Eliot Ness, the famous FBI agent who attempted to put Al Capone in jail for violating the Volstead Act (he was actually convicted for income tax evasion), died on my birthday, May 16, 1957.
Wikipedia doesn’t list anyone, but I was born a week after the assassination of Anwar Sadat, and Hosni Mubarak took office on the day I was born. He’s literally been President of Egypt as long as I’ve been alive.
Looks like no one of note kicked off when I was born.
But here’s some useful links for other to use.
Click on your year and scroll down to your date.
Also click on your date on the calendars on the right to see your birthday for all years.
And The Death Report
Put in a date and hit the go button. You’ll be prompted to sign up for a dating service, but there’s a ‘No Thanks’ link at the bottom.
Yuri Gagarin, first man in space.
Charlie “Bird” Parker. Makes no sense - I don’t have a lick of musical talent.
The day I breathed my first, no-one DARED breathe their last. Apparently.
We’ll forgive you.
Bill Woodfull was Australian captain during the 1932/33 Bodylineseries.
Apparently I share a birth/death time, almost to the minute with George Reeves
Bill Shankly, famous Liverpool manager (football/soccer).
Nobody really that anyone would have heard of:
Died. Henry J. Kaiser Jr., 44, lanky vice president and director of his father’s steel, aluminum and auto empire, who, first stricken by multiple sclerosis in 1944, defied orders to rest (“This to me was like a sentence to a living death”), kept on working even after he was confined to a wheelchair; in Oakland, Calif.
Died. Robert Ezra McCann, 60, China-born auto dealer who spent ten years in Chinese Communist prisons on trumped-up espionage charges, was released last month after his wife Flora learned he was dying and rushed to Tientsin to plead for his freedom; of cancer; at Clark Air Force Base, Philippine Islands.
Died. Anita Stewart, 65, Brooklyn-born star of such silent films as The Goddess, a redhaired, brown-eyed beauty who never lost her looks, yet once dismissed sex appeal with the comment: “Oomph! How I hate that word!”; apparently of a heart attack; in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Died. Harry Falconer McLean, 78, boisterous, eccentric Canadian construction king, the fabled “Mr. X” who once dumped $5,000 in silver and small bills out of his hotel window, handed out $100 bills to soldiers and chambermaids, $1,000 and $2,000 checks to bellhops and cabbies because “I like to see people happy,” and was swamped with 27,000 marriage proposals (he ignored them all, was married twice, to other women); of a stroke; in Merrickville, Ont. A 6-ft., 200-lb. bear of a man whose tastes ran to torpedo-sized cigars, buffalo-skin coats and liquor, U.S.-born McLean began as a water boy for a railroad construction company, went on to gross $400 million by damming the Abitibi River, pushing railroads to remote Canadian towns, helping link the Catskill watershed to New York City.
Died. Carl Elias Milliken, 83, somber Prohibitionist who served from 1917 to 1921 as Maine’s first fulltime Governor (his predecessors rarely devoted more than a couple of days each month to the job), a onetime president of the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society who later became secretary of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America and turned against the “pulpiteers” who attacked “improper” movies; of cancer; in Springfield, Mass.
All I have on my birthday is Benjamin Britten, an english composer. Elizabeth Taylor got married for the 7th time. I guess it was the end of Larry Fortensky’s life, so it kinda counts.
Apparently my actual birthday was quiet… nobody died, and the only event was Tricia Nixon getting married in the White House.
On my 23rd birthday, Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson were murdered. On my 32nd birthday, Gregory Peck died.
Phyllis Konstam, actress (Murder, Skin Game), dies at 69
Nobody on my exact birthday, but Jack Soo (Nick, from Barney Miller) died the day after.
Oh, and there was a tornado in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.
Clifford Odets, American playwright, 57
Wow, two for me! (August 7, 1974) Mexican poet Rosario Castellanos & hockey player Sylvio Mantha. I might know who those folks were if I was Mexican or Canadian. And hey, I now share my birthday with an Academy Award nominee, Michael Shannon. Woo.
The general commanding the Soviet occupying forces in Berlin died on my birthday, in a motorcycle accident. I guess he was a guy of some importance, though I’d never heard of him.
Well, this isn’t a famous person, but does it count if the worst air disaster in recorded history happened on my birthdate?
Not the exact day, but on the date…
Julius Freakin’ Caesar!
Not the exact day, but Hurricane Alicia hit Texas 6 days after I was born - 21 people died. I sometimes amuse myself by positing that God missed. Badly. (I was born in Pennsylvania).
Do you spend the Ides of March hiding in your closet? Because I’m pretty sure I would.