Anniversaries 27 December

Birth

Johannes Kepler51

German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer 1571–1630

Arthur Murphy4

Irish writer 1727–1805

Charles Hodge5

American Presbyterian theologian 1797–1878

Ghalib9

Urdu-Persian poet 1797–1869

Joseph Déjacque1

French writer 1821–1864

Louis Pasteur46

French chemist and microbiologist 1822–1895

Auguste Vaillant1

French anarchist 1861–1894

Alwin Mittasch1

German chemist 1869–1953

Mina Loy3

Futurist poet and actress 1882–1966

Edward Andrade3

English physicist 1887–1971

Thea von Harbou1

German actress 1888–1954

Carl Zuckmayer4

German writer and playwright 1896–1977

Louis Bromfield6

American author and conservationist 1896–1956

Marlene Dietrich28

German-American actress and singer 1901–1992

Oscar Levant42

American comedian, composer, pianist and actor 1906–1972

Charles Olson9

American writer 1910–1970

James Klugmann3

British writer 1912–1977

Elizabeth Smart1

Canadian poet and novelist 1913–1986

Richard Freed1

music critic, editor, and broadcaster 1928

Shulamit Aloni1

Israeli politician 1928–2014

Wilfrid Sheed50

English-American novelist and essayist 1930–2011

Aidan Chambers6

British children's writer 1934

Alex Miller4

Australian novelist 1936

Jon Sobrino5

Spanish theologian 1938

Noel Ignatiev1

American historian 1940–2019

Jean Zerbo1

Malian Roman Catholic cardinal 1943

Cokie Roberts3

American journalist 1943–2019

Olivier Blanchard4

French economist 1948

Gérard Depardieu1

French actor 1948

Juan Felipe Herrera4

American writer 1948

Joe Armstrong36

British computer scientist 1950–2019

Greg Mortenson7

American mountaineer and humanitarian 1957

Daniel Levitin76

American psychologist 1957

Jeff Fortenberry3

U.S. Representative from Nebraska 1960

Yazdan Yazdanpanah1

French-Iranian infectiologist 1965

Salman Khan16

Indian film actor 1965

Yazdan Yazdanpanah1

French-Iranian infectiologist 1965

Chris Abani2

Nigerian author 1966

Sarah Vowell35

American author, journalist, essayist and social commentator 1969

Joshua Casteel6

US Army soldier, lecturer, and writer 1979–2012

Gilles Simon1

French tennis player 1984

Hayley Williams15

American singer-songwriter and musician 1988

Timothée Chalamet4

French-American Actor (1995) 1995

Death

Pierre de Ronsard2

French poet 1524–1585

Hugh Blair16

British philosopher 1718–1800

Shneur Zalman of Liadi2

Orthodox Rabbi, and the founder and first Rebbe of Chabad 1745–1812

Charles Lamb85

English essayist 1775–1834

Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma18

Maharajah of Travencore 1813–1846

Daniel McCallum25

Canadian engineer and early organizational theorist 1815–1878

Thomas Rhys Davids2

British scholar 1843–1922

Alfred Perceval Graves2

Anglo-Irish poet, songwriter, and school inspector 1846–1931

Hans von Seeckt9

German general 1866–1936

Max Beckmann52

German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer 1884–1950

Osip Mandelstam5

Russian poet and essayist 1891–1938

Dumas Malone1

American historian and writer 1892–1986

Lester B. Pearson11

14th Prime Minister of Canada 1897–1972

Hoagy Carmichael3

American composer, pianist, singer, actor and bandleader 1899–1981

Brendan Gill1

American journalist 1914–1997

Walter Keane7

American plagiarist 1915–2000

Serge Raynaud de la Ferriere2

French astrologer 1916–1962

Ellsworth Kelly28

American painter, sculptor, and printmaker 1923–2015

Michael Dummett2

British academic and philosopher 1925–2011

Helen Frankenthaler46

American artist 1928–2011

Hafizullah Amin5

politician, former Afghan head of state (1979) 1929–1979

Houari Boumédiène2

Huari Bumedien 1932–1978

Norman Schwarzkopf12

United States Army general 1934–2012

Don Imus5

Radio personality 1940–2019

Tomaž Šalamun1

Slovene poet, born in 1941 in Zagreb, Croatia 1941–2014

Benazir Bhutto27

11th Prime Minister of Pakistan 1953–2007

Carrie Fisher49

American actress, screenwriter and novelist 1956–2016