121 – Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor and influential Stoic philosopher.
1711 – David Hume, Scottish philosopher, historian, and essayist.
1711 – Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, French writer, journalist, children’s writer, and folklorist who wrote the best known version of Beauty and the Beast.
1785 – John James Audubon, French-American ornithologist and painter, best known for his book The Birds of America.
1886 – Ğabdulla Tuqay, Turkic poet, critic, and publisher; considered the founder of modern Tatar literature.
1889 – Anita Loos, prolific, Oscar-winning American author, screenwriter, and playwright who wrote both fiction and nonfiction and was the first-ever female scriptwriter in Hollywood.
1889 – Ludwig Wittgenstein, Austrian-British philosopher, teacher, and logician who wrote about the philosophy of mathematics and of language.
1898 – Vincente Aleixandre (full name Vicente Pío Marcelino Cirilo Aleixandre y Merlo), Nobel Prize-winning Spanish poet.
1911 – A.H. Raskin, Canadian-born journalist, labor reporter, editorial writer, and editor who worked for the New York Times for more than 40 years.
1912 – A.E. van Vogt, American “Golden Age” science-fiction writer who influenced later writers with his fragmented, bizarre narrative style.
1914 – Bernard Malamud, Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short-story writer who also won two National Book Awards; his baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a film starring Robert Redford.
1932 – Birgitta Stenberg, Swedish screenwriter, writer, translator, illustrator, journalist, and children’s writer
1933 – Carol Burnett, American actress, comedian, humor writer, playwright, and memoirist who has won many awards, including multiple Golden Globe and Emmy Awards.
1935 – Patricia Reilly Giff, prolific American children’s author who is a two-time Newbery Honor winner and was also a teacher.
1946 – Marilyn Nelson, award-winning American poet, translator, professor, and children’s author who has also published under the name Marilyn Nelson Waniek; much of her fiction is on historical subjects, but she has also written a memoir.
1966 – Natasha Trethewey, Pulitzer Prize winning U.S. Poet Laureate and professor who has been called “a poet of exquisite delicacy and poise who is always unveiling the racial and historical inequities of our country and the ongoing personal expense of these injustices.”
1991 – Bartika Eam Rai is a Nepali poet, blogger, singer, and songwriter.
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