Famous birthdays by month
Famous Birthdays in February
Who was born in February? Browse the best-known birthdays for every day of the month, then tap any date to see everyone famous born on that day.
The most famous February birthdays816
1809–1865Abraham Lincoln
16th US President who led the Union through the Civil War, issued the Emancipation Proclamation and gave the Gettysburg Address
PoliticsDied aged 56
View profile Photo: Alexander Gardner · Public domain
1911–2004Ronald Reagan
Hollywood actor and California governor who became the 40th US President and helped bring the Cold War towards its end
PoliticsWould be 115
View profile Photo: Michael Evans · Public domain
1955–2011Steve Jobs
Co-founder of Apple who led the creation of the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad and also built Pixar Animation Studios
TechnologyWould be 71
View profile Photo: Matthew Yohe · CC BY-SA 3.0
1809–1882Charles Darwin
English naturalist whose voyage on HMS Beagle led to On the Origin of Species and the theory of evolution by natural selection
ScienceDied aged 73
View profile Photo: Herbert Rose Barraud · Public domain
1732–1799George Washington
Commander of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War who became the first President of the United States
PoliticsDied aged 67
View profile Photo: Gilbert Stuart · Public domain
1564–1642Galileo Galilei
Italian astronomer and physicist who discovered Jupiter's four largest moons, championed a Sun-centred universe and was tried by the Inquisition
ScienceDied aged 77
View profile Photo: Justus Sustermans · Public domain
1802–1885Victor Hugo
Romantic novels Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, lyric poetry, and his republican political activism during exile
LiteratureDied aged 83
View profile Photo: Étienne Carjat · Public domain
1847–1931Thomas Edison
Prolific American inventor who developed the phonograph, a practical electric light bulb and early motion-picture cameras
TechnologyDied aged 84
View profile Photo: Louis Bachrach, Bachrach Studios , restored by Michel Vuijlsteke · Public domain
February birthdays, day by day
- February 1
- Boris Yeltsin (1931) · First President of Russia, who stood on a tank to defeat the 1991 coup and led the country through the Soviet collapse
- Clark Gable (1901) · American actor known as the King of Hollywood, who played Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind and won an Oscar
- Leymah Gbowee (1972) · Nobel Peace Prize winner who helped end the Liberian Civil War
- February 2
- Shakira (1977)
- James Joyce (1882) · Irish modernist writer of Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and the landmark novel Ulysses
- Ayn Rand (1905) · Russian-American novelist of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged who founded the individualist philosophy of Objectivism
- February 3
- Felix Mendelssohn (1809) · German Romantic composer of the Italian Symphony, the Violin Concerto and A Midsummer Night's Dream with its Wedding March
- Alvar Aalto (1898) · Finnish architect and designer of furniture and glassware
- Simone Weil (1909) · Influential French philosopher, mystic and social activist
- February 4
- Rosa Parks (1913) · African American activist whose refusal to give up her bus seat in Montgomery in 1955 sparked a historic boycott
- Dan Quayle (1947) · Vice President of the United States under George H. W. Bush
- Charles Lindbergh (1902) · Aviator who completed the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight
- February 5
- Cristiano Ronaldo (1985) · Portuguese footballer with five Ballon d'Or awards and five Champions League titles, and the all-time top scorer in men's international football
- Neymar (1992) · Brazilian forward and his country's all-time leading men's goalscorer, who starred for Santos, Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain
- Charlotte Rampling (1946) · English actress of The Night Porter and Swimming Pool, a star of European cinema nominated for an Oscar for 45 Years
- February 6
- Ronald Reagan (1911) · Hollywood actor and California governor who became the 40th US President and helped bring the Cold War towards its end
- Bob Marley (1945) · Jamaican singer-songwriter who took reggae worldwide with the Wailers through songs such as No Woman, No Cry and One Love
- Christopher Marlowe (1564) · Elizabethan playwright and poet known for his influence on Shakespeare
- February 7
- Charles Dickens (1812) · Victorian novelist who created Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol, exposing poverty and injustice
- Thomas More (1478) · English lawyer and statesman who wrote Utopia and was executed for refusing to accept Henry VIII as head of the Church
- Sinclair Lewis (1885) · American satirist of Main Street, Babbitt and Elmer Gantry, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature
- February 8
- Jules Verne (1828) · French author of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days, a founding father of science fiction
- Dmitri Mendeleev (1834) · Russian chemist who created the periodic table of elements and correctly predicted the properties of elements not yet discovered
- John Ruskin (1819) · Victorian art critic of Modern Painters and The Stones of Venice who championed Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites
- February 9
- William Henry Harrison (1773) · Ninth US President who gave the longest inaugural address and died 31 days later, the shortest presidency
- Thomas Paine (1737) · English-born radical whose pamphlet Common Sense rallied Americans for independence and who later wrote Rights of Man
- J. M. Coetzee (1940) · South African-born novelist of Disgrace and Life & Times of Michael K who won two Booker Prizes and the Nobel
- February 10
- Bertolt Brecht (1898) · German playwright of The Threepenny Opera and Mother Courage who developed epic theatre to make audiences think critically
- Boris Pasternak (1890) · Russian poet and author of Doctor Zhivago, who was forced by Soviet authorities to decline the Nobel Prize in Literature
- Harold Macmillan (1894) · British Prime Minister during the post-war economic boom
- February 11
- Thomas Edison (1847) · Prolific American inventor who developed the phonograph, a practical electric light bulb and early motion-picture cameras
- Jennifer Aniston (1969) · American actress who became a global star as Rachel Green in Friends and later starred in The Morning Show
- Taylor Lautner (1992) · American actor and martial artist who played the werewolf Jacob Black in the hugely popular Twilight films
- February 12
- Abraham Lincoln (1809) · 16th US President who led the Union through the Civil War, issued the Emancipation Proclamation and gave the Gettysburg Address
- Charles Darwin (1809) · English naturalist whose voyage on HMS Beagle led to On the Origin of Species and the theory of evolution by natural selection
- Pran (1920) · Iconic Indian actor celebrated for playing legendary film villains
- February 13
- Thomas Robert Malthus (1766) · English scholar known for his influential theories on population growth
- Lesya Ukrainka (1871) · Influential Ukrainian writer, poet and feminist activist
- Robbie Williams (1974) · British singer-songwriter and former member of the band Take That
- February 14
- Mark Rutte (1967) · Dutch politician who served as prime minister of the Netherlands for 14 years and became Secretary General of NATO in 2024
- Babur (1483) · Central Asian prince descended from Timur and Genghis Khan who won the Battle of Panipat and founded the Mughal Empire
- Simon Pegg (1970) · British actor and writer who co-created the Cornetto trilogy
- February 15
- Galileo Galilei (1564) · Italian astronomer and physicist who discovered Jupiter's four largest moons, championed a Sun-centred universe and was tried by the Inquisition
- Jeremy Bentham (1748) · English philosopher and legal reformer who founded utilitarianism, the greatest happiness of the greatest number
- Louis XV of France (1710) · King of France from the age of five, known as the Beloved, whose long reign saw France lose Canada in the Seven Years' War
- February 16
- Octave Mirbeau (1848) · French novelist, playwright and journalist of The Diary of a Chambermaid and The Torture Garden, a fierce social critic
- Kim Jong-il (1941) · Son of Kim Il Sung who ruled North Korea from 1994 to 2011, overseeing famine and the first nuclear weapons tests
- Ernst Haeckel (1834) · German biologist and artist who coined the word ecology and drew the famous Art Forms in Nature
- February 17
- Michael Jordan (1963) · American basketball player who won six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls and is widely seen as the greatest ever
- Paris Hilton (1981) · American hotel heiress and star of The Simple Life who turned celebrity into a business and campaigns against abusive youth facilities
- Mo Yan (1955) · Chinese novelist of Red Sorghum and Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out who won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature
- February 18
- Toni Morrison (1931) · American novelist of Beloved, Song of Solomon and The Bluest Eye, the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature
- Alessandro Volta (1745) · Italian physicist who invented the voltaic pile, the first electric battery; the volt is named after him
- John Travolta (1954) · American actor of Saturday Night Fever and Grease whose career was revived by Pulp Fiction
- February 19
- Nicolaus Copernicus (1473) · Polish astronomer who proposed that the Earth and planets orbit the Sun, launching the scientific revolution
- Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (1953) · Argentine lawyer and Peronist who was the country's first elected female president, from 2007 to 2015, and later vice president
- Svante August Arrhenius (1859) · Swedish scientist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- February 20
- Voltaire (1694) · French Enlightenment writer and wit who championed free speech and religious tolerance and wrote the satire Candide
- Rihanna (1988)
- Gordon Brown (1951)
- February 21
- Corbin Bleu (1989) · American actor, singer and dancer best known for playing Chad Danforth in Disney's High School Musical films
- Robert Mugabe (1924) · Independence leader who ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years as prime minister and president until he was ousted in 2017
- Harald V of Norway (1937) · King of Norway from 1991, a former Olympic sailor who succeeded his father Olav V
- February 22
- George Washington (1732) · Commander of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War who became the first President of the United States
- Frédéric Chopin (1810) · Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era, famous for his nocturnes, études, mazurkas and polonaises
- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788) · German philosopher of pessimism whose The World as Will and Representation influenced Nietzsche, Wagner and Freud
- February 23
- Naruhito (1960) · Emperor of Japan since 2019, an Oxford-educated scholar of water transport and the 126th monarch in Japan's traditional line
- George Frideric Handel (1685) · German-born Baroque composer who settled in London and wrote Messiah, Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks
- Viktor Yushchenko (1954) · Former President of Ukraine who survived a dioxin poisoning attempt
- February 24
- Steve Jobs (1955) · Co-founder of Apple who led the creation of the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad and also built Pixar Animation Studios
- Charles V (1500) · Habsburg ruler who was Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, governing a vast empire in Europe and the Americas before abdicating
- Judith Butler (1956) · Philosopher and gender theorist known for the book Gender Trouble
- February 25
- George Harrison (1943) · Lead guitarist of the Beatles who wrote Something and Here Comes the Sun and organised the Concert for Bangladesh
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841) · French Impressionist painter of Bal du moulin de la Galette and Luncheon of the Boating Party, famed for his warm, joyful scenes
- Carlo Goldoni (1707) · Playwright who replaced traditional masked comedy with realistic characters
- February 26
- Victor Hugo (1802) · Romantic novels Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, lyric poetry, and his republican political activism during exile
- Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954) · Turkish politician who has led the country since 2003, first as prime minister and then as president
- Ariel Sharon (1928) · Israeli general and prime minister who led the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza after a long, controversial military career
- February 27
- Constantine the Great (AD 272) · Roman emperor who converted to Christianity, legalised it with the Edict of Milan and founded Constantinople
- John Steinbeck (1902) · American novelist of The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men and East of Eden who won the Nobel Prize in Literature
- Elizabeth Taylor (1932) · British-American film star of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Cleopatra who won two Oscars and raised millions for AIDS research
- February 28
- Michel de Montaigne (1533) · French Renaissance writer who invented the essay as a form, exploring himself and the world in his candid Essays
- Linus Pauling (1901) · American chemist who explained chemical bonds and won two unshared Nobel Prizes, for Chemistry and for Peace
- Paul Krugman (1953) · American economist, Nobel laureate, and New York Times columnist
- February 29
- Gioachino Rossini (1792) · Italian opera composer of The Barber of Seville and William Tell, whose overture became world famous
- Pedro Sánchez (1972) · Prime Minister of Spain and leader of the Socialist Workers' Party
- Paul III (1468) · Renaissance Pope who convened the Council of Trent