Anniversaries 18 December

Birth

Charles Wesley15

English Methodist and hymn writer 1707–1788

William Howitt2

British writer 1792–1879

George D. Prentice1

American newspaper editor 1802–1870

William Frederick Yeames1

british painter 1835–1918

Stanley Lane-Poole3

British orientalist 1854–1931

J. J. Thomson8

British physicist 1856–1940

Ulrich Wilcken1

German historian 1862–1944

Saki58

British writer 1870–1916

Paul Klee104

German Swiss painter 1879–1940

Ty Cobb14

American baseball player 1886–1961

Robert Moses4

American urban planner 1888–1981

Martti Siirala2

Finnish philosopher 1889–1948

Edwin Howard Armstrong3

American electrical engineer and inventor 1890–1954

Peter Wessel Zapffe15

Norwegian philosopher, mountaineer, and author 1899–1990

Christopher Fry4

British writer 1907–2005

Willy Brandt8

German social-democratic politician; Chancellor of the Fede… 1913–1992

Alfred Bester18

American science fiction author 1913–1987

Peter Laslett1

English historian 1915–2001

Douglas Fraser2

American labor leader 1916–2008

Ossie Davis1

American actor, director, poet, playwright, writer, and soc… 1917–2005

T S Satyan1

Indian photojournalist 1923–2009

John Szarkowski1

American curator 1925–2007

Helmut Koester1

biblical scholar 1926–2016

Ramsey Clark8

United States Marine 1927

Romeo LeBlanc10

Canadian politician 1927–2009

Mirza Tahir Ahmad2

caliph of the Ahmadiyya 1928–2003

Joachim Kaiser1

German music critic 1928–2017

Peter Checkland10

British management scientist 1930

Marc Rich1

businessman 1934–2013

Karen DeCrow1

American lawyer 1937–2014

Michael Moorcock224

English writer, editor, critic 1939

Keith Richards30

British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones 1943

Stewart Leggett4

Australian politician 1944

Nasser Khalili3

British-Iranian scholar, collector and philanthropist 1945

Teimumu Kepa2

Fijian politician 1945

Steve Biko12

anti-apartheid activist in South Africa 1946–1977

Steven Spielberg18

American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game … 1946

R. Edward Freeman9

American academic 1951

Bill Adler1

American journalist 1951

Ray Liotta2

American actor 1954

Jamil Nasir5

American writer 1955

Ron White45

American comedian 1956

A. M. Homes3

novelist and memoirst from the United States 1961

Danny Tarkanian1

American businessman, attorney, and perennial candidate 1961

Dmitry Pietrman1

Businessman/football chairman 1963

Brad Pitt3

American actor and filmmaker 1963

DMX (rapper)4

American rapper and actor from New York 1970

Rob Van Dam2

American professional wrestler 1970

Lee Yen-hsiu1

Taiwanese politician 1971

Sia (musician)4

Australian singer 1975

Christina Aguilera3

American singer 1980

Benjamin Watson1

gridiron football player 1980

Lizzie Deignan2

English track and road racing cyclist 1988

Billie Eilish23

American singer-songwriter 2001

Death

Nur Jahan1

Padshah Begum of the Mughal Empire 1577–1645

Soame Jenyns5

British writer 1704–1787

Jean-Étienne Montucla3

French mathematician 1725–1799

Johann Gottfried Herder18

German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic 1744–1803

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck3

French naturalist 1744–1829

Philip Freneau2

American poet, nationalist, polemicist, sea captain and new… 1752–1832

Samuel Rogers16

British poet 1763–1855

Richard Owen4

English biologist 1804–1892

Thomas Holley Chivers5

19th century American poet 1809–1858

Eagle Woman3

American peace activist (born 1820, near Big Bend of the Mi… 1820–1888

Christian Heinrich von Dillmann6

German educationist 1829–1899

Will Carleton10

poet. 1845–1912

Eduard Bernstein8

German politician 1850–1932

Mary Parker Follett25

American academic 1868–1933

Louis Untermeyer5

American poet 1885–1977

Ben Travers1

English writer of plays, screenplays, novels, and three mem… 1886–1980

Heywood Broun5

American sportswriter 1888–1939

Marriner Stoddard Eccles1

American economist and banker 1890–1977

Irving Caesar4

American composer and lyricist 1895–1996

Theodosius Dobzhansky9

geneticist and evolutionary biologist 1900–1975

Robert Bresson4

French film director 1901–1999

Marion L. Starkey10

American historian & writer 1901–1991

Konrad Zuse3

German computer scientist and engineer 1910–1995

W. Mark Felt11

Whistleblower who exposed the Watergate scandal 1913–2008

Xuân Diệu5

Vietnamese poet 1916–1985

Conor Cruise O'Brien9

Irish politician 1917–2008

Zsa Zsa Gabor4

Hungarian-American socialite and actress 1917–2016

Harold M. Schulweis4

American rabbi and theologian 1925–2014

Anthony Sampson3

British writer and journalist 1926–2004

Dennis Sciama2

British physicist 1926–1999

Ross Thomas8

1926-1995 American writer 1926–1995

Václav Havel126

playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of … 1936–2011

Paul Weyrich2

American political activist 1942–2008

Mandy Rice-Davies1

British actress 1944–2014

Slobodan Casule1

Macedonian politician 1945–2015