Famous People Born in 1917

John F. Kennedy

35th US President who faced down the Soviet Union in the Cuban Missile Crisis and was assassinated in Dallas in 1963

35th President of the United States, assassinated in Dallas in 1963.

Photo: Cecil W. Stoughton · Public domain

Indira Gandhi

India's first female prime minister, daughter of Nehru, who declared the Emergency of 1975 and was assassinated in 1984

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (née Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian stateswoman who twice served as the Prime Minister of India from 1966 to 1977 and again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Ferdinand Marcos

President of the Philippines for 21 years, ruling under martial law, until the People Power Revolution of 1986 drove him out

Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the tenth president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: derivative work: Bluemask ( talk ) Ferdinand_Marcos_and_George_Shultz_DA-SC-84-05877.JPEG : Spec. 4 Dino Bartomucci · CC BY-SA 3.0

Arthur C. Clarke

British science-fiction writer of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Childhood's End who first proposed communications satellites

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008) was an English science fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. Clarke was a science fiction writer, an avid populariser of space travel, and a futurist of distinguished ability.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: ITU Pictures · CC BY 2.0

Heinrich Böll

German novelist of Billiards at Half-Past Nine and The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, a Nobel laureate and moral voice

Heinrich Theodor Böll (German:; 21 December 1917 – 16 July 1985) was a German writer. Considered one of Germany's foremost post–World War II writers, Böll received the Georg Büchner Prize (1967) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1972).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Hoffmann, Harald · CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Ella Fitzgerald

American jazz singer known as the First Lady of Song

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996) was an American jazz vocalist, songwriter and composer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella".

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Carl Van Vechten · Public domain

Park Chung-hee

President of South Korea who led the country's rapid industrialisation

Park Chung Hee (Korean: 박정희, pronounced; 14 November 1917 – 26 October 1979) was a South Korean politician and army officer who seized power in the May 16 coup of 1961, and served as the third president of South Korea from 1962 until his assassination in 1979.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Korea.net / Korean Culture and Information Service · CC BY-SA 2.0

I. M. Pei

Architect famous for designing the glass pyramid at the Louvre

Ieoh Ming Pei ( YOH ming PAY; Chinese: 貝聿銘; pinyin: Bèi Yùmíng; April 26, 1917 – May 16, 2019) was a Chinese-American architect. Born in Guangzhou into a Chinese family, Pei drew inspiration at an early age from the garden villas at Suzhou, the traditional retreat of the scholar-gentry to which his family belonged.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Bernard Gotfryd · Public domain