10. March 11, 1993: Anthony Davis. The power forward won the 2012 National Championship at the University Kentucky, and was named Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament. He may be the best player in the history of the franchise that has been the original Charlotte Hornets, the New Orleans Hornets, and now the New Orleans Pelicans.
He's already an 8-time All-Star, and a 3-time NBA leader in blocked shots. He was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, and helped them win the 2020 NBA Championship. Still active, he was named to the NBA's 75th Anniversary 75 Greatest Players.
9. March 11, 1899: King Frederick IX of Denmark. Becoming King in 1947, he instituted many modernizations, particularly in the rights of women. This included changing the law of succession: He had 3 daughters, but no sons. So when he died in 1972, his eldest daughter became Queen Margarethe II. She is still on the throne.
8. March 11, 1977: Becky Hammon. A point guard, she was a 6-time WNBA All-Star, with the New York Liberty and the San Antonio Stars, leading the league in assists in 2007. She also played in the women's basketball leagues of Italy, Spain and Russia, winning the Spanish league with Ros Casares Valencia in 2010. She's been named to the WNBA's 15th, 20th and 25th Anniversary Teams.
In 2014, she was named an assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs, making her the 1st woman in any major league sport to be named to the coaching staff of a men's team. She remained until 2022, when she got her 1st head coaching job, with the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces, the team that used to be the Stars. They've retired her Number 25.
Honorable Mention: March 11, 1945: Dock Ellis. That was his real name: Dock Phillip Ellis Jr. In 12 major league seasons, he went 138-119. On June 12, 1970, he pitched a no-hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He later claimed he did it while under the influence of LSD.
In 1971, he made his only All-Star Game, and gave up a tremendous home run to Reggie Jackson. But he also won the World Series with the Pirates. In 1976, he won the American League Pennant with the Yankees, going 17-8. He was briefly a teammate of Reggie's on the 1977 Yankees, but was traded. He closed his career with the Pirates in 1979, winning another World Series. He later beat his substance abuse problem, and became a counselor.
Honorable Mention: March 11, 1974: Bobby Abreu. He batted .291 for his career, collecting 2,470 hits including 288 home runs, and stole 400 bases. He made 2 All-Star Games and won a Gold Glove in 2005. He reached the postseason with the 1997 Houston Astros, the 2006 and '07 New York Yankees, and the 2009 Los Angeles Angels. He never reached it with the Philadelphia Phillies, but while still active with them, fan balloting for an all-time team at Veterans Stadium (1971-2003) named him the right fielder.
Somewhat Honorable Mention: March 11, 1978: Didier Drogba. Off the field, the Ivory Coast forward has been one of the most charitable soccer players of all time, building housing and schools all over Africa. On the field, however, he is an unrepentant cheat, diving for penalties whenever he gets the chance. I've seen him dive in preseason exhibition games that shouldn't mean anything.
In 2009, playing for West London team Chelsea FC, he went up against a team that cheats even more than Chelsea does, FC Barcelona. I was reading a message board, when this question came up: "How many times has Drogba been shot in this game? I count four." But at the end, when Barcelona scored to advance to the UEFA Champions League Final, Drogba, whose native language is French, stuck his face into a TV camera, and proved how good his English was: He said, "It's a disgrace! It's a disgrace! It's a fucking disgrace!"
Honorable Mention: March 11, 1979: Elton Brand. He got to the 1999 NCAA Final with Duke University in his sophomore year, then turned pro. This made him one of the unluckiest players in NBA history. Although he was named 2000 Rookie of the Year, and made 2 All-Star Games, he had been drafted by the post-Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls, then went to the Los Angeles Clippers.
He was with the Philadelphia 76ers between their Allen Iverson and Joel Embiid eras, then the Dallas Mavericks after they won the 2011 title, and the Atlanta Hawks before they got good again. He's now the 76ers' general manager.
7. March 11, 1953: Jimmy Iovine. An engineer at New York's Record Plant recording studio, he worked on Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run and Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell. He then produced Patti Smith's Easter, Tom Petty's Damn the Torpedoes, and then-girlfriend Stevie Nicks'Bella Donna.
He later supervised the music on several films, including Sixteen Candles and Scrooged; moved into hip-hop, signing Tupac Shakur, and building Interscope into a company capable of signing Eminem and 50 Cent. He produced Eminem's film 8 Mile. He and Dr. Dre founded Beats Electronics.
6. March 11, 1903: Lawrence Welk. The North Dakota-born bandleader, famous for his accordion, his "champagne bubbles," and his German accent (calling songs he liked "wunnerful" and introducing them with, "A one and a two and a... "), hosted The Lawrence Welk Show locally in Los Angeles from 1951 to 1955, then nationally on ABC until 1971, and finally in syndication until 1982.
He happily played "standards," resisting the lure of rock and roll, to the point where he became the epitome of the "square" older generation. And yet, he had enough fans among Baby Boomers that, long after his death, his show still gets lots of viewers when PBS shows it during pledge drives.
Honorable Mention: March 11, 1950: Bobby McFerrin. He'd like to be better remembered for his serious classical and jazz compositions. But he'll forever be remembered for his 1988 Number 1 hit, which music historian Dave Marsh called the song the least likely to help its listeners achieve its title: "Don't Worry, Be Happy."
Honorable Mention: March 11, 1979: Joel Madden. The lead singer for the band Good Charlotte, and the twin brother of...
Honorable Mention: March 11, 1979: Benji Madden. The lead guitarist for Good Charlotte.
5. March 11, 1898: Dorothy Gish. Up until 1915, she was usually identified as actress Lillian Gish's younger sister. After that, she became the silent screen's leading comedienne. Late in life, Lillian admitted, "Dorothy could make them cry and laugh, so therefore she was the better actress than I was." She only made 4 films after the switch to talking pictures.
Honorable Mention: March 11, 1887: Raoul Walsh. After playing John Wilkes Booth in D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, he moved into directing. He made silent film versions of Carmen with Theda Bara and later Dolores del Rio, and directed Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in The Thief of Baghdad.
Making the switch to "talkies," he directed John Wayne in The Big Trail and Dark Command; directed Mae West in Klondike Annie; directed James Cagney in The Roaring Twenties, The Strawberry Blonde, White Heat and A Lion Is In the Streets; directed Humphrey Bogart in The Roaring Twenties, They Drive by Night, High Sierra and The Enforcer; directed Errol Flynn in 5 films, including Desperate Journey, which also starred Ronald Reagan; directed Gregory Peck in Captain Horatio Hornblower and The World In His Arms; directed Clark Gable 3 times toward the end of both men's careers; and directed the 1st film version of Norman Mailer's World War II novel The Naked and the Dead.
Honorable Mention: March 11, 1950: Jerry Zucker. He, his brother David Zucker, and Jim Abrahams, a team known as ZAZ, are responsible for picking up the baton of spoof movies from Mel Brooks: Airplane!, Top Secret!, the Naked Gun movies. (Abrahams made Hot Shots! and its sequel, but neither Zucker brother was involved.)
But he is also serious, and don't call him "Shirley": He directed Ghost and the King Arthur film First Knight; and produced My Life, A Walk in the Clouds, and My Best Friend's Wedding.
Honorable Mention: March 11, 1958: Anissa Jones. From ages 8 to 15, she played Elizabeth "Buffy" Davis on the CBS sitcom Family Affair. At 18, after being typecast and seeing her life spin out of control, she was dead from drugs.
Honorable Mention: March 11, 1963: Alex Kingston. After starring in a racy film version of Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders, she played Dr. Elizabeth Corday on ER, and River Song on Doctor Who.
Honorable Mention: March 11, 1967: John Barrowman. He played Captain Jack Harkness on Doctor Who and Torchwood, and Malcolm Merlyn in The CW's Arrowverse superhero shows.
Honorable Mention: March 11, 1969: Terence Howard. The actor and music producer played DJay in Hustle & Flow, and Lucious Lyon on Empire.
4. March 11, 1934: Sam Donaldson. He worked for ABC News from 1967 to 2009, including as White House correspondent from 1977 to 1989, and weekend anchor of World News Tonight.
Dishonorable Mention: March 11, 1931: Rupert Murdoch. Perhaps no human being in the last 50 years has done as much damage to humanity, through the lies and propaganda he has pushed through his NewsCorp, including newspapers and TV networks all over the world, especially Fox News Channel in America.
Dishonorable Mention: March 11, 1936: Antonin Scalia. The leader of the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative wing from 1986 until his death in 2016, he was frequently (thankfully, not always) successful in deciding cases not through the Constitution of the United States, but through his puritan view of Catholicism. He should have been impeached and removed by Congress.
3. March 11, 1952: Douglas Adams. He wrote the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, and was also a leading activist for wildlife conservation.
2. March 11, 1926: Ralph David Abernathy. Martin Luther King's right-hand man during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, he led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference after Dr. King's assassination, from 1968 to 1977.
1. March 11, 1890: Vannevar Bush. Called "The General of Physics" by Time magazine, his efforts during World War II led to America's development of radar and the atomic bomb. He was also a pioneer in the computer industry: His 1945 essay As We May Thinkinfluenced generations of computer scientists, who drew inspiration from his vision of the future.
Still alive as of this writing: Davis, Hammon, Abreu, Drogba, Brand, Iovine, McFerrin, the Madden Twins, Zucker, Kingston, Barrowman, Howard, Donaldson, Murdoch.