147 Biographies

Israeli political extremist and rabbi

August 1, 1932 - November 5, 1990

Meir Kahane was an American-born Israeli political extremist and rabbi who campaigned for self-protection of Jews. The grandson and son of rabbis, Kahane joined a paramilitary, right-wing youth movement...

American journalist

November 5, 1857 - January 6, 1944

Ida Tarbell was an American journalist, lecturer, and chronicler of American industry best known for her classic The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904). She was among a group of so-called muckrakers...

American actor

November 5, 1905 - October 20, 1990

Joel McCrea was an American motion-picture actor of the 1930s and ’40s. McCrea was the son of a utility company executive. He graduated from Pomona College in 1928 and worked as a stuntman and bit player...

American economist

November 5, 1954 -

Jeffrey D. Sachs is an American economist, who advised countries throughout the world in economic reform and developed initiatives intended to eradicate poverty on a global scale. Sachs studied economics...

British historian

June 6, 1909 - November 5, 1997

Sir Isaiah Berlin was a British philosopher and historian of ideas who was noted for his writings on political philosophy and the concept of liberty. He is regarded as one of the founders of the discipline...

French actor and director

October 9, 1908 - November 5, 1982

Jacques Tati was a French filmmaker and actor who gained renown for his comic films that portrayed people in conflict with the mechanized modern world. He wrote and starred in all six of the feature films...

American bandleader

June 19, 1902 - November 5, 1977

Guy Lombardo was a Canadian-born American dance-band leader whose New Year’s Eve radio and television broadcasts with his Royal Canadians became an American tradition for 48 years. Derided by some music...

Canadian philosopher

November 5, 1931 -

Charles Taylor is a Canadian philosopher known for his examination of the modern self. He produced a large body of work that is remarkable for its range—both for the number of areas and issues it addresses...

American musician

October 13, 1909 - November 5, 1956

Art Tatum was an American pianist, considered one of the greatest technical virtuosos in jazz. Tatum, who was visually impaired from childhood, displayed an early aptitude for music. At age 13, after starting...

American poet and journalist

November 5, 1850 - October 30, 1919

Ella Wheeler Wilcox was an American poet and journalist who is perhaps best remembered for verse tinged with an eroticism that, while rather oblique, was still unconventional for her time. Ella Wheeler...

British geneticist

November 5, 1892 - December 1, 1964

J.B.S. Haldane was a British geneticist, biometrician, physiologist, and popularizer of science who opened new paths of research in population genetics and evolution. Son of the noted physiologist John...

British author

March 31, 1926 - November 5, 2005

John Fowles was an English novelist, whose allusive and descriptive works combine psychological probings—chiefly of sex and love—with an interest in social and philosophical issues. Fowles graduated from...

Canadian-American director and producer

January 17, 1880 - November 5, 1960

Mack Sennett was the creator of the Keystone Kops and the father of American slapstick comedy in motion pictures. A master of comic timing and effective editing, Sennett was a dominant figure in the silent...

American industrial designer

November 5, 1893 - July 14, 1986

Raymond Loewy was a French-born American industrial designer who, through his accomplishments in product design beginning in the 1930s, helped to establish industrial design as a profession. Loewy studied...

Ghanaian athlete

November 5, 1964 -

Abedi Ayew Pelé is a Ghanaian football (soccer) player who was the only man to have won the African Player of the Year award three consecutive times (1991–93). As an attacking midfielder with Olympique...

king of Poland

April 30, 1310 - November 5, 1370

Casimir III was the king of Poland from 1333 to 1370, called “the Great” because he was deemed a peaceful ruler, a “peasant king,” and a skillful diplomat. Through astute diplomacy he annexed lands from...

American economist

November 5, 1920 - November 23, 2015

Douglass C. North was an American economist, recipient, with Robert W. Fogel, of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The two were recognized for their pioneering work in cliometrics—also called...

French writer

August 4, 1926 - November 5, 1977

René Goscinny was a French writer who is best known for the comic strip “Astérix”, which he created with illustrator Albert Uderzo. Goscinny was reared and educated in Buenos Aires and later worked on...

American cartoonist

September 28, 1909 - November 5, 1979

Al Capp was an American cartoonist who created the popular comic strip “Li’l Abner.” Capp studied landscape architecture at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts school and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine...

French surgeon, sociologist, and biologist

June 28, 1873 - November 5, 1944

Alexis Carrel was a French surgeon who received the 1912 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for developing a method of suturing blood vessels. Carrel received an M.D. (1900) from the University of...

American politician and attorney

November 5, 1948 -

Bob Barr is an American politician and attorney who served as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1995–2003). He was the Libertarian Party’s nominee for president in 2008. Barr, whose...

Mongol ruler of Persia

November 5, 1271 - May 11, 1304

Maḥmūd Ghāzān was the most prominent of the Il-Khans (subordinate khāns) to rule the Mongol dynasty in Iran. Reigning from 1295 to 1304, he is best known for the conversion of his state to Islām and his...

United States politician and military officer

November 5, 1818 - January 11, 1893

Benjamin F. Butler was an American politician and army officer during the American Civil War (1861–65) who championed the rights of workers and black people. A prominent attorney at Lowell, Mass., Butler...

American composer

December 11, 1908 - November 5, 2012

Elliott Carter was an American composer, a musical innovator whose erudite style and novel principles of polyrhythm, called metric modulation, won worldwide attention. He was twice awarded the Pulitzer...

Swiss painter

October 30, 1741 - November 5, 1807

Angelica Kauffmann was a painter in the early Neoclassical style who is best known for her decorative wall paintings for residences designed by Robert Adam. The daughter of Johann Joseph Kauffmann, a painter,...

British writer

November 5, 1886? - October 10, 1967

Vyvyan Oscar Beresford Holland was a writer and translator, the second son of the poet and playwright Oscar Wilde. Wilde married Constance Lloyd in 1884, and they had two sons: Cyril, born in 1885, and...

British jockey

November 5, 1935 - May 29, 2022

Lester Piggott was one of the world’s leading jockeys in Thoroughbred flat racing. He was the British riding champion 11 times (1960, 1964–71, and 1981–82). Born to parents whose families had long been...

prime minister of Turkey

May 28, 1925 - November 5, 2006

Bülent Ecevit was a Turkish poet, journalist, and politician who served as prime minister of Turkey in 1974, 1977, 1978–79, and 1999–2002. After graduating from Robert College in Istanbul, Ecevit served...

American actress

January 12, 1884 - November 5, 1933

Texas Guinan was an American actress of the early 20th century who is remembered most vividly as a highly popular nightclub hostess during the Prohibition era. Guinan went on the stage at a young age....

Dutch astronomer

April 28, 1900 - November 5, 1992

Jan Oort was a Dutch astronomer who was one of the most important figures in 20th-century efforts to understand the nature of the Milky Way Galaxy. After studies at the University of Groningen, Oort was...

American critic

July 4, 1905 - November 5, 1975

Lionel Trilling was an American literary critic and teacher whose criticism was informed by psychological, sociological, and philosophical methods and insights. Educated at Columbia University (M.A., 1926;...

French author

October 18, 1741 - November 5, 1803

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos was a French soldier and writer, author of the classic Les Liaisons dangereuses, one of the earliest examples of the psychological novel. Laclos chose a career in the army but...

American politician

November 5, 1879 - March 7, 1954

Will H. Hays was a prominent American political figure who was president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA, later called the Motion Picture Association of America) from...

French artist

December 26, 1883 - November 5, 1955

Maurice Utrillo was a French painter who was noted for his depictions of the houses and streets of the Montmartre district of Paris. Born out of wedlock, Utrillo was the son of the model and artist Suzanne...

American author

August 27, 1933 - November 5, 2017

Nancy Friday was an American feminist and author who was especially known for works that explored women’s sexuality. Friday was educated at Wellesley (Massachusetts) College. She worked briefly as a reporter...

German biologist

January 17, 1834 - November 5, 1914

August Weismann was a German biologist and one of the founders of the science of genetics. He is best known for his opposition to the doctrine of the inheritance of acquired traits and for his “germ plasm”...

Italian archaeologist

November 5, 1778 - December 3, 1823

Giovanni Battista Belzoni was an excavator of Egyptian archaeological sites. Originally planning to join a religious order, Belzoni went to England in 1803 where he turned his powerful six-foot seven-inch...

Russian statesman

November 5, 1673 - September 1, 1723

Dmitry Kantemir was a statesman, scientist, humanist, scholar, and the greatest member of the distinguished Romanian-Russian family of Cantemir. He was prince of Moldavia (1710–11) and later adviser of...

American author

January 15, 1933 - November 5, 2019

Ernest J. Gaines was an American writer whose fiction, as exemplified by The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971) and A Lesson Before Dying (1993), reflects the African American experience and the...

American physicist

November 5, 1948 -

William D. Phillips is an American physicist whose experiments using laser light to cool and trap atoms earned him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997. He shared the award with Steven Chu and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji,...

president of Ecuador

November 5, 1940 - May 24, 1981

Jaime Roldós Aguilera was a lawyer elected president of Ecuador in 1979. After graduating from the University of Guayaquil and its law school, Roldós joined the faculty of the Vicente Rocafuerte University...

German poet and composer

November 5, 1494 - January 19, 1576

Hans Sachs was a German burgher, meistersinger, and poet who was outstanding for his popularity, output, and aesthetic and religious influence. He is idealized in Richard Wagner’s opera Die Meistersinger...

American athlete and coach

November 5, 1891 - November 2, 1973

Earle Neale was an American collegiate and professional football coach and professional baseball player, who as a football coach was a great innovator. He was one of the first to use the five-man and the...

Indian politician

August 4, 1845 - November 5, 1915

Sir Pherozeshah Mehta was an Indian political leader, planner of the municipal charter for Bombay (now Mumbai) and founder of the English-language newspaper Bombay Chronicle (1913). He also cofounded the...

English noble

1564 - November 5, 1632

Henry Percy, 9th earl of Northumberland was an English Roman Catholic who was imprisoned in the Tower of London from 1605 to 1621 on suspicion of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot (q.v.). On the death of...

American songwriter and producer

November 5, 1936 - August 4, 2015

Tammy Wynette: Renamed Tammy by producer Billy Sherrill, Wynette recorded her first hit in 1967, the single “Apartment Number Nine,” which was followed by “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad” (1967), “I Don’t...

English military officer

c.1378 - November 5, 1459

Sir John Fastolf was an English career soldier who fought and made his fortune in the second phase of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France (1337–1453). His name is immortalized through William...

German pianist

November 5, 1895 - October 26, 1956

Walter Gieseking was a German pianist acclaimed for his interpretations of works by Classical, Romantic, and early 20th-century composers. The son of German parents living in France, Gieseking began study...

American writer and performer

October 1, 1890 - November 5, 1950

Michael Strange was an American writer and performer who produced poetry and plays, acted onstage, and did readings for radio. Oelrichs was of a well-to-do and socially prominent family. She was the reigning...

American playwright

November 5, 1895 - April 21, 1956

Charles MacArthur was an American journalist, dramatist, and screenwriter. He was a colourful personality who is remembered for his comedies written with Ben Hecht. At the age of 17, MacArthur moved to...