Kevin's Watch

Born on May 4

1796 Horace Mann, educator and author.

1820 Joseph Whitaker, bookseller and publisher (Whitaker's Almanac)

1825 Thomas Henry Huxley, British biologist.

1827 John Hanning Speke, English explorer.

1874 Frank Conrad, electrical engineer and broadcasting pioneer.

1884 Agnes Fay Morgan, American nutritionist and biochemist.

1928 Thomas Kinsella, Irish poet.

1929 Audrey Hepburn (Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Rusten), actress, later U.N. special ambassador.

1939 Amos Oz, Israeli novelist (The Black Box, TheThird State).

1949 Graham Swift, British novelist (The Sweet Shop Owner, Out of this World).

Born on May 5

1813 Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher.

1818 Karl Marx, German philosopher (The Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital).

1830 John B. Stetson, American hat maker.

1861 Peter Cooper Hewitt, electrical engineer, inventor of the mercury-vapor lamp.

1883 Charles Albert "Chief" Bender, baseball player.

1890 Christopher Morley, writer (Kitty Foyle).

1899 Freeman F. Gosden, radio comedy writer and performer (Amos 'n' Andy).

1908 Rex Harrison, actor (My Fair Lady).

1909 Carlos Baker, biographer.

1943 Michael Palin, actor and screenwriter (Monty Python's Flying Circus).

Born on May 6

973 Henry II, Holy Roman emperor.

1740 John Penn, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

1758 Maximilien Robespierre, French revolutionary.

1840 Frederick William Stowe, son of the Harriet Beecher Stowe.

1856 Robert Edward Peary, arctic explorer and the first man to reach the North Pole.

1856 Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis.

1868 Gaston Leroux, French novelist (The Phantom of the Opera).

1888 Russell Stover, candy manufacturer.

1895 Rudolph Valentino, actor, film icon.

1902 Max Ophuls, film director (La Ronde, Lola Montes).

1915 Orson Welles, actor, director, and writer (Citizen Kane).

1931 Willie Mays, baseball player.

1942 Ariel Dorfman, Chilean writer (Death and the Maiden).

Born on May 7

1812 Robert Browning, English poet.

1833 Johannes Brahms, German composer.

1840 Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer.

1870 Marcus Loew, film executive, consolidated studios to create MGM.

1892 Josip Broz [Tito], leader of Yugoslavia during after World War II.

1892 Archibald MacLeish, American poet and statesman.

1901 Gary Cooper, film actor (High Noon, Friendly Persuasion).

1909 Edwin Herbert Land, inventor of the Poloroid Land Camera.

1919 Eva (Evita) Perón, first lady of Argentina.

1932 Jenny Joseph, English poet and novelist (The Thinking Heart, The Inland Sea).

1943 Peter Carey, Australian writer (Illywhacker, Oscar and Lucinda).

Born on May 8

1668 Alain Rene Lesage, French writer (The Adventures of Gil Blas, Turcaret).

1753 Miguel Hidalgo, Mexican nationalist.

1828 Jean Henri Dunant, Swiss philanthropist, founder of the Red Cross and YMCA, first recipient (jointly) of the Nobel Peace Prize.

1829 Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American pianist.

1884 Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States (1945-1953).

1895 Edmund Wilson, American critic and essayist.

1906 Roberto Rossellini, Italian film director.

1910 Mary Lou Williams, jazz pianist and composer.

1920 Sloan Wilson, American author (The man in the Gray Flannel Suit, A Summer Place).

1928 Theodore Sorenson, advisor to John F. Kennedy.

1930 Gary Snyder, beat poet.

1937 Thomas Pynchon, novelist (Gravity's Rainbow).

1940 Peter Benchley, novelist (Jaws, The Deep).

1952 Beth Henley, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (Crimes of the Heart).

Born on May 9

1800 John Brown, abolitionist.

1844 Belle Boyd, Confederate spy.

1860 James Mathew Barrie, writer (Peter Pan, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up).

1873 Howard Carter, British archaeologist.

1882 Henry J. Kaiser, shipbuilder.

1906 Eleanor Estes, children's author.

1921 Mona van Duyn, American poet laureate.

1934 Alan Bennett, British playwright and screenwriter (The Madness of King George III).

1936 Albert Finney, British actor (Murder on the Orient Express, Tom Jones).

Born on May 10

1730 George Ross, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

1813 Montgomery Blair, lawyer.

1838 John Wilkes Booth, actor, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln.

1886 Karl Barth, Swiss theologian.

1899 Fred Astaire (Frederick Austerlitz), American dancer and actor.

1902 David O. Selznick, film producer (Gone with the Wind, Rebecca).

1908 Carl Albert, U.S. politician.

1920 Richard Adams, English novelist (Watership Down).

1937 Arthur Kopit, American playwright.

1944 Judith Jamison, American ballerina.

Born on May 11

1885 "King" Joseph Oliver, jazz cornetist and bandleader.

1888 Irving Berlin, composer, writer of over 1,500 songs.

1894 Mari Sandoz, writer and biographer (Crazy Horse).

1895 William Grant Still, American composer and conductor.

1904 Salvador Dali, surrealist painter.

1912 Phil Silvers, comedian and actor.

1918 Richard Feynman, theoretical physicist.

1930 Stanley Elkin, author (George Mills).

1933 Louis Farrakhan, American religious leader.

Born on May 12

1812 Edward Lear, poet, painter and the youngest of 21 children.

1816 Edmund Beckett Grimthorpe, lawyer and architect.

1820 Florence Nightingale, English nurse and hospital reformer.

1828 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, English poet and painter.

1907 Katherine Hepburn, actress (The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen).

1915 Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics.

1921 Farley Mowat, Canadian nature writer (Never Cry Wolf).

1925 Yogi Berra (Lawrence Peter Berra), baseball player and coach.

1933 Andrey Andreyevich Voznesensky, Russian poet.

1936 Tom Snyder, newscaster and television host.

1936 Frank Stella, painter.

Born on May 13

1729 Henry William Stiegel, early American glassmaker.

1842 Sir Arthur Sullivan, composer, collaborator with W.S. Gilbert.

1857 Ronald Ross, bacteriologist.

1907 Daphne du Maurier, author (Rebecca).

1912 Gil Evans, jazz pianist and composer.

1914 Joe Louis, world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949.

1940 Bruce Chatwin, travel writer (Patagonia).

Born on May 14

1533 Margaret of Valois, queen consort of Navarre.

1686 Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, German physicist, instrument maker, inventor of the thermometer.

1727 Thomas Gainsborough, painter ("Blue Boy").

1771 Thomas Wedgwood, English physicist, photography pioneer.

1897 Sidney Bechet, jazz clarinetist and soprano saxaphone player.

1933 Richard P. Brickner, novelist (The Broken Year).

1944 George Lucas, film director and producer (Star Wars).

1946 Robert Jarvik, American physician.

Born on May 15

1773 Prince Clemens Von Metternich, Chancellor of Austria.

1856 Lyman Frank Baum, author (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz).

1858 Emily Folger, Shakespeare scholar.

1859 Pierre Curie, physicist.

1860 Ellen Louise Axson Wilson, first wife of President Woodrow Wilson.

1890 Katherine Anne Porter, novelist (Ship of Fools).

1891 Mikhail Bulgakov, Russian novelist (Notes of a Dead Man, Heart of a Dog).

1902 Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago through the 1960s and early 1970's.

1923 Richard Avedon, photographer.

1926 Anthony Shaffer, English playwright (Sleuth), twin brother of Peter Shaffer.

1926 Peter Shaffer, English playwright (Equus, Amadeus), twin brother of Anthony Shaffer.

1930 Jasper Johns, Jr., painter, leader of the Pop Art movement.

Born on May 16

1801 William Henry Seward, U.S. Secretary of State (1861-1869).

1804 Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, founder of the first U.S. kindergarten.

1824 Edmund Kirby-Smith, Confederate general during the American Civil War.

1850 Johannes von Mikulica-Radecki, Polish surgical pioneer.

1886 Douglas Southall Freeman, journalist, historian, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer.

1905 Henry Fonda, American actor (Grapes of Wrath, On Golden Pond).

1912 Studs Terkel, author and historian.

1913 Woody Herman, jazz bandleader.

1929 Betty Carter, jazz singer.

1929 Adrienne Rich, poet (Diving into the Wreck).

1955 Olga Korbut, Olympic gymnast.

Born on May 17

1444 Sandro Botticelli, painter (The Birth of Venus).

1749 Edward Jenner, physician.

1836 Joseph Norman Lockyer, British astonomer, discovered helium.

1866 Erik Alfred Leslie Satie, French composer.

1900 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranian religious leader.

1903 James "Cool Papa" Bell, baseball player.

1912 Archibald Cox, special prosecutor in the Watergate hearings, fired by President Nixon.

Born on May 18

1836 Wilhelm Steinitz, chess champion.

1868 Nicholas II, the last Russian czar.

1872 Bertrand Russell, English mathematician, philosopher and social reformer.

1897 Frank Capra, film director (It's A Wonderful Life).

1902 Meredith Willson, composer and lyricist (The Music Man).

1911 Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner, blues singer.

1918 John Paul II [Karol Jozef Wojtyla], Roman Catholic pope.

1919 Margot Fonteyn, English ballet dancer.

Born on May 19

1762 Johann Gottlieb Fichte, German philosopher.

1879 Lady Nancy Astor (Nancy Witcher Langhorne), the first woman to sit in the British House of Commons.

1890 Ho Chi Minh (Nguyen That Thanh), Vietnamese nationalist and political leader.

1895 Johns Hopkins, merchant and philanthropist.

1925 Malcolm X (Malcolm Little), African-American activist.

1934 James Lehrer, broadcast journalist.

1941 Jane Brody, food and health writer.

1941 Nora Ephron, screenwriter and director.

Born on May 20

1663 William Bradford, printer.

1750 Stephen Girard, American financier and philanthropist.

1768 Dolley Madison, first lady of President James Madison.

1799 Honore de Balzac, French novelist (The Human Comedy, Lost Illusions).

1806 John Stuart Mill, British philospher and economist.

1818 William George Fargo, one of the founders of Wells, Fargo & Co.

1882 Sigrid Undset, Norwegian novelist (Kristin Lavransdatter).

1908 Jimmy Stewart, actor (It's a Wonderful Life, Mr Smith Goes to Washington).

Born on May 21

427 BC Plato, Greek philosopher.

1527 Philip II, king of Spain and Portugal.

1844 Henri Rousseau, French painter.

1856 Grace Hoadley Dodge, philanthropist, helped organize the YWCA.

1860 Willem Einthoven, physiologist, inventor of the electrocardiogram.

1867 Frances Densmore, ethnomusicologist.

1878 Glenn Hammond Curtiss, aviation pioneer.

1898 Armand Hammer, American entrepeneur and industrialist.

1902 Marcel Breuer, Hungarian-born architect.

1909 Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel, artist.

1917 Raymond Burr, actor (Perry Mason).

1921 Andrei Sakharov, Russian physicist.

1926 Robert Creeley, poet.

1944 Mary Bourke Robinson, first woman president of Ireland (1990-1997).

dlbpharmd wrote:Born on May 21

427 BC Plato, Greek philosopher.

1921 Andrei Sakharov, Russian physicist.

Born on May 22

1813 Richard Wagner, German composer.

1828 Albrecht von Grafe, German eye surgeon, founder of modern opthamology.

1844 Mary Cassatt, impressionist painter.

1859 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author, creator of the Sherlock Holmes series.

1907 Laurence Olivier, actor.

1920 Thomas Gold, astronomer.

1927 Peter Mathiessen, writer.