973), a surrealist exploration of western esotericism. Disagreements with Klein, however, led to both The Holy Mountain and El Topo failing to gain widespread distribution, although both became classics on the underground film circuit. After a cancelled attempt at filming Frank Herbert's 1965 science fiction novel Dune, Jodorowsky produced five more films: the family film Tusk (1980); the surrealist horror Santa Sangre (1989); the failed blockbuster The Rainbow Thief (1990); and the first two films in a planned five-film autobiographical series The Dance of Reality (2013) and Endless Poetry (2016). Jodorowsky is also a comic book writer, most notably penning the science fiction series The Incal throughout the 1980s. Other comic books he has written include The Technopriests and Metabarons. Jodorowsky has also extensively written and lectured about his own spiritual system, which he calls "psychomagic" and "psychoshamanism", which borrows from alchemy, the tarot, Zen Buddhism and shamanism. His son Cristóbal has followed his teachings on psychoshamanism; this work is captured in the feature documentary Quantum Men, directed by Carlos Serrano Azcona.
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Christina Pickles
Christina Pickles (born 17 February 1935) is an English actress, known for her work in the United States. She is known for her role as Nurse Helen Rosenthal in the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere (1982–1988), for which she received five nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She is also known for her recurring role as Judy Geller on the NBC sitcom Friends (1994, 1996–2003), for which she was nominated for the 1995 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. Pickles appeared in Broadway plays in the 1960s and 1970s, including The Misanthrope (1968) and Sherlock Holmes (1975), and starred on the daytime soap operas Guiding Light (1970–1972, 2007) and Another World (1977–1979). Her film appearances include Masters of the Universe (1987), Legends of the Fall (1994), Romeo + Juliet (1996), and The Wedding Singer (1998). She won the 2018 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actress in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series for the Vimeo series Break a Hip.
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Alan Bates
Sir Alan Arthur Bates (17 February 1934 – 27 December 2003) was an English actor who came to prominence in the 1960s, when he appeared in films ranging from Whistle Down the Wind to the kitchen sink drama A Kind of Loving. Bates is also known for his performance with Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek, as well as his roles in King of Hearts, Georgy Girl, Far From the Madding Crowd and The Fixer, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In 1969, he starred in the Ken Russell film Women in Love with Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson. Bates went on to star in The Go-Between, An Unmarried Woman, Nijinsky and in The Rose with Bette Midler, as well as many television dramas, including The Mayor of Casterbridge, Harold Pinter's The Collection, A Voyage Round My Father, An Englishman Abroad (as Guy Burgess) and Pack of Lies. He also appeared on the stage, notably in the plays of Simon Gray, such as Butley and Otherwise Engaged.
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Angela Eagle
Dame Angela Eagle DBE (born 17 February 1961) is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs since 2026. A member of the Labour Party, she has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wallasey since 1992. Born in Bridlington, Eagle was educated at Formby High School. She studied philosophy, politics and economics at St John's College, Oxford and then worked in the economic directorate of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). Eagle was elected to Parliament at the 1992 general election for the seat of Wallasey. Following the 1997 general election, Eagle joined the government frontbench under Tony Blair as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, moving to the Department of Social Security in 1998. Eagle was again re-elected at the 2001 general election, and then was appointed an Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office. She was dismissed from the government in 2002. Eagle returned to the frontbench under Gordon Brown as Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury in 2007. She then served as Minister of State for Pensions and Ageing Society from 2009 until Labour lost the 2010 general election. Eagle was elected to the Shadow Cabinet in October 2010 and was appointed by Ed Miliband as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. In October 2011, she was promoted to Shadow Leader of the House of Commons. After Labour's defeat at the 2015 general election, she stood in the 2015 deputy leadership election but finished fourth. After Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader in September 2015, Eagle was appointed Shadow First Secretary of State and Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. She resigned from the Shadow Cabinet in June 2016 in protest against Corbyn's leadership. Eagle announced a leadership challenge to Corbyn the following month, but eight days later she withdrew leaving Owen Smith to challenge Corbyn for the leadership. She then served on the backbenches for eight years between 2016 and 2024. Following Labour's victory in the 2024 general election, Eagle returned to government as Minister of State for Border Security and Asylum under Keir Starmer. She was appointed Minister of State for Food Security and Rural Affairs in September 2025 and then Minister of State for Security in June 2026. After Andy Burnham became Prime Minister in July 2026, Eagle was promoted to Cabinet as Environment Secretary.
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AB de Villiers
Abraham Benjamin de Villiers (born (1984-02-17)17 February 1984) is a South African former professional cricketer, widely recognised as one of the greatest batters of all time. While primarily a batter, he also played as a wicket-keeper. He represented South Africa from 2004 to 2018, scoring 8,765 runs in Test matches and 9,577 runs in One Day Internationals (ODIs). He maintained a batting average of over 50 in both formats. As of June 2026, de Villiers is South Africa's second-highest run-scorer in ODIs and fourth-highest in Tests. He also captained the national team in Tests, ODIs, and Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is) during the 2010s. In domestic cricket, de Villiers started his career in 2003, playing for Northerns and the Titans until 2018. He later joined several Twenty20 leagues around the world. Most notably, he played for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League (IPL) from 2011 until he retired from all professional cricket in 2021. Over the course of his career, de Villiers won several major honours. He was named the ICC Men's ODI Cricketer of the Year in 2010, 2014, and 2015, and was selected as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Decade in 2019. In 2024, he was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
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Vicente Fernández
Vicente Fernández Gómez (17 February 1940 – 12 December 2021) was a Mexican mariachi singer, actor and film producer. Nicknamed "Chente" (short for Vicente), "El Charro de Huentitán" (The Charro from Huentitán), "El Ídolo de México" (The Idol of Mexico), and "El Rey de la Música Ranchera" (The King of Ranchera Music), Fernández started his career as a busker, and went on to become a cultural icon, having recorded more than 100 albums and contributing to more than 150 films. His repertoire consisted of rancheras and other Mexican classics such as waltzes. Fernández's work earned him four Grammy Awards, nine Latin Grammy Awards, fourteen Lo Nuestro Awards, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He sold over 50 million copies worldwide, making him one of the best-selling regional Mexican artists of all time. In 2016, Fernández retired from performing live, although he continued to record and publish music. In 2023, Rolling Stone named Fernández the greatest Mexican singer of all time and the 95th greatest overall with their "200 Greatest Singers of All Time" list.
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Becky Ann Baker
Becky Ann Baker (née Gelke; born February 17, 1953) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Jean Weir on the NBC comedy-drama series Freaks and Geeks (1999–2000) and as Loreen Horvath on the HBO comedy-drama series Girls (2012–2017); she earned two Critics' Choice Television Award nominations and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for the latter. Baker's film credits include Jacob's Ladder (1990), In & Out (1997), A Simple Plan (1998), Stay (2005), Nights in Rodanthe (2008), Hope Springs (2012), Table 19 (2017), The Half of It (2020), and Holler (2020).
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Mary Ann Mobley
Mary Ann Mobley (February 17, 1937 – December 9, 2014) was an American actress, television personality, and Miss America 1959.
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Julia McKenzie
Julia Kathleen Nancy McKenzie (born 17 February 1941) is an English actress, singer, presenter, and theatre director. She has premièred leading roles written by both Alan Ayckbourn and Stephen Sondheim. On television, she is known for her BAFTA Award nominated role as Hester Fields in the sitcom Fresh Fields (1984–1986) and its sequel French Fields (1989–1991), as Miss Marple in Agatha Christie's Marple (2009–2013) and for her appearance in the BBC One costume drama series Cranford. McKenzie has also starred in numerous musicals, receiving a 1977 Tony Award nomination for her work in the Broadway revue, Side by Side by Sondheim. A six-time Olivier Award nominee, she has twice won the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical; for the 1982 revival of Guys and Dolls and the 1993 revival of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. She also starred in the original London productions of the Sondheim musicals Follies (1987) and Into the Woods (1990). Her film appearances include Bright Young Things (2003) and Notes on a Scandal (2006).
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Margaret Truman
Mary Margaret Truman Daniel (February 17, 1924 – January 29, 2008) was an American classical soprano, actress, journalist, radio and television personality, writer, and New York socialite. She was the only child of President Harry S. Truman and First Lady Bess Truman. While her father was president during the years 1945 to 1953, Margaret regularly accompanied him on campaign trips, such as the 1948 countrywide whistle-stop campaign lasting several weeks. She also appeared at important White House and political events during those years and was a favorite with the media. After graduating from George Washington University in 1946, Truman embarked on a career as a coloratura soprano, beginning with a concert appearance with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 1947. She appeared in the US in concerts with orchestras and in recitals through 1956. She made recordings for RCA Victor and made television appearances on programs such as What's My Line? and The Bell Telephone Hour. In 1957, one year after her marriage, Truman abandoned her singing career to pursue a career as a journalist and radio personality when she became the cohost of the program Weekday with Mike Wallace. She also wrote articles as an independent journalist for a variety of publications in the 1960s and 1970s. Truman later became the successful author of a series of murder mysteries as well as a number of works on first ladies and their families, including well-received biographies of her father. Truman was married to journalist Clifton Daniel, managing editor of The New York Times. The couple had four sons and lived in a Park Avenue apartment.
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Devin White
Devin Marcel White (born February 17, 1998) is an American professional football linebacker for the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the LSU Tigers, and was selected by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fifth overall in the 2019 NFL draft. He spent five seasons with the Buccaneers and won a Super Bowl championship with the team in Super Bowl LV.
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Meaghan Martin
Meaghan Jette Martin () (born February 17, 1992) is an American actress and singer best known for her work in film, television, and theatre. She is best known for her starring role in the ABC Family She is also well known for her role as Tess Tyler in the Disney Channel television films Camp Rock and its sequel Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam. She has also had guest starring roles in House and Jessie, and played the recurring role of Julie #2 in Awkward. Martin also starred as Jo Mitchell in Mean Girls 2. Martin is also known for voicing Naminé in the video game series Kingdom Hearts and Jessica in Until Dawn. In 2019, Martin made her professional London stage debut in The Actor's Nightmare at the Park Theatre in London.
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Lola Montez
Eliza Rosanna Gilbert (17 February 1821 – 17 January 1861), better known by the stage name Lola Montez (), was an Irish dancer and actress who became famous as a Spanish dancer, courtesan, and mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who made her Gräfin (Countess) von Landsfeld. At the start of the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states, she was forced to flee. She proceeded to the United States via Austria, Switzerland, France and London, to return to her work as an entertainer and lecturer.
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Karl Jenkins
Sir Karl William Pamp Jenkins, , HonFLSW (born 17 February 1944) is a Welsh multi-instrumentalist and composer. His best known works include the song "Adiemus" (1995, from the Adiemus album series), Palladio (1995), The Armed Man (2000), his Requiem (2005) and his Stabat Mater (2008). Jenkins was educated in music at Cardiff University and the Royal Academy of Music, and he is a fellow and an associate of the latter. He joined the jazz-rock band Soft Machine in 1972 and became the group's lead songwriter in 1974. He continued to work with Soft Machine until 1984, but has not been involved with any incarnation of the group since. He has composed music for advertising campaigns and has won the industry prize twice.
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Conrad Ricamora
Conrad Wayne Ricamora-Jensen (born February 17, 1979) is an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Oliver Hampton on the ABC television series How to Get Away with Murder (2014–20). As a stage actor, he is noted for his roles in the original Off-Broadway musicals Here Lies Love and Soft Power, which premiered in 2013 and 2019, respectively, as well as his role in Oh, Mary!, for which he received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. He made his Broadway debut in the 2015 revival of The King and I. In addition to his Tony nomination, Ricamora is also a two-time Grammy Award, Drama Desk Award and Lucille Lortel Award nominee.
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Loreena McKennitt
Loreena McKennitt (born February 17, 1957) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer who writes, records, and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern influences. McKennitt is known for her refined and clear soprano vocals. She has sold more than 16 million records worldwide.
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Al Harrington
Albert Harrington (born February 17, 1980) is an American former professional basketball player. Selected with the 25th overall pick in the 1998 NBA draft, Harrington played 16 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Indiana Pacers, Atlanta Hawks, Golden State Warriors, New York Knicks, Denver Nuggets, Orlando Magic, and Washington Wizards. He also spent a short stint with the Fujian Sturgeons of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). Since retiring from the NBA, Harrington has become an entrepreneur in the cannabis industry. Harrington is a cousin of former NBA player and Los Angeles Clippers assistant coach Dahntay Jones.
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Ronald Fisher
Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was an English polymath who was active as a mathematician, statistician, biologist, geneticist, and academic. He has been described as "a genius who almost single-handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science" and "the single most important figure in 20th century statistics". In genetics, Fisher was the one to most comprehensively combine the ideas of Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin, as his work used mathematics to combine Mendelian genetics and natural selection; this contributed to the revival of Darwinism in the early 20th-century revision of the theory of evolution known as the modern synthesis. For his contributions to biology, Richard Dawkins declared Fisher to be the greatest of Darwin's successors. He is also considered one of the founding fathers of Neo-Darwinism. According to statistician Jeffrey T. Leek, Fisher is the most influential scientist of all time on the basis of the number of citations of his contributions. From 1919, he worked at the Rothamsted Experimental Station for 14 years; there, he analyzed its immense body of data from crop experiments since the 1840s, and developed the analysis of variance (ANOVA). He established his reputation there in the following years as a biostatistician. Fisher also made fundamental contributions to multivariate statistics. Fisher founded quantitative genetics, and, together with J. B. S. Haldane and Sewall Wright, is known as one of the three principal founders of population genetics. Fisher outlined Fisher's principle, the Fisherian runaway, the sexy son hypothesis theories of sexual selection, parental investment, and also pioneered linkage analysis and gene mapping. On the other hand, as the founder of modern statistics, Fisher made countless contributions, including creating the modern method of maximum likelihood and deriving the properties of maximum likelihood estimators, fiducial inference, the derivation of various sampling distributions, founding the principles of the design of experiments, and much more. Fisher's famous 1921 paper alone has been described as "arguably the most influential article" on mathematical statistics in the twentieth century, and equivalent to "Darwin on evolutionary biology, Gauss on number theory, Kolmogorov on probability, and Adam Smith on economics", and is credited with completely revolutionizing statistics. For his influence and numerous fundamental contributions, he has been described as "the most original evolutionary biologist of the twentieth century" and as "the greatest statistician of all time". His work is further credited with later initiating the Human Genome Project. Fisher also contributed to the understanding of human blood groups. Fisher has also been praised as a pioneer of the Information Age. His work on a mathematical theory of information ran parallel to the work of Claude Shannon and Norbert Wiener, though based on statistical theory. A concept to have come out of his work is that of Fisher information. He also had ideas about social sciences, which have been described as a "foundation for evolutionary social sciences". Fisher held strong views on race and eugenics, insisting on racial differences, although there is debate as to whether Fisher supported scientific racism (see § Views on race). He was the Galton Professor of Eugenics at University College London and editor of the Annals of Eugenics. Due to Fisher's association with eugenics, a number of institutions – including his alma mater Gonville and Caius College and his former employer University College London – have removed commemorations of their links to him.
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Kelly Carlson
Kelly Carlson is an American actress, model and martial artist. She is best known for her role as Kimber Henry in the FX drama series Nip/Tuck.
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José José
José Rómulo Sosa Ortiz (17 February 1948 – 28 September 2019), known professionally as José José (Spanish pronunciation: [xoˈse xoˈse]) was a Mexican singer and actor. Dubbed as "El Príncipe de la Canción" ("the Prince of Song"), his performance and vocal style have influenced many Latin pop artists in a career that spanned more than four decades. Due to his vocals and popularity, José José was considered by Latin audiences and media as an icon of Latin pop music and one of the most emblematic Latin singers of his time. Born into a family of musicians, José began his musical career in his early teens playing guitar and singing in serenade. He later joined a jazz and bossa nova trio where he sang and played bass and double bass. José José found success as a solo artist in the early 1970s. Demonstrating his tenor vocal ability with a stunning performance of the song "El Triste" at a Latin music festival held in Mexico City in 1970, he climbed the Latin charts during that decade. Having achieved recognition as a balladeer, his singing garnered universal critical acclaim from musical peers and media. In the 1980s, after signing with Ariola Records, José rose to international prominence as one of the most popular and talented Latin performers. His 1983 album Secretos has sold over four million units. With many international hits, he received several Grammy nominations, sold more than 40 million albums and was once courted by music legend Frank Sinatra, who wanted to win him for his own label. He sold out in venues such as Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall. His music reached non-Spanish-speaking countries in Europe and Asia. He forged a career as an actor, starring in movies such as Gavilán o Paloma (1985) and Perdóname Todo (1995).
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Luc Robitaille
Luc Jean-Marie Robitaille (born February 17, 1966) is a Canadian-American professional ice hockey executive and former player who serves as president of the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL). During his 19-season NHL career, Robitaille won the Stanley Cup in 2001–02 with the Detroit Red Wings, and played for the Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Rangers. He is most known for his 14 seasons (over three different stints) with the Los Angeles Kings, whom with he won the Calder Memorial Trophy as top rookie, and was named to eight NHL All-Star teams (five at First team and three at Second team). He served as the Kings' team captain during the 1992–93 season (while Wayne Gretzky was injured) and for the final two games of the 2005–06 season. Robitaille retired after the 2005–06 season as the highest-scoring left winger in NHL history and the holder of several Kings franchise records, along with numerous Kings playoff records. In 2017, Robitaille was named one of the "100 Greatest NHL Players" in history.
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Marc Lawrence
Marc Lawrence (born Max Goldsmith; February 17, 1910 – November 28, 2005) was an American character actor who specialized in underworld types. He has also been credited as F. A. Foss, Marc Laurence and Marc C. Lawrence.
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Aryeh Deri
Aryeh Makhlouf Deri (Hebrew: אריה מכלוף דרעי; Arabic: أريه مخلوف درعي), also Arie Deri, Arye Deri, or Arieh Deri (born 17 February 1959), is an Israeli politician and one of the founders of the Shas political party who served as the Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Health, and Minister of the Interior and Periphery under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from December 2022 to January 2023. Previously he served as the Minister of the Interior, Minister of the Development of the Negev and Galilee, Minister of the Economy, as well as a member in the Security Cabinet of Israel. In 1999, Deri was convicted of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust; he was given a three-year jail sentence. At the end of 2012, ahead of the elections for the nineteenth Knesset, he returned to lead the Shas party. He was placed in second position on the list, thus being re-elected to the Knesset. In May 2013, he was re-appointed to the role of Shas chairman. In December 2021, it was reported that Deri would resign from the Knesset as part of a plea deal for tax offenses. After re-entering the Knesset in the 2022 elections, he was appointed as Vice Prime Minister, Interior Minister, and Health Minister in the thirty-seventh government in December 2022. However, due to a January 2023 ruling by the Supreme Court of Israel that Deri was not eligible for a ministerial position due to his criminal convictions and the terms of his plea deal, he was dismissed from his official posts in the Israeli cabinet.
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Wally Pipp
Walter Clement Pipp Sr. (February 17, 1893 – January 11, 1965) was an American professional baseball player. A first baseman, Pipp played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Detroit Tigers, New York Yankees, and Cincinnati Reds between 1913 and 1928. After appearing in 12 games for the Tigers in 1913 and playing in the minor leagues in 1914, he was purchased by the Yankees before the 1915 season. They made him their starting first baseman. He and Home Run Baker led an improved Yankee lineup that led the league in home runs. He led the American League in home runs in 1916 and 1917. With Babe Ruth, Bob Meusel, Joe Dugan, and Waite Hoyt, the Yankees won three consecutive American League pennants from 1921 through 1923, and won the 1923 World Series. In 1925, he lost his starting role to Lou Gehrig, after which he finished his major league career with Cincinnati. Although he is considered to be one of the best power hitters of the dead ball era, Pipp is now best remembered as the man who lost his starting role as the Yankees' first baseman to Gehrig on June 2, 1925, after experiencing a headache. This began Gehrig's streak of 2,130 consecutive games played, which stood as an MLB record for 56 years.
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Mori Ōgai
Lieutenant-General Mori Rintarō (森 林太郎; February 17, 1862 – July 8, 1922), known by his pen name Mori Ōgai (森 鷗外; Japanese pronunciation: [mo.ɾʲi (|) oꜜː.ɡai, -ŋai]), was a Japanese Army Surgeon general officer, translator, novelist, poet and father of famed author Mari Mori. He obtained his medical license at a very young age and introduced translated German language literary works to the Japanese public. Mori Ōgai also was considered the first to successfully express the art of western poetry in Japanese. He wrote many works and created many writing styles. The Wild Geese (1911–1913) is considered his major work. After his death, he was considered one of the leading writers who modernized Japanese literature. His continued obstinacy to recognize beriberi as a thiamine deficiency led to the death of more than 27,000 Japanese soldiers.
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Mo Yan
Mo Yan (, Chinese: 莫言; pinyin: Mò Yán; lit. 'don't speak'), born Guan Moye (simplified Chinese: 管谟业; traditional Chinese: 管謨業; pinyin: Guǎn Móyè; born 5 March 1955), is a Chinese writer. He gained attention for his 1984 novella, A Transparent Radish, and rose to international fame for his 1986 novel Red Sorghum, the first two parts of which were adapted into the Golden Bear-winning film Red Sorghum (1988). In 2012, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work which "with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary".
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Rebecca Adlington
Rebecca Adlington (born 17 February 1989) is an English former competitive swimmer who raced in freestyle events. She won two gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics, in the 400 m and 800 m freestyle events, breaking the 19-year-old world record of Janet Evans in the latter. Adlington was Great Britain's first Olympic swimming champion since 1988, and the first British swimmer to win multiple Olympic gold medals at a single Games since 1908. After winning her first World Championship gold over 800 m in 2011, along with silver in the 400 m freestyle at the same competition, she won bronze medals in both the 400 m and 800 m freestyle events at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Adlington has won gold medals at the Olympic Games, World Championships, European Championships and the Commonwealth Games. On 5 February 2013, she retired from competitive swimming at the age of 23, and in 2016, she was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Since her retirement, Adlington has worked for the BBC as a pundit at the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games, as well as making various other media appearances.
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Andre Norton
Andre Alice Norton (born Alice Mary Norton, February 17, 1912 – March 17, 2005) was an American writer of science fiction and fantasy, who also wrote works of historical and contemporary fiction. She wrote primarily under the pen name Andre Norton, but also under Andrew North and Allen Weston. She was the first woman to be Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy, to be SFWA Grand Master, and to be inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
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Thomas J. Watson
Thomas John Watson Sr. (February 17, 1874 – June 19, 1956) was an American businessman who was the chairman and CEO of IBM. He oversaw the company's growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956. Watson developed IBM's management style and corporate culture from John Henry Patterson's training at NCR. He turned the company into a highly effective selling organization, based largely on punched card tabulating machines. Watson authorized providing Nazi Germany with data processing solutions and involved IBM in cooperation throughout the 1930s and until the end of World War II, profiting from both the German and American war efforts. A leading self-made industrialist, he was one of the richest men of his time when he died in 1956.
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Charles III, Duke of Bourbon
Charles III de Bourbon, comte de Montpensier, then duc de Bourbon (17 February 1490 – 6 May 1527) was a French military commander, governor, prince of the royal blood and rebel during the early Italian Wars. The son of Gilbert de Bourbon and Clara Gonzaga, he was born into a junior branch of the royal house of France. The early death of his father and elder brother meant that he became the comte de Montpensier (count of Montpensier) in 1501. He then secured a very advantageous marriage in 1505 to Suzanne de Bourbon, the heiress to the senior line of the house of Bourbon. By this means he became the greatest feudal lord in the French kingdom. He participated in the expeditions of king Louis XII seeing combat at Genoa in 1507 and at the famous battle of Agnadello in 1509. In 1512, he was established as the governor of Languedoc, and in the final years of Louis XII's reign he would fight the Spanish in Navarre and the English in Picardy. With the death of Louis XII in 1515, he would receive great honour from his successor Francis I when he was established as the Constable of France, the greatest office of the crown, which made him the head of the royal army. Francis was keen to see the French reconquer the duchy of Milan and undertook a campaign to this end in the first year of his reign. The duc de Bourbon (duke of Bourbon) had a key role to play in this campaign, leading the royal vanguard in the victory of Marignano. With Milan reconquered, Bourbon was established as the military governor of the duchy, though he would only hold this charge until May 1516. Back in France, Bourbon had limited involvement in the affairs of the next few years, joining the King for various occasions. At this time he and Suzanne were attempting to produce an heir, but their children all died young. In 1521, France entered war with the Holy Roman Empire which was led by the young new emperor Charles V. In the campaign on the northern frontier of the kingdom, Bourbon was denied the role of commander of the vanguard which was his by right, embittering him. During this year, his wife Suzanne also died. This created two crises of relations with the French crown, the one because of his plans for remarriage, the other because of her extensive inheritance, which she had willed to him. King Francis, and his mother Louise disputed her will, arguing the inheritance rightfully defaulted to them. A lengthy legal battle began, which was prejudiced when Francis accepted his mother doing homage for most of the lands that were disputed. In August 1523, all the disputed lands were sequestered from Bourbon. Concurrent to this legal battle, Bourbon began exploring betraying the French crown in favour of service to Charles V, entering a treaty with the Emperor in July 1523. With the sequestering of his lands, Bourbon broke with the French crown and fled the French kingdom, joining with the Imperial commanders in Italy. Now a commander for the Holy Roman Emperor, Bourbon helped rebuff a new French attempt to secure Milan in 1523. He then followed this up by leading an invasion of the French province of Provence, though this invasion stalled out before the walls of Marseille and he was forced to retreat back into Italy. The royal French army pursued him into the peninsula, but was delivered a crushing defeat at the battle of Pavia at which Bourbon fought, and at which the French king was made prisoner. Bourbon and Charles V looked to extract heavy concessions from the French, with Bourbon hoping to gain a marriage with the sister of the Emperor Eleanor, regain all his lands in France as a sovereign lord, and be made the comte de Provence. The treaty of Madrid would grant him some of these concessions but not all, and upon his release, Francis would honour none of the concessions made to the duc de Bourbon. Instead, the French king entered into a new alliance to oppose the Holy Roman Emperor known as the league of Cognac. Bourbon took charge of the effort to combat this league in Italy. He conquered Milan for the Emperor, who had offered to make him the duke of Milan and then led a mutinous army south to Rome which he put to siege on 6 May 1527. He would be killed trying to scale the walls, but the city was successfully taken, and subject to a brutal sack. After his death, he was posthumously declared guilty of various crimes in France. The legal dispute over the lands confiscated from him would not be entirely settled until the reign of Charles IX over thirty years later.
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Giuseppe Signori
Giuseppe "Beppe" Signori (Italian pronunciation: [dʒuˈzɛppe siɲˈɲoːri]; born 17 February 1968) is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a forward. He played for several clubs in Italy throughout his career, and also had spells in Greece and Hungary with Iraklis and MFC Sopron respectively. Signori won the Serie A top-scorer award three times and is one of the top ten scorers in Serie A history. At international level, Signori represented Italy 28 times between 1992 and 1995, scoring 7 goals, and took part at the 1994 World Cup, where they reached the final.
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Philipp Franz von Siebold
Jhr. Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (17 February 1796 – 18 October 1866) was a German physician, botanist and traveller. He achieved prominence by his studies of Japanese flora and fauna. He was the father of the first female Japanese doctor educated in Western medicine, Kusumoto Ine.
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Arcangelo Corelli
Arcangelo Corelli (, also UK: , US: ; Italian: [arˈkandʒelo koˈrɛlli]; 17 February 1653 – 8 January 1713) was an Italian composer, musician, and violinist of the middle Baroque era. His music was key in the development of the modern genres of sonata and concerto, in establishing the preeminence of the violin, and as the first coalescing of modern tonality and functional harmony.
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Hans Morgenthau
Hans Joachim Morgenthau (February 17, 1904 – July 19, 1980) was a German-American jurist and political scientist who was one of the major 20th-century figures in the study of international relations. Morgenthau's works belong to the tradition of realism in international relations theory; he is usually considered among the most influential realists of the post-World War II period. Morgenthau made landmark contributions to international relations theory and the study of international law. His Politics Among Nations, first published in 1948, went through five editions during his lifetime and was widely adopted as a textbook in U.S. universities. While Morgenthau emphasized the centrality of power and "the national interest," the subtitle of Politics Among Nations—"the struggle for power and peace"—indicates his concern not only with the struggle for power but also with the ways in which it is limited by ethical and legal norms. In addition to his books, Morgenthau wrote widely about international politics and U.S. foreign policy for general-circulation publications such as The New Leader, Commentary, Worldview, The New York Review of Books and The New Republic. He knew and corresponded with many of the leading intellectuals and writers of his era, such as Reinhold Niebuhr, George F. Kennan, Carl Schmitt and Hannah Arendt. At one point in the early Cold War, Morgenthau was a consultant to the U.S. Department of State when Kennan headed its Policy Planning Staff, as well as a second time during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations until he was dismissed by Johnson when he began to publicly criticize American policy in Vietnam. For most of his career, however, Morgenthau was esteemed as an academic interpreter of U.S. foreign policy.
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Ronald Knox
Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (17 February 1888 – 24 August 1957) was an English Catholic priest, theologian, author, and radio broadcaster. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he earned a high reputation as a classicist, Knox was ordained as a priest of the Church of England in 1912. He was a fellow and chaplain of Trinity College, Oxford until he resigned from those positions following his conversion to Catholicism in 1917. Knox became a Catholic priest in 1918, continuing in that capacity his scholarly and literary work. Knox served as Catholic chaplain at the University of Oxford from 1926 to 1939. He completed the "Knox Bible", a new English translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible that was used in Catholic services during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1951, Pope Pius XII appointed Knox protonotary apostolic ad instar, which entitled Knox to the honorific "monsignor". Knox published extensively on religious, philosophical, and literary subjects. He also produced several popular works of detective fiction, such as The Viaduct Murder (1925) and The Three Taps (1927). He is remembered for his "Ten Commandments" for detective stories, which sought to codify a form of crime fiction in which the reader may participate by attempting to find a solution to the mystery before the fictional detective reveals it.
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Shahrnush Parsipur
Shahrnush Parsipur (Persian: شهرنوش پارسیپور; 17 February 1946 – 3 July 2026) was an Iranian-born writer and translator.
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Fred Frith
Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith (born 17 February 1949) is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser. Best known for his guitar playing, Frith first came to attention as a founding member of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. He was also a member of the groups Art Bears, Massacre, and Skeleton Crew. He has collaborated with numerous musicians, including Robert Wyatt, Derek Bailey, the Residents, Lol Coxhill, John Zorn, Brian Eno, Mike Patton, Lars Hollmer, Bill Laswell, Iva Bittová, Jad Fair, Kramer, the ARTE Quartett, and Bob Ostertag. He has also composed several long works, including Traffic Continues (1996, performed 1998 by Frith and Ensemble Modern) and Freedom in Fragments (1993, performed 1999 by Rova Saxophone Quartet). Frith produces most of his own music, and has also produced many albums by other musicians, including Curlew, the Muffins, Etron Fou Leloublan, and Orthotonics. He is the subject of Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel's 1990 documentary Step Across the Border. Frith also appears in the Canadian documentary Act of God, which is about the metaphysical effects of being struck by lightning. He has contributed to a number of music publications, including New Musical Express and Trouser Press, and has conducted improvising workshops across the world. His career spans over four decades and he appears on over 400 albums, and he still performs actively throughout the world. Frith was awarded the 2008 Demetrio Stratos Prize for his career achievements in experimental music. The prize was established in 2005 in honour of experimental vocalist Demetrio Stratos, of the Italian group Area, who died in 1979. In 2010 Frith received an honorary doctorate from the University of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, England, in recognition of his contribution to music. Frith was Professor of Composition in the Music Department at Mills College in Oakland, California, until his retirement in 2018. He is the brother of Simon Frith, a music critic and sociologist, and Chris Frith, a psychologist at University College London.
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Sadegh Hedayat
Sadegh Hedayat (Persian: صادق هدایت, Persian pronunciation: [ˈsɑːdɛq-ɛ hɛdɑːˈjæt] ; 17 February 1903 – 9 April 1951) was an Iranian writer, translator, satirist, and poet. Best known for his novel The Blind Owl, he was one of the earliest Iranian writers to adopt literary modernism in their career. He is widely considered to be the father of the atheist movement in Iran.
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René Laennec
René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec (French: [laɛnɛk]; 17 February 1781 – 13 August 1826) was a French medical doctor and musician. His skill at carving his own wooden flutes led him to invent the stethoscope in 1816, while working at the Hôpital Necker. He pioneered its use in diagnosing various chest conditions. He became a lecturer at the Collège de France in 1822 and professor of medicine in 1823. His final appointments were that of head of the medical clinic at the Hôpital de la Charité and professor at the Collège de France. He went into a coma and subsequently died of tuberculosis on 13 August 1826, at age 45.
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Jibanananda Das
Jibanananda Das (Bengali pronunciation: [d͡ʒibonanond̪o d̪aʃ]; 17 February 1899 – 22 October 1954) was an Indian citizen and Bengali poet, writer, and educationist widely regarded as one of the major figures of twentieth-century Bengali modernist poetry. Often called Rupashi Banglar Kabi (“Poet of Beautiful Bengal”), he received limited recognition during his lifetime but later came to be considered one of the most important and influential figures in Bengali literature after Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam. Born in Barisal, Bengal Presidency, Das studied English literature at Presidency College and University of Calcutta. He worked mainly as a teacher of English at several colleges, while also writing poetry, essays and fiction. His first poem appeared in print in 1919, and his first poetry collection, Jhara Palok, was published in 1927. Das's verse explores a world of surrealism, depression, and melancholia. His work often combines nature, time, death, desire and urban alienation through dense metaphor and surreal suggestion. His major works include Jhara Palok, Dhusar Pandulipi, Banalata Sen, Mahaprithibi, Shreshtha Kavita and the posthumously published Rupasi Bangla; among them, the poem “Banalata Sen” and the poetry collection Rupasi Bangla remain his most discussed and celebrated works. In 1954, Das was hit by a tram in Kolkata while crossing on a road, and was taken to a hospital, where he died eight days later. Das received the Rabindra-Memorial Award for Banalata Sen in 1953. His collection Shrestha Kavita was posthumously awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1955. His life and works have since become major subjects of literary criticism, academic research, translation, documentary work, music and film adaptation in both Bangladesh and India.
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Drew Barry
Drew William Barry (born February 17, 1973) is an American former professional basketball player.
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Friedrich Alfred Krupp
Friedrich Alfred Krupp (; 17 February 1854 – 22 November 1902) was a German steel manufacturer and head of the company Krupp. He was the son of Alfred Krupp and inherited the family business when his father died in 1887. Whereas his father had largely supplied iron and steel, Friedrich shifted his company's production back to arms manufacturing. Friedrich greatly expanded Krupp and acquired the Germaniawerft in 1896 which gave him control of warship manufacturing in Germany. He oversaw the development of nickel steel, U-boats, the diesel engine, and much more. He died in 1902, possibly by suicide, after being accused of homosexuality. His daughter Bertha inherited the company.
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Isabelle Eberhardt
Isabelle Wilhelmine Marie Eberhardt (17 February 1877 – 21 October 1904) was a Swiss explorer and author. As a teenager, Eberhardt, educated in Switzerland by her father, published short stories under a male pseudonym. She became interested in North Africa, and was considered a proficient writer on the subject despite learning about the region only through correspondence. After an invitation from photographer Louis David, Eberhardt moved to Algeria in May 1897. She dressed as a man and converted to Islam, eventually adopting the name Si Mahmoud Saadi. Eberhardt's unorthodox behaviour made her an outcast among European settlers in Algeria and the French administration. Eberhardt's acceptance by the Qadiriyya, an Islamic order, convinced the French administration that she was a spy or an agitator. She survived an assassination attempt shortly thereafter. In 1901, the French administration ordered her to leave Algeria, but she was allowed to return the following year after marrying her partner, the Algerian soldier Slimane Ehnni. Following her return, Eberhardt wrote for a newspaper published by Victor Barrucand and worked for General Hubert Lyautey. In 1904, at the age of 27, she was killed by a flash flood in Aïn Séfra. In 1906, Barrucand began publishing her remaining manuscripts, which received critical acclaim. She was seen posthumously as an advocate of decolonisation, and streets were named after her in Béchar and Algiers. Eberhardt's life has been the subject of several works, including the 1991 film Isabelle Eberhardt and the 2012 opera Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt.
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François, Duke of Guise
François de Lorraine, 2nd Duke of Guise, 1st Prince of Joinville, and 1st Duke of Aumale (17 February 1519 – 24 February 1563), was a French general and statesman. A prominent leader during the Italian War of 1551–1559 and French Wars of Religion, he was assassinated during the siege of Orleans in 1563.
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Sebastian Aho
Sebastian Johannes Aho (born 17 February 1996) is a Swedish professional ice hockey defenceman for the Växjö Lakers in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL). Aho was drafted by the New York Islanders, 139th overall, in the 2017 NHL entry draft.
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Zina Bethune
Zina Bianca Bethune (February 17, 1945 – February 12, 2012) was an American actress, dancer, and choreographer. She was the daughter of actress Ivy Bethune.
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Ísis Valverde
Isis Nable Valverde (born 17 February 1987) is a Brazilian actress who played a lead role in the 2010 telenovela Ti Ti Ti and has participated in several other telenovelas.
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Roger Craig
Roger Lee Craig (February 17, 1930 – June 4, 2023) was an American professional baseball pitcher, coach and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB). After playing for the Brooklyn / Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies between 1955 and 1966, Craig became an acclaimed pitching coach, and a manager, between 1969 and 1992. As a player and coach, Craig was part of four World Series championship teams. As a manager, he led the 1989 San Francisco Giants to the team's first National League championship in 27 years.
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Rashid Minhas
Pilot Officer Rashid Minhas NH (Urdu: راشد منہاس; 17 February 1951 – 20 August 1971) was a Pakistani fighter pilot and the fifth recipient of Pakistan's highest military award, the Nishan-e-Haider. Minhas was the first and only officer from the Pakistan Air Force to receive the Nishan-e-Haider, and was also the youngest person and the shortest-serving officer to have received the award. During a routine training mission in August 1971, Minhas attempted to gain control of his jet trainer when his superior officer Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman BS took control of the plane to join the Bangladesh War of Independence, but Minhas resisted his efforts to control the aircraft and crashed it in Sujawal District in Pakistan.
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Duane Gish
Duane Tolbert Gish (February 17, 1921 – March 5, 2013) was an American biochemist and a prominent member of the creationist movement. A young Earth creationist, Gish was a former vice-president of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and the author of numerous publications about creation science. Gish was called "creationism's T. H. Huxley" for the way he "relished the confrontations" of formal debates with prominent evolutionary biologists, usually held on university campuses, while abandoning formal debating principles, in a style that came to be known as the Gish gallop. A creationist publication noted in his obituary that "it was perhaps his personal presentation that carried the day. In short, the audiences liked him."
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Arthur Kennedy
John Arthur Kennedy (February 17, 1914 – January 5, 1990) was an American actor, known for his versatility in supporting film roles and his ability to create "an exceptional honesty and naturalness on stage", especially in the original casts of Arthur Miller plays on Broadway. Over his career, Kennedy was nominated for five Academy Awards (four for Best Supporting Actor, once for Best Actor). He won the 1949 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for Miller's Death of a Salesman, and the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for the 1955 film Trial.
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Bo Yibo
Bo Yibo (Chinese: 薄一波; pinyin: Bó Yībō; Wade–Giles: Po2 I1-po1; 17 February 1908 – 15 January 2007) was one of the most senior political figures in China during the 1980s and 1990s. After joining the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) when he was 17, he worked as a CCP organizer in Taiyuan, around his native city of Dingxiang, Shanxi. He was promoted to organize CCP guerrilla movements in northern China from a headquarters in Tianjin in 1928, but he was arrested and imprisoned by Kuomintang police in 1931. In 1936, with the tacit support of the CCP, Bo signed an anti-communist confession to secure his release. After his release Bo returned to Shanxi, rejoined the communists, and fought both the Kuomintang and the Japanese Empire in northern China until the CCP completed their unification of mainland China in 1949. During Bo's career he held successive posts as Communist China's inaugural Minister of Finance, a member of the CCP Politburo, Vice-Premier, chairman of State Economic Commission, and vice-chairman of the party's Central Advisory Commission. Bo was purged in 1966 by the Mao-backed Gang of Four, but he was brought back to power by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, after Mao's death. Bo was one of a select group of powerful veterans centred on Deng who were informally known as the "Eight Immortals" for their political longevity and for the vast influence they commanded during the 1980s and 1990s. After returning to power Bo supported economic liberalization, but was a moderate conservative politically. He supported both Hu Yaobang's dismissal in 1987 and the use of violence against protesters in 1989. Bo's political involvement declined in the 1993, but he used his influence to support both Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, and to promote the career of his son, Bo Xilai. He was the last remaining, and longest-lived, of the Eight Elders at the time of his death on 15 January 2007, just a little over a month short of his 99th birthday.
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Aaron Montgomery Ward
Aaron Montgomery Ward (February 17, 1843 – December 7, 1913) was an American entrepreneur based in Chicago who made his fortune through the use of mail order for retail sales of general merchandise to rural customers. In 1872 he founded Montgomery Ward & Company, which became nationally known. Ward, a young traveling salesman of dry goods, was concerned over the plight of many rural Midwest Americans who were, he thought, being overcharged and under-served by many of the small town retailers on whom they had to rely for their general merchandise. He opened his first mail-order house in 1872. By heavy use of the railroads centered on Chicago, and by associating his business with the non-profit Patrons of Husbandry (the Grangers), Ward offered rural customers a far larger stock than generally available in small towns and at a lower price. Unlike local country merchants, Ward offered no bargaining and no credit. His free catalog, printed by the most modern methods, was widely mailed to customers, allowing them to see pictures of consumer goods and imagine how they might be used. Later, Ward used the Post Office's Rural Free Delivery service; he lobbied for a parcel post system that came about in 1906. The early 20th century was the heyday of mail orders and Ward's had become an American tradition, along with its rival Sears Roebuck. Ward continues to be honored as the protector of Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois.
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Tommy Edwards
Thomas Jefferson Edwards (February 17, 1922 – October 23, 1969) was an American singer and songwriter. His most successful record was the multi-million-selling song "It's All in the Game", becoming the first African-American to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
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Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
Gustavo Adolfo Claudio Domínguez Bastida (17 February 1836 – 22 December 1870), better known as Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (Spanish pronunciation: [ɡusˈtaβo aˈðolfo ˈβekeɾ]), was a Spanish Romantic poet and writer (mostly short stories), also a playwright, literary columnist, and talented in drawing. He is one of the most important figures in Spanish literature, with some considering him the most read Spanish writer after Miguel de Cervantes. He adopted the alias of Bécquer as his brother Valeriano Bécquer, a painter, had done earlier. He was associated with the romanticism and post-romanticism movements and wrote while realism enjoyed success in Spain. He was moderately well-known during his life, but it was after his death that most of his works were published. His best-known works are the Rhymes and the Legends, usually published together as Rimas y leyendas. These poems and tales are essential to studying Spanish literature and common reading for high-school students in Spanish-speaking countries. His work approached the traditional poetry and themes in a modern way, and he is considered the founder of modern Spanish lyricism. Bécquer's influence on 20th-century poets of the Spanish language can be felt in the works of Luis Cernuda, Octavio Paz, Giannina Braschi, Antonio Machado, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. Bécquer himself was influenced – both directly and indirectly — by Cervantes, Shakespeare, Goethe, and Heinrich Heine.
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Ron Goodwin
Ronald Alfred Goodwin (17 February 1925 – 8 January 2003) was an English composer and conductor known for his film music. He scored over 70 films in a career lasting over fifty years. His most famous works included Where Eagles Dare, Battle of Britain, 633 Squadron, Margaret Rutherford's Murder, She Said films, and Frenzy. Born in Plymouth, Devon, England, Goodwin learned to play the piano and trumpet from the age of five which allowed him to join the school band. When he was nine, the family moved to Harrow, London, where he attended Willesden County School and Pinner County Grammar School, in Middlesex. From there he went on to study the trumpet in London at the Guildhall School of Music. Whilst working as a copyist, he formed his own orchestra in his spare time and began arranging and conducting recordings for over fifty performers, which resulted in more than 100 chart successes. He wrote his first feature film score for Whirlpool, with screenplay by Lawrence P. Bachmann. After Bachmann became executive producer at MGM-British Studios in 1959, Goodwin composed and conducted the music for most of its productions, as well as working for other film studios. In the 1980s Goodwin began concentrating on live orchestral performances and appeared as guest conductor with many symphony orchestras at home and abroad including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
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Mary Brian
Mary Brian (born Louise Byrdie Dantzler, February 17, 1906 – December 30, 2002) was an American actress who made the transition from silent films to sound films.
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Craig L. Thomas
Craig Lyle Thomas (February 17, 1933 – June 4, 2007) was an American politician who served as United States senator from Wyoming from 1995 until his death in 2007. He was a member of the Republican Party. In the Senate, Thomas was considered an expert on agriculture and rural development. He had served in key positions in several state agencies, including a long tenure as Vice President of the Wyoming Farm Bureau from 1965 to 1974. Thomas resided in Casper for twenty-eight years. In 1984, he was elected from Casper to the Wyoming House of Representatives, in which he served until 1989. In 1989, Dick Cheney, who occupied Wyoming's only seat in the House of Representatives, resigned to become Secretary of Defense. Thomas became the Republican candidate to succeed Cheney and won the April 1989 special election. He was re-elected in 1990 and 1992, and in 1994 he ran for and won the Senate seat being vacated by fellow conservative Republican Malcolm Wallop of Sheridan in northeastern Wyoming. He was re-elected in 2000 and 2006, having easily beaten Democratic candidates in both elections with 70 percent of the vote.
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Lou Ann Barton
Lou Ann Barton (born February 17, 1954) is an American blues singer based in Austin, Texas since the 1970s. AllMusic noted that "The grace, poise, and confidence she projects on-stage is part of a long tradition for women blues singers".
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Phil Pressey
Phillip Michael Pressey (born February 17, 1991) is an American professional basketball coach and former player who played at the point guard position. He is currently the head coach for the Maine Celtics of the NBA G League. His prior professional teams were the Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers and Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the Maine Red Claws, Idaho Stampede, and Santa Cruz Warriors of the NBA Development League. He also played professionally overseas, notably for FC Barcelona Lassa and Movistar Estudiantes. Pressey played college basketball for the Missouri Tigers. As a junior playing point guard for the 2012–13 Missouri Tigers men's basketball team, Pressey announced on April 10, 2013, that he would forgo his senior season of eligibility at Missouri and enter the 2013 NBA draft instead. He led the 2011–12 Big 12 Conference in assists, steals and assist-to-turnover ratio and was a 2011–12 All-Big 12 team selection as a result. He shares the Southeastern Conference (SEC) single-game assists record (19) and was the 2012 SEC Preseason Player of the Year. He earned 2012–13 All-SEC First team selection and was the conference assist champion. He earned Associated Press 2013 All-American honorable mention recognition. He holds Missouri single-game, single-season and career assists records and numerous Missouri steals records, including career steals. Pressey was a high school basketball All-state selection by the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches (TABC) and helped his team achieve 2009 and 2010 Southwest Preparatory Conference (SPC) state championships in basketball. In high school, several YouTube videos of him dunking (often over much taller players) became popular. He is the son of 1982 first-round NBA draft selection and 1982 Consensus All-American Paul Pressey.
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Al-Juwayni
Dhia' ul-Dīn 'Abd al-Malik ibn Yūsuf al-Juwaynī al-Shafi'ī (Arabic إمام الحرمين ضياء الدين عبدالملك بن يوسف الجويني, 17 February 1028 – 20 August 1085; 419–478 AH) was an Iranian Sunni scholar famous for being the foremost leading jurisconsult, legal theoretician and Islamic theologian of his time. His name is commonly abbreviated as al-Juwayni; he is also commonly referred to as Imam al-Haramayn meaning "leading master of the two holy cities", that is, Mecca and Medina. He acquired the status of a mujtahid in the field of fiqh and usul al-fiqh. Highly celebrated as one of the most important and influential thinkers in the Shafi'i school of orthodox Sunni jurisprudence, he was considered as the virtual second founder of the Shafi'i school, after its first founder Imam al-Shafi'i. He was also considered a major figurehead within the Ash'ari school of theology where he was ranked equal to the founder, Imam al-Ash'ari. He was given the honorific titles of Shaykh of Islam, The Glory of Islam, The Absolute Imam of all Imams.
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Henri Vieuxtemps
Henri François Joseph Vieuxtemps (French: [ɑ̃ʁi fʁɑ̃swa ʒozɛf vjøtɑ̃]; 17 February 1820 – 6 June 1881) was a Belgian composer and violinist. He occupies an important place in the history of the violin as a prominent exponent of the Franco-Belgian violin school during the mid-19th century. He is also known for playing what is now known as the Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesù, a violin of superior workmanship.
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Gaetano Castrovilli
Gaetano Castrovilli (born 17 February 1997) is an Italian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder.
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Abraham Fraenkel
Abraham Fraenkel (Hebrew: אברהם הלוי (אדולף) פרנקל; 17 February 1891 – 15 October 1965) was a German-born Israeli mathematician. He was an early Zionist and the first Dean of Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is known for his contributions to axiomatic set theory, especially his additions to Ernst Zermelo's axioms, which resulted in the Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory.
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Nicolas Baudin
Nicolas Thomas Baudin (French: [nikɔla bodɛ̃]; 17 February 1754 – 16 September 1803) was a French explorer, cartographer, naturalist and hydrographer best known for his explorations of Australia and the southern Pacific Ocean. He carried a few corms of Gros Michel banana from Southeast Asia, depositing them at a botanical garden on the French colony of Martinique.
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Alexander Obolensky
Prince Alexander Sergeevich Obolensky (Russian: Александр Серге́евич Оболенский; 17 February 1916 – 29 March 1940) was a Rurikid prince of Russian aristocratic descent who became a naturalised Briton, having spent most of his life in England, and who went on to represent England in international rugby union. He was, and remains, popularly known as "The Flying Prince", "The Flying Slav", or simply as "Obo" to many sports fans.
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Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine
Charles de Lorraine (17 February 1524 – 26 December 1574), Duke of Chevreuse, was a French cardinal and a member of the powerful House of Guise. He was known at first as the Cardinal of Guise, and then as the second Cardinal of Lorraine, after the death of his uncle, Jean, Cardinal of Lorraine (1550). He was the protector of François Rabelais and Pierre de Ronsard and founded Reims University. He is sometimes known as the Cardinal de Lorraine.
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Ruth Clifford
Ruth Clifford (February 17, 1900 – November 30, 1998) was an American actress of leading roles in silent films whose career lasted from that era into the television era.
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Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Dorothy Canfield Fisher (February 17, 1879 – November 9, 1958) was an educational reformer, social activist, and best-selling American author in the early 20th century. She strongly supported women's rights, racial equality, and lifelong education. Eleanor Roosevelt named her one of the ten most influential women in the United States. Her writing helped increase understanding of the Montessori method of child-rearing in the U.S.; she presided over the country's first adult education program; and her service as a member of the Book of the Month Club selection committee from 1925 to 1951 helped…
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Mary Carson Breckinridge
Mary Carson Breckinridge (February 17, 1881 – May 16, 1965) was an American nurse midwife and the founder of the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS), which provided comprehensive family medical care to the mountain people of rural Kentucky. FNS served remote and impoverished areas off the road and rail system but accessible by horseback. She modeled her services on European practices and sought to professionalize American nurse-midwives to practice autonomously in homes and decentralized clinics. Although Breckinridge's work demonstrated efficacy by dramatically reducing infant and maternal…
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Buddy DeFranco
Boniface Ferdinand Leonard "Buddy" DeFranco (February 17, 1923 – December 24, 2014) was an American jazz clarinetist. In addition to his work as a bandleader, DeFranco led the Glenn Miller Orchestra for almost a decade in the 1960s and 1970s.
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Louisa Lawson
Louisa Lawson (née Albury; 17 February 1848 – 12 August 1920) was an Australian poet, writer, publisher, suffragist, and feminist. Her eldest son was the poet and author Henry Lawson.
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Joseph Bech
Joseph Marie Bech (17 February 1887 – 8 March 1975) was a Luxembourgish politician and lawyer. He was the prime minister of Luxembourg, serving for eleven years, from 16 July 1926 to 5 November 1937. He returned to the position after World War II, and served for another four years, from 29 December 1953 until 29 March 1958. The 1982–1983 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour.
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David Douillet
David Donald Hubert Roger Douillet (French: [david dɔnald ybɛʁ ʁɔʒe dujɛ]; born 17 February 1969, Rouen) is a French politician and retired judoka. Douillet won two consecutive gold medals at the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and Sydney competing in the heavyweight division. He is also a four-time judo world champion and one-time European champion. These achievements make him one of the most decorated judoka in history. After his sporting career, he was involved alongside Bernadette Chirac in the charity Opération Pièces Jaunes. He also became a consulting sportsman for Canal+. He…
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Michael Frolík
Michael Frolík (Czech pronunciation: [ˈmɪxaɛl ˈfroliːk]; born 17 February 1988) is a former Czech professional ice hockey right winger. Frolík has previously played in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Florida Panthers, the organization that selected him tenth overall in 2006, as well as the Chicago Blackhawks, with whom he won the Stanley Cup in 2013. He also had stints with the Winnipeg Jets, Calgary Flames, Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadiens.
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Karin Büttner-Janz
Karin Büttner-Janz (née Janz, born 17 February 1952) is a German medical doctor and former gymnast who won World and Olympic gold medals in artistic gymnastics for East Germany. She is co-inventor of the first artificial intervertebral disc, and from 1990 to 2012, she was chief physician of clinics in Berlin, Germany. She has a foundation named Spinefoundation.
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Ivo Caprino
Ivo Caprino (17 February 1920 – 8 February 2001) was a Norwegian film director and writer, best known for his puppet films. His most noted film, Flåklypa Grand Prix (Pinchcliffe Grand Prix), was made in 1975.
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Rózsa Péter
Rózsa Péter, until January 1934 Rózsa Politzer, (17 February 1905 – 16 February 1977) was a Hungarian mathematician and logician. She is best known as the "founding mother of recursion theory".
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Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont
Princess Helen of Waldeck and Pyrmont (Helen Frederica Augusta; 17 February 1861 – 1 September 1922), later Duchess of Albany, was a member of the British royal family by marriage. She was the fifth daughter and child of George Victor, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont, and his first wife, Princess Helena of Nassau.
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John Cooke
Captain John Cooke (17 February 1762 – 21 October 1805) was a Royal Navy officer who served in the American War of Independence and French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Cooke is best known for his death in hand-to-hand combat with French forces during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. During the action, his ship HMS Bellerophon was badly damaged and boarded by sailors and marines from the French ship of the line Aigle. Cooke was killed in the ensuing melee, but his crew successfully drove off their opponents and ultimately forced the surrender of Aigle. Cooke, unlike many of his fellow…
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Brett Kern
Brett Alan Kern (born February 17, 1986) is an American former professional football player who was a punter in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Toledo Rockets and was signed by the Denver Broncos as an undrafted free agent in 2008. After being waived by the Broncos after less than two full seasons, Kern was then acquired by the Tennessee Titans in 2009 and became a three-time Pro Bowl selection and a two-time All-Pro with the team over the course of 13 seasons. After being released by the Titans, he spent part of the 2022 season with the Philadelphia…
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Jozef Murgaš
Jozef Murgaš (English Joseph Murgas) (17 February 1864 – 11 May 1929) was a Slovak inventor, architect, botanist, painter and Roman Catholic priest. He contributed to radio development, which at the time was commonly known as "wireless telegraphy". Murgaš was nicknamed the Radio Priest and deemed a Renaissance man.
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Tobias Mayer
Tobias Mayer (17 February 1723 – 20 February 1762) was a German astronomer famous for his studies of the Moon. He was born at Marbach, in Württemberg, and brought up at Esslingen in poor circumstances. A self-taught mathematician, he earned a living by teaching mathematics while still a youth. He had already published two original geometrical works when, in 1746, he entered J. B. Homann's cartographic establishment at Nuremberg. Here he introduced many improvements in mapmaking, and gained a scientific reputation which led (in 1751) to his election to the chair of economy and mathematics at…
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William Bronk
William Bronk (February 17, 1918 – February 22, 1999) was an American poet. For his book, Life Supports (1981), he won the National Book Award for Poetry. He was also a veteran of World War II and a businessman. After teaching at Union College for a brief period, he took over the family business of Bronk Coal and Lumber after his father's early death. He ran it for 30 years in Hudson Falls, New York.
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Horace-Bénédict de Saussure
Horace Bénédict de Saussure (French: [ɔʁas benedikt də sosyʁ]; 17 February 1740 – 22 January 1799) was a Genevan geologist, meteorologist, physicist, mountaineer and Alpine explorer (specifically the Mont Blanc massif), often called the founder of alpinism and modern meteorology, and considered to be the first person to build a successful solar oven.
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John Pinkerton
John Pinkerton (17 February 1758 – 10 March 1826) was a Scottish antiquarian, cartographer, author, numismatist, historian, and early advocate of Germanic racial supremacy theory. He was born in Edinburgh, as one of three sons to James Pinkerton and Mary (nee Heron or Bowie) Pinkerton. He lived in the neighbourhood of that city for some of his earliest childhood years, but later moved to Lanark. His studious youth brought him extensive knowledge of the Classics, and it is known that in his childhood years he enjoyed translating Roman authors such as Livy. He moved on to Edinburgh University,…
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Kaoru
Dir En Grey (stylized as DIR EN GREY and previously as Dir en grey) is a Japanese heavy metal band formed in February 1997 and currently signed to Firewall Div., a sub-division of Free-Will. With a consistent lineup of vocalist Kyo, guitarists Kaoru and Die, bassist Toshiya, and drummer Shinya, they have released twelve full-length albums. Numerous stylistic changes have made the genre of their music difficult to determine, though it is generally considered to be a form of metal. Originally a visual kei band, the members later opted for more subtle attire, but have continued to maintain a…
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Friedrich Maximilian Klinger
Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger (17 February 1752 – 9 March 1831) was a German dramatist and novelist. His play Sturm und Drang (1776) gave its name to the Sturm und Drang artistic epoch. He was a childhood friend of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and is often closely associated with Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz. Klinger worked as a playwright for the Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft for two years, but eventually left the Kingdom of Prussia to become a General in the Imperial Russian Army.
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Marta Romero
Marta Romero (17 February 1928 – 31 May 2013) was a Puerto Rican actress and singer, and one of the pioneers in Puerto Rican television.
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Mason Jobst
Mason Kane Jobst (born February 17, 1994) is an American professional ice hockey left winger who is currently an unrestricted free agent. He most recently played for the Rochester Americans in the American Hockey League (AHL) while under contract to the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League (NHL). Growing up in Indiana, Jobst played high school ice hockey for the Zionsville High School. Once making the jump to the Muskegon Lumberjacks of the United States Hockey League (USHL), Jobst played four seasons with them, serving as team captain each of his last two years. During this time, he…
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Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert
Pierre le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert or Boisguillebert (French: [bwaɡilbɛʁ]; 17 February 1646 – 10 October 1714) was a French lawmaker and a Jansenist, one of the inventors of the notion of an economic market.
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Kaspars Astašenko
Kaspars Astašenko (17 February 1975 – 20 November 2012) was a Latvian professional ice hockey player. Astašenko was born in Riga, Latvia. Astašenko was drafted by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 1999 NHL entry draft, 127th overall. Astašenko played parts of two seasons in the National Hockey League with the Lightning.
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Marianne St-Gelais
Marianne St-Gelais (born February 17, 1990) is a Canadian former short track speed skater. She won two silver medals in the 500 m and 3,000 m relay at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, and a third silver in the 3,000 m relay at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
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Joseph Favre
Joseph Favre (pronounced [ʒosɛf favʁ]; 17 February 1849 – 17 February 1903) was a Swiss chef who worked in Switzerland, France, Germany, and England. Although he initially only received primary education because of his humble origins, as an adult he attended science and nutrition classes at the University of Geneva, and eventually published his four-volume Dictionnaire universel de cuisine pratique, an encyclopedia of culinary science, in 1895. As a young man, he enlisted in Giuseppe Garibaldi's army during the Franco-Prussian War and became an anarchist and a member of the International…
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Oskar Seidlin
Oskar Seidlin (February 17, 1911 – December 11, 1984) was a Jewish emigre from Nazi Germany first to Switzerland and then to the U.S. He taught German language and literature as a professor at Smith College, Middlebury College, Ohio State University, and Indiana University from 1939 to 1979. He authored a number of fictional and non-fictional works.
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J. M. S. Careless
James Maurice Stockford Careless (February 17, 1919 – April 6, 2009) was a Canadian historian. He taught history at the University of Toronto for 39 years, from 1945 until his retirement in 1984, and served as Chairman of the History Department from 1959 to 1967. He was known for his work in Canadian history, particularly his elaboration of the metropolitan-hinterland thesis and his studies on urban history. He twice won the Governor General's Awards for English-language non-fiction books for Canada: A Story of Challenge (1953) and his biography Brown of the Globe (1963).
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Jiřina Jirásková
Jiřina Jirásková (17 February 1931 – 7 January 2013) was a Czech actress. She was born and died in Prague, Czech Republic.
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Richard Henry Park
Richard Henry Park (also Richard Hamilton Park; February 17, 1838—November 7, 1902) was an American sculptor who worked in marble and bronze. He was commissioned to do work by the wealthy of the nineteenth century. He did a marble bust of John Plankinton, an astute businessman who founded the meat industry in Wisconsin and was "Milwaukee's foremost citizen." Park did a sculptor of George Washington as Milwaukee's first piece of public art. He made a bronze monument statue of the 21st Vice President of the United States. He did a sculpture of Solomon Juneau, Milwaukee's first white settler and…
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Anders Jacobsen
Anders Jacobsen (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈɑ̂nːəʂ ˈjɑ̀ːkɔpsn̩]; born 17 February 1985) is a Norwegian former ski jumper. He competed at the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics and won a team bronze medal in the large hill event in 2010. He is the youngest Norwegian winner of Four Hills Tournament.
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Édouard Thilges
Jules Georges Édouard Thilges (17 February 1817 – 9 July 1904) was a Luxembourgish politician. He served as prime minister of Luxembourg for over three years, from 20 February 1885 until 22 September 1888. Born in 1817 in Clervaux, from 1833 to 1838 he studied law at the universities of Brussels and Liège. In 1841 he became a lawyer at the tribunal of Diekirch. From 22 September 1854 to 21 May 1856 he was the Administrator General of Communal Affairs. For several periods from 1857 to 1904, he was a member of the Council of State. He was the Director General for the Interior and for Justice…
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Sherry Hawco
Sherry Louise Hawco (February 17, 1964 – October 26, 1991) was a Canadian gymnast. Hawco competed at the 1978 Commonwealth Games where she won a gold medal in the women's team event and a silver medal in the women's all-around event. She also won two gold medals at the 1979 Pan American Games in the beam and women's team events. She suffered a knee injury in 1981 and retired from gymnastics in 1982. Hawco underwent surgery for breast cancer in 1990 but stopped having chemotherapy after learning she was pregnant. She died on October 26, 1991, 7 weeks after giving birth to her son, Brandon. She…
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Carl Julian
Carl Julian (von) Graba (17 February 1799 in Itzehoe – 30 March 1874 in Kiel) was a German lawyer and Royal Danish judicial councillor, and was also a keen ornithologist and one of the first modern researchers to visit and study the Faroe Islands, where he described the local puffin which was subsequently named Fratercula arctica grabae after him. Graba's findings were mentioned in 1872 by Charles Darwin in his book On the Origin of Species.
Who's birthday is it today? — FAQ
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