Anniversaries 20 February

Birth

William Prescott2

Continental army soldier 1726–1795

Angelina Grimké1

American abolitionist and feminist 1805–1879

Gustave Nadaud5

songwriter 1820–1893

William Allen Butler2

American lawyer 1825–1902

Joshua Slocum1

American navigator and maritime writer 1844–1909

Ludwig Boltzmann11

Austrian physicist 1844–1906

Edward Jenks35

British legal scholar 1861–1939

Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan31

British judge 1873–1952

Pedro Muñoz Seca7

Spanish writer 1879–1936

Takuboku Ishikawa3

Japanese writer 1886–1912

Vincent Massey20

Governor General of Canada 1887–1967

Georges Bernanos46

French writer 1888–1948

Henri de Lubac16

Jesuit theologian and cardinal 1896–1991

Ansel Adams29

American photographer and environmentalist 1902–1984

Margot Grahame2

actress 1911–1982

Ben Klassen12

American engineer, author and politician 1918–1993

Gloria Vanderbilt1

American businesswoman, fashion designer, socialite and wri… 1924–2019

Richard Matheson58

American fiction writer 1926–2013

Ken Olsen1

American engineer and businessman 1926–2011

Sidney Poitier8

American-born Bahamian actor, film director, author, and di… 1927

Leandro Díaz1

Colombian musician 1928–2013

Ellen Gilchrist2

Fiction writer, poet 1935

Buffy Sainte-Marie2

Canadian musician 1941

Alan Furst1

Novelist 1941

Phil Esposito3

Canadian ice hockey player 1942

Mitch McConnell15

US Senator from Kentucky, Senate Majority Leader 1942

James C. Nelson1

Montana Supreme Court Justice 1944–2006

George Smoot1

American astrophysicist and cosmologist 1945

John C. Maxwell145

American author, speaker and pastor 1947

Ivana Trump1

Czech model and entrepreneur 1949

William McDonough5

American architect 1951

Gordon Brown31

British Labour Party politician 1951

Anthony Stewart Head11

English actor 1954

Mikhail Khodaryonok4

Colonel of the Russian Armed Forces 1954

Ian Brown2

English musician and singer of The Stone Roses 1963

Charles Barkley15

American basketball player 1963

Kurt Cobain158

American musician and artist 1967–1994

Jason Blum2

American film producer 1969

K-os2

Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer 1972

Trevor Noah30

South African comedian 1984

Rihanna15

Barbadian singer, songwriter, and actress 1988

Hidilyn Diaz1

Filipino Olympic weightlifter, Philippines' first Olympic G… 1991

Death

Elizabeth Rowe3

poet and writer 1674–1737

Frederick Douglass274

American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman 1818–1895

Francesco Saverio Nitti3

Italian economist and political figure 1868–1953

Helen Diner4

Austrian writer and historian 1874–1948

Percy Grainger2

Australian composer, arranger and pianist 1882–1961

Alice Roosevelt Longworth6

American writer and prominent socialite 1884–1980

Chester W. Nimitz29

United States Navy fleet admiral 1885–1966

Walter Winchell4

American gossip journalist 1897–1972

Derek Jackson1

British physicist 1906–1982

Maurice Blanchot1

French writer, philosopher, and literary theorist 1907–2003

Solomon Asch2

American psychologist 1907–1996

Ferruccio Lamborghini2

Italian industrialist 1916–1993

Alexander Haig3

former U.S. States Secretary of State and U.S. Army general 1924–2010

Hunter S. Thompson268

American journalist and author 1937–2005

Munir Butt9

British diplomat 1940–2015

Donella Meadows15

American environmental scientist, teacher, and writer 1941–2001

Marcella Althaus-Reid1

Argentine theologian 1952–2009

Sarah Kane22

playwright from England 1971–1999