10. March 23, 1823: Schuyler Colfax. He served Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives frim 1855 to 1869, and was Speaker of the House from 1863 to 1869. He was elected Vice President on Ulysses S. Grant's ticket in 1868, but made a big mistake, presuming that Grant wouldn't run for re-election in 1872, and preparing his own run for President. Once it became clear that Grant would run again, it would be with a different Vice President. Colfax never ran for office again.
9. March 23, 1937: Craig Breedlove. From 1963 to 1965, all his car Spirit of America, all at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, he set land speed records, going 407, 468, 526, 555 and 600 miles per hour. As recently as 1997, in a later version of Spirit of America, he got up to 676. But, within days of that attempt, in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, in Thrust SSC, Englishman Andy Green went 760, to become the 1st man to surpass the speed of sound on land.
8. March 23, 1954: Kenneth Cole. One of the top fashion designers of the modern era, he is also a leading fundraiser for AIDS research. He is married to Maria Cuomo, daughter of Mario and sister of Andrew and Chris.
I once worked in the shoe department of a store, and on a visit to New York, saw the Kenneth Cole shop at Grand Central Terminal. I decided to do a little research, and found a nice pair of shoes he'd designed. Price: $150. (This was in 2002, so, with inflation, that would be $236.) I told the salesclerk that, at the store where I worked, that shoe would cost half as much. She said, "But it wouldn't be a Kenneth Cole shoe!" I said, "I don't care if it's Nat King Cole's shoe!"
7. March 23, 1904: Joan Crawford. She was a rotten person, but a great actress, starring in several "rags-to-riches" stories in the 1930s, won an Oscar for Mildred Pierce in 1945, and the hatred she and Bette Davis had for each other made Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? a great (if disturbing) movie in 1962.
Honorable Mention: March 23, 1976: Keri Russell. She burst to fame starring in Felicity, voiced Wonder Woman in the DC Animated Universe, and played a KGB spy operating in 1980s America in The Americans.
6. March 23, 1955: Moses Malone. He was a center, but he could have been the power forward of all time. The 1st high school basketball player to turn pro since the founding days of the NBA, he made the ABA All-Star Game in 1975, and the NBA All-Star Game 12 times.
He led the NBA in rebounding 6 times, and was named the league's Most Valuable Player in 1979, 1982 and 1983. In 1981, he led the Houston Rockets to the NBA Finals. In 1983, he put the underachieving Philadelphia 76ers on his back, and led them to the NBA Championship. winning the Finals MVP. After he personally demolished the New York Knicks in the Playoffs along the way to that title, Knick coach Hubie Brown summed it up: "Moses Malone is a real man. They cannot pay him enough." (Hubie pronounced it "ay-nuff.")
He was named to the ABA All-Time Team, and the NBA's 50th and 75th Anniversary Teams. The Rockets retired his Number 24, and the Sixers retired his Number 2.
Honorable Mention: March 23, 1951: Ron Jaworski. As a player, he was known as the Polish Rifle, and quarterbacked the Philadelphia Eagles into Super Bowl XV, but lost. As a studio analyst, he's known as Jaws, and is one of the most popular people on ESPN.
Honorable Mention: March 23, 1954: Geno Auriemma. He's led the women's basketball team at the University of Connecticut to 11 National Championships. For perspective: Pat Summitt of Tennessee, 2nd among women's coaches, won 8; and John Wooden, the leader among men's, won 10. He's gotten UConn into the Final Four 21 times, including the last 14. (If he does it again this year, that'll be 15 straight.)
Honorable Mention: March 23, 1968: Fernando Hierro. Between 1990 and 2003, the defensive midfielder helped Real Madrid win Spain's La Liga 5 times, and the UEFA Champions League 3 times.
Honorable Mention: March 23, 1972: Joe Calzaghe. The Italian Dragon -- he's from Wales, whose symbol is the dragon, but he's of Italian descent -- won his 1st World Championship in 1997, the WBO version of the Super Middleweight title. He held his last in 2009, the lineal Light Heavyweight title.
He is that rare boxer who stayed retired -- and that even rarer boxer who retired undefeated: 46-0. And he didn't duck anybody, either: In his last 2 fights, he beat Roy Jones Jr. and Bernard Hopkins.
Honorable Mention: March 23, 1973: Jerzy Dudek. The Polish goalkeeper helped Rotterdam team Feyenoord with the Dutch league in 1999; Liverpool win the UEFA Champions League in 2005 (including a penalty shootout in which he stopped Jon Dahl Tomasson and Kaká) and the FA Cup in 2006; and Real Madrid win the Spanish league in 2008.
Honorable Mention: March 23, 1973: Jason Kidd. In the history of New York Tri-State Area sports, no one person has made as much of a difference at one time as he did. In 2000-01, the New Jersey Nets were 26-56, and a joke franchise. In 2001-02, his 1st season with them, they went 52-20, won the Atlantic Division Championship, and reached the NBA Finals for the 1st time. They made it again the next year, and won another Division title the next.
The guard was a Rookie of the Year, a 10-time All-Star, a 5-time assists leader, a 4-time All-Defensive First Teamer. With the Dallas Mavericks, he won the 2011 NBA Championship. He was named to the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team.
Honorable Mention: March 23, 1979: Mark Buehrle. A 5-time All-Star, the pitcher helped the Chicago White Sox reach the postseason 3 times, including winning the 2005 World Series; and the Toronto Blue Jays once. He pitched a no-hitter in 2007, and another, making it a perfect game, in 2009. His career record is 214-160.
Honorable Mention: March 23, 1983: Mo Farah. Born in Somalia but growing up in London, he competed for Britain in the Olympics, and won the Gold Medal in the 5,000 and the 10,000 meters in 2012, in his hometown. But it was all about talent, not home cooking: He repeated the feat in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Somewhat Honorable Mention: March 23, 1992: Kyrie Irving. He could singlehandedly star in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. He's a Rookie of the Year, a 7-time All-Star including an All-Star Game MVP, and in 2016 alone, helped the Cleveland Cavaliers win the NBA Championship and the U.S. national team win the Gold Medal at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
But he whined his way off the Cavaliers, and then just 2 years later off the Boston Celtics. He's now with the Brooklyn Nets, and his selfishness and willingness to risk his teammates' lives and health will not soon be forgotten. But with Mayor Eric Adams having lifted the vaccine mandate for athletes in New York City -- more for the Yankees and the Mets than Kyrie -- he'll be able to play home games, and the Nets' chances of winning the NBA title just got a lot better.
5. March 23, 1887: Sidney Hillman. He led the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and founded the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which was friendlier to black union workers than the established American Federation of Labor (AFL). He was key in getting the unions behind Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal.
America's business lords, mostly conservative Republicans, hated him, and falsely branded the CIO as Communists. In 1944, when FDR had to replace the leftward Henry Wallace as Vice President, Harry Truman was suggested to him. FDR approved, but first said, "Clear everything with Sidney!" That got out, and someone wrote an anti-Communist limerick: "Clear it with Sidney, you Yanks. Then offer Joe Stalin your thanks. You'll bow to Sid's rule, no matter how cruel, for that's a directive of Frank's." Hillman died in 1946, and the AFL and the CIO were merged in 1955.
4. March 23, 1910: Akira Kurosawa. He may be the most ripped-off director of all time. He made Seven Samurai; John Sturges turned it into The Magnificent Seven. He made Yojimbo; Sergio Leone turned it into A Fistful of Dollars. He made The Hidden Fortress; George Lucas turned it into Star Wars. And he made Rashomon, and several films and TV shows have done the "same story from several perspectives but which one is telling the truth" thing since. Of course, he was not immune to that sort of thing: He turned Shakespeare's Macbeth into the feudal-Japan era story Throne of Blood.
Honorable Mention: March 23, 1929: Mark Rydell. Among the films he's directed are The Reivers, The Rose, On Golden Pond, The River, For the Boys and Intersection.
3. March 23, 1953: Chaka Khan. The lead singer of funk band Rufus, she became better known as a solo performer, winning 10 Grammy Awards.
Honorable Mention: March 23, 1944: Ric Ocasek. Lead singer of The Cars.
2. March 23, 1912: Wernher von Braun. The first true master of rocketry, he developed the V-2 for his homeland, Nazi Germany. Which would suggest he should be on this list as a "Dishonorable Mention." But he defected to America, and the Moon landing project would not have been possible without him. So he was capable of great good, as well as great evil.
As the musical satirist Tom Lehrer put it, he was "a man whose allegiance is ruled by expedience." He also had him say, "'Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department,' says Wernher von Braun."
1. March 23, 1929: Roger Bannister. He was knighted for his work as a neurologist and in charity. But he'll forever be remembered as the 1st person to run a mile race in under 4 minutes, at Oxford University on May 6, 1954: 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds.
Still alive as of this writing: Breedlove, Cole, Russell, Jaworski, Auriemma, Hierro, Calzaghe, Dudek, Kidd, Buehrle, Farah, Irving, Rydell, Khan.