Born on June 17?

Elena Rybakina

Wimbledon singles champion and professional tennis player

Did you know? Although she represents Kazakhstan, she was born in Moscow and switched her sporting nationality in exchange for better financial support.

Elena Andreyevna Rybakina (born 17 June 1999) is a Russian-born Kazakhstani professional tennis player. She is currently ranked world No.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Hameltion derivative work: Kacir · CC BY-SA 4.0

Clément Lenglet

French international footballer who plays as a defender

Did you know? He was raised in a footballing family and made his professional debut for Nancy at the age of eighteen.

Clément Nicolas Laurent Lenglet (born 17 June 1995) is a French professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Primeira Liga club Benfica, on loan from La Liga club Atlético Madrid, and the France national team.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Werner100359 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Jordan Henderson

Long-serving Liverpool captain who led the team to Premier League glory

Did you know? He was the first player to be named the England Men's Player of the Year at both under-21 and senior levels.

Jordan Brian Henderson (born 17 June 1990) is an English professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Premier League club Chelsea and the England national team. He is known for his leadership, versatility, and physicality.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Bryan Berlin · CC BY-SA 4.0

Alan Dzagoev

Russian international footballer and long-serving CSKA Moscow midfielder

Did you know? He finished as the joint top goalscorer at the 2012 European Championships despite his team being eliminated in the group stages.

Alan Yelizbarovich Dzagoev (Russian: Алан Елизбарович Дзагоев, pronounced; Iron Ossetic: Дзӕгъойты Елизбары фырт Алан; romanized as Dzagoyev; born 17 June 1990) is a Russian former professional footballer who played as a midfielder.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Антон Зайцев · CC BY-SA 3.0

Kateryna Handziuk

Kateryna Viktorivna Handziuk (Ukrainian: Катерина Вікторівна Гандзюк; 17 June 1985 – 4 November 2018) was a Ukrainian civil rights and anti-corruption activist campaigner and political advisor, who exposed corruption in her hometown of Kherson.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Trebukhov Maksym · CC BY-SA 4.0

Venus Williams

American tennis champion who has won multiple Grand Slam titles

Did you know? Beyond the tennis court, she is a qualified interior designer and runs her own commercial design firm.

Venus Ebony Star Williams (born June 17, 1980) is an American professional tennis player. She has been ranked as the world No.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Tatiana from Moscow, Russia · CC BY-SA 2.0

Frank Mugisha

Frank Mugisha (born 17 June 1979) is a Ugandan LGBT advocate and Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), who has won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award and Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize 2011 for his activism. Mugisha is one of the most prominent advocates for LGBT rights in Uganda.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: U.S. Department of State from United States · Public domain

Shoji Jo

Japanese striker who represented his country in the World Cup

Did you know? He was the first Japanese player to play in the Spanish top flight when he joined Real Valladolid on loan.

Shoji Jo (城 彰二, Jō Shōji; born 17 June 1975) is a Japanese former professional footballer who played as a forward. He played for the Japan national team.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: norio nakayama · CC BY-SA 2.0

Zinho

Brazilian midfielder who won the 1994 FIFA World Cup

Did you know? Throughout his professional career in Brazil and Japan, he won league titles with four different clubs, including Flamengo and Palmeiras.

Crizam César de Oliveira Filho, better known as Zinho (Brazilian Portuguese:; born 17 June 1967), is a Brazilian football pundit and former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. A left-footed playmaker, he was known for his ball control, passing ability and capacity to dictate the tempo of play.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Longbomb · Public domain

Greg Kinnear

Academy Award-nominated American actor and former television host

Did you know? He first became a household name in the United States as the sharp-witted original host of the satirical talk show Talk Soup.

Gregory Buck Kinnear (born June 17, 1963) is an American actor and former talk show host. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in As Good as It Gets (1997).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: gdcgraphics · CC BY-SA 2.0

Thomas Haden Church

Actor known for his roles in Sideways and Spider-Man 3

Did you know? Before finding fame in Hollywood, he worked as a radio DJ and provided voiceover services for numerous commercials while living in Texas.

Thomas Haden Church (born Thomas Richard McMillen; June 17, 1960) is an American actor.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: David Shankbone · CC BY 3.0

Eddy Merckx

Cyclist regarded as the most successful rider in history

Did you know? His constant drive to win every race he entered earned him the nickname The Cannibal from his fellow competitors.

Édouard Louis Joseph, Baron Merckx (born 17 June 1945), is a Belgian former professional road and track cyclist racer who is the most successful rider in the history of competitive cycling.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Nationaal Archief · No restrictions

Newt Gingrich

American politician who served as Speaker of the House

Did you know? He has authored several historical fiction novels, including a series of books reimagining the events of the American Civil War.

Newton Leroy Gingrich (né McPherson; born June 17, 1943) is an American politician who served as the 50th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. A member of the Republican Party, he was the U.S.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America · CC BY-SA 2.0

Mohamed ElBaradei

Nobel Peace Prize winner and former head of the IAEA

Did you know? He spent several decades working as a diplomat for the United Nations before returning to Egypt to lead a pro-democracy movement.

Mohamed Mostafa ElBaradei (Arabic: محمد مصطفى البرادعي, romanized: Muḥammad Muṣṭafá al-Barādaʿī, Egyptian Arabic:; born 17 June 1942) is an Egyptian lawyer, diplomat, and politician who served as Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1997 to 2009 and as interim vice president of Egypt…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: IAEA · CC BY-SA 2.0

George Akerlof

Nobel Prize-winning economist known for his work on market uncertainty

Did you know? He is married to Janet Yellen, who served as the first female Chair of the Federal Reserve in the United States.

George Arthur Akerlof (born June 17, 1940) is an American economist and a university professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and Koshland Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Yan Chi Vinci Chow · CC BY 3.0

Ken Loach

Acclaimed British director known for socially conscious and realistic films

Did you know? He is one of the few directors to have won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival twice.

Kenneth Charles Loach (born 17 June 1936) is a retired English filmmaker. His socially critical directing style and socialist views are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty (Poor Cow, 1967), homelessness (Cathy Come Home, 1966), and labour rights (Riff-Raff, 1991, and The Navigators, 2001).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Georges Biard · CC BY-SA 3.0

Tigran Petrosian

Soviet-Armenian chess grandmaster and world champion from 1963 to 1969

Did you know? He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" because of his defensive playing style, which was so effective that he went undefeated in many major tournaments.

Tigran Vardani Petrosian (Armenian: Տիգրան Վարդանի Պետրոսյան; Russian: Тигран Вартанович Петросян; 17 June 1929 – 13 August 1984) was a Soviet-Armenian chess grandmaster.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: uploader Koperczak ( talk ) 08:49, 3 April 2009 (UTC), photographer unknown · Public domain

François Jacob

Nobel Prize-winning French biologist who discovered how genes are regulated

Did you know? He originally intended to be a surgeon but abandoned the idea after suffering serious injuries as a soldier during the Second World War.

François Jacob (French:; 17 June 1920 – 19 April 2013) was a French biologist. He shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Jacques Monod and André Lwoff "for their discoveries concerning genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis".

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Unknown author · Public domain

Martin Bormann

Powerful Nazi official and private secretary to Adolf Hitler

Did you know? His exact fate was a mystery for decades until DNA tests in the late 1990s confirmed he died at the end of the war.

Martin Ludwig Bormann (17 June 1900 – 2 May 1945) was a German Nazi Party official, head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, and private secretary to Adolf Hitler. Bormann gained immense power by using his position as Hitler's private secretary to control the flow of information and access to Hitler.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Unknown · CC BY-SA 3.0 de

M. C. Escher

Graphic artist famous for creating impossible structures and patterns

Did you know? Despite his work being heavily influenced by complex geometry, he had very little formal training in mathematics and mostly taught himself.

Maurits Cornelis Escher (Dutch:; 17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who made woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints, many of which were inspired by mathematics. Despite wide popular interest, for most of his life Escher was neglected in the art world, even in his native Netherlands.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Hans Peters for Anefo · CC0

Heinz Guderian

German general who developed modern tank warfare and blitzkrieg tactics

Did you know? After the war, he became a successful author and his memoirs were widely read by military students for decades.

Heinz Wilhelm Guderian (German:; 17 June 1888 – 14 May 1954) was a German army general and military theorist. A pioneer and advocate of what would come to be called the "blitzkrieg" approach, he played a central role in the development of the panzer division concept and tank warfare more broadly.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Unknown author · Public domain

Sergei Witte

Leading Russian statesman who oversaw the country's rapid industrialisation

Did you know? He was the primary author of the October Manifesto, which established Russia's first parliament following the 1905 Revolution.

Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte (Russian: Сергей Юльевич Витте, romanized: Sergey Yulyevich Vitte, IPA:; 29 June 1849 – 13 March 1915), also known as Sergius Witte, was a Russian statesman who served as the first prime minister of the Russian Empire, replacing the emperor as head of government.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Chapiro, St. Petersburg · Public domain

William Crookes

British chemist who discovered thallium and pioneered vacuum tubes

Did you know? He was deeply interested in spiritualism and spent years conducting scientific experiments to investigate the claims of various famous mediums.

Sir William Crookes (17 June 1832 – 4 April 1919) was an English chemist and physicist who attended the Royal College of Chemistry, now part of Imperial College London, and worked on spectroscopy. He was a pioneer of vacuum tubes, inventing the Crookes tube, which was made in 1875.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: George Charles Beresford (1864-1938) · Public domain

Charles Gounod

French composer best known for his opera Faust

Did you know? He considered becoming a priest and lived in a monastery for a time before deciding to pursue music professionally.

Charles-François Gounod (UK: GOO-noh, US: goo-NOH; French:; 17 June 1818 – 18 October 1893) was a French composer, conductor, and organist of the Romantic era. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been Faust (1859); his Roméo et Juliette (1867) also remains in the international repertoire.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Nadar / Adam Cuerden · Public domain