August 12: English poet laureate Robert Southey in 1774;
American painter Abbott Thayer, credited with noting camouflage in the
animal world, in 1849; educator and poet Katherine Lee Bates, who wrote
“America the Beautiful,” in 1859; mystery writer Mary Roberts Rinehart in
1876; Christy Mathewson, Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher, in 1878; movie
producer Cecil B. DeMille in 1881; Mexican comic actor Cantinflas, born
Mario Moreno Reyes, in 1911; actress Jane Wyatt in 1913; actor John
Derek in 1926; country singers Buck Owens in 1929 and Porter
Wagoner in 1930; author William Goldman in 1931; former national
security adviser John Poindexter in 1936; actor George Hamilton in
1939; author Ann Martin (The Babysitter’s Club series) in 1955;
and tennis player Pete Sampras in 1971

August 13: Social reformer Lucy Stone in 1818; sharpshooter
Annie Oakley in 1860; Scottish inventor John Baird, a pioneer in
television technology, in 1888; actor Bert Lahr in 1895; film director
Alfred Hitchcock in 1899; actor Regis Toomey in 1902, golfer
Ben Hogan in 1912; actor Neville Brand in 1920, Cuban leader
Fidel Castro in 1927; actor Pat Harrington Jr. in 1929; singer
Don Ho in 1930; former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders in
1933; opera singer Kathleen Battle in 1948; pop singer Dan
Fogelberg in 1951; and actor-turned-radio announcer Danny Bonaduce
(The Partridge Family) in 1959

August 14: Pioneer psychologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing in
1840; naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton in 1860; writer Ernest
Thayer (Casey at the Bat) in 1863; English novelist John
Galsworthy in 1867; writer Russell Baker in 1925; actor Alice
Ghostley and singer Buddy Greco, both in 1926; rock musician David
Crosby in 1941; comedian Steve Martin in 1945; actress Susan Saint
James in 1946; author Danielle Steele in 1947; “The Far Side”
cartoonist Gary Larson in 1950; former basketball player Earvin
“Magic” Johnson in 1959; and actress Halle Berry in 1968

August 15: Napoleon Bonaparte in 1769; Scottish novelist
Sir Walter Scott in 1771; longtime Chicago White Sox owner Charles
Comiskey in 1859; actress Ethel Barrymore in 1879; novelist Edna
Ferber in 1887; British soldier and writer T.E. Lawrence, “Lawrence
of Arabia,” in 1888; songwriter Charles Tobias (“Don’t Sit Under the
Apple Tree”) in 1898; chef Julia Child in 1912; conservative activist
Phyllis Schlafly in 1924; actor Mike Connors in 1925; civil rights
leader Vernon Jordan Jr. in 1935; U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen
Breyer in 1938; journalist Linda Ellerbee in 1944; Britain’s
Princess Anne in 1950; and actors Debra Messing in 1968 and Ben
Affleck in 1972

August 16: French physicist Gabriel Lippman, inventor of
color photography, in 1845; Amos Alonzo Stagg, basketball, football hall
of fame coach in 1862; British bacteriologist Alexander Fleming,
discoverer of penicillin, in 1881; labor leader George Meany in 1894;
former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1913; actors Fess
Parker in 1925, Ann Blyth in 1928 and Robert Culp in 1930;
football player and sports commentator Frank Gifford, also in 1930, TV
personality Kathie Lee Gifford, in 1953; singer Eydie Gorme in
1932; actresses Julie Newmar in 1935 and Lesley Anne Warren in
1946; actor Reginald Vel Johnson in 1952; director James Cameron
in 1954; actor Jeff Perry in 1955; actress Angela Bassett and
singer/actress Madonna, both in 1958; and actors Timothy Hutton
and Laura Innes, both in 1960

August 17: Frontiersman Davy Crockett in 1786; movie producer
Samuel Goldwyn in 1882; black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey in
1887; actors Monty Woolley in 1888 and Mae West in 1892;
publisher/diplomat John Hay Whitney in 1904; actors Maureen O’Hara
in 1921 and Robert DeNiro in 1945; U.S. aviator and CIA agent Gary
Powers in 1929; British poet laureate Ted Hughes in 1930; pop singer
Belinda Carlisle in 1958; and actor Sean Penn in 1960

August 18: American explorer Meriwether Lewis in 1774;
Chicago department store founder Marshall Field in 1834; songwriter
Otto Harbach (“Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”) in 1873; former Defense
Secretary Caspar Weinberger in 1917; actress Shelley Winters in
1922; former first lady Rosalynn Carter in 1927; film director Roman
Polanski in 1933; baseball player Roberto Clemente in 1934; and
actors Robert Redford in 1937, Martin Mull in 1943, Patrick
Swayze in 1954, Madeleine Stowe in 1958, Christian Slater in
1969, and Malcolm-Jamal Warner in 1970