Dishonorable Mention: March 15, 1779: William Lamb. The 2nd Viscount Melbourne remains the last Prime Minister of Britain to be dismissed by the King, in 1834. But William IV brought him back a few months later, and he served as a political mentor to William's niece and successor, the teenage Queen Victoria. But he was also one of the most scandalous Prime Ministers ever.
And yet, the city of Melbourne, Australia was named for him, because it was founded during his tenure. It had previously been named Batmania, for one of its early settlers, John Batman. I swear, I am not making that name up.
Dishonorable Mention: March 15, 1935: Jimmy Swaggart. He ripped his fellow televangelist Jim Bakker over a sex and corruption scandal, but soon had to admit his own carnal failure. He remains a conservative preacher, but at least he hasn't gone completely crazy like Bakker has.
10. March 15, 1935: Judd Hirsch. Previously well-known among Broadway people, he became a TV legend playing Alex Reiger on Taxi. He's since played John Lacey on Dear John and Alan Eppes on Numb3rs.
Honorable Mention: March 15, 1943: David Cronenberg.The Village Voice once called him "the most audacious and challenging narrative director in the English-speaking world." His films include Scanners, The Dead Zone, the 1986 version of The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch (William S. Burroughs' novel was previously thought "unfilmable"), Crash, A History of Violence and Eastern Promises.
Honorable Mention: March 15, 1967: Naoko Takeuchi. The manga artist created Sailor Moon.
Honorable Mention: March 15, 1975: Eva Longoria. At this point, she may be better known for her age-defying beauty products commercials than for starring on Desperate Housewives.
9. March 15, 1943: Sly Stone. He fused soul and psychedelia. "Dance to the Music" wasn't just the title of his first hit, it was an offer you couldn't refuse.
Honorable Mention: March 15, 1916: Harry James. The trumpeter led one of the top "Big Bands" of the 1940s, and was married to Betty Grable, the actress with the "Million Dollar Legs." How big was Harry? At his funeral, Frank Sinatra gave the eulogy.
Honorable Mention: March 15, 1936: Howard Greenfield. With Neil Sedaka, he wrote several of Neil's hits, including the Number 1 "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," and, 11 years before Led Zeppelin had a song with that title, "Stairway to Heaven." The last song they wrote together hit Number 1: The Captain & Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together."
With Jack Keller, he wrote Connie Francis' Number 1s "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" and "My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own." They also wrote Jimmy Clanton's "Venus in Blue Jeans," The Shirelles'"Foolish Little Girl" and Gene Pitney's "It Hurts to Be In Love."
Honorable Mention: March 15, 1940: Phil Lesh. The bass guitarist for The Grateful Dead.
Honorable Mention: March 15, 1975: will.i.am. William James Adams Jr. is the leader of The Black Eyed Peas.
8. March 15, 1887: Marjorie Merriweather Post. She inherited the Postum Cereal Company from her father, and turned it into General Foods Corporation, the biggest food-producing company in the world. But she also built Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach, Florida estate now owned by Donald Trump.
7. March 15, 1941: Mike Love. Yeah, he's a rotten guy. But he's the lead singer on most of the hits of The Beach Boys, the most American of rock and roll bands.
6. March 15, 1926: Norm Van Brocklin. In 1951, he passed for 554 yards in a single game, still an NFL record, and helped the Los Angeles Rams win the NFL Championship. They would not win another for 48 years. In 1960, he quarterbacked the Philadelphia Eagles to the NFL Championship. They would not win another for 57 years. Until Peyton Manning matched the feat in 2015, followed by Tom Brady * in 2021, he was the only man to quarterback 2 different franchises to NFL titles.
Honorable Mention: March 15, 1897: Jackson Scholz. The American sprinter won Olympic Gold Medals in 1920 in Antwerp, Belgium, in the 4x100-meter relay; and in 1924 in Paris in the 200 meters. But he's best known for a race he lost, the 100 meters in 1924, beaten by British runner Harold Abrahams, a story featured in the film Chariots of Fire.
Scholz lived long enough to not only see that movie, but also to do an American Express Card "Don't leave home without it" commercial with Ben Cross, who played Abrahams.
Honorable Mention: March 15, 1918: George "Punch" Imlach. World War II interrupted his playing career, and probably stopped him from playing in the NHL. He went into coaching, and it could be said that he is hockey's answer to George Allen, except Punch's "Over the Hill Gang" actually won championships.
He guided the Toronto Maple Leafs to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1959 and '60, and then won the Cup in 1962, '63, '64 and '67 with a veteran lineup. But his best player was a younger one, Frank Mahovlich, and while they clashed, they brought out the best in one another. Punch later became the 1st general manager of the Buffalo Sabres.
Honorable Mention: March 15, 1946: Bobby Bonds. He was one of the best all-around baseball players of the 1970s, and came closer to hitting 40 home runs and stealing 40 bases in the same season than any player yet had. But he also became known for his moodiness, his strikeouts, and his drinking. There was a reason teams kept trading for him, but there was also a reason teams kept accepting offers for him.
Despite his career ending at age 35, he made 3 All-Star Games, won 3 Gold Gloves, hit 332 home runs, and stole 461 bases. Here is a list of all the players with both more home runs and more stolen bases than he had: Barry Bonds. That's it, that's the list, consisting entirely of his own son.
Honorable Mention: March 15, 1956: Clay Matthews Jr. He might not have been as good a player as his brother Bruce or his son Clay Jr., but the 4-time Pro Bowl linebacker was a pretty good player, certainly better than his father, Clay Sr., who played offensive tackle for the San Francisco 49ers in the 1950s.
Honorable Mention: March 15, 1959: Harold Baines. A 6-time All-Star, the right fielder batted .289 for his career, collecting 2,866 hits including 384 home runs, and had 1,628 RBIs. He is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
He reached the postseason with the Chicago White Sox in 1983, the Oakland Athletics in 1990 and '92, the Baltimore Orioles in 1997, the Cleveland Indians in 1999, and the White Sox again in 2000. He finally got a World Series ring as a White Sox coach in 2005.
Honorable Mention: March 15, 1972: Mike Tomlin. An assistant coach under Bill Cowher when the Pittsburgh Steelers won Super Bowl XL, he coached them to win Super Bowl XLIII, but then lost Super Bowl XLV. He is now the NFL's longest-lasting coach with his current team.
Honorable Mention: March 15, 1993: Paul Pogba. A midfielder, he is considered one of the greatest soccer players in the world. He helped Juventus win Italy's league 4 straight seasons, and starred for France in their victorious 2018 World Cup. Manchester United fans consider him a disappointment, given the price of his contract, but he did help them win both the League Cup and the UEFA Europa League in 2017.
5. March 15, 1932: Alan Bean. He walked on the Moon for the Apollo 12 mission. He also served on a Skylab mission.
4. March 15, 1874: Harold Ickes. The longest-serving U.S. Secretary of the Interior, he was a major figure in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, and was also the 1st federal government official to warn about the dangers of smoking cigarettes. Not surprising, as he saw FDR slowly smoke himself to death.
3. March 15, 1933: Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was a lawyer crusading for women's and children's rights, winning cases before the U.S. Supreme Court long before she was appointed to it. She served the last 27 years of her life on it, and may have been the most beloved Justice in the Court's history.
2. March 15, AD 270: Nicholas of Myra. This early Christian bishop from present-day Turkey is the patron saint sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, brewers, pawnbrokers... and children. It is because of this, and a particular legend about him, that "Saint Nicholas" became the basis for the popular culture figure "Sinterklaas" and finally "Santa Claus."
He is also the patron saint of Greece and Russia, the Italian city of Bari, the Dutch city of Amsterdam, the French province of Lorraine, the English city of Liverpool, the Scottish city of Aberdeen, and the Irish city of Galway. If he actually were a living, active Santa Claus, he would be an easy choice for Number 1.
1. March 15, 1767: Andrew Jackson. The leading American General of the War of 1812, the man who transformed Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party into the Democratic Party, and the 7th President of the United States (1829-37), "Old Hickory" was a hero to the common people, an enemy to moneyed interests, and a monster to Native Americans. It says something that Presidents as different as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson all called him their favorite President.
But it also says something that Donald Trump considers Jackson his favorite President. It says that Trump is an idiot: Jackson would have had Trump hanged, as he wanted to do to another traitor, John C. Calhoun. Ironically, Calhoun was Jackson's 1st Vice President, so there's another connection: Trump fans wanted to hang his Vice President, Mike Pence.
There's two more significant differences. Jackson won the popular vote, three times. And when Jackson believed the 1824 President election had been stolen from him, instead of lying about it and making a nuisance of himself, he simply started over, convinced people that his stands on the issues were right, and won in a landslide.
Taken in totality, for good and for ill, Andrew Jackson may be the most American person of them all.
Still alive as of this writing: Swaggart, Hirsch, Cronenberg, Takeuchi, Longoria, Stone, Lesh, will.i.am, Love, Matthews, Baines, Tomlin, Pogba.