Dishonorable Mention: March 12, 1832: Charles Boycott. An English land agent in Ireland, he was forced to resign in 1880 after his workers rebelled against him, leading to his name becoming a byword for refusal to buy the products of someone perceived to be evil.
Dishonorable Mention: March 12, 1863: Gabriele D'Annunzio. Although one of the greatest writers the modern nation of Italy has ever produced, and a heroic figure in World War I, he treated the women in his life horribly, and was an inspiration and later supporter for the fascist state of Benito Mussolini.
Dishonorable Mention: March 12, 1943: Ratko Mladić. Chief of Staff of the Army of the Bosnian Serb Republic, he was convicted of war crimes in the Bosnian War.
Dishonorable Mention: March 12, 1947: Mitt Romney. As the Republican Party's nominee for President in 2012, he warned about the rising threat of Russia. In Donald Trump's 2nd impeachment trial, he was the only Republican to vote for his conviction. Those 2 facts do not make up for a heartless career in business, and a massively deceitful career in politics. That said, it is notable that he represented 2 different States, serving as Governor of Massachusetts and a U.S. Senator from Utah.
10. March 12, 1933: Barbara Feldon. She played CONTROL Agent 99 on the 1965-70 spy spoof Get Smart. By the time the show concluded, she and title character Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, got married and had twins. By the time the reunion movie Get Smart Again! aired in 1989, 99 had written a memoir, and the book was shown, but not her real name. When a sequel sitcom Get Smart aired in 1995, Max was now Chief, and 99 was a Congresswoman, and not only was her real name still not revealed to the audience, but Max was still calling her "99."
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1960: Courtney B. Vance. He's won a Tony Award, and been in films like The Hunt for Red October and The Preacher's Wife. He's married to Angela Bassett, so he should change his name to Courtney L.B. Vance, for "Lucky Bastard."
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1968: Aaron Eckhart. He was good enough to hold his own in The Dark Knight, in a cast that included Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and Heath Ledger. And he was good enough to be a match for Catherine Zeta-Jones in No Reservations.
9. March 12, 1922: Lane Kirkland. He was President of the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress Industrial Organizations) from 1979 to 1995, making him America's leading labor figure.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1795: William Lyon Mackenzie. In 1834, he became the 1st Mayor of Toronto. In 1837, he launched the Upper Canada Rebellion. While it failed, the issues it raised led to Canadian independence in 1867, although he did not live to see it. His grandson, William Lyon Mackenzie King, was Canada's longest-serving Prime Minister.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1806: Jane Pierce. Wife of President Franklin Pierce, therefore First Lady from 1853 to 1857.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1821: John Abbott. A former Mayor of Montreal, he was briefly Prime Minister of Canada, from June 16, 1891 to November 24, 1892, resigning due to age and ill health.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1968: Tammy Duckworth. A U.S. Army helicopter pilot, she survived being shot down in the Iraq War, with the loss of both her legs, to be elected to both houses of Congress from Illinois. She is currently in the U.S. Senate, and might well have been appointed to President Joe Biden's Cabinet if it wouldn't have meant losing control of the Senate.
8. March 12, 1946: Frank Welker. You might not know his name, or his face, or his real voice. But you know his work. From day one of the Scooby-Doo franchise in 1969, he's been the voice of Mystery, Inc. leader Fred Jones. After the death of Don Messick in 1997, he took over as the voice of Scooby himself.
He seems to specialize in dogs: He's been the voice of Wonder Dog (and also the teenage human Marvin, and the villains Mr. Mxyzptlk and Darkseid) in the Super Friends cartoons, Dynomutt, Astro Jetson, cartoon werewolf Fangface, and the voice of the titular live-action rabies victim in Cujo.
He was also the voice of villains The Claw in Hong Kong Phooey and Dr. Claw in Inspector Gadget, the titular shark in Jabberjaw, the Nazi monkey in Raiders of the Lost Ark, superheroes Iceman and Daredevil in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Spock's screams in Star Trek III, every one of the Mogwai and every one of the Gremlins in Gremlins, several Transformers and GoBots, several good guys and bad guys in the G.I. Joe cartoons, Ray Stantz and Slimer in the Real Ghostbusters cartoons, the titular reindeer in Prancer and the various reindeer in the Santa Clause movies, the Devil and the Easter Bunny in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, Horton the Elephant, Bigfoot in A Goofy Movie, Shao Kahn in Mortal Kombat, all the aliens in Mars Attacks! and Independence Day, the titular snake in Anaconda, the titular monster in the 1998 version of Godzilla, the titular monkey in the 2006 version of Curious George, and Azrael in the live-action Smurfs movies. That is one smurfy career, and it's still going.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1938: Ken Spears. With Joe Ruby, he created and produced many cartoons for Hanna-Barbera in the 1960s and '70s, including Scooby-Doo and some of the others for which Welker provided voice work.
7. March 12, 1948: James Taylor. One of the top singers of the 1970s, known for his collaborations with Carole King and his former wife Carly Simon.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1913: Agathe von Trapp. The eldest of the Von Trapp Family Singers, she was represented in the film The Sound of Music by Lisel, played by Charmian Carr.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1917: Leonard Chess. With his brother, Phil Chess, he founded Chess Records, making them among the non-performing founding fathers of rock and roll.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1921: Gordon MacRae. He starred in the film versions of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals Oklahoma! and Carousel.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1938: Ronnie Tutt. The drummer for Elvis Presley's band from 1969 to 1977.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1940: Al Jarreau. Winner of 7 Grammy Awards, he sang the theme from the TV show Moonlighting.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1957: Marlon Jackson. The 6th of the 10 children of Joe and Katherine Jackson, and the 2nd-youngest of The Jackson 5 after Michael.
6. March 12, 1936: Eddie Sutton. He won 806 games as a college basketball coach. He won Championships in the Southwest Conference, 5 with the University of Arkansas; the Southeastern Conference, 1 with the University of Kentucky; the Big Eight Conference, 2 with his alma mater, Oklahoma State University; and the Big Twelve Conference, 1 with Oklahoma State. He guided Arkansas to the NCAA Final Four in 1978, and Oklahoma State in 1995 and 2004.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1923: Hjalmar Andersen. The speed skater won 3 Gold Medals on home ice at the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1942: Jimmy Wynn. Because he was short but still had a lot of power, the outfielder was known as the Toy Cannon. A 3-time All-Star, he hit 291 home runs, mostly with the Houston Astros, who retired his Number 24. He helped the Los Angeles Dodgers win the 1974 National League Pennant.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1956: Dale Murphy. A 7-time All-Star, the outfielder was named NL Most Valuable Player in 1982 and 1983. He hit 398 home runs, won 5 Gold Gloves, and the Atlanta Braves retired his Number 3.
Honorable Mention: March 21, 1962: Darryl Strawberry. The right fielder could have become one of the greatest players of all time. The NL's 1983 Rookie of the Year, he made 8 All-Star Games, and helped the New York Mets win the 1986 World Series.
But the drugs and the drinking limited him to 335 home runs. He did, however, help the New York Yankees win the 1996, 1998 and 1999 World Series. At last check, he has been sober since 2002, and has been ordained as a minister and certified as a drug counselor.
5. March 12, 1858: Adolph Ochs. In 1896, he bought The New York Times, then an afterthought in journalism. By 1920, it was the best newspaper in America, "the paper of record," his motto still on its masthead: "All the news that's fit to print." His successors as publishers of the Times have included his son-in-law, his grandson, his great-grandson, and his great-grandson, current publisher A.G. Sulzberger.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1969: Jake Tapper. Following tenures at the online magazine Salon and ABC News, he now hosts the weeknight show The Lead and the Sunday morning show State of the Union on CNN.
4. March 12, 1932: Andrew Young. An official in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference under Martin Luther King, he was on the balcony when Dr. King was killed in 1968. He was elected to Congress in 1972, '74 and '76, from a district in Atlanta that would later be represented by John Lewis.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed him U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. He was elected Mayor of Atlanta in 1981 and 1985. He is one of the last surviving leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.
3. March 12, 1946: Liza Minnelli. She followed the pattern of her mother Judy Garland too closely. But she deviated from it enough to live long enough to become an icon above and beyond Judy.
2. March 12, 1922: Jack Kerouac. The son of French-Canadian immigrants, he didn't speak English until he was sent off to school at age 6. He made up for it, though, by using the English language in ways no one previously dreamed possible.
At first, it looked like he might be a great athlete. He starred in football and track at Lowell High School, but a broken leg during his freshman year on the football team at Columbia University ended his athletic career. But, as a kid, he devised an early form of Strat-O-Matic Baseball, and kept his childhood league going throughout his life.
He turned to writing, and a series of trips from 1947 to 1950 turned into the 1957 novel On the Road, which helped launch the Beat Generation movement of literature. But the Hippies who followed him, and looked to him as a role model, totally misunderstood: He was trying to say that travel, drinking and drugs were ultimately unfulfilling. Unlike his close friend and fellow Beat writer Allen Ginsberg, he did not embrace the Hippie ethic, embracing his original Catholic conservatism, and drinking himself to death at age 47.
Honorable Mention: March 12, 1928: Edward Albee. He wrote the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
1. March 12, 1923: Wally Schirra. One of the original "Mercury 7" astronauts, and the only man to fly on each of the original 3 NASA projects: Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.
Still alive as of this writing: Mladić, Romney, Feldon, Vance, Eckhart, Duckworth, Welker, Taylor, Jackson, Murphy, Strawberry, Tapper, Young, Minnelli.