Honorable Mention: February 15, 1935: Roger Chaffee. A Navy engineer, he was set to make his first spaceflight aboard Apollo 1 in 1967, but was killed in a fire during an engine test, along with crewmates Gus Grissom and Ed White.
10. February 15, 1951: Jane Seymour. She's not a doctor, but she played one on TV. She's also played Marie Antoinette, Brett Ashley, Wallis Simpson, Maria Callas and a Bond Girl.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1907: Cesar Romero. A New Yorker whose parents were from Barcelona, he enjoyed playing "Latin lover" types, and played at least one hero, the Mexican caballero the Cisco Kid, before he became the 1st man to play supervillain the Joker.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1918: Allan Arbus. In recent years, the man best known for playing psychiatrist Sidney Freedman on M*A*S*H has seen his ex-wife, the late photographer Diane Arbus, become more famous.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1927: Harvey Korman. Second banana to the star of The Carol Burnett Show, he may now be better remembered as the villain of Blazing Saddles, Hedley Lamarr. See, I got it right. In a TV movie, he played Bud Abbott to Buddy Hackett's Lou Costello.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1931: Claire Bloom. After playing Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, the play's writer, Tennessee Williams, said, "I declare myself absolutely wild about Claire Bloom." She's also played Queen Hera, Queen Jocasta, Queen Victoria, Queen Mary, First Lady Edith Wilson and Anna Karenina.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1953: Lynn Whitfield. Before the 1991 film The Josephine Baker Story aired on HBO, white Americans had forgotten the legendary black entertainer. Lynn brought her back to the masses.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1955: Christopher McDonald. He's been in 2 Yankee movies, playing Mel Allen in 61* and Joe DiMaggio in The Bronx Is Burning.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1955: Janice Dickinson. She claims to be the world's 1st supermodel. There were others before her, especially Twiggy, who's even been knighted (Dame Lesley Lawson).
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1964: Chris Farley. He wanted to be the John Belushi of his generation. Unfortunately, he followed the pattern too closely, as drugs killed him at age 33.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1971: Alex Borstein. If you watch Family Guy, you know her voice, as she's Lois Griffin. But if you watched MADtv, or if you now watch The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, you also know her face.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1971: Renee O'Connor. She's done a lot of stage work the last few years, especially Shakespeare and Chekhov. A few hundred people see her at a time. But millions saw her play Gabrielle on Xena: Warrior Princess, so that's how she'll be remembered.
9. February 15, 1874: Ernest Shackleton. One of the heroes of polar exploration, he couldn't quite become the 1st man to reach the South Pole. He also tried to become the 1st man to cross Antarctica, but couldn't do that, either. Just getting his crew back to civilization was pretty heroic.
8. February 15, 1809: Cyrus McCormick. Inventor of the reaper, and founder of International Harvester, which became America's leading builder of agricultural and construction equipment.
7. February 15, 1948: Art Spiegelman. His graphic novel Maus found a new way to look at the Holocaust. Some people don't want you to know about it. He does.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1954: Matt Groening. He created The Simpsons.
6. February 15, 1725: Abraham Clark. He signed the Declaration of Independence, and later represented New Jersey in Congress.
5. February 15, 1905: Harold Arlen. He wrote "Get Happy,""Paper Moon,""Over the Rainbow,""Blues in the Night,""That Old Black Magic,""Accentuate the Positive" and "The Man That Got Away."
4. February 15, 1972: Jaromír Jágr. Another guy who seemed like he might never make his sport's Hall of Fame because he refuses to retire. He still plays for Rytíři Kladno in the Czech league, and no one can complain to the team's owner, because he's the owner.
He's scored 766 goals in NHL play, currently 3rd all-time, and a record 135 of them were game-winning goals. He played in 13 All-Star Games, between the ages of 20 and 46. He won 5 Art Ross Trophies as leading scorer. He won the Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991 and '92, and reached the Finals again in 2013 with the Boston Bruins.
He also led Czechia (or "the Czech Republic") to the Gold Medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. He famously wears Number 68 in honor of the revolution in his homeland that year, crushed by the Soviet Union.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1960: Darrell Green. Considered the fastest football player of his generation, the cornerback won 2 Super Bowls with the Washington Redskins, made 7 Pro Bowls, he still started all 16 games of the season when he was 42 years old, and still had 22 solo tackles and 4 interceptions. I think the only reason he retired was that it was required to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Of course, he has.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1935: Gene Hickerson. Hall of Fame guard for the Cleveland Browns.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1940: John Hadl. Still the only quarterback to lead the San Diego or Los Angeles Chargers to a league champions, the 1963 AFL title.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1949: Ken Anderson. The 1st quarterback to lead the Cincinnati Bengals into a Super Bowl.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1973: Amy Van Dyken. She swam to 4 Gold Medals at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and 2 more in 2000 in Sydney.
3. February 15, 1941: Brian Holland. With his brother Eddie and Lamont Dozier, he wrote lots of hits for Motown Records, including most of the hits of The Supremes and The Four Tops, and the company's 1st Number 1 hit, "Please, Mr. Postman" by The Marvelettes.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1944: Mick Avory. The drummer for The Kinks.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1951: Melissa Manchester. One of the top female singers of the 1970s.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1995: Megan Thee Stallion. For the record, a stallion is an adult male horse, but in the South, it can also be a tall and voluptuous woman, which she is, so Megan Jovan Ruth Pete adopted it as her stage name.
As far as I know, she is the first musical performer, of any genre, to get a fast food product named after her: Popeye's "Wild Megan Hottie Sauce." Wherever he is now, Elvis has got to be wondering why The Colonel -- either Tom Parker or Harland Sanders -- couldn't get that for him.
2. February 15, 1820: Susan B. Anthony. The foremost activist for getting women the right to vote.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1825: Carter Harrison. A cousin of Presidents William Henry and Benjamin Harrison, he served in Congress, and as Mayor of Chicago from 1879 to 1887, a time of great growth for the city. He was returned to City Hall in 1893, but was assassinated early in his term. His son, Carter Harrison Jr., was the 1st native of Chicago to serve as its Mayor, 1897 to 1905 and again 1911 to 1915.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1845: Elihu Root. Secretary of State under President Theodore Roosevelt, he helped negotiate a peace treaty for the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, and to establish the International Court of Justice. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1892: James Forrestal. The last U.S. Secretary of the Navy before the reorganization of the Department of War into the Department of Defense, and then the 1st Secretary of Defense.
Honorable Mention: February 15, 1922: John B. Anderson. First elected to Congress from Illinois in 1960, he surprisingly ran for the Republican nomination for President in 1980. He didn't win any Primaries, but finished with 12 percent of the votes, and came in 3rd in delegates behind the men who ended up being nominated for President and Vice President, respectively: Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. But he did better than Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker, 1976 Vice Presidential nominee Bob Dole, and the well-funded former Governor John Connally of Texas.
But voters didn’t seem to be satisfied with either former Governor Reagan of California or the Democratic incumbent, President Jimmy Carter. So Anderson stayed in the race as an independent. He won 6.6 percent of the popular vote, but didn't carry a single precinct, let alone State. He certainly didn’t cost Carter the election: The Ayatollah did that.
1. February 15, 1564: Galileo Galilei. Few people have extended humanity's understanding of the universe as much as he did.
Still alive as of this writing: Seymour, Bloom, Whitfield, McDonald, Dickinson, Borstein, O'Connor, Spiegelman, Groening, Jagr, Green, Hadl, Anderson, Van Dyken, Holland, Avory, Manchester, Thee Stallion.
