Born on October 21?

Doja Cat

American rapper and singer behind Say So, Kiss Me More and Paint the Town Red

Did you know? Her breakthrough came with a joke song about being a cow.

Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini (born October 21, 1995), known professionally as Doja Cat ( DOH-jə), is an American rapper and singer-songwriter. Regarded as the "Queen of Pop-Rap", she is known for her musical versatility, live performance skills and humorous internet presence.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Jerry Heil

Ukrainian singer-songwriter and YouTuber who famously finished third at Eurovision 2024 with Teresa & Maria

Did you know? She first chose the alias Jerry Mouse, after the cartoon character, at fifteen.

Yana Oleksandrivna Shemaieva (sheh-MAH-ye-va; Ukrainian: Яна Олександрівна Шемаєва; born 21 October 1995), known professionally as Jerry Heil (JER-ree HAY-el, Ukrainian: Дже́ррі Гейл), is a Ukrainian singer, songwriter and YouTuber.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Käärijä

Finnish rapper whose wild, green-jacketed performance of Cha Cha Cha won the Eurovision 2023 public vote

Did you know? His bright green bolero jacket became a Eurovision icon.

Jere Mikael Pöyhönen (born 21 October 1993), known professionally as Käärijä (Finnish:), is a Finnish rapper, singer and songwriter. He represented Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 with the song "Cha Cha Cha", placing second with 526 points and finishing first in the public vote with 376.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Marzia Kjellberg

Marzia Kjellberg (née Bisognin; born 21 October 1992), formerly known as CutiePieMarzia, is an Italian former YouTuber known for her beauty videos. She parlayed her popularity on YouTube into writing, fashion design, and business ventures.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Natalie Wynn

Natalie Wynn (born October 21, 1988) is an American left-wing YouTuber, political commentator, and cultural critic. She is best known for her YouTube channel, ContraPoints, where she creates video essays exploring topics such as politics, gender, ethics, race, and philosophy.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Nemanja Vidić

Serbian defender and former captain of Manchester United

Did you know? He is one of only a few players to win the Premier League Player of the Season award on two separate occasions.

Nemanja Vidić (Serbian Cyrillic: Немања Видић, Serbian pronunciation:; born 21 October 1981) is a Serbian former professional footballer who played as a centre-back.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Kim Kardashian

American reality TV star of Keeping Up with the Kardashians who built the SKIMS shapewear brand and studied to become a lawyer

Did you know? After several years of study, she passed California’s "baby bar" exam as part of her journey to becoming a qualified lawyer.

Kimberly Noel Kardashian (born October 21, 1980) is an American media personality, socialite, and businesswoman. She first gained media attention in 2007 following the unauthorized release of a sex tape with American singer Ray J. Afterwards, she and her family began to appear on the E!

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Waris Dirie

Somali model, author and activist against female genital mutilation

Did you know? She was discovered while working at a fast-food restaurant in London and later appeared as a Bond girl in The Living Daylights.

Waris Dirie (Somali: Waris Diiriye; born 21 October 1965) is a Somali model, author, actress and human rights activist in the fight against female genital mutilation (FGM). From 1997 to 2003, she was a UN special ambassador against FGM. In 2002 she founded her own organization in Vienna, the Desert Flower Foundation.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Jon Andoni Goikoetxea

Spanish footballer who played as a winger for Barcelona

Did you know? He scored a memorable looping goal for Spain against Germany during the 1994 World Cup in the United States.

Jon Andoni Goikoetxea Lasa (born 21 October 1965), often known as Goiko, is a Spanish former professional footballer.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Ken Watanabe

Japanese actor who received an Oscar nomination for The Last Samurai

Did you know? He began his career in Japanese stage and television before finding international fame in Hollywood during his forties.

Ken Watanabe (渡辺 謙, Watanabe Ken; born October 21, 1959) is a Japanese actor. He is best known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Letters from Iwo Jima and Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu in The Last Samurai, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Andre Geim

Physicist who won the Nobel Prize for his work with graphene

Did you know? He is the only person to win both a Nobel Prize and an Ig Nobel Prize, the latter for levitating a frog.

Sir Andre Konstantin Geim (Russian: Андре́й Константи́нович Гейм; born 21 October 1958) is a Russian-born British-Dutch physicist. Geim was appointed as a chair professor at the University of Hong Kong and assumed his tenure in 2026.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wolfgang Ketterle

Physicist who shared a Nobel Prize for creating Bose-Einstein condensates

Did you know? His research involved cooling atoms to temperatures just a fraction above absolute zero.

Wolfgang Ketterle (German pronunciation:; born 21 October 1957) is a German physicist and professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Carrie Fisher

American actress who played Princess Leia in Star Wars and wrote the semi-autobiographical novel Postcards from the Edge

Did you know? She was a sought-after Hollywood script doctor who edited screenplays for movies like Sister Act and The Wedding Singer.

Carrie Frances Fisher (October 21, 1956 – December 27, 2016) was an American actress and writer.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli politician and the country's longest-serving prime minister, leader of the right-wing Likud party for decades

Did you know? He grew up partly in Philadelphia and served as a team leader in an elite commando unit.

Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician and diplomat who has served as Prime Minister of Israel since 2022. Having previously held office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021, Netanyahu is Israel's longest-serving prime minister.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Nikita Mikhalkov

Russian filmmaker and actor who won an Academy Award

Did you know? His father, Sergey Mikhalkov, was a writer who authored the lyrics for the national anthems of both the Soviet Union and Russia.

Nikita Sergeyevich Mikhalkov (Russian: Никита Сергеевич Михалков; born 21 October 1945) is a Russian filmmaker and actor.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Jean-Pierre Sauvage

Nobel Prize-winning chemist who pioneered the development of molecular machines

Did you know? He was the first scientist to successfully link two ring-shaped molecules together into a chain, a breakthrough that helped launch his entire field.

Jean-Pierre Sauvage (French pronunciation:; born 21 October 1944) is a French coordination chemist working at Strasbourg University. He graduated from the National School of Chemistry of Strasbourg (now known as ECPM Strasbourg), in 1967.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Tariq Ali

British-Pakistani political activist, writer and public intellectual

Did you know? He was a prominent figure in the anti-Vietnam War movement and reportedly inspired The Rolling Stones song Street Fighting Man.

Tariq Ali (‎; Urdu: طارق علی; born 21 October 1943) is a Pakistani-British political activist, writer, journalist, filmmaker, and public intellectual. He is a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review and Sin Permiso, and contributes to The Guardian, CounterPunch, and the London Review of Books.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Christopher A. Sims

Nobel Prize-winning economist known for his research on macroeconomics

Did you know? He shared his Nobel Prize for developing methods to analyse how economic policy changes affect the wider economy over time.

Christopher Albert Sims (October 21, 1942 – March 14, 2026) was an American econometrician and macroeconomist. He was the John J.F. Sherrerd '52 University Professor of Economics at Princeton University.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Paco Gento

Spanish footballer who won a record six European Cups with Real Madrid

Did you know? He remains the only player in history to win the European Cup six times, all with the same club.

Francisco "Paco" Gento López (21 October 1933 – 18 January 2022) was a Spanish footballer who played as an outside left. A fast runner, Gento was referred to as the "Gale of the Cantabrian Sea" (Spanish: La Galerna del Cantábrico) in reference to his speed down the wing.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Ursula K. Le Guin

American author of the Earthsea books, The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, who made science fiction literature

Did you know? She attended the same high school as fellow writer Philip K. Dick, though they were in the same year but did not know each other.

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin ( KROH-bər lə GWIN; née Kroeber; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the Earthsea fantasy series.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Lev Yashin

Soviet goalkeeper regarded as the greatest in the sport's history

Did you know? He began his sporting career as an ice hockey goalkeeper for a factory team before moving into professional football.

Lev Ivanovich Yashin (Russian: Лев Иванович Яшин; 22 October 1929 – 20 March 1990) was a Soviet professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Widely regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers in the history of the sport, he is the only player in his position to win the Ballon d'Or.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Celia Cruz

Popular Cuban singer known as the Queen of Salsa

Did you know? Her trademark shout "¡Azúcar!" originated from an encounter in a restaurant where a waiter asked if she wanted sugar in her coffee.

Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso (21 October 1925 – 16 July 2003), known as Celia Cruz, was a Cuban-American singer and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century. Cruz rose to fame in Cuba during the 1950s as a singer of guarachas, earning the nickname La Guarachera de Cuba.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Dizzy Gillespie

Jazz trumpeter and composer who helped develop the bebop style

Did you know? He famously played a unique trumpet with the bell bent upwards at a forty-five-degree angle after someone accidentally sat on it.

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie ( ghih-LES-pee; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator, and singer.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Martin Gardner

American writer who popularised recreational mathematics and scientific scepticism

Did you know? He wrote the Mathematical Games column for Scientific American for twenty-five years despite having no formal training in mathematics.

Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914 – May 22, 2010) was an American writer on popular mathematics and popular science. His interests also encompassed magic, scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literature – especially the writings of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, and G. K. Chesterton.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0