5 Famous people born on Christmas Day
Christmas Day has provided the world with a wide range of famous people, with this list included a scientist, a collector, a drug lord, a singer and a cricketer.
For the list below, we have chosen five people who were born on Christmas Day, and would go on to make a mark on the world, regardless be it good or bad.
Sir Isaac Newton – 1642
Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, astronomer, theologian and physicist (described in his own day as a ‘natural philosopher’) who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution.
His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (‘Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy’), first published in 1687, laid the foundations of classical mechanics.
Newton also made groundbreaking contributions to optics, and he shares credit with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing the infinitesimal calculus.
Robert Ripley – 1890
Robert LeRoy Ripley was an American cartoonist, entrepreneur, and amateur anthropologist who is known for creating the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! newspaper panel series, radio show, and television show which featured odd facts from around the world.
Subjects covered in Ripley’s cartoons and text ranged from sports feats to little-known facts about unusual and exotic sites.
But what ensured the concept’s popularity may have been that Ripley also included items submitted by readers, who supplied photographs of a wide variety of small-town American trivia ranging from unusually shaped vegetables to oddly marked domestic animals, all documented by photographs and then depicted by Ripley’s drawings.
Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán – 1954
Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera is a Mexican drug lord who headed the Sinaloa Cartel, a criminal organisation named after the Mexican Pacific coast state of Sinaloa where it was formed.
Known as ‘El Chapo’ (‘Shorty’) for his 168cm stature, he became Mexico’s top drug kingpin in 2003 after the arrest of his rival Osiel Cárdenas Guillén of the Gulf Cartel, and was considered the “most powerful drug trafficker in the world” by the United States Department of the Treasury.
Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O’Malley Armstrong – 1971
Dido is an English singer and songwriter who attained international success with her debut album No Angel (1999).
It sold over 21 million copies worldwide, and won several awards, including the MTV Europe Music Award for Best New Act, two NRJ Awards for Best New Act and Best Album, and two Brit Awards for Best British Female and Best Album.
Her next album, Life for Rent (2003), continued her success with the hit singles ‘White Flag’ and ‘Life for Rent’.
Alastair Nathan Cook – 1984
Alastair Nathan Cook is an English cricketer. A left-handed opening batsman, he is a former captain of the England Test and ODI teams.
He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most successful batsmen ever to play for England, and one of the most prolific batsmen of the modern era.
Cook played for Essex’s Academy and made his debut for the first XI in 2003.
He played in a variety of England’s youth teams from 2000 until his call up to the Test side in 2006. He normally fields at first slip.
