Who was born on May 12?
May 12 is packed with notable birthdays. Explore 104 famous birthdays, sorted by recent English Wikipedia pageviews. Top ranked names include Rishi Sunak, Rami Malek, Emilio Estevez, Rhea Seehorn, Emily VanCamp. Filter by actor, musician, athlete, and more — or open any other calendar day.
May 12
104 people
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Rishi Sunak
Rishi Sunak (born 12 May 1980) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2022 to 2024. Following his defeat to Keir Starmer's Labour Party in the 2024 general election, he became Leader of the Opposition, serving in this role from July to November 2024. He previously held two Cabinet positions under Boris Johnson, latterly as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2020 to 2022. Sunak has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond and Northallerton, previously Richmond (Yorks), since 2015. Sunak was born in Southampton to parents of Indian descent who immigrated to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s. He was educated at Winchester College, studied philosophy, politics and economics at Lincoln College, Oxford, and earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford University in California as a Fulbright Scholar. During his time at Oxford, Sunak joined the Conservatives. After graduating, he worked for Goldman Sachs and later as a partner at two hedge fund firms. Sunak was elected to the House of Commons at the 2015 general election. As a backbencher, he supported the successful campaign for Brexit in the 2016 European Union membership referendum. He was appointed to the junior ministerial position of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government by Theresa May in 2018 and was appointed to the cabinet-attending role of Chief Secretary to the Treasury by Johnson in 2019. In 2020, Sunak was promoted to Chancellor of the Exchequer. During his time in the post, Sunak was prominent in the government's financial response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impact, including the furlough and Eat Out to Help Out schemes and the cost-of-living crisis. As chancellor, Sunak received high approval and popularity ratings in the early stages of the pandemic, although his popularity later declined amid the cost-of-living crisis of 2022. He resigned as chancellor in July 2022 amid a government crisis, and lost the subsequent party leadership election to Liz Truss that September. After spending the whole duration of the premiership of Liz Truss on the backbenches, Sunak was elected unopposed in the leadership election to succeed Truss the following October; aged 42 at the time he became prime minister, Sunak became the youngest prime minister since the Earl of Liverpool in 1812. During his premiership, Sunak attempted to improve the economy and stabilise national politics. He outlined five key priorities: halving inflation, growing the economy, cutting debt, reducing National Health Service waiting lists, and stopping small-boat crossings of the English Channel by enacting the Rwanda asylum plan. On foreign policy, Sunak authorised foreign aid and weapons shipments to Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion of the country, and pledged support for Israel after the 7 October attacks and subsequent Gaza war whilst later calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. He was unable to avert further unpopularity for the Conservatives, reflected in the party's poor performances in the 2023 and 2024 local elections. Sunak called a general election for July 2024 despite being widely expected to call the election in the autumn; the Conservatives lost this election in a landslide to the opposition Labour Party led by Keir Starmer, ending 14 years of Conservative government. After leaving the prime minister's office, Sunak became Leader of the Opposition and remained Conservative leader for nearly four months while the leadership election to replace him took place, and formed a shadow cabinet. He was succeeded by Kemi Badenoch, his Shadow Housing Secretary. He remains a backbench MP, and may take some outside work that is publicly reported. In 2025 he also took a position as a part-time senior advisor with one of his previous employers, Goldman Sachs, with some limits on his lobbying abilities.
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Rami Malek
Rami Said Malek (English: ; Arabic: رامي سعيد مالك, Egyptian Arabic: [ˈɾɑːmi sæˈʕiːd ˈmæːlek]; born May 12, 1981) is an American actor. He gained recognition for portraying Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury in the biographical film Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), for which he won numerous accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2019, becoming the first actor of Egyptian heritage to win in that category. He played computer hacker Elliot Alderson in the USA Network television series Mr. Robot (2015–2019), for which he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Born in Torrance, California, to Egyptian immigrant parents of Coptic background, he studied theater before acting in plays in New York City. He had supporting roles in film and television, including the Fox Broadcasting Company sitcom The War at Home (2005–2007), the HBO miniseries The Pacific (2010), The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (2012), and the Night at the Museum film trilogy (2006–2014). Since his breakthrough, Malek has starred in the crime film The Little Things (2021), played the main antagonist Lyutsifer Safin in the James Bond film No Time to Die (2021), portrayed David L. Hill in Christopher Nolan's biographical film Oppenheimer (2023), starred as a Central Intelligence Agency cryptographer in the spy film The Amateur (2025), and starred as psychiatrist Douglas Kelley in the film Nuremberg (2025).
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Emilio Estevez
Emilio Estevez (; born May 12, 1962) is an American actor and filmmaker. The son of actor Martin Sheen and the older brother of Charlie Sheen, he made his film debut with an uncredited role in Badlands (1973). He later received his first credited appearance with a supporting role in the coming-of-age film Tex (1982). Estevez gained mainstream recognition with a starring role in the drama film The Outsiders (1983), leading him to be associated with a group of young actors known as the "Brat Pack". After starring in the films Nightmares (1983) and Repo Man (1984), Estevez had his breakout with starring roles in the commercially successful Brat Pack films The Breakfast Club (1985) and St. Elmo's Fire (1985). Following his breakout, he starred in the films Maximum Overdrive (1986), Stakeout (1987), Young Guns (1988), and Young Guns II (1990). In the 1990s, Estevez played the lead role of Gordon Bombay in the film series The Mighty Ducks (1992–1996). He also starred in the films Freejack (1992), Loaded Weapon 1 (1993), Another Stakeout (1993), and Judgment Night (1993). Estevez made his directorial debut with the crime film Wisdom (1986), which he also starred in. He later directed and starred in the films Men at Work (1990) and The War at Home (1996), and following the final film in the Mighty Ducks series, Estevez primarily focused on directorial work. He directed and starred in the drama film Bobby (2006), which was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama, and also earned Estevez a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. He also directed and starred in the films The Way (2010) and The Public (2018). Outside of directing in recent years, Estevez had a starring voice role in the English dub of the fantasy film Arthur and the Invisibles (2006) and reprised his role as Gordon Bombay in a regular capacity on the Disney+ television series The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers (2021–2022).
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Rhea Seehorn
Deborah Rhea Seehorn (born May 12, 1972) is an American actress and director. She is best known for playing attorney Kim Wexler in the AMC legal crime drama series Better Call Saul (2015–2022) and novelist Carol Sturka in the Apple TV science fiction thriller series Pluribus (2025–present). Seehorn's performance in Better Call Saul won her a Television Critics Association Award for Individual Achievement in Drama, in addition to nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series and three Critics' Choice Television Awards. For Cooper's Bar (2022–2023), which she also co-created and directed, she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actress in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series. For Pluribus, she earned a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama and a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series.
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Emily VanCamp
Emily Irene VanCamp (; born May 12, 1986) is a Canadian actress. She gained acclaim and international recognition for portraying the lead role of Emily Thorne on the ABC series Revenge (2011–2015). She also starred on the Fox medical drama series The Resident (2018–2021). She has appeared in various films including Black Irish (2007), Carriers (2009), Norman (2010), The Girl in the Book (2015), and Boundaries (2016), as well as various television shows including Everwood (2002–2006), Glory Days (2002), and Brothers & Sisters (2007–2010). She portrays Sharon Carter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, appearing in the films Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Captain America: Civil War (2016), and the Disney+ miniseries The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021). She also voiced the character in the animated series What If...? (2021; 2024).
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Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale (; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organised care for wounded soldiers at Constantinople. She significantly reduced death rates by improving hygiene and living standards. Nightingale gave nursing a favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making ward rounds for wounded soldiers at night. Recent commentators have asserted that Nightingale's Crimean War achievements were exaggerated by the media at the time, but critics agree on the importance of her later work in professionalising nursing roles for women. In 1860, she laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment of her nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in London. It was the first secular nursing school in the world and is now part of King's College London. In recognition of her pioneering work in nursing, the Nightingale Pledge taken by new nurses, and the Florence Nightingale Medal, the highest international distinction a nurse can achieve, were named in her honour, and the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated on her birthday. Her social reforms included improving healthcare for all sections of British society, advocating better hunger relief in India, helping to abolish prostitution laws that were harsh for women, and expanding the acceptable forms of female participation in the workforce. Nightingale was an innovator in statistics; she represented her analysis in graphical forms to ease drawing conclusions and actionables from data. She is famous for usage of the polar area diagram, also called the Nightingale rose diagram, which is equivalent to a modern circular histogram or pie chart. This diagram is still regularly used in data visualisation. Nightingale was a prodigious and versatile writer. In her lifetime, much of her published work was concerned with spreading medical knowledge. Some of her tracts were written in simple English so that they could easily be understood by those with poor literary skills. Much of her writing, including her extensive work on religion and mysticism, has only been published posthumously.
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Domhnall Gleeson
Domhnall Gleeson ( DOH-nəl; born 12 May 1983) is an Irish actor, screenwriter and producer. The son of actor Brendan Gleeson, he studied media arts at the Dublin Institute of Technology. He began his career by directing and writing short films, and garnered a Tony Award nomination in 2006 for his role in the Broadway production The Lieutenant of Inishmore. He had a supporting role in Never Let Me Go (2010) and became known to a wider audience for his portrayal of Bill Weasley in the Harry Potter film series (2010–2011). Gleeson had starring roles in the period drama Anna Karenina (2012), the romantic comedy About Time (2013), the Black Mirror episode "Be Right Back" (2013), and the war drama Unbroken (2014). His career progressed with roles in the films Ex Machina (2014), Brooklyn (2015), The Revenant (2015), and Peter Rabbit (2018), as well as for his role as General Armitage Hux in the Star Wars sequel trilogy (2015–2019). In 2020, he had a main role in the HBO black comedy series Run. In 2023, he received a Golden Globe nomination for his role in the limited series The Patient, and also starred in the satirical political miniseries White House Plumbers. In 2025, he starred as the lead in The Office spinoff series The Paper. He voiced the lead in the short Retirement Plan, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2026.
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Stephen Baldwin
Stephen Andrew Baldwin (born May 12, 1966) is an American actor. He has appeared in the films Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Posse (1993), 8 Seconds, Threesome (both 1994), The Usual Suspects (1995), Bio-Dome (1996) and The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000). Baldwin also starred in the television series The Young Riders (1989–1992) and as himself in the reality shows Celebrity Big Brother 7, in which he placed 9th in the United Kingdom, and The Celebrity Apprentice. In 2004, he directed Livin' It, a Christian-themed skateboarding DVD. He is the youngest of the four Baldwin brothers.
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Tony Hawk
Anthony Frank Hawk (born May 12, 1968), nicknamed Birdman, is an American professional skateboarder, entrepreneur, and the owner of the skateboard company Birdhouse. A pioneer of modern vertical skateboarding, Hawk completed the first documented "900" skateboarding trick in 1999. He also licensed a skateboarding video game series named after him, published by Activision that same year. Hawk, who retired from competing professionally in 2003, is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential skateboarders of all time. Among Hawk's philanthropic activities is the Skatepark Project, which helps to build skateparks in underprivileged areas around the world.
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Frenkie de Jong
Frenkie de Jong (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈfrɛŋki də ˈjɔŋ]; born 12 May 1997) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for La Liga club Barcelona, which he captains, and the Netherlands national team. De Jong began his professional career at Willem II in 2015. He transferred to Ajax for a symbolic fee of €1 a year later. The fee was symbolic and offset by a sell-on clause. At Ajax, he established himself as one of the best young midfielders in Europe, after winning a domestic double and reaching the Champions League semi-finals. De Jong won the Eredivisie and KNVB Cup, was Eredivisie player of the season, and was an instrumental part of Ajax's first UEFA Champions League semi-final appearance in 22 years, in a breakthrough 2018–19 season. During his breakthrough season, De Jong agreed to sign for Barcelona in January 2019, leading him to be signed for the club in July, for a fee worth €75 million. De Jong was selected to the 2019 FIFA FIFPRO World 11 and was one of three Dutch players to feature in it for the first time in five years. De Jong made his senior international debut for the Netherlands in September 2018. He became a starter in the inaugural UEFA Nations League, in which Netherlands finished runners-up. He also represented the side at UEFA Euro 2020, the 2022 FIFA World Cup and the 2026 World Cup.
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Ving Rhames
Irving Rameses Rhames ( RAYMZ; born May 12, 1959) is an American actor. Born and raised in Harlem, New York City, he studied drama at SUNY Purchase before transferring to the Juilliard School, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1983. After early stage work in Shakespeare and contemporary plays, he made his screen debut in 1985 and gained attention through roles in Jacob's Ladder (1990), The People Under the Stairs (1991), and as Marsellus Wallace in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994). Rhames achieved further recognition as Luther Stickell in the Mission: Impossible film series, appearing in all eight installments. His other notable work includes Con Air (1997), Rosewood (1997), Out of Sight (1998), Dawn of the Dead (2004), and voicing Cobra Bubbles in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch (2002). In 1998, he won a Golden Globe for portraying boxing promoter Don King in Don King: Only in America, memorably giving the award to fellow nominee Jack Lemmon. Alongside film and television, Rhames has worked extensively in theater, voice acting, and commercial narration.
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Burt Bacharach
Burt Freeman Bacharach ( BAK-ə-rak; May 12, 1928 – February 8, 2023) was an American composer, songwriter, record producer, and pianist, widely regarded as one of the most important and influential figures of 20th-century popular music. A significant figure in orchestral pop and easy listening, he composed hundreds of songs, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David, and arranged, conducted, and produced much of his recorded output. His music often contained atypical chord progressions and time signature changes, influenced by his background in jazz, and uncommon selections of instruments for small orchestras. Bacharach and David formed their partnership in 1956 and had their first major hits with Marty Robbins' "The Story of My Life" (1957) and Perry Como's "Magic Moments" (1958). Most of their songs were tailored for Dionne Warwick from 1961 to 1972. Beginning with Jerry Butler's "Make It Easy on Yourself" (1962), Bacharach fully directed the recordings of his songs and, following the success of these collaborations, co-authored hits for singers such as Gene Pitney, Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones and B. J. Thomas. He expanded into film and stage work with songs and scores for What's New Pussycat? (1965), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1968), and the Broadway musical Promises, Promises (1968). After the commercial failure of Lost Horizon (1973), his partnership with David ended, and his collaboration with Warwick was interrupted by lawsuits. He later returned to prominence through work with Carole Bayer Sager and Elvis Costello. Over 1,000 artists have recorded Bacharach's songs and their recordings have featured in the soundtracks of numerous major feature films. He received six Grammy Awards, three Academy Awards, and one Emmy Award, and his work informed the development of later music styles such as sunshine pop/soft rock, chamber pop, and Shibuya-kei. In total, he composed fifty-two U.S. Top 40 hits between 1957 and 1987, including six chart-toppers: "This Guy's in Love with You" (Herb Alpert, 1968), "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" (Thomas, 1969), "(They Long to Be) Close to You" (the Carpenters, 1970), "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (Christopher Cross, 1981), "That's What Friends Are For" (Warwick, 1986), and "On My Own" (Bayer Sager, 1986). In 2012, Bacharach and David were the first songwriting team to receive the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. They were ranked at number 32 on Rolling Stone's 2015 list of the "100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time".
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Bruce Boxleitner
Bruce William Boxleitner (born May 12, 1950) is an American actor and science fiction and suspense writer. He is known for his leading roles in the television series: How the West Was Won, Bring 'Em Back Alive, Scarecrow and Mrs. King (with Kate Jackson) and Babylon 5 (as John Sheridan in seasons 2–5, 1994–99). He is known for his dual role as the characters Alan Bradley and Tron in the 1982 Walt Disney Pictures film Tron, a role which he reprised in the 2003 video game Tron 2.0, the 2006 Square-Enix/Disney crossover game Kingdom Hearts II, the 2010 film sequel, Tron: Legacy and the animated series Tron: Uprising. He co-starred in most of the Gambler films with Kenny Rogers, where his character provided comic relief. He also voiced General Moss in the films AniMen: Triton Force and AniMen: The Galactic Battle.
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Yogi Berra
Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra (born Lorenzo Pietro Berra; May 12, 1925 – September 22, 2015) was an American professional baseball catcher who later took on the roles of manager and coach. He played 19 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) (1946–1963, 1965), all but the last for the New York Yankees. He was an 18-time All-Star and won 10 World Series championships as a player—more than any other player in MLB history. Berra had a career batting average of .285, while hitting 358 home runs and 1,430 runs batted in. He is one of only six players to win the American League (AL) Most Valuable Player Award three times. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest catchers in baseball history, and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972. Berra was born in St. Louis, in an Italian community, and signed with the Yankees in 1943 before serving in the United States Navy as a gunner's mate in the Normandy landings during World War II. He made his major-league debut at age 21 in 1946 and was a mainstay in the Yankees' lineup during the team's championship years beginning in 1949 and continuing through 1962. Berra was a power hitter and strong defensive catcher, despite being shorter than most in the league at 5 feet 7 inches [1.70 m] tall. Berra played 18 seasons with the Yankees before retiring after the 1963 season. He spent the next year as their manager, then joined the New York Mets in 1965 as coach (and briefly a player again). Berra remained with the Mets for the next decade, serving the last four years as their manager. He returned to the Yankees in 1976, coaching them for eight seasons and managing for two, before coaching the Houston Astros. Berra appeared as a player, coach or manager in 13 of 15 World Series that New York baseball teams won from 1947 through 1981. Overall, he played or coached in 21 World Series, 13 on the winning side. Berra caught Don Larsen's perfect game in game five of the 1956 World Series. He also holds the all-time record for shutouts caught with 173. The Yankees retired his uniform number 8 in 1972; Bill Dickey had previously worn number 8, and both catchers had that number retired by the Yankees. The club honored him with a plaque in Monument Park in 1988. Berra was named to the MLB All-Century Team in a vote by fans in 1999. For the remainder of his life, he was closely involved with the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center, which he opened on the campus of Montclair State University in 1998. Berra quit school after the eighth grade. He was known for his malapropisms as well as pithy and paradoxical statements, such as "It ain't over 'til it's over" and "I really didn't say everything I said."
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Kim Fields
Kim Fields Morgan (née Fields; born May 12, 1969) is an American actress and director. She first gained fame as a child actress on the television series Good Times (1978–1979), and rose to greater prominence for her role as Dorothy "Tootie" Ramsey on the NBC sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1979–1981), as well as its spin-off The Facts of Life (1979–1988). Fields made her transition into mature roles as Regine Hunter on the Fox sitcom Living Single (1993–1998). Afterwards, she began work as a director on the Nickelodeon sitcom Kenan & Kel, as well as Tyler Perry's House of Payne. She most recently starred in the Netflix original series The Upshaws (2021–2026).
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Hiroki Itō
Hiroki Ito (伊藤 洋輝, Itō Hiroki; born 12 May 1999) is a Japanese professional footballer who plays as a centre-back, left-back and defensive midfielder for Bundesliga club Bayern Munich and the Japan national team.
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Ian Dury
Ian Robins Dury (12 May 1942 – 27 March 2000) was an English singer, songwriter and actor best remembered as the frontman of Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Described by The Guardian as "one of few true originals of the English music scene", Dury drew from music hall and punk traditions, often incorporating observational humour and word play in his lyrics. Dury initially performed with the pub rock band Kilburn and the High Roads before signing to the new wave-oriented independent record label Stiff in 1977. With the Blockheads, he scored several UK singles chart hits in the late 1970s, among them "What a Waste", "Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 3" and the chart-topper "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick". In the 1980s, Dury initiated an acting career in film and television. His best-known later recordings include "Profoundly in Love with Pandora", written for the 1985 ITV series The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾, and the 1981 single "Spasticus Autisticus". The latter, a protest song reflecting Dury's life with polio and his opposition to contemporary attitudes about disability, was performed during the opening of the London 2012 Paralympics.
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Jonah Lomu
Jonah Tali Lomu (12 May 1975 – 18 November 2015) was a New Zealand professional rugby union player. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential players in the history of the sport, and as one of the most talented sportsmen of all time. Lomu is widely considered to have been the first true global superstar of rugby, and consequently had a huge impact on the game. For his fast and effortless style of play, Lomu was nicknamed the "freight train in ballet shoes", and was celebrated for his ability to shrug off tackles from multiple opponents at once. Born in Pukekohe to Tongan immigrants from Haʻapai, Lomu grew up between rural Tonga and South Auckland. Attending Wesley College, he excelled in athletics and both rugby codes before pursuing a professional career. He became the youngest ever All Black when he played his first international in 1994 at the age of 19 years and 45 days. He was acknowledged as the top player at the 1995 World Cup for his 4-try performance in the semi-final against England. He shares with South African Bryan Habana the Rugby World Cup all-time try scoring record of 15, which he accumulated in only two tournaments. At the height of his fame in the mid-1990s, Lomu became a globally recognised cultural icon of South Auckland and its Pasifika community. His performance at that Rugby World Cup and others that followed established him as "rugby union's biggest drawcard", just as the game turned fully professional, being a major audience pull in any match in which he appeared. He used his celebrity to support Pasifika community efforts and charities such as UNICEF, and often paid bills for his childhood friends in Māngere. Playing on the wing, Lomu finished his international career with 63 caps and 37 tries. Lomu was inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame on 9 October 2007, and the IRB Hall of Fame on 24 October 2011. In 1995 he was diagnosed with nephrotic syndrome, a genetic kidney disorder. After a period of hiatus, he returned to play domestically rather than internationally. Lomu played for several domestic New Zealand provincial or Super Rugby sides, and late in his career played club rugby in both Wales and France. These included the Auckland Blues, with whom he won the inaugural 1996 Super 12 Final with, Chiefs and Hurricanes, and Counties Manukau, Wellington, and later North Harbour and the Cardiff Blues. His illness forced his retirement from professional rugby in 2007 at the age of 32. After returning from abroad, Lomu died unexpectedly on 18 November 2015 at home in Auckland.
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Mo Bamba
Mohamed Fakaba Bamba (born May 12, 1998) is an Ivorian-American professional basketball player for the Utah Jazz of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Texas Longhorns. He was highly regarded by scouts due to his 7 ft 1 in (2.16 m) wingspan and shooting ability. He attended Cardigan Mountain School in Canaan, New Hampshire, and Westtown School in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and was considered one of the top high school prospects for the class of 2017.
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Zach Benson
Zachary Ruben Benson (born May 12, 2005) is a Canadian professional ice hockey player who is a winger for the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was drafted 13th overall by the Sabres in the 2023 NHL entry draft.
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti ( rə-ZET-ee; Italian: [rosˈsetti]), was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Rossetti inspired many contemporary artists and writers, such as Algernon Charles Swinburne, William Morris, and Edward Burne-Jones. His later work also influenced the European Symbolists and was a major precursor of the Aesthetic movement. Rossetti's art was characterised by its sensuality and its mediaeval revivalism. His early poetry was influenced by John Keats and William Blake. He frequently wrote sonnets to accompany his pictures, spanning from The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1849) and Astarte Syriaca (1877), while also creating art to illustrate poems such as Goblin Market by his sister Christina Rossetti. From about 1860 Rossetti's painting style changed to a dense, rich, style drawing from later Italian Renaissance painting, very often showing a single female figure using one of his small group of regular models, typically with a luxuriant background of vegetation. He also produced many drawings, prints, and book illustations. Rossetti's personal life was closely linked to his work, especially his relationships with his models and muses, including Elizabeth Siddal (whom he married), Fanny Cornforth, and Jane Morris.
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Steve Smith Sr.
Stevonne Latrall Smith Sr. (born May 12, 1979), better known as Steve Smith, is an American former professional football wide receiver who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 16 seasons, primarily with the Carolina Panthers. He played college football for the Utah Utes and was selected by the Panthers in the third round of the 2001 NFL draft. Smith spent 13 seasons in Carolina and three with the Baltimore Ravens. After retiring from the NFL, Smith became a sports analyst and show host for NFL Network. A five-time Pro Bowl selection and four-time All-Pro (including a 2011 selection from Pro Football Focus), Smith emerged as one of the NFL's most productive wide receivers, leading the league in catches, receiving yards, and touchdowns in 2005. He is the Panthers' all-time leader in receptions (836), receiving yards (12,197), receiving touchdowns (67), punt returns (178), punt return yards (1,652), punt return touchdowns (4), and total touchdowns (75). In 2011, he became the 35th player in NFL history to amass 10,000 receiving yards. At the time of his retirement, Smith ranked seventh in NFL career all-purpose yards (19,180), seventh in NFL career receiving yards (14,731), twelfth in career receptions (1,031), and 26th in receiving touchdowns (81). Smith amassed (89) total touchdowns in the regular season and (101) total touchdowns including the postseason. In 2005, Smith became the only player in NFL history to lead the league in receiving yards, receiving touchdowns and receptions (receiving Triple Crown) despite being on a team that was ranked (28th) in pass attempts. Smith emerged as one of the most statistically efficient wide receivers ever, in 2008 Steve Smith earned the highest rating in receiving yards per team pass attempt in the modern era; Smith also has the highest yards per route run rating in NFL history from 2008. Smith is currently tied for 5th all-time in 100-yard receiving games alongside Andre Johnson and Terrell Owens with (51).
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Chris Patten
Christopher Francis Patten, Baron Patten of Barnes (born 12 May 1944), is a British politician who was the Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1992, and the 28th and last Governor of Hong Kong from 1992 to 1997. He was made a life peer in 2005 and served as Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 2003 to 2024. He is one of the two living former governors of Hong Kong; the other is David Wilson. Patten was born in Thornton-Cleveleys in Lancashire and subsequently raised in west London. He studied history at Balliol College, Oxford, and, after graduating in 1965, he began working for the Conservative Party. Patten was elected Member of Parliament for Bath in 1979. He was appointed Secretary of State for the Environment by Margaret Thatcher in 1989 as part of her third ministry, becoming responsible for implementation of the unpopular poll tax. On John Major's succession as Prime Minister in 1990, Patten became Chairman of the Conservative Party and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. As party chairman, he successfully orchestrated a surprise Conservative electoral victory in 1992, but lost his own seat. Patten was then appointed the last governor of Hong Kong, to oversee the final years of British administration in the colony and prepare for its transfer to China in 1997. During his tenure, his government significantly expanded the territory's social welfare programmes and introduced democratic reforms to the electoral system. Following his governorship, Patten led the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland, a major implementation step of the Northern Ireland peace process pursuant to the Good Friday Agreement from 1998 to 1999. He was European Commissioner for External Relations from 1999 to 2004 and Chairman of the BBC Trust from 2011 to 2014.
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Jim Furyk
James Michael Furyk (born May 12, 1970) is an American professional golfer and analyst who plays on the PGA Tour and the PGA Tour Champions. In 2010, he was the FedEx Cup champion and PGA Tour Player of the Year. He has won one major championship, the 2003 U.S. Open. Furyk holds the record for the lowest score in PGA Tour history, a round of 58 which he shot during the final round of the 2016 Travelers Championship, and has earned notoriety for his unorthodox golf swing. In September 2006 he reached a career high of second in the Official World Golf Ranking. He ranked in the top-10 for over 440 weeks between 1999 and 2016.
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Augustus II the Strong
Augustus II the Strong (12 May 1670 – 1 February 1733), was Elector of Saxony as Frederick Augustus I (German: Friedrich August I) from 1694 as well as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1697 to 1706 and from 1709 until his death in 1733. He belonged to the Albertine branch of the House of Wettin. Augustus' great physical strength earned him the nicknames "the Strong", "the Saxon Hercules" and "Iron-Hand". He liked to show that he lived up to his name by breaking horseshoes with his bare hands and engaging in fox tossing by holding the end of his sling with just one finger while two of the strongest men in his court held the other end. He is also notable for fathering a very large number of children, with contemporary sources claiming a total of between 360 and 380. In order to be elected king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Augustus converted to Catholicism. As a Catholic, he received the Order of the Golden Fleece from the Holy Roman Emperor and established the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest distinction. As elector of Saxony, he is perhaps best remembered as a patron of the arts and architecture. He transformed the Saxon capital of Dresden into a major cultural centre, attracting artists from across Europe to his court. Augustus also amassed an impressive art collection and built lavish baroque palaces in Dresden and Warsaw. In 1711, he served as the Imperial vicar of the Holy Roman Empire. His reign brought about many troubles to Poland. He led the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Great Northern War, which allowed the Russian Empire to strengthen its influence in Europe, especially within Poland. His main pursuit was bolstering royal power in the Commonwealth, characterised by broad decentralisation in comparison with other European monarchies. In order to reduce the autonomy of the Commonwealth's subjects, he used foreign powers, leading to the destabilisation of the country. Augustus ruled Poland with a 3-year interruption between 1706 and 1709; in 1704, the Swedes installed nobleman Stanisław Leszczyński as king, who officially reigned from 1706 to 1709 and then after Augustus' death in 1733, which sparked the War of the Polish Succession. Augustus' body was buried in Poland's royal Wawel Cathedral in Kraków, but his heart rests in the Dresden Cathedral. His only legitimate son, Augustus III of Poland, became king in 1733.
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Malin Åkerman
Malin Maria Åkerman (born 12 May 1978), often anglicised to Malin Akerman, is a Swedish and American actress. She first appeared in smaller parts in both Canadian and American productions, including The Utopian Society (2003) and Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004). Following a main role on the HBO mockumentary series The Comeback (2005), Akerman co-starred in the commercially successful romantic comedies The Heartbreak Kid (2007) and 27 Dresses (2008). She gained wider recognition for her role as Silk Spectre II in the 2009 superhero film Watchmen, for which she received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She had supporting and starring roles in the box office hits The Proposal (2009), Couples Retreat (2009), and Rampage (2018). Her performance in the comedy horror film The Final Girls (2015) garnered a Fangoria Chainsaw Award nomination. Akerman's other works include the critically acclaimed dramas I'll See You in My Dreams (2015) and To the Stars (2019). On television, she earned critical praise for her lead role on the ABC sitcom Trophy Wife (2013–2014). She was part of the main cast on the Adult Swim comedy series Childrens Hospital from 2010 to 2016, the Showtime drama series Billions from 2016 to 2019, and the Netflix drama series The Hunting Wives from 2025 onward. Apart from acting and modelling, Akerman had a brief music career in the early 2000s as the lead vocalist for alternative rock band the Petalstones, which released its debut studio album in 2005. She subsequently left the project to focus on her acting career. She has been married twice, first from 2007 to 2014 to Petalstones drummer Roberto Zincone, with whom she has a son, and, since 2018, to English actor Jack Donnelly. Akerman hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 in Malmö alongside Petra Mede.
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Wilfrid Hyde-White
Wilfrid Hyde-White (né Hyde White; 12 May 1903 – 6 May 1991) was an English actor. Described by Philip French as a "classic British film archetype", Hyde-White often portrayed droll and urbane upper-class characters. He had an extensive stage and screen career in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and portrayed over 160 film and television roles between 1935 and 1987. He was twice nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, in 1957 for The Reluctant Debutante and in 1973 for The Jockey Club Stakes.
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Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré (12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, Sicilienne, nocturnes for piano and the songs "Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Although his best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his most highly regarded works in his later years, in a more harmonically and melodically complex style. Fauré was born into a cultured but not especially musical family. His talent became clear when he was a young boy. At the age of nine, he was sent to the École Niedermeyer music college in Paris, where he was trained to be a church organist and choirmaster. Among his teachers was Camille Saint-Saëns, who became a lifelong friend. After graduating from the college in 1865, Fauré earned a modest living as an organist and teacher, leaving him little time for composition. When he became successful in his middle age, holding the important posts of organist of the Église de la Madeleine and director of the Paris Conservatoire, he still lacked time for composing; he retreated to the countryside in the summer holidays to concentrate on composition. By his last years, he was recognised in France as the leading French composer of his day. An unprecedented national musical tribute was held for him in Paris in 1922, headed by the president of the French Republic. Outside France, Fauré's music took decades to become widely accepted, except in Britain, where he had many admirers during his lifetime. Fauré's music has been described as linking the end of Romanticism with the modernism of the second quarter of the 20th century. When he was born, Chopin was still composing, and by the time of Fauré's death, jazz and the atonal music of the Second Viennese School were being heard. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, which describes him as the most advanced composer of his generation in France, notes that his harmonic and melodic innovations influenced the teaching of harmony for later generations. During the last twenty years of his life, he suffered from increasing deafness. In contrast with the charm of his earlier music, his works from this period are sometimes elusive and withdrawn in character, and at other times turbulent and impassioned.
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George Karl
George Matthew Karl (born May 12, 1951) is an American former professional basketball coach and player. After spending five years as a player for the San Antonio Spurs, he became an assistant with the team before being appointed as a head coach in 1980 with the Montana Golden Nuggets of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA). Three years later, Karl became one of the youngest National Basketball Association (NBA) head coaches in history when he was named coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers at age 33. By the time his coaching career came to an end in 2016, Karl coached nine different teams in three different leagues (CBA, NBA, Liga ACB), which included being named Coach of the Year three combined times (twice in the CBA and once in the NBA) with one championship roster in the FIBA Saporta Cup. He is one of nine coaches in NBA history to have won 1,000 NBA games (which included twelve seasons with fifty or more wins) and was named NBA Coach of the Year for the 2012–13 season. While he never won an NBA championship, Karl made the postseason 22 times with five different teams, which included a trip to the 1996 NBA Finals with the Seattle SuperSonics. Karl was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022.
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Henry Cabot Lodge
Henry Cabot Lodge (May 12, 1850 – November 9, 1924) was an American politician, historian, lawyer, and statesman from Massachusetts. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the United States Senate from 1893 to 1924 and is best known for his positions on foreign policy. He voted in favor of American entry into World War I and his successful crusade against Woodrow Wilson's Treaty of Versailles ensured that the United States never joined the League of Nations. His penned conditions against that treaty, known collectively as the Lodge reservations, influenced the structure of the modern United Nations. Lodge received four degrees from Harvard University and was a widely published historian. His close friendship with Theodore Roosevelt began as early as 1884 and lasted their entire lifetimes, even surviving Roosevelt's bolt from the Republican Party in 1912. As a representative, Lodge sponsored the unsuccessful Lodge Bill of 1890, which sought to protect the voting rights of African Americans and introduce a national secret ballot. As a senator, Lodge took a more active role in foreign policy, supporting the Spanish–American War, expansion of American territory overseas, and American entry into World War I. He also supported immigration restrictions, becoming a member of the Immigration Restriction League and influencing the Immigration Act of 1917. After World War I, Lodge became Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the leader of the Senate Republicans. From that position, he led the opposition to Wilson's Treaty of Versailles, proposing 14 reservations to the treaty. His strongest objection was to the requirement that all nations repel aggression, fearing that this would erode congressional powers and erode American sovereignty; those objections had a major role in producing the veto power of the United Nations Security Council. Lodge remained in the Senate until his death in 1924.
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Tony Hancock
Anthony John Hancock (12 May 1924 – 25 June 1968) was an English comedian and actor. High-profile during the 1950s and early 1960s, he had a major success with his BBC series Hancock's Half Hour, first broadcast on radio from 1954, then on television from 1956, in which he soon formed a strong professional and personal bond with comic actor Sid James. Although Hancock's decision to cease working with James disappointed many when it became known in early 1960, his last BBC series in 1961 contains some of his best-remembered work (including "The Blood Donor" and "The Radio Ham"). After breaking with his scriptwriters Ray Galton and Alan Simpson later that year, his career declined. Across his career, Hancock twice won the BAFTA Award for Light Entertainment Artist in 1958 and 1960. He was later nominated for the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles for his performance in The Rebel (1961).
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Mary Kay Ash
Mary Kay Ash (born Mary Kathlyn Wagner; May 12, 1918 – November 22, 2001) was an American businesswoman and founder of direct sales company Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc. At the time of her death, she had a fortune of $98 million, and her company had more than $1.2 billion in sales with a sales force of more than 800,000 in at least three dozen countries.
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Issa Kaboré
Issa Kaboré (born 12 May 2001) is a Burkinabé professional footballer who plays as a right-back or right wing-back for Premier League club Manchester City, and the Burkina Faso national team.
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Edward Lear
Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limericks, a form he popularised but which term he never used. His principal areas of work as an artist were threefold: as a draughtsman employed to make illustrations of birds and animals, making coloured drawings during his journeys (which he reworked later, sometimes as plates for his travel books) and as a minor illustrator of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poems. As an author, he is known principally for his popular nonsense collections of poems, songs, short stories, botanical drawings, recipes and alphabets. He also composed and published twelve musical settings of Tennyson's poetry.
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Bill Shorten
William Richard Shorten (born 12 May 1967) is an Australian former politician and trade unionist who served as the leader of the Opposition and the leader of the Labor Party from 2013 to 2019, and served as a cabinet minister in the Gillard, Rudd and Albanese governments. Born in Melbourne, Shorten studied law at Monash University. He worked in politics and in law before becoming an organiser with the Australian Workers' Union (AWU) in 1994. He was elected state secretary of the Victorian Branch of the AWU in 1998 before becoming AWU national secretary in 2001. In this role, Shorten played a prominent role as a negotiator following the Beaconsfield Mine collapse in 2006, which first brought him to national prominence. Shorten was elected to the House of Representatives at the 2007 federal election, winning the seat of Maribyrnong, before being immediately appointed a Parliamentary Secretary. Following the 2010 election, he was promoted to the cabinet, serving first as Assistant Treasurer, then as Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation and Minister for Workplace Relations in Julia Gillard's government. After Kevin Rudd replaced Gillard as prime minister in June 2013, Shorten was briefly Minister for Education until the Labor Party's defeat at the 2013 election. During his time as a minister, Shorten was instrumental in the creation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). After Rudd retired from politics, Shorten won a leadership election in October 2013 against Anthony Albanese, and became leader of the Labor Party. He led Labor to a narrow loss at the 2016 election and then led Labor to an unexpected defeat at the 2019 election, after which he announced his resignation as leader, with Albanese being elected unopposed to replace him. Following Labor's victory at the 2022 election, Shorten was appointed as the Minister for Government Services and for the NDIS. Shorten is a senior figure within the Labor Right. He is considered a moderate member of the Labor Party. Shorten retired from politics in January 2025 in order to take up an appointment as vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra from February 2025.
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Jesús Franco
Jesús Franco Manera (12 May 1930 – 2 April 2013), also commonly known as Jess Franco, was a Spanish filmmaker, composer, and actor, known as a highly prolific director of low-budget exploitation and B-movies. He worked in many different genres during his career, but was best known for his horror and erotic films, often incorporating surrealist elements. In a career spanning from 1954 to 2013, he wrote, directed, produced, acted in, and scored approximately 173 feature films, working both in his native Spain and (during the rule of Francisco Franco) in France, West Germany, Switzerland, Portugal and Italy. Additionally, during the 1960s, he made several films in Brazil and Istanbul. Franco's films are known for his distinctive visual style and idiosyncratic approach to production, often directing multiple films concurrently. Despite mixed critical reception during his lifetime, Franco's work has gained a dedicated cult following, and he is regarded as a significant figure in the history of exploitation cinema. In 2009, he received an Honorary Goya Award from the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain for his contributions to Spanish cinema.
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Joseph Beuys
Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( BOYSS; German: [ˈjoːzɛf ˈbɔʏs]; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism and sociology. With Heinrich Böll, Johannes Stüttgen, Caroline Tisdall, Robert McDowell, and Enrico Wolleb, Beuys created the Free International University for Creativity & Interdisciplinary Research (FIU). Through his talks and performances, he also formed The Party for Animals and The Organisation for Direct Democracy. He was a member of a Dadaist art movement Fluxus and singularly inspirational in developing of Performance Art, called Kunst Aktionen, alongside Wiener Aktionismus that Allan Kaprow and Carolee Schneemann termed Art Happenings. According to one of his biographers, Reinhard Ermen, he can be seen as the “ideal antagonist” of Andy Warhol.. Beuys was professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1961 until 1972. He was a founding member and life-long supporter of the German Green Party.
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Norman Whitfield
Norman Jesse Whitfield (May 12, 1940 – September 16, 2008) was an American songwriter, composer, and producer, who worked with Berry Gordy's Motown labels during the 1960s. He has been credited as one of the creators of the Motown Sound and of the late-1960s subgenre of psychedelic soul. During his 25-year career, Whitfield co-wrote and produced many enduring hits for Motown artists, including "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", "War", "Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today)", "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)" and "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone". Whitfield worked extensively with the Temptations as a producer and songwriter, producing eight of their albums between 1969 and 1973. He then started his own label, Whitfield Records, in 1975, which yielded the Rose Royce hit "Car Wash". Alongside his Motown lyrical collaborator Barrett Strong, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004. He wrote or co-wrote 61 hits on the UK charts and 92 on the US charts. In 2024, Whitfield was posthumously selected for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the musical excellence category. Whitfield was also inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2021.
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Earle Nelson
Earle Leonard Nelson (né Ferral; May 12, 1897 – January 13, 1928), also known as the Gorilla Man, the Gorilla Killer, and the Dark Strangler, was an American serial killer, rapist, and necrophile who killed at least twenty women in various U.S. states and two in Canada between 1926 and 1927. He is perhaps the first known serial sex murderer of the twentieth century. Born and raised in San Francisco, California, by his devoutly Pentecostal grandmother, Nelson exhibited bizarre behavior as a child, which was compounded by head injuries he sustained in a bicycling accident at age 10. After committing various minor offenses in early adulthood, he was institutionalized in Napa several times before his final discharge in 1925. Nelson began committing numerous rapes and murders in February 1926, primarily in the West Coast cities of San Francisco and Portland, Oregon. In late 1926 he moved east, committing multiple rapes and murders in several Midwestern and East Coast cities before moving north into Canada, raping and killing a teenage girl in Winnipeg, Manitoba. After committing his second murder in Winnipeg, he was arrested by Canadian authorities, convicted of his final murder only—that of Emily Patterson—and sentenced to death. Nelson was executed by hanging in Winnipeg in 1928. In undertaking his crimes, Nelson had a modus operandi: Most of his victims were middle-aged landladies, many of whom he would find through "room for rent" advertisements. Posing as a mild-mannered and charming Christian drifter, Nelson used the pretext of renting a room in the landladies' boarding houses to make contact with them before attacking. Each of his victims were killed via strangulation, and many were raped after death. His penultimate victim, a 14-year-old girl named Lola Cowan, was one of three victims to be significantly mutilated after death. At the time, Nelson's confirmed victim count of twenty-two was the largest number of murders attributed to one person in United States history. The crimes committed by Nelson were a source of inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock's 1943 film Shadow of a Doubt.
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Felipe Alou
Felipe Rojas Alou (born May 12, 1935) is a Dominican former professional outfielder, first baseman, coach and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB). He managed the Montreal Expos (1992–2001) and the San Francisco Giants (2003–2006). The first Dominican to play regularly in the major leagues, he is the most prominent member of one of the sport's most notable families of the late 20th century: he was the oldest of the trio of baseball-playing brothers that included Matty and Jesús, who were both primarily outfielders, and his son Moisés was also primarily an outfielder; all but Jesús have been named All-Stars at least twice. His son Luis, in turn, managed the New York Mets. During his 17-year career spent with the Giants, Milwaukee / Atlanta Braves, Oakland Athletics, New York Yankees, Montreal Expos, and Milwaukee Brewers, Alou played all three outfield positions regularly (736 games in right field, 483 in center, 433 in left), and led the National League twice in hits and once in runs. Batting regularly in the leadoff spot, he hit a home run to begin a game on 20 occasions. He later became the most successful manager in Expos history, leading the team from 1992 to 2001 before rejoining the Giants in 2003. On February 4, 2015, Alou was elected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, and in 2016, he was inducted in the Caribbean Baseball Hall of Fame. He is one of just three men to have 2,000 hits, 200 home runs, and 1,000 managerial wins (the other two are Joe Torre and Frank Robinson).
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Vasilije Adžić
Vasilije Adžić (born 12 May 2006) is a Montenegrin professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder or central midfielder for Serie A club Juventus and the Montenegro national team.
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Michael Ignatieff
Michael Grant Ignatieff ( ig-NAT-ee-ef; born May 12, 1947) is a Canadian author, academic and former politician who served as leader of the Liberal Party and leader of the Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a historian, Ignatieff has held senior academic posts at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, and Toronto. Most recently, he was rector and president of Central European University; he held this position from 2016 to 2021. While living in the United Kingdom from 1978 to 2000, Ignatieff became well known as a television and radio broadcaster and as an editorial columnist for The Observer. His documentary series Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism aired on BBC in 1993, and won a Canadian Gemini Award. His book of the same name, based on the series, won the Gordon Montador Award for Best Canadian Book on Social Issues and the University of Toronto's Lionel Gelber Prize. His memoir, The Russian Album, won Canada's Governor General's Literary Award and the British Royal Society of Literature's Heinemann Prize in 1988. His novel, Scar Tissue, was short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1994. In 2000, he delivered the Massey Lectures, entitled The Rights Revolution, which was released in print later that year. In the 2006 federal election, Ignatieff was elected to the House of Commons as the member of Parliament (MP) for Etobicoke—Lakeshore. The same year, he ran for the leadership of the Liberal Party, ultimately losing to Stéphane Dion. He served as the party's deputy leader under Dion. After Dion's resignation in the wake of the 2008 election, Ignatieff served as interim leader from December 2008 until he was elected leader at the party's May 2009 convention. In the 2011 federal election, Ignatieff lost his own seat in the Liberal Party's worst showing in its history. Winning only 34 seats, the party placed a distant third behind the Conservatives and NDP, and thus lost its position as the Official Opposition. Ignatieff subsequently resigned as leader of the Liberal Party, and in effect retired from active politics, in May 2011. Ignatieff taught at the University of Toronto after his 2011 electoral defeat. In 2013, he returned to Harvard Kennedy School part-time, splitting his time between Harvard and Toronto. On July 1, 2014, he returned to Harvard full-time. In 2016, he left Harvard to become president and rector of the Central European University in Budapest; he resigned from this position in July 2021. He continues to publish articles and essays on international affairs as well as Canadian politics. In 2024, he was awarded the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences.
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Lou Whitaker
Louis Rodman Whitaker Jr. (born May 12, 1957), nicknamed "Sweet Lou", is an American former professional baseball second baseman. Whitaker spent his entire career with the Detroit Tigers. From 1977 to 1995, he appeared in 2,390 games for the Tigers, third most in franchise history behind Ty Cobb and Al Kaline. He helped the Tigers win the 1984 World Series, was selected as an American League All-Star five consecutive years (1983–1987) and won four Silver Slugger Awards (1983–1985, 1987) and three Gold Glove Awards (1983–1985). The Tigers retired his No. 1 jersey in August 2022. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Virginia, Whitaker was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in 1975. He spent three years in the minor leagues and was selected in 1976 as the most valuable player in the Florida State League. He made his Major League Baseball debut in September 1977 and won the American League Rookie of the Year Award in 1978. Whitaker won the Tiger of the Year award in 1983 after hitting .320 and tallying 206 hits. He repeated as Tiger of the Year in 1989 when he hit a career-high 28 home runs. Whitaker and shortstop Alan Trammell played beside each other for 19 seasons and are the longest-running double play combination in major-league history. Whitaker was inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 2000.
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Bruno Lage
Bruno Miguel Silva do Nascimento (born 12 May 1976), known as Bruno Lage (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈbɾunu ˈlaʒɨ]), is a Portuguese football manager who is set to take over Saudi Pro League club Diriyah. During his first tenure as coach of Benfica in Portugal, he won the 2018–19 league title and the 2019 Super Cup. He then spent just over a season as manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Premier League, followed by a brief spell at Brazilian club Botafogo before returning to Benfica in 2024.
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Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (French: [ʒyl emil fʁedeʁik masnɛ]; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are Manon (1884) and Werther (1892). He also composed oratorios, ballets, orchestral works, incidental music, piano pieces, songs and other music. While still a schoolboy, Massenet was admitted to France's principal music college, the Paris Conservatoire. There he studied under Ambroise Thomas, whom he greatly admired. After winning the country's top musical prize, the Prix de Rome, in 1863, he composed prolifically in many genres, but quickly became best known for his operas. Between 1867 and his death forty-five years later he wrote more than forty stage works in a wide variety of styles, from opéra-comique to grand-scale depictions of classical myths, romantic comedies, lyric dramas, as well as oratorios, cantatas and ballets. Massenet had a good sense of the theatre and of what would succeed with the Parisian public. Despite some miscalculations, he produced a series of successes that made him the leading composer of opera in France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Like many prominent French composers of the period, Massenet became a professor at the Conservatoire. He taught composition there from 1878 until 1896, when he resigned after the death of the director, Ambroise Thomas. Among his students were Gustave Charpentier, Ernest Chausson, Reynaldo Hahn and Gabriel Pierné. By the time of his death, Massenet was regarded by many critics as old-fashioned and unadventurous although his two best-known operas remained popular in France and abroad. After a few decades of neglect, his works began to be favourably reassessed during the mid-20th century, and many of them have since been staged and recorded. Critics do not rank him among the handful of outstanding operatic geniuses: Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians comments, "It would be absurd to claim that he was anything more than a second-rate composer; he nevertheless deserves to be seen, like Richard Strauss, at least as a first-class second-rate one." His operas are now widely accepted as well-crafted and intelligent products of the Belle Époque.
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Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind (born May 12, 1946) is a Polish and American architect, artist, professor, and set designer. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect. He is known for the design and completion of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany, that opened in 2001. In 2003, Libeskind received further international attention after he won the competition to be the master plan architect for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan. Other buildings that he is known for include the extension to the Denver Art Museum in the United States, the Grand Canal Theatre in Dublin, the Imperial War Museum North in Greater Manchester, England, the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, the Felix Nussbaum Haus in Osnabrück, Germany, the Danish Jewish Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, Reflections in Singapore and the Wohl Centre at the Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. His portfolio also includes several residential projects. Libeskind's work has been exhibited in major museums and galleries around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Bauhaus Archives, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Centre Pompidou.
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Erik Durm
Erik Durm (born 12 May 1992) is a German former professional footballer who played as a full-back. He played for Borussia Dortmund, Huddersfield Town, Eintracht Frankfurt and Kaiserslautern. He made his senior debut for the Germany national team in 2014, and later that year was part of their squad that won the World Cup.
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Sam Nujoma
Samuel Shafiishuna Daniel Nujoma (12 May 1929 – 8 February 2025) was a Namibian revolutionary, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served three terms as the first president of Namibia, from 1990 to 2005. Nujoma was a founding member and the first president of the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) in 1960. Nujoma became involved in anti-colonial politics during the 1950s. In 1959, he co-founded and served as the first president of the Ovamboland People's Organization (OPO), a nationalist organization advocating for an independent Namibia. In December 1958, he was an organizer of the Old Location resistance and was arrested and deported to Ovamboland. In 1960, he escaped and went into exile in Tanzania, where he was welcomed by Julius Nyerere. Nujoma played an important role as the leader of the national liberation movement in campaigning for Namibia's political independence from South African rule. The OPO was renamed SWAPO in 1960. Nujoma established the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) in 1962 and launched a guerrilla war against the apartheid government of South Africa in August 1966 at Omugulugwombashe after the United Nations withdrew the mandate for South Africa to govern the territory. Nujoma led SWAPO during the lengthy Namibian War of Independence, which lasted from 1966 to 1989. Namibia achieved independence from South Africa in 1990 and held its first democratic elections the same year. SWAPO won a majority, and Nujoma was sworn in as the country's first president on 21 March 1990. He was re-elected for two more terms in 1994 and 1999. Nujoma retired as SWAPO party president on 30 November 2007. Nujoma published his autobiography, Where Others Wavered in 2001. He received multiple honours and awards for his leadership, including the Lenin Peace Prize and the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize. The Parliament of Namibia conferred on him the titles "Founding President of the Republic of Namibia" and "Father of the Namibian Nation". In 2007, SWAPO named him "Leader of the Namibian Revolution".
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Justus von Liebig
Justus Freiherr von Liebig (12 May 1803 – 18 April 1873) was a German scientist who made major contributions to the theory, practice, and pedagogy of chemistry, as well as to agricultural and biological chemistry; he is considered one of the principal founders of organic chemistry. As a professor at the University of Giessen, he devised the modern laboratory-oriented teaching method, and for such innovations, he is regarded as one of the most outstanding chemistry teachers of all time. He has been described as the "father of the fertilizer industry" for his emphasis on nitrogen and minerals as essential plant nutrients, and his popularization of the law of the minimum, which states that plant growth is limited by the scarcest nutrient resource, rather than the total amount of resources available. He also developed a manufacturing process for beef extracts, and with his consent a company, called Liebig Extract of Meat Company, was founded to exploit the concept; it later introduced the Oxo brand beef bouillon cube. He popularized an earlier invention for condensing vapors, which came to be known as the Liebig condenser.
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Lance Lynn
Michael Lance Lynn (born May 12, 1987) is an American former professional baseball pitcher. Between 2011 and 2024, he played 13 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis Cardinals, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox, and Los Angeles Dodgers. Playing college baseball for the Ole Miss Rebels, Lynn set the school's single-season (146) and career (332) pitching strikeout records. The Cardinals selected him in the first round of the 2008 MLB draft from the University of Mississippi. In 2009, he was named the Cardinals organizational Pitcher of the Year after playing in three levels and totaling a 2.85 earned run average and 124 strikeouts in 148+2⁄3 innings pitched. He made his MLB debut on June 2, 2011, was a member of the Cardinals' World Series championship team that year, and a National League All-Star in 2012. On May 27, 2014, Lynn pitched his first MLB career complete game and shutout. He earned his 500th MLB career strikeout three weeks later, and 50th career win April 15, 2015. Through 2015, he was the Cardinals' all-time franchise leader in career strikeouts per 9 innings pitched, with 8.7. After undergoing Tommy John surgery, Lynn missed the entire 2016 season. On June 18, 2023, he pitched 16 strikeouts against the Seattle Mariners in 7+1⁄3 innings, tying the franchise record for most strikeouts by a White Sox pitcher in a single game.
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Mary Reibey
Mary Reibey (née Haydock; 12 May 1777 – 30 May 1855) was an English-born merchant, shipowner and trader who was transported to Australia as a convict. After gaining her freedom, she was viewed by her contemporaries as a community role model and became legendary as a successful businesswoman in the colony.
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Indra Devi
Eugenie Peterson (Latvian: Eiženija Pētersone, Russian: Евгения Васильевна Петерсон, romanized: Yevgeniya Vasilyevna Peterson; 12 May 1899 – 25 April 2002), known as Indra Devi, was a pioneering teacher of yoga as exercise, and an early disciple of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, the "father of modern yoga". She went to India in her twenties, becoming a film star there and acquiring the stage name Indra Devi. She was the first woman to study under the yoga guru Krishnamacharya at the Mysore Palace, alongside B.K.S Iyengar and K. Pattabhi Jois who went on to become yoga gurus. Moving to China, she taught the first yoga classes in that country at the house of Soong Mei-ling, wife of Chiang Kai-shek. Her popularization of yoga in America through her many celebrity pupils in Hollywood, and her books advocating yoga for stress relief, earned her the nickname "first lady of yoga". Her biographer, Michelle Goldberg, wrote that Devi "planted the seeds for the yoga boom of the 1990s".
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Manuel Godoy
Manuel de Godoy y Álvarez de Faria Ríos, 1st Prince of the Peace (12 May 1767 – 4 October 1851) was First Secretary of State of the Kingdom of Spain from 1792 to 1797 and from 1801 to 1808. He was one of the central Spanish political figures during the rise of Napoleon and his invasion of Spain. Godoy came to power at a young age as the favourite of King Charles IV and Queen Maria Luisa, with whom he had a sexual relationship. He has been partly blamed for the Anglo-Spanish War of 1796–1808 that weakened the Spanish Empire. Godoy's unmatched power ended in 1808 with the Tumult of Aranjuez, which forced him into a long exile. He died in Paris in 1851.
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Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury
Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury (12 May 1863 – 20 December 1915) was a Bengali writer, painter and entrepreneur. He was the son-in-law of reformer Dwarkanath Ganguly.
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Graeme Dott
Graeme Dott (born 12 May 1977) is a Scottish former professional snooker player from Glasgow. He turned professional in 1994, first entered the top 16 in 2001, and reached his first world final at the 2004 World Championship, losing 8–18 to Ronnie O'Sullivan. Two years later, he defeated Peter Ebdon 18–14 in the final of the 2006 World Championship, winning his first world title and first ranking title. He claimed his second ranking title at the 2007 China Open, defeating Jamie Cope 9–5 in the final, and reached his career highest ranking of second in the 2007–08 rankings. In late 2007, Dott began experiencing clinical depression that affected his form. Following a string of defeats, he fell from second to 28th in the rankings over the following two seasons. He qualified for the 2010 World Championship, where he reached his third world final; he lost 13–18 to Neil Robertson but recovered his top-16 ranking for the next several seasons. His best performances in the other Triple Crown events have been semi-final finishes at the 2006 UK Championship and the 2013 Masters. In all, he has played in ten ranking finals, winning two. In April 2025, the WPBSA suspended Dott from competition after he was charged with sexually abusing two children, a girl between 1993 and 1996, beginning when she was around 10 years old, and a boy between 2006 and 2010, beginning when he was around 7 years old. Released on bail, he has pleaded not guilty to the charges and will stand trial at Scotland's High Court of Justiciary in August 2026. He remains suspended pending his trial. He was relegated from the professional tour after ending the 2025–26 season outside the top 64 in the world rankings.
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Leslie Charteris
Leslie Charteris (; born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin; 12 May 1907 – 15 April 1993), was a British-Chinese author of adventure fiction, as well as a screenwriter. He was best known for his many books chronicling the adventures of his hero Simon Templar, alias "The Saint".
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Guillermo Endara
Guillermo David Endara Galimany (May 12, 1936 – September 28, 2009) was a Panamanian politician who served as the president of Panama from 1989 to 1994. Raised in a family allied to Panameñista Party founder Arnulfo Arias, Endara attended school in exile in the United States and Argentina following Arias's removal from power in 1941. Endara later received a law degree in Panama and subsequently served as a member of Panama's National Assembly, and briefly as a government minister before heading into exile again following Arias' third overthrow in 1968. After Arias' death in 1988, Endara became a leading opponent of the Manuel Noriega military dictatorship, heading the opposition coalition in the 1989 presidential election. Though his coalition was judged by international observers as having defeated pro-Noriega candidate Carlos Duque, the results were annulled by the government, and Endara and his running mates were attacked in the streets by the paramilitary Dignity Battalions. The assaults received widespread coverage in international media, helping to build support within the U.S. for military action against Noriega. Seven months later, the United States invaded Panama. Endara was sworn in as the new president on the first night of the invasion on a U.S. military base. During his presidency, Endara abolished the Panamanian military and replaced it with a national police force. Endara's term saw steady economic growth and a return of democratic institutions, but also high unemployment rates. His administration was marked by internal fighting, and his popularity plummeted. He was succeeded by opposition candidate Ernesto Pérez Balladares in 1994. Endara ran for office again in 2004 and 2009, but lost to Democratic Revolutionary Party candidate Martín Torrijos and to independent candidate Ricardo Martinelli. He died of a heart attack in September 2009, several months after his last campaign.
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Abelardo L. Rodríguez
Abelardo Rodríguez Luján, commonly known as Abelardo L. Rodríguez (Spanish pronunciation: [aβeˈlaɾðo ˈele roˈðɾiɣes]; 12 May 1889 – 13 February 1967) was a Mexican military officer, businessman and politician who served as Substitute President of Mexico from 1932 to 1934. He completed the term of President Pascual Ortiz Rubio after his resignation, during the period known as the Maximato, when Former President Plutarco Elías Calles (El Jefe Máximo) held considerable de facto political power, without being president himself. Rodríguez was, however, more successful than Ortiz Rubio had been in asserting presidential power against Calles's influence. Rodríguez left the political arena for a while after his term ended, devoting himself to travel and business interests. Rodríguez returned to politics a decade later, serving as Governor of the state of Sonora, retiring in 1948 and returning to his business interests. To date, Rodríguez is the only Mexican to have been brigadier general, president, and governor of two different states.
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Barbara Dane
Barbara Jean Spillman (May 12, 1927 – October 20, 2024), known professionally as Barbara Dane, was an American folk, blues and jazz singer, guitarist, record producer, and political activist. She co-founded Paredon Records with Irwin Silber. Jazz critic Leonard Feather described Dane as "Bessie Smith in stereo" in the late 1950s. Time wrote of Dane: "The voice is pure, rich ... rare as a 20-carat diamond" and quoted Louis Armstrong's exclamation upon hearing her at the Pasadena jazz festival: "Did you get that chick? She's a gasser!" On the occasion of her 85th birthday, The Boston Globe music critic James Reed called her "one of the true unsung heroes of American music."
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Howard K. Smith
Howard Kingsbury Smith (May 12, 1914 – February 15, 2002) was an American journalist, radio reporter, television anchorman, political commentator, and film actor. He was one of the original members of the team of war correspondents known as the Murrow Boys.
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Beryl Burton
Beryl Burton OBE (12 May 1937 – 5 May 1996) was an English racing cyclist who dominated the women's sport, winning more than 90 domestic championships and seven world titles, and setting numerous national records. In 1967, she set a world record for the 12-hour time-trial which exceeded the men's record for two years.
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Roy Salvadori
Roy Francesco Salvadori (12 May 1922 – 3 June 2012) was a British racing driver and motorsport executive, who competed in Formula One from 1952 to 1962. In endurance racing, Salvadori won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1959 with Aston Martin. Born in Dovercourt to parents of Italian descent, Salvadori began competing in Grand Prix motor racing after World War II. His early career successes at tracks such as Silverstone and Snetterton earned him the nickname "King of the Airfields". He graduated to Formula One by 1952 and competed regularly until 1962 for a succession of teams including Cooper, Vanwall, BRM, Aston Martin and Connaught. Also a competitor in other formulae, he won the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans in an Aston Martin with co-driver Carroll Shelby. In 47 starts, Salvadori achieved two F1 Championship podium finishes: third place at the 1958 British Grand Prix and second place at that year's German Grand Prix, and won non-championship races in Australia, New Zealand and England. In 1961, he was lying second in the United States Grand Prix when his Cooper's engine failed. At the end of 1962, he retired from F1, and stopped racing altogether a couple of years later to concentrate on the motor trade. He returned to the sport in 1966 to manage the Cooper-Maserati squad for two seasons, and eventually retired to Monaco.
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Louis Hennepin
Louis Hennepin, OFM (born Antoine Hennepin; French pronunciation: [lwi ɛnpɛ̃]; 12 May 1626 – 5 December 1704) was a Belgian Catholic priest and missionary best known for his activities in North America. A member of the Recollects, a minor branch of the Franciscans, he travelled to New France and proselytised to several Native American tribes.
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Helene Weigel
Helene Weigel (German: [heˈleːnə ˈvaɪɡl̩] ; 12 May 1900 – 6 May 1971) was an Austrian actress and artistic director. She was the second and last wife of Bertolt Brecht until his death in 1956; together they had two children.
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Orélie-Antoine de Tounens
Orélie-Antoine de Tounens (born Antoine Tounens) (12 May 1825 – 17 September 1878) was a French avoué and adventurer who proclaimed by two decrees on 17 and 20 November 1860 that Araucanía and Patagonia did not depend of any other states and that he himself was King of Araucanía and Patagonia. On 5 January 1862, he was arrested by the Chilean army and imprisoned. He was declared insane by the court of Santiago on 2 September 1862, and expelled to France on 28 October 1862. He tried three further times to go back to Araucanía to regain his "kingdom", but without success, and he died in poverty on 17 September 1878, in Tourtoirac, France.
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William Alden Smith
William Alden Smith (May 12, 1859 – October 11, 1932) was a U.S. representative and U.S. senator from the state of Michigan. After the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, Smith chaired the Senate hearings into the disaster. His report led to major reforms in maritime safety.
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Johan Vilhelm Snellman
Johan Vilhelm Snellman (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈjuːhɑn ˈvilːhelm ˈsnelːmɑn] ; 12 May 1806 – 4 July 1881) was a Finland-Swedish philosopher, journalist and statesman, and one of the leading figures of Fennoman nationalism in 19th-century Finland. A central exponent of Hegelian philosophy in the Nordic countries, he is regarded as one of the most important 'awakeners' of Finnish national identity, alongside Elias Lönnrot and J. L. Runeberg. As editor of the newspapers Saima (1844–1846) and Litteraturblad (from 1847), Snellman introduced modern social criticism into Finnish public debate and argued that the educated classes should adopt Finnish as a language of culture and administration. He was appointed professor of philosophy at the University of Helsinki in 1856 and served as a senator and head of the first department of the finance committee from 1863 to 1868, during which time he carried through the monetary reform that pegged the Finnish markka to silver. Ennobled in 1866, he is commemorated annually on his birthday, 12 May, which is celebrated as the Day of Finnish Identity.
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Nicholas Kaldor
Nicholas Kaldor, Baron Kaldor (12 May 1908 – 30 September 1986), born Káldor Miklós, was a Hungarian-born British economist. He developed the "compensation" criteria called Kaldor–Hicks efficiency for welfare comparisons (1939), derived the cobweb model, and argued for certain regularities observable in economic growth, which are called Kaldor's growth laws. Kaldor worked alongside Gunnar Myrdal to develop the key concept Circular Cumulative Causation, a multicausal approach where the core variables and their linkages are delineated.
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Lincoln Ellsworth
Lincoln Ellsworth (May 12, 1880 – May 26, 1951) was an American polar explorer, engineer, surveyor, and writer. He led the first Arctic and Antarctic air crossings.
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Timo Horn
Timo Phil Horn (born 12 May 1993) is a German professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for 2. Bundesliga club VfL Bochum. He began his professional career with 1. FC Köln, where he spent over a decade as the club's first-choice goalkeeper and made more than 300 appearances. After leaving Köln in 2023, he had a brief spell with Red Bull Salzburg before returning to Germany with VfL Bochum in 2024. At international level, Horn represented Germany at youth level and was part of the squad that won the silver medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
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Johan Ferrier
Johan Henri Eliza Ferrier (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈjoːɦɑn fɛrˈjeː]; 12 May 1910 – 4 January 2010) was a Surinamese politician who served as the first president of Suriname from 1975 to 1980. He was also the country's last governor-general before independence, serving from 1968 to 1975, before becoming the first president upon independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1975 and also served as the fifth prime minister from 1955 to 1958. He was named the twentieth century's most important politician in Suriname in 1999.
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Charles Holden
Charles Henry Holden (12 May 1875 – 1 May 1960) was an English architect best known for designing many London Underground stations during the 1920s and 1930s, the Underground Electric Railways Company of London's headquarters at 55 Broadway, for the University of London's Senate House and for Bristol Central Library. He created many war cemeteries in Belgium and northern France for the Imperial War Graves Commission. After working and training in Bolton and Manchester, Holden moved to London. His early buildings were influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement, but for most of his career he championed an unadorned style based on simplified forms and massing that was free of what he considered to be unnecessary decorative detailing. Holden believed strongly that architectural designs should be dictated by buildings' intended functions. After the First World War, he increasingly simplified his style and his designs became pared-down and modernist, influenced by European architecture. He was a member of the Design and Industries Association and the Art Workers' Guild. He produced complete designs for his buildings including the interior design and architectural fittings. Although not without its critics, his architecture is widely appreciated. He was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects' (RIBA's) Royal Gold Medal for architecture in 1936 and was appointed a Royal Designer for Industry in 1943. His station designs for London Underground became the corporation's standard design influencing designs by all architects working for the organisation in the 1930s. Many of his buildings have been granted listed building status, protecting them from unapproved alteration. He twice declined the offer of a knighthood.
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Reg Gasnier
Reginald William Gasnier (12 May 1939 – 11 May 2014) was an Australian rugby league footballer and coach. He played centre for the St. George Dragons from 1959 to 1967 and represented Australia in a then record 36 Tests and three World Cup games. He was the captain of the national side on eight occasions between 1962 and 1967. Gasnier was included on the National Rugby League's list of 100 greatest players and the honorary Team of the Century. He is a member of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame and Australian Rugby League Hall of Fame. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia.
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Eleftheria Eleftheriou
Eleftheria Eleftheriou (Greek: Ελευθερία Ελευθερίου, IPA: [elefθeˈri.a elefθeˈri.u]; born 12 May 1989) is a Greek Cypriot singer. She came to prominence through her participation in the second season of the Greek version of The X Factor. Shortly after her elimination, Sony Music Greece signed her and submitted her as a candidate to represent Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2010. She was later disqualified from the national final, following the leak of her song onto the internet by an unknown party. Eleftheriou had previously participated in the Cypriot national final for the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 with the song "Play That Melody To Me" featuring Maria Zorli, finishing seventh in the final. Eleftheriou represented Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, with the song "Aphrodisiac", where she placed 17th.
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Dave Heineman
David Eugene Heineman (born May 12, 1948) is an American politician who served as the 39th governor of Nebraska from 2005 to 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he was the 39th treasurer of Nebraska from 1995 to 2001 and 37th lieutenant governor of Nebraska from 2001 to 2005 under governor Mike Johanns. Heineman took over the governorship after Johanns resigned to become the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. Heineman won full four-year terms in the 2006 and 2010 elections. Due to this, he is the longest-serving Nebraska Governor with just under 10 years of service. Heineman was barred by…
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Giovanni Battista Viotti
Giovanni Battista Viotti (12 May 1755 – 3 March 1824) was an Italian violinist whose virtuosity was famed and whose work as a composer featured a prominent violin and an appealing lyrical tunefulness. He was also a director of French and Italian opera companies in Paris and London. He personally knew Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven.
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Anton Korošec
Anton Korošec (Slovene pronunciation: [anˈtóːŋ kɔˈɾóːʃəts], Serbo-Croatian: [ǎntoːŋ korǒʃets]; 12 May 1872 – 14 December 1940) was a Slovene Yugoslav politician, a prominent member of the conservative People's Party, a Roman Catholic priest and a noted orator.
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Alan Ball, Jr.
Alan James Ball (12 May 1945 – 25 April 2007) was an English professional football player and manager. He won the 1966 World Cup with England and scored more than 180 league goals in a career spanning 22 years. After retiring as a player, he had a 15-year career as a manager which included spells in the top flight of English football with Portsmouth, Southampton and Manchester City. One of the best midfielders of his generation, he was inducted in the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003. Following a brief non–league spell at Ashton United, Ball started his professional career at Blackpool…
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Robert Baldwin
Robert Baldwin (May 12, 1804 – December 9, 1858) was an Upper Canadian lawyer and politician who with his political partner Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine of Lower Canada, led the first responsible government ministry in the Province of Canada. "Responsible Government" marked the province's democratic self-government, without a revolution, although not without violence. This achievement also included the introduction of municipal government, the introduction of a modern legal system, reforms to the jury system in Upper Canada, and the abolition of imprisonment for debt. Baldwin is also noted for…
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Johann Baptist Wanhal
Johann Baptist Wanhal (12 May 1739 – 20 August 1813) was a Czech composer of the Classical period. He was born in Nechanice, Bohemia, and died in Vienna. His music was well respected by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert. He was an accomplished instrumentalist as well; a proficient organist, he also played the violin and cello.
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Fritz Kortner
Fritz Kortner (born Fritz Nathan Kohn, 12 May 1892 – 22 July 1970) was an Austrian stage and film actor and theatre director.
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J. E. H. MacDonald
James Edward Hervey MacDonald (12 May 1873 – 26 November 1932) was an English-born Canadian artist, best known as a member of the Group of Seven who asserted a distinct national identity combined with a common heritage stemming from early modernism in Europe in the early twentieth century. He was the father of the illustrator, graphic artist and designer Thoreau MacDonald.
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Ernst A. Lehmann
Captain Ernst August Lehmann (12 May 1886 – 7 May 1937) was a German Zeppelin captain. He was one of the most famous and experienced figures in German airship travel. The Pittsburgh Press called Lehmann the best airship pilot in the world, although he was criticized by Hugo Eckener for often making dangerous maneuvers that compromised the airships. He was a victim of the Hindenburg disaster in 1937.
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Luigi Vanvitelli
Luigi Vanvitelli (Italian pronunciation: [luˈiːdʒi vaɱviˈtɛlli]; 12 May 1700 – 1 March 1773), was an Italian architect and painter. The most prominent 18th-century architect of Italy, he practised a sober classicising academic Late Baroque style that made an easy transition to Neoclassicism.
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Fabrice Olinga
Fabrice Olinga Essono (born 12 May 1996), known as Olinga, is a Cameroonian professional footballer who plays as a forward. He became the youngest ever player to score in La Liga at the age of 16, at the service of Málaga. Released shortly after, he went on to compete professionally in Belgium, Cyprus, Romania and Portugal. Olinga represented Cameroon at the 2014 World Cup.
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Franz Anton Hoffmeister
Franz Anton Hoffmeister (12 May 1754 – 9 February 1812) was a German and Austrian composer and music publisher.
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Carl Schuhmann
Carl August Berthold Schuhmann (12 May 1869 – 24 March 1946) was a German athlete who won four Olympic titles in gymnastics and wrestling at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, becoming the most successful athlete at the inaugural Olympics of the modern era. He also competed in weightlifting.
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Adolf von Henselt
Adolf von Henselt (born Georg Martin Adolf Henselt; 9 May 1814 – 10 October 1889) was a German composer and virtuoso pianist. He was a well known composer during his lifetime best known for his Douze Études caractéristiques, which were known for their difficulty. He studied under Johann Nepomuk Hummel and had many notable students of his own. He was also well known for his Piano Concerto in F minor, Op. 16.
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Clemens von Pirquet
Clemens Peter Freiherr von Pirquet (12 May 1874 – 28 February 1929) was an Austrian scientist and pediatrician best known for his contributions to the fields of bacteriology and immunology.
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Joachim von Sandrart
Joachim von Sandrart (12 May 1606 – 14 October 1688) was a German Baroque art-historian and painter, active in Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age. He is most significant for his collection of biographies of Dutch and German artists the Teutsche Academie, published between 1675 and 1680.
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Florent Amodio
Florent Amodio (born 12 May 1990) is a French figure skating coach and former competitor. He is the 2011 European champion, a four-time French national champion (2010, 2013–15), and the 2008 JGP Final champion. He has represented France at two Winter Olympics.
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José de La Mar
José Domingo de la Merced de La Mar y Cortázar (Cuenca (Ecuador),12 May 1776 – San José (Costa Rica), 11 October 1830) was a Peruvian military leader and politician who served as the third President of Peru.
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Hugh Trumble
Hugh Trumble (19 May 1867 – 14 August 1938) was an Australian cricketer who played 32 Test matches as a bowling all-rounder between 1890 and 1904. He captained the Australian team in two Tests, winning both. Trumble took 141 wickets in Test cricket—a world record at the time of his retirement—at an average of 21.78 runs per wicket. He is one of only four bowlers to twice take a hat-trick in Test cricket. Observers in Trumble's day, including the authoritative Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, regarded him as ranking among the great Australian bowlers of the Golden Age of cricket. He was named as…
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Pompeo Colonna
Pompeo Colonna (12 May 1479 – 28 June 1532) was an Italian noble, condottiero, politician, and cardinal. At the culmination of his career he was Viceroy of the Kingdom of Naples (1530–1532) for the Emperor Charles V. Born in Rome, he was the son of Girolamo Colonna, whose father Antonio was second Prince of Salerno; and Vittoria Conti, of the Conti de Poli. His family belonged to the highest rank of nobility both of the City of Rome and of the Kingdom of Naples. Pompeo and his family were hereditary supporters of the Holy Roman Empire (Ghibbelines), and they spent their careers fighting their…
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Tôn Thất Thuyết
Tôn Thất Thuyết (尊室説; 12 May 1839 in Huế – 22 Sep 1913 in Longzhou), Courtesy name Đàm Phu (談夫), was the regent and leading mandarin of Emperor Tự Đức of Vietnam's Nguyễn dynasty. Thuyết later led the Cần Vương movement which aimed to restore Vietnamese independence under Emperor Hàm Nghi. He fled to China seeking political refuge after Hàm Nghi's capture by France, and later died in Longzhou, Guangxi.
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Charles Biro
Charles Biro (; May 12, 1911 – March 4, 1972) was an American comic book creator and cartoonist. He created the comic book characters Airboy and Steel Sterling, and worked on Daredevil Comics and Crime Does Not Pay at Lev Gleason Publications.
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William Giauque
William Francis Giauque (; May 12, 1895 – March 28, 1982) was a Canadian-born American chemist and Nobel laureate. He was recognized in 1949, for his studies in the properties of matter, at temperatures close to absolute zero. He spent virtually all of his educational and professional career at the University of California, Berkeley.
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Marcelo Vieira
Marcelo Vieira da Silva Júnior (born 12 May 1988), known as Marcelo, is a Brazilian former professional footballer who played as a left-back. Widely regarded as one of the greatest left-backs of all time, he is known for his attacking capabilities. He spent most of his career with La Liga club Real Madrid and is one of the club’s most decorated players, winning 25 trophies. Starting his professional career with Fluminense in 2005, Marcelo won a Campeonato Carioca title in his first season and was named in the 2006 Brasileirão Team of the Season. In January 2007, he joined Real Madrid for an…
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Pavlos Carrer
Pavlos Carrer (also Paolo Carrer; Greek: Παύλος Καρρέρ) or Pavlos Carreris (Greek: Παύλος Kαρρέρης) (12 May 1829 – 7 June 1896), was a Greek composer, one of the leaders of the Ionian art music school and the first to create national operas and national songs on Greek plots, Greek librettos and verses, as well as melodies inspired by the folk and the urban popular musical tradition of modern Greece.
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Domingos Maubere
Domingos da Silva Soares (12 May 1952 – 16 May 2025), popularly known as Padre Maubere or Amu Du, was an East Timorese Roman Catholic priest, activist, and independence leader. Born in Letefoho in what was then Portuguese Timor, he attended seminary in Portugal and was ordained in 1978. In 1980, he returned to East Timor and became involved in the resistance against the Indonesian occupation (1975–1999), often supporting the guerrillas and coordinating with the movement's leaders. As a pastor in Timor-Leste, he served in parishes in Ossu, Letefoho, Ermera, Suai, and Becora, Dili. Soares was a…
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Ellis Cunliffe Lister
Ellis Cunliffe Lister-Kay (12 May 1774 – 24 November 1853) was an English Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1832 to 1841.
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Alejandro Gorostiaga
Alejandro Gorostiaga Orrego (May 12, 1840 – October 30, 1912), was a Chilean military officer born in La Serena. He joined the Escuela Militar de Chile in 1857 until his retirement in 1878. Alejandro Gorostiaga was of Basque descent. In 1879, colonel Gorostiaga joined the Chilean Army due to the War of the Pacific, between Chile, Peru and Bolivia. In May of that year, Alejandro Gorostiaga was named commandant of the civic battalion Coquimbo Nº1. He participated in the Battle of Pisagua. But the most important participation of this Chilean military officer was the Battle of Huamachuco, on July…
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Mark Thomas
Mark Thomas (born 12 May 1965) is a British former sprinter specializing in the 400 metres. He was the 1988 AAA Indoor Championships winner in his event, and he won the silver medal representing the U.K. at the 1987 World Athletics Championships by virtue of running in the heats and semi-finals.
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Paltiel Daykan
Paltiel Daykan (Hebrew: פלטיאל דייקן; May 12, 1885 – February 12, 1969) was an Israeli jurist.
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