Anniversaries 31 May

Birth

Nur Jahan1

Padshah Begum of the Mughal Empire 1577–1645

Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac8

French author, best known for his epistolary essays 1597–1654

Pierre Vergniaud1

French politician 1753–1793

Ludwig Tieck3

German poet, translator, editor, novelist, and critic 1773–1853

William Mountford33

English Unitarian preacher and author 1816–1885

Walt Whitman181

American poet, essayist and journalist 1819–1892

Francisco Luís Gomes17

Indo-Portuguese physician, writer, historian, economist, po… 1829–1869

Henry Sidgwick5

English philosopher 1838–1900

James Jeffrey Roche5

American journalist 1847–1908

Gregor Strasser12

German politician, rival of Adolf Hitler inside the Nazi Ps… 1892–1934

Elizabeth Coatsworth1

American writer 1893–1986

Fred Allen12

comedian 1894–1956

George R. Stewart1

American historian, toponymist, and novelist 1895–1980

Norman Vincent Peale63

American writer 1898–1993

Maurice Allais7

French economist; 1988 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize i… 1911–2010

Chien-Shiung Wu1

Chinese American experimental physicist 1912–1997

Henry M. Jackson5

American politician 1912–1983

Akira Ifukube13

Japanese composer 1914–2006

Bernard Lewis33

British-American historian 1916–2018

Huston Smith29

Religious studies scholar 1919–2016

Ellsworth Kelly28

American painter, sculptor, and printmaker 1923–2015

Rainier III, Prince of Monaco4

Prince of Monaco 1923–2005

Harold Demsetz7

American economist 1930–2019

Clint Eastwood39

actor and director from the United States 1930

Jay Miner1

American electrical engineer 1932–1994

Henry B. Eyring5

American Mormon leader 1933

Bob Ferry1

American basketball player-coach 1937

John Prescott10

Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1997–2007) 1938

Harry Entwistle1

Australian priest 1940

William D. Nordhaus4

American economist 1941

Joe Namath3

American football player 1943

Salmaan Taseer1

Pakistani politician 1944–2011

Rainer Werner Fassbinder1

German film director, screenwriter, and actor 1945–1982

Ayad Allawi9

Iraqi politician 1945

Bernard Goldberg6

American journalist 1945

David Gubbins6

British university teacher 1947

Helen Fisher2

Canadian anthropologist 1947

Alfred de Zayas176

American United Nations official 1947

Svetlana Alexievich8

Belarusian investigative journalist and non-fiction prose w… 1948

Kip McKean9

minister 1954

Lynne Truss7

British writer 1955

Joseph L. Coffey1

American Roman Catholic priest, former Navy chaplain and bi… 1960

Protase Rugambwa2

Tanzanian bishop 1960

Wesley Willis20

American singer-songwriter 1963–2003

Viktor Orbán18

Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz 1963

Billy Davies6

Scottish association football player and manager 1964

Brooke Shields2

US actress 1965

Jane Green10

British writer 1968

John Connolly23

author 1968

Tristram Hunt2

British historian and ex-politician 1974

Colin Farrell3

Irish actor 1976

Robin Wasserman5

American writer of speculative fiction for young people 1978

Andrew Hurley7

American musician 1980

Reggie Yates4

English actor, television presenter and radio DJ 1983

Waka Flocka Flame2

American rapper and comedian 1986

Ella Woodward4

British blogger 1991

Death

Joseph Haydn3

Austrian composer 1732–1809

George Macartney6

British statesman, colonial administrator and diplomat 1737–1806

Thomas Chalmers18

Scottish mathematician and a leader of the Free Church of S… 1780–1847

Horatius Bonar12

British minister and poet 1808–1889

Eliphas Levi22

French writer 1810–1875

Évariste Galois4

French mathematician, founder of group theory 1811–1832

Elizabeth Blackwell9

England-born American physician, abolitionist, women's righ… 1821–1910

Franz Strauss1

German composer and virtuoso horn player. Father of Richard… 1822–1905

Edith Hamilton26

American teacher and writer 1867–1963

Henry Fountain Ashurst10

United States Senator from Arizona 1874–1962

Vladimir Tatlin7

Russian artist 1885–1953

Walther Funk12

German economist and politician 1890–1960

Dora Russell13

author, feminist, socialist campaigner 1894–1986

Jack Dempsey5

American boxer 1895–1983

Anirvan3

Indian Hindu philosopher 1896–1978

C. L. R. James21

Trinidadian writer 1901–1989

Odilo Globocnik5

SS officer 1904–1945

Adolf Eichmann62

German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer 1906–1962

Neil H. Jacoby2

University professor and public servant 1909–1979

Jacques Monod4

French biologist 1910–1976

Louise Bourgeois14

American and French sculptor 1911–2010

Angus Wilson4

british author 1913–1991

Martha Beall Mitchell3

Wife of American politician 1918–1976

Тимоти Фрэнсис Лири1

1920–1996

Timothy Leary54

American psychologist 1920–1996

Gene Hill1

American author 1928–1997

Kamala Surayya12

Indian author 1934–2009

Pope Gregory VII2

Pope from 1073 to 1085