Honorable Mention: January 1, 1752, Betsy Ross. Born Elizabeth Griscom in Gloucester City, New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, she didn't do what she's most famous for: Designing and sewing the first American flag. What she did do was more important: She made desperately-needed uniforms for the Continental Army.
Dishonorable Mention: January 1, 1895, J. Edgar Hoover. He turned the Federal Bureau of Investigation from a little-used agency into the world's greatest police force. But he so often used it for immoral purposes.
10. January 1, 1942: Country Joe McDonald. Part of the San Francisco music scene that emphasized psychedelia and antiwar sentiment, he led the band Country Joe & The Fish. Unlike most rockers -- Jimi Hendrix and John Fogerty were also exceptions -- he served, in his case in the U.S. Navy. So he had some credibility when he sang "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag": "And it's one, two, three, what are we fightin' for? Don't ask me, I don't give a damn. Next stop is Vietnam." He's still alive, and if he asks you to give him an F, be aware that there are three other letters coming.
9. January 1, 1863: Pierre de Coubertin. Born Pierre de Frédy, he received the baronet of Coubertin for his work establishing sport in French schools. Then he founded the modern Olympic Games.
8. January 1, 1857: Tim Keefe. A pitcher, he won 342 games, and helped 2 different New York teams win Pennants.
7. January 1, 1958: Grandmaster Flash. Born Joseph Saddler in Barbados, he grew up in The Bronx, where hip-hop has been said to have been invented. One of its earliest DJs, he appears to be the inventor of cutting and mixing. He and the Furious Five were the first rap acted elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
6. January 1, 1927: Doak Walker. Born Ewell Doak Walker II in Dallas, he was the model for all Texas football players who followed him. He won the Heisman Trophy with Southern Methodist University (SMU) in 1948. Then he won the NFL Championship with the Detroit Lions in 1952 and 1953. He lived long enough to see the establishment of the Doak Walker Award, given to annually to the top running back in college football.
5. January 1, 1972: Lilian Thuram. Most Americans have never heard of him, but the right back is one of the greatest soccer players of all time. Born Guadeloupe in the French West Indies (still not an independent nation), he starred in France's league for AS Monaco, and in Italy's for Parma and Juventus. In 1998, he was a key player on the France team that won the World Cup. He has since become one of the world's leading anti-racism activists.
4. January 1, 1914: Noor Inayat Khan. Most Americans have never heard of her, either, but she was more of a badass than anybody on this list, including Paul Revere and "Mad Anthony." She was born in Moscow. Her father was an Indian Muslim. Her mother was an American from Albuquerque. This left Noor light-skinned enough to pass for a European woman.
Which came in very handy in World War II. Since her father was Indian, under the law of the time, she had British citizenship. She joined the Special Operations Executive, and aided the French Resistance under the code names "Nora Baker" and "Madeleine." She was betrayed, captured, and executed at the Dachau concentration camp. She was posthumously awarded Britain's highest civilian honor, the George Cross.
3. January 1, 1735: Paul Revere. No, he wasn't the only rider that night. No, he didn't yell, "The British are coming!" or anything else, because everybody he contacted that night was, legally, still British, and yelling would have attracted too much attention. And, yes, he was captured, although soon released. But he did warn key people, "The regulars are out," meaning the British Army was mobilizing, making the rebel victories at Lexington and Concord possible.
And, as with Betsy Ross, what we were all led to believe he did wasn't even the most important thing he did. At the dawn of the American Revolution, he was a silversmith and artist, and his engraving of the Boston Massacre helped shape colonial opinion against the British Army.
The reason he was riding on the night in question was because he had helped set up an intelligence network that, over the long haul, was more important than his, or anyone else's, single ride. After the war, he figured out a way to turn copper into sheathing for naval vessels.
2. January 1, 1745: Anthony Wayne. His victory at the Battle of Stony Point in Rockland County, New York in 1779 marked him as one of the American Revolution's top commanders, but the unorthodox way he fought earned him the nickname "Mad Anthony."
He was with George Washington at the climactic Battle of Yorktown. He briefly served in Congress from Georgia, but was called back to service in the Northwest Indian War. His win at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, at present-day Toledo in 1794, ended the war, but also earned him the admiration of his Native opponents.
Wayne County, Michigan, site of Detroit, was named for him. So was the character of Batman, Bruce Wayne, who was eventually retconned as one of his descendants.
1. January 1, 1911: Hank Greenberg. He lost 4 seasons due to serving in World War II, and probably 2 to 4 more due to an early retirement from a back injury. He was still one of the greatest hitters that baseball has ever known.
Henry Benjamin Greenberg was nicknamed Hammerin' Hank before Henry Louis Aaron was even born. There had been Jewish baseball players before him, but none this good. He led the Detroit Tigers to 4 American League Pennants, including returning from the U.S. Army late in the 1945 season to hit a grand slam on the last day of the season. They won the World Series with him in 1935 and 1945.
In 1937, he had 183 runs batted in, still the 2nd-most in AL history. In 1938, he hit 58 home runs, 2 short of what was then the major league record. He became the 1st player in either League to win the Most Valuable Player award at 2 different positions: 1st base in 1935, and left field in 1940, both Pennant seasons for the Tigers. In 1947, the Pittsburgh Pirates made him the 1st player with a contract calling for $100,000 a season.
But he is best known for sitting out a key game of the 1934 Pennant race because it fell on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. And the Tigers lost that game to the Yankees. They won the Pennant anyway.
Of these, still alive as of this writing: Country Joe McDonald, Grandmaster Flash and Lilian Thuram.