Every now and then, you get to hear the question: where were you when… a critical /major event in human history - happened? And you wind back and might remember too, where you were for example when United States Capitol attack took place, on January 6th, 2021.
But let us look at this much further back, and in an altogether different way. Let’s see who was born on the same day that some major event in the world occurred. Here you have people - from all walks of life - that were born on one of those dates. This list starts from the 1950s so it contains events that many of us remember or have at least heard of. It is about scientific breakthroughs, major political events, record breaking athletic achievements, and some tragic events too. Where were you - if you were born then - when these things happened:
1957-1103 The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2. On board the first living being to orbit the Earth: Laika, a stray mongrel from the streets of Moscow. There is no technology available to return her to Earth.
1957-1103 Dolph Lundgren* martial artist/actor/producer – Stockholm, Sweden
1961-0412 Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space as his Vostok 1 spacecraft is launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome.
1961-0412 Lisa Gerrard* musician/ singer/composer – Melbourne, VIC Australia
1961-0412 Edu Kettunen* guitarist/singer/songwriter – Helsinki, Finland
1961-0412 Christophe Rousset* harpsichordist/conductor – Avignon, France
1961-0412 Axel Wöstmann* rower – Osnabrück, West Germany
1963-0626 John F. Kennedy gives his Ich Bin ein Berliner speech in West Berlin - one of the best-known speeches of the Cold War. 22 months earlier, East Germany had erected the Berlin Wall to prevent mass emigration to West Berlin.
1963-0626 Carolin Fortenbacher* musical actress/singer – Hamburg, West Germany
1963-0626 Mikhail Khodorkovsky* businessman/opposition activist – Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union
1963-0626 Felipe Ortiz* racing driver/w Bolivian heritage – Genf, Switzerland
1963-0626 Farukh Ruzimatov* ballet dancer – Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Soviet Union
1963-0626 Jörg Schmidt* politician/ mayor – Bonn, West Germany
1963-0828 Martin Luther King Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, delivers his speech “I have a Dream”. Around 200.000 people have gathered to listen to him.
1963-0828 Matthias Fornoff* journalist/ television presenter – Mainz, West Germany
1963-1122 John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. He was pronounced dead at 1:00 p.m. CST, half an hour after the shooting.
1963-1122 Winsor Harmon* actor – Crowley, LA USA
1963-1122 Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson* actor - Reykjavik, Iceland
1966-0829 The Beatles' final live concert takes place at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California. A growing desire to refine their studio efforts, coupled with the untenable nature of their concert tours, had led to the decision to retire from live performances. But the production of music did not stop there of course, with ample studio recordings, and each Beatle having a solo career after the final breakup.
1968-0404 Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis,Tennessee as he stands on the second-floor balcony of his motel room. He was 39. Two months later Robert F. Kennedy is shot in Los Angeles where he dies day after. In the picture here both of them back in 1963.
1968-0404 Roberto Colciago* racing driver – Saronno, Italy
1968-0404 Steffen Jacobs* novelist/ editor/translator – Düsseldorf, West Germany
1968-0404 Darren Law* Canadian-American racing driver/ – Toronto, ON Canada
1968-0404 Sari Seppälä* (b Virtanen) hairdresser/ radio host/politician – Tampere, Finland (2019/50)
1968-0620 The American sprinter Jim Hines becomes the first man to officially break the 10-second barrier in the 100 meters dash in Mexico City in 1968, standing highest in the third all-black podium in Olympic history. And all of these people were born that special day:
1968-0620 Sharon Bajer* actress – Edmonton, AB Canada – IMDb
1968-0620 Yuri Bashkatov* swimmer/OSr – Chișinău, Moldavia, Soviet Union
1968-0620 Jon Glaser* actor/ comedian/writer – Southfield, MI USA
1968-0620 Tonya Kinzinger* dancer/ model/actress – Monroe, MI USA
1968-0620 Mateusz Morawiecki* economist/ historian/politician/PM – Wrocław, Poland
1968-0620 Robert Rodriguez* filmmaker/ visual effects supervisor/composer – San Antonio, TX USA
1969-0720-2017 UTC Apollo 11‘s Lunar Module Eagle lands on the Moon’s surface. The name of the craft gave rise to the phrase “The Eagle has Landed”, the words Armstrong said upon Eagle’s touchdown.
1969-0720 Josh Holloway* actor – San Jose, CA USA
1969-0720 Johnny Ngauamo* rugby player – Nuku’alofa, Tonga
1969-0721-0256 UTC An estimated 650 million people worldwide watch in awe as Neil Armstrong takes his first historic steps on the lunar surface. Uttering the now famous words: “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” Here below you have a couple of people who were born that day, back on Earth.
1969-0721 Avraam Russo* Syrian-Russian pop singer/of Armenian origin – Aleppo, Syria
1969-0721 Isabell Werth* equestrian/OG – Issum, West Germany
1972-1207 Apollo 17 was the final mission of NASA’s Apollo program. On their way to the Moon, the crew (Gene Cernan, Ronald Evans, Harrison Schmitt) takes The Blue Marble photograph. From a distance of around 29,000 kilometers (18,000 miles) from Earth’s surface. It is one of the most widely distributed photographic images in existence.
1972-1207 Hermann Maier* alpine ski racer/OG – Altenmarkt im Pongau, Austria
1977-0525 Star Wars - the first film in the Star Wars film series and fourth chronological chapter of the “Skywalker Saga” - is released in the United States, and quickly becomes a blockbuster hit.
1977-0525 Andre Anis* football player – Estonia, Soviet Union
1977-0525 Alberto Del Rio* pro wrestler/mixed martial artist/sports commentator – San Luis Potosí City, Mexico
1977-0816 Elvis Presley, the “King of Rock and Roll”, dies in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 42. President Jimmy Carter issued a statement that credited Presley with having “permanently changed the face of American popular culture”. The picture here is from June 1958.
1977-0816 Tamer Hosny* singer-songwriter/ composer/actor – Cairo, Egypt
1977-0816 Markus Palttala* racing driver – Nakkila, Finland
Bubka in 2013
1985-0713 The Ukrainian pole vaulter Serhiy Bubka becomes the first person to break the 6 meters mark in pole vault in Paris, France. Then competing for the Soviet Union, as Sergey Bubka. And these fine people were born that day:
1985-0713 Charlotte Dujardin* equestrian/OG/ writer – Enfield, London, England
1985-0713 Guillermo Ochoa* football goalie – Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
1985-0713 Andrew Wolff* rugby player/Filipino heritage – Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, England
1987-0612 Ronald Reagan gives his Tear down this wall speech in West Berlin. Calling for Mikhail Gorbachev to open the Berlin Wall which had encircled West Berlin since 1961.
1987-0612 Igor Anic* Croatian-French handball player – Mostar, Yogoslavia
1987-0612 Antonio Barragán* football player – Pontedeume, Spain
1987-0612 Alexander Heib* handball player – Bittenfeld, West Germany
1987-0612 Abbey Lee* model/ actress/musician – Melbourne, VIC Australia
1987-0612 Max Snegirev* racing driver – Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union
1989-1109 Fall of the Berlin Wall. One of the series of events that started the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, preceded by the Solidarity Movement in Poland.
1989-1109 Gianluca Bezzina* physician/ singer – Qrendi, Malta
1989-1109 Marcus Daniell* tennis player – Masterton, New Zealand
1989-1109 David Evans* darts player – Preston, England
1989-1109 Billy Howle* actor – Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England
1991-1226 Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The Supreme Soviet meets for the last time, formally dissolving the Soviet Union, and ending the Cold War. All remaining Soviet institutions eventually cease operation on December 31.
1991-1226 Andritany Ardhiyasa* football goalie – Jakarta, Indonesia
1991-1226 Eden Sher* actress – Los Angeles, CA USA
1991-1226 Mai Villadsen* politician – Kibæk, Denmark
Sotomayor in 2015
1993-0727 Cuban Javier Sotomayor, the current world record holder, clears 2.45 meters in high jump in Salamanca, Spain. Before that he had increased the world record to 2.44 m (29 July 1989) in the Central American and Caribbean Championships held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which made him the only person ever to have cleared eight feet (2.44 m) - so far.
1993-0727 Shady Ahdy Iskandar* football player/w Egyptian heritage – San Francisco, CA USA
1993-0727 Llewellyn Reichman* actress – Berlin, Germany
1993-0727 Jordan Spieth* golfer – Dallas, TX USA
1999-0418 Wayne Gretzky plays his last game (as a New York Ranger) and earns his 2857th point with the secondary assist to Brian Leetch’s goal against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Rangers lost the game in overtime 1-2.
1999-0418 Michael Andrew* swimmer – Edina, MN USA
1999-0418 Ben Brereton Díaz* football player/w Chilean mother – Stoke-on-Trent, England
1999-0420 Columbine High School Massacre takes place in Columbine, CO USA. It is the first in the long line of school shootings that haunt us, and not only in the United States.
1999-0420 Fabio Quartararo* motorcycle rider/w Sicilian heritage – Nice, France
1999-0420 Carly Rose Sonenclar* actress/ singer – New York City, NY USA
2001-0911 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, take place with devastating effects in New York City, Washington D.C and rural Pennsylvania. You might remember where you were when that happened. Perhaps following the live broadcasts on television, but who was born that day?
2001-0911 Mackenzie Aladjem* actress – California, USA – IMDb
2003-0414 Human Genome Project, started in 1990, is finally completed. It included about 92% of the genome. Level “complete genome” was achieved in May 2021, and the final gapless assembly was finished in January 2022.
2004-1226 The Boxing Day Tsunami, known by the scientific community as the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, occurred at 07:58:53 local time, with an epicentre of the earthquake off the west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. Nations all over the world provided over US$14 billion in aid for damaged regions. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a total of 227,898 lives were lost.
2011-0722 The 2011 Norway attacks take place in the capital city Oslo, and at a summer camp on the island of Utøya.
2011-0805 NASA announces that its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured photographic **evidence of possible liquid water on Mars**during warm seasons. Over 60 meteorites have been found on Earth that came from Mars, and some of them contain evidence that they were exposed to water when on Mars. So this was always a theory to be proven right.
2012-1014 Red Bull Stratos was a high altitude skydiving project involving the Austrian skydiver and daredevil Felix Baumgartner. He flew approximately 39 kilometres (24 miles) into the stratosphere (located above the troposphere and below the mesosphere) over New Mexico in a helium balloon, and conducted then a free fall and parachuting to Earth. Anyone special born that special day? I guess we will know later.
Lastly, Journeys of Life warmly recommends John M. Becker’s site Make Lists, Not War where you can also read his article The 100 Most Important Events in Human History - “for those who don’t have time to wade through the entire Timeline of Human History, “, as he puts it. Wonderful!
Updated 7.3.2023