Aarushhh/wikipedia-simple-splitted huggingface dataset:
From 1976 
 1976 - Kevin Garnett, American basketball player
 1977 – Manuel Almunia, Spanish footballer
 1978 – Marcus Bent, English footballer
 1979 – Diego Forlán, Uruguayan footballer
 1979 – Andrea Pirlo, Italian footballer
 1980 - Dean Heffernan, Australian footballer
 1981 – Luciano Figueroa, Argentine footballer
 1982 - Rebecca Hall, British actress
 1984 - Inna Modja, Maliian-French singer
 1985 - Chris Loudon, Scottish darts player
 1986 – Mario Chalmers, American basketball player
 1987 – Mariano Torres, Argentine footballer
 1987 - David Edgar, Canadian footballer
 1989 - Jasmine, Japanese singer-songwriter and producer
 1991 – Jordan Pruitt, American singer
 1992 - Sam Smith, British singer and songwriter
 1992 - Heather Watson, British tennis player
 1992 - Ola John, Dutch footballer
 1994 - Carlos Guzman, Mexican footballer

Deaths
Up to 1900 
 804 – Alcuin, English monk and scholar (b. 735)
 988 – Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 909)
 1102 - Stephen, Count of Blois (b. 1045)
 1125 – Vladimir II Monomakh, Russian prince (b. 1053)
 1218 - Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1175)
 1296 – Pope Celestine V (b. 1215)
 1389 - Dmitry Donskoy, son of Ivan II of Moscow (b. 1350)
 1526 - Emperor Go-Kashiwabara of Japan (b. 1464)
 1531 - Jan Laski, Polish statesman and diplomat (b. 1456)
 1536 – Anne Boleyn, wife of Henry VIII (b. 1501)
 1601 - Constanzo Porta, Italian composer (b. 1528)
 1637 - Isaac Beeckman, Dutch philosopher (b. 1588)
 1648 - Stefan Potocki, Polish nobleman (b. 1624)
 1715 – Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, English politician and poet (b. 1661)
 1795 – Josiah Bartlett, signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1729)
 1795 - James Boswell, Scottish biographer (b. 1740)
 1821 - Camille Jordan, French politician (b. 1771)
 1825 - Claude Henry de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, French philosopher (b. 1760)
1831 - Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz, Estonian-German physician, botanist and entomologist (b. 1793)
 1840 - John Adair, Governor of Kentucky (b. 1757)
 1860 - Ang Duong, King of Cambodia (b. 1796)
 1864 – Nathaniel Hawthorne, American writer (b. 1804)
 1865 - Sengge Rinchen, Mongol nobleman and general (b. 1811)
 1895 – Jose Marti, Cuban writer and revolutionary (b. 1853)
 1896 – Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria (b. 1833)
 1898 – William Ewart Gladstone, British Prime Minister (b. 1809)
 1898 – Oran M. Roberts, 18th Governor of Texas (b. 1815)
1901  2000 
 1901 – Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, South African politician (b. 1819)
 1904 - Jamsetji Tata, Indian industrialist (b. 1831)
 1907 - Benjamin Baker, English engineer (b. 1840)
 1912 - Boleslaw Prus, Polish writer (b. 1842)
 1935 – T. E. Lawrence, English soldier known as Lawrence of Arabia (b. 1888)
 1943 – Kristjan Raud, Estonian painter (b. 1865)
 1950 - Daniel Ciugureanu, Moldovan politician and Prime Minister (b. 1884)
 1950 - Giuseppe Garibaldi II, Italian adventurer, grandson of Giuseppe Garibaldi (b. 1879)
 1954 – Charles Ives, composer (b. 1874)
 1955 - Concha Espina, Spanish writer (b. 1869)
 1962 - Gabriele Münter, German painter (b. 1877)
 1963 – Walter Russell, American artist (b. 1880)
 1965 - Maria Dobrowska, Polish writer (b. 1889)
 1965 – Tu'i Malila, world's oldest tortoise (b. 1877)
 1966 - Theodore F. Green, American politician, 57th Governor of Rhode Island (b. 1867)
 1969 – Coleman Hawkins, American jazz saxophonist (b. 1901)
 1971 – Ogden Nash, American poet (b. 1902)
1975 – Robert E. Quinn, Governor of Rhode Island (b. 1894)
 1978 - Albert Kivikas, Estonian writer and journalist (b. 1898)
 1983 – Jean Ley, Belgian lawyer and politician (b. 1902)
 1984 – John Betjeman, British poet (b. 1906)
 1986 - Jimmy Lyons, American saxophonist (b. 1931)
 1994 – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, First Lady of the United States (b. 1929)
 1998 – Sosuke Uno, Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1922)
 1999 - Candy Candido, American actor and singer (b. 1913)
 2000 – Yevgeny Khrunov, Soviet cosmonaut (b. 1933)
From 2001 
 2001 – Susannah McCorkle, American singer (b. 1946)
 2002 – John Gorton, Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1911)
 2006 – Freddie Garrity, English singer and actor (b. 1940)
 2008 - Vijay Tendulkar, Indian playwright and screenwriter (b. 1928)
 2009 – Robert F. Furchgott, American scientist (b. 1916)
 2011 – Garret FitzGerald, Irish Taoiseach (b. 1926)
 2012 - Ian Burgess, English racing driver (b. 1930)
 2014 - Jack Brabham, Australian racing driver (b. 1926)
 2014 - Zbigniew Pietrzykowski, Polish boxer (b. 1934)
 2014 - Simon Andrews, British motorcycle racer (b. 1982)
 2014 - Mario Missiroli, Italian movie director (b. 1934)
 2015 - Ahmad Alasgarov, Azerbaijani footballer (b. 1935)
 2015 - Robert S. Wistrich, Kazakh-born British-Israeli professor (b. 1945)
 2015 - Happy Rockefeller, Second Lady of the United States (b. 1926)
 2015 - Gerald Götting, German politician (b. 1923)
 2015 - Edmond J. Gong, American politician (b. 1930)
 2015 - Dale D. Myers, American aerospace engineer (b. 1922)
2015 - Burhan Muhammad, Indonesian diplomat (b. 1957)
 2016 - Alexandre Astruc, French film critic and director (b. 1923)
 2016 - John Berry, American guitarist (Beastie Boys) (b. 1963)
 2016 - Jim Ray Hart, American baseball player (b. 1941)
 2016 - Marco Pannella, Italian politician (b. 1930)
 2016 - Morley Safer, Canadian-American broadcast journalist (b. 1931)
 2016 - Alan Young, English-born Canadian-American actor (b. 1919)
 2017 - Rich Buckler, American comic book artist (b. 1949)
 2017 - Huub Ernst, Dutch Roman Catholic prelate (b. 1917)
 2017 - Nawshirwan Mustafa, Iraqi Kurdish politician (b. 1942)
 2017 - Stanislav Petrov, Soviet-Russian lieutenant colonel (b. 1939)
 2017 - Kid Vinil, Brazilian musician and record producer (b. 1955)
 2017 - Wayne Walker, American football player (b. 1936)
 2018 - Harvey Hall, American businessman and politician, 25th Mayor of Bakersfield, California (b. 1941)
 2018 - Maya Jribi, Tunisian politician (b. 1960)
 2018 - Robert Indiana, American artist (b. 1928)
2018 - Bernard Lewis, British-American historian (b. 1916)
 2018 - Reggie Lucas, American songwriter (b. 1953)
 2018 - Ernst Sieber, Swiss pastor and social activist (b. 1927)
 2018 - Roland Vogt, German politician (b. 1941)
 2019 - Carlos Altamirano, Chilean politician (b. 1922)
 2019 - Nilda Fernández, Spanish-French singer (b. 1957)
 2019 - Amédée Grab, Swiss Roman Catholic bishop (b. 1930)
 2019 - Nickey Iyambo, Vice president of Namibia (b. 1936)
 2019 - Julio César Trujillo, Ecuadorean lawyer and politician (b. 1931)
Observances 
 Youth and Sports Day (Turkey)
 Pontic Greek genocide Remembrance Day (Greece)
 Ho Chi Minh's birthday (Vietnam)
 Malcolm X Day (United States)

Days of the year
Up to 1900 
 303 - Galerius publishes his edict that begins the persecution of Christians in his portion of the Roman Empire.
 1303 – An English Army is defeated by a Scottish Army in the Battle of Roslin.
 1377 – Charles III of Naples and Hungary is assassinated in Buda.
 1525 - The Spanish Imperial Army defeats the French Army at the Battle of Pavia.
 1582 – Pope Gregory XIII announces the introduction of the Gregorian calendar.
 1607 – The L'Orfeo opera by Claudio Monteverdi premieres.
 1711 - London premiere (first performance) of Rinaldo by George Friedric Handel, the first Italian opera written for the London stage.
 1803 - The United States Supreme Court creates the principle of Judicial review.
 1809 - London's Dury Lane Theatre burns to the ground.
 1826 - The signing of the Treaty of Yandaboo marks the end of the First Burmese War.
1831 - Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek: The first removal treaty in line with the Indian Removal Act in the United States is announced. The Choctaws of Mississippi cede land east of the river in exchange and payment for land in the west.
 1848 – Louis Philippe I gives up the French throne. He is France's last king.
 1857 - New Orleans holds its first Mardi Gras parade in present form.
 1863 – Arizona becomes a US territory.
 1868 – Andrew Johnson becomes the first US President to be impeached, by the House of Representatives.
 1875 – The ship SS Gothenburg hits the Great Barrier Reef, and sinks, killing around 100 people.
 1895 - The Second Cuban War of Independence begins.
1901  2000 
 1918 – Estonia declares its independence.
 1920 – The Nazi Party is founded.
 1942 - The steamer Struma, with 764 Jewish refugees on board is sunk in the Bosporus by a Soviet U-boat, having sailed under the Flag of Panama.
 1945 – Egyptian Premier Ahmed Maher Pasha is killed in parliament.
 1966 – While abroad, Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah is diposed from power in a military coup, and replaced by Joseph Arthur Ankrah.
 1968 - Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive is halted; South Vietnam re-captures Hue.
 1969 - NASA launches the space probe Mariner 6 towards Mars.
 1976 - A national constitution for Cuba is proclaimed.
 1980 – The Shekel becomes the currency of Israel.
 1980 – The US men's ice hockey team wins the gold medal over Finland at the Winter Olympics.
 1981 – A magnitude 6.7 earthquake hits Athens.
 1981 – Charles, Prince of Wales and the future Diana, Princess of Wales announce their engagement.
1983 - A special commission of the United States Congress releases a report that condemns the practice of Japanese internment during World War II.
 1984 - Tyrone Mitchell carries out the 49th Street Elementary School shooting in Los Angeles, California, killing 2 children and injuring 12.
 1987 - In the Great Magellanic Cloud, the Supernova 1987A is discovered.
 1989 - Ayatollah Khomeini offers 3 million $ to anyone who kills the writer Salman Rushdie for his novel The Satanic Verses.
 1989 - United Airlines Flight 811, travelling from Honolulu, Hawaii to New Zealand, rips open during mid-flight, blowing 9 passengers out of the business class section, all of died as result.
 1991 – In Operation Desert Storm the ground war begins.
 1993 - Yukihiro Matsumoto invents the "Ruby" programming language.
 1996 - Last occurrence of February 24 as leap year day in the European Union and the Roman Catholic Church.
 1997 - A magnitude 6.5 earthquake hits Turkmenistan and northern Iran, killing 100 people.
From 2001 
 2002 - The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City come to an end. Norway wins the most gold medals, with Germany winning the most medals overall.
 2003 – A magnitude 6.3 earthquake in Xinjiang Province in China kills 261 people.
 2004 – An earthquake in Morocco kills 571 people.
 2006 – After an attempted coup in the Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declares a state of emergency.
 2007 – Japan launches its fourth spy satellite to monitor potential threats, such as North Korea.
 2008 – Raul Castro becomes President of Cuba, succeeding his brother Fidel Castro.
 2011 – The Space Shuttle Discovery launches for the last time.
 2016 - Tara Air Flight 193 crashes in the Myagdi District in Nepal, killing 23 people.
 2022 - Russia starts invading Ukraine.

Births
Up to 1900 
 1103 – Emperor Toba of Japan (d. 1156)
 1304 – Ibn Battuta, traveller from present-day Morocco (date of death unknown)
 1463 – Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Italian humanist (d. 1494)
 1500 – Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1558)
 1536 – Pope Clement VIII (d. 1605)
 1547 - Don John of Austria, Spanish general (d. 1578)
 1557 – Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1619)
 1595 - Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, Polish writer and Latin poet (d. 1640)
 1597 – Vincent Voiture, French poet (d. 1648)
 1619 - Charles Le Brun, French painter (d. 1690)
 1622 - Johannes Clauberg, German theologian and philosopher (d. 1665)
 1709 - Jacques de Vaucanson, French inventor (d. 1782)
 1721 - John McKinly, American physician and politician, President of Delaware (d. 1796)
 1723 – John Burgoyne, British general and writer (d. 1792)
 1743 - Joseph Banks, British botanist (d. 1820)
 1767 - Buddha Loeta Nabhalai, King of Siam (d. 1824)
 1774 - Prince Adolphus, 1st Duke of Cambridge (d. 1850)
1786 – Wilhelm Grimm, German storyteller (d. 1859)
 1791 - Sveinbjörn Egilsson, Icelandic theologian, teacher, translator and poet (d. 1852)
 1805 – Julius Vogel, 8th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1899)
 1811 - Edward Dickinson Baker, British-born American general and politician (d. 1861)
 1811 - Friedrich Daniel Bassermann, German entrepreneur and liberal politician (d. 1855)
 1827 - Lydia Becker, British activist (d. 1890)
 1831 – Leo von Caprivi, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1899)
 1836 – Winslow Homer, American artist (d. 1910)
 1837 - Rosalia de Castro, Galician writer and poet (d. 1885)
 1842 - Arrigo Boito, Italian composer (d. 1918)
 1843 – Teofilo Braga, Portuguese writer and statesman (d. 1924)
 1846 - Luigi Denza, Italian composer (d. 1922)
 1848 - Andrew Inglis Clark, Tasmanian politician (d. 1907)
 1852 - George Moore, Irish writer (d. 1933)
 1864 - Jose Pardo y Barreda, two-time President of Peru (d. 1947)
 1866 – Pyotr Nikolaevich Lebedev, Russian physicist (d. 1912)
1868 - Edouard Alphonse James de Rothschild, French financier and polo player (d. 1949)
 1874 - Honus Wagner, American baseball player and manager (d. 1955)
 1877 - Rudolph Ganz, Swiss pianist, conductor and composer (d. 1972)
 1880 – Einar Arnorsson, Prime Minister of Iceland (d. 1955)
 1885 – Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, Polish writer, painter and philosopher (d. 1939)
 1885 – Chester W. Nimitz, American admiral (d. 1966)
 1893 - Ralph E. Gates, Governor of Indiana (d. 1978)
 1895 - Vsevolod Ivanov, Russian writer (d. 1963)
 1896 - Richard Thorpe, American movie director (d. 1991)
 1897 - Yang Xiufeng, Chinese politician (d. 1983)
 1898 - Kurt Tank, German engineer and pilot (d. 1983)
 1899 – Mikhail Mikhaylovich Gromov, Soviet-Russian pilot (d. 1985)
1901  1950 
 1903 - Vladimir Bartol, Slovene writer (d. 1967)
 1909 – Max Black, American philosopher (d. 1988)
 1912 – Jiri Trnka, Czech puppet maker and illustrator (d. 1969)
 1914 - Weldon Kees, American poet, musician and painter (d. 1955)
 1914 - Zachary Scott, American actor (d. 1965)
 1914 - Ralph Erskine, British architect (d. 2005)
 1921 - Ingvar Lidholm, Swedish composer (d. 2017)
 1921 - Abe Vigoda, American actor (d. 2016)
 1921 - Douglass Watson, American actor (d. 1989)
 1922 – Richard Hamilton, British painter and collage artist (d. 2011)
 1922 – Steven Hill, American actor (d. 2016)
 1924 - Erik Nielsen, Canadian politician (d. 2008)
 1925 - Etel Adnan, Lebanese-American writer and artist
 1926 - Erich Loest, German writer (d. 2013)
 1927 - Emmanuelle Riva, French actress (d. 2017)
 1927 - Trevor Colbourn, Australian-American professor (d. 2015)
 1930 - Barbara Lawrence, American actress (d. 2013)
 1931 – Dominic Chianese, American actor
 1932 - Michel Legrand, French composer
1932 - Zell Miller, former Governor of Georgia
 1932 - John Vernon, Canadian actor (d. 2005)
 1933 - Ali Mazrui, Kenyan-American academic and writer (d. 2014)
 1934 - Renata Scotto, Italian soprano
 1934 – Bettino Craxi, Italian politician (d. 2000)
 1934 – Bingu wa Mutharika, President of Malawi (d. 2012)
 1934 - George Ryan, former Governor of Illinois
 1935 - Ryhor Baradulin, Belarussian painter (d. 2014)
 1938 – James Farentino, American actor (d. 2012)
 1938 - Phil Knight, American businessman, co-founder of Nike, Inc.
 1940 – Denis Law, Scottish footballer
 1940 - Jimmy Ellis, American boxer (d. 2014)
 1940 - James Sloyan, American actor
 1942 – Paul Jones, English singer
 1942 – Joe Lieberman, American politician
 1942 - Colin Bond, Australian racing driver
 1942 - Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Indian philosopher and theorist
 1943 - Terry Semel, former CEO of Yahoo
 1943 - Catherine Cesarky, French astronomer
 1944 - David J. Wineland, American physicist
1944 - Ivica Racan, 7th Prime Minister of Croatia (d. 2007)
 1946 - Don Spiegelman, former Governor of Alabama
 1946 - Ratomir Dujkovic, Serbian football manager
 1947 - Mike Fratello, American basketball player
 1947 - Edward James Olmos, American actor and director
 1948 – Walter Smith, Scottish football manager
 1948 – Dennis Waterman, English actor
 1948 - François Lacombe, Canadian ice hockey player
 1948 - Jayalalithaa, Indian actress and politician, 16th Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (d. 2016)
 1950 - George Thorogood, American singer and guitarist
1951  1975 
 1951 - Debra Jo Rupp, American actress
 1951 - Helen Shaver, Canadian actress
 1951 - Laimdota Straujuma, former Prime Minister of Latvia
 1951 - David Ford, Northern Irish politician and former leader of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
 1952 - Bruno Zuppiger, Swiss politician (d. 2016)
 1954 - Plastic Bertrand, Belgian singer and musician
 1954 - Sid Meier, Canadian-American computer programmer
 1955 – Steve Jobs, American computer pioneer, CEO of Apple Inc. (d. 2011)
 1955 – Alain Prost, French race car driver
 1956 – Judith Butler, American philosopher
 1956 - Paula Zahn, American journalist
 1958 - Sammy Kershaw, American musician
 1958 - Mark Moses, American actor
 1959 - Beth Broderick, American actress
 1961 - Erna Solberg, Prime Minister of Norway
 1963 - Mike Vernon, Canadian ice hockey player
 1963 - Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro
 1965 – Hansi Flick, German football coach
 1965 - Kristin Davis, American actress
 1965 - Jane Swift, former Governor of Massachusetts
1966 – Billy Zane, American actor
 1966 – Ben Miller, British comedian, actor and director
 1967 – Brian Schmidt, American-Australian astrophysicist, 2011 Nobel Prize winner
 1967 - Fernando Tejero, Spanish actor
 1968 – Mitch Hedberg, American comedian (d. 2005)
 1971 – Pedro de la Rosa, Spanish racing driver
 1971 - Josh Bernstein, American explorer and TV host
 1971 - Brian Savage, Canadian ice hockey player
 1971 - Leda Battisti, Italian singer
 1972 - Manon Rhéaume, Canadian ice hockey player 
 1973 – Chris Fehn, American musician (Slipknot)
 1973 - Yordan Yovchev, Bulgarian gymnast
 1973 - Alexei Kovalev, Russian ice hockey player
 1974 – Karim Bagheri, Iranian footballer
 1974 - Chad Hugo, American musician
 1974 - Bonnie Somerville, American actress
 1975 - Ashley MacIsaac, Canadian singer-songwriter and fiddler
From 1976 
 1976 – Eric Griffin, American rock guitarist
 1976 – Zach Johnson, American golfer
 1977 – Bronson Arroyo, American baseball player
 1977 – Floyd Mayweather, Jr., American boxer
 1979 – Claire Cooper, English actress
 1981 – Lleyton Hewitt, Australian tennis player
 1981 – Mauro Rosales, Argentine footballer
 1982 – Fala Chen, Chinese actress and model
 1983 – Matt McGinley, American musician
 1984 – Marina Timofeieva, Estonian ice dancer
 1985 – William Kvist, Danish footballer
 1986 – Wojtek Wolski, Polish-Canadian ice hockey player
 1987 – Chieko Kawabe, Japanese singer, model and actress
 1989 – Trace Cyrus, American musician
 1989 – Daniel Kaluuya, British actor and writer
 1989 – Kostas Koufas, Greek-American basketball player
 1991 – Madison Hubbell, American ice dancer
 1994 – Earl Sweatshirt, American rapper
 2001 – Ramona Marquez, English actress

Deaths
Deaths

Up to 1900 
 616 - King Ethelbert of Kent
 1386 – Charles III of Naples and Hungary
 1563 – Francis, Duke of Guise, French soldier and politician (b. 1519)
 1588 - Johann Weyer, Dutch physician and occultist
 1666 - Nicholas Lanier, English composer (b. 1588)
 1721 - John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, English statesman and poet (b. 1648)
 1777 – Joseph I of Portugal (b. 1714)
 1785 - Carlo Buonaparte, Corsican lawyer and politician (b. 1746)
 1799 - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, German physicist (b. 1742)
 1810 – Henry Cavendish, English physicist (b. 1731)
 1812 - Etienne-Louis Malus, French physicist and mathematician (b. 1725)
 1815 – Robert Fulton, American inventor (b. 1765)
 1856 – Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, Russian mathematician (b. 1792)
 1876 – Joseph Jenkins Roberts, first President of Liberia (b. 1809)
 1879 - Shiranui Koemon, Japanese sumo wrestler (b. 1825)
1901  2000 
 1914 - Joshua Chamberlain, American Civil War figure (b. 1828)
 1925 – Hjalmar Branting, Prime Minister of Sweden (b. 1860)
 1929 - André Messager, French composer and conductor (b. 1853)
 1945 – Ahmed Maher Pasha, Egyptian Premier
 1953 - Gerd von Rundstedt, German field marshal (b. 1875)
 1970 - Conrad Nagel, American actor (b. 1897)
 1973 - Eugen Rosenstock-Hussey, German-American sociologist and historian (b. 1888)
 1975 – Nikolai Bulganin, Soviet premier (b. 1895)
 1982 - Virginia Bruce, American actress and singer (b. 1910)
 1986 – Tommy Douglas, Scottish-Canadian politician (b. 1904)
 1988 – Memphis Slim, American blues singer and musician (b. 1915)
 1990 – Sandro Pertini, President of Italy (b. 1896)
 1991 - George Gobel, American comedian and actor (b. 1919)
 1991 - John Charles Daly, American news broadcaster and game show host (b. 1914)
 1993 – Bobby Moore, English footballer (b. 1941)
 1994 – Dinah Shore, American actress and singer (b. 1916)
1994 - Jean Sablon, French singer and actor (b. 1906)
 1998 – Antonio Prohias, Cuban-born cartoonist (b. 1921)
 1998 - Clara Fraser, American activist (b. 1923)
From 2001 
 2001 – Claude Shannon, American mathematician and electro technician (b. 1916)
 2002 - Leo Ornstein, Ukrainian-American pianist and composer (b. 1912)
 2003 – Bernard Loiseau, French chef (b. 1951)
 2003 - Christopher Hill, British historian (b. 1912)
 2006 – Don Knotts, American actor (b. 1924)
 2006 - Dennis Weaver, American actor (b. 1924)
 2007 - Leroy Jenkins, American composer and violinist (b. 1932)
 2008 - Larry Norman, American musician, singer, songwriter and producer (b. 1947)
 2011 - Anant Pai, Indian educator and comics creator (b. 1929)
 2012 - Jan Berenstain, American writer (b. 1923)
 2014 - Harold Ramis, American actor, director, producer and screenwriter (b. 1944)
 2014 - Franny Beecher, American musician (Bill Haley & His Comets) (b. 1921)
 2014 - Alexis Hunter, New Zealand-English painter and photographer (b. 1948)
 2014 - Prokash Karmakar, Indian painter (b. 1932)
 2015 - Rakhat Aliyev, Kazakhstani politician and diplomat (b. 1962)
2015 - Irving Kahn, American financier (b. 1905)
 2015 - Donald Keough, American businessman (b. 1926)
 2015 - Maurice Hurley, American television writer and producer (b. 1939)
 2015 - Bertrice Small, American writer (b. 1937)
 2016 - Ryszard Bender, Polish politician (b. 1932)
 2016 - Peter Kenilorea, Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands (b. 1943)
 2016 - Peter van der Merwe, Dutch footballer (b. 1942)
 2016 - Rafael Iriondo, Spanish footballer (b. 1918)
 2016 - Adriana Benetti, Italian actress (b. 1919)
 2017 - Gustaw Lutkiewicz, Polish actor (b. 1924)
 2017 - Daryl, American magician (b. 1955)
 2018 - Shmuel Auerbach, Israeli rabbi (b. 1931)
 2018 - Bud Luckey, American actor and animator (b. 1934)
 2018 - Folco Quilici, Italian film director and screenwriter (b. 1930)
 2018 - Sridevi, Indian actress (b. 1963)
 2019 - Donald Keene, American and Japanese scholar, writer, translator and Japanese studies expert (b. 1922)
Observances
 Independence Day (Estonia)
 Flag Day (Mexico)
 Engineer's Day (Iran)
 National Artist Day (Thailand)

Days of the year
1962 (MCMLXII) was .

Events 
 March 16 – Walter Cronkite becomes lead anchor on the CBS Evening News.
 June 11-12 – Three prisoners escape from Alcatraz.
 August 6 – Jamaica becomes separate from the United Kingdom.
 August 16 – The Beatles fire drummer Pete Best and replace him with Ringo Starr.
 October 16 – The Cuban Missile Crisis begins.
 Johnny Carson becomes host of The Tonight Show.
Births 
 January 7 – Abigail Johnson, American businesswoman
 January 17 – Jim Carrey, Canadian actor and comedian
 February 6 – Axl Rose, American singer (Guns N' Roses)
 February 7 – Eddie Izzard, British actor and comedian
 February 10 – Cliff Burton, American bassist and songwriter (d. 1986)
 February 11 – Sheryl Crow, American singer
 February 22 – Steve Irwin, Australian animal expert and television personality (The Crocodile Hunter) (d. 2006)
 February 27 – Adam Baldwin, American actor
 March 2 – Jon Bon Jovi, American singer, songwriter, and actor
 March 4 – Lolo Ferrari, French actress (d. 2000)
 March 7 – Taylor Dayne, American singer
 March 21 – Rosie O'Donnell, American comedian, actress and talk show host
 March 25 – Marcia Cross, American actress
 April 23 – Hillel Slovak, American musician (Red Hot Chili Peppers) (d. 1988)
 May 17 – Alan Johnston, British journalist
 May 18 – Nanne Grönvall, Swedish singer
 June 3 – Susannah Constantine, English television presenter
June 8 - Nick Rhodes, English keyboardist (Duran Duran)
 June 10 – Maxi Priest, English singer
 June 11 – Jack Irons, American musician (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
 June 19 – Paula Abdul, dancer and singer; American Idol judge
 July 3 – Tom Cruise, American actor
 July 31 – Wesley Snipes, American actor
 August 20 – James Marsters, American actor
 August 30 – Alexander Litvinenko, British citizen and ex-KGB (d. 2006)
 September 17 – Baz Luhrmann, Australian movie director
 October 2 – Jeff Bennett, American actor
 October 16 – Flea, American musician (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
 October 17 – Mike Judge, American animator and producer
 October 19 – Evander Holyfield, American boxer
 November 1 – Anthony Kiedis, American singer (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
 November 11 – Demi Moore, American actress
 November 19 – Jodie Foster, American actress and director
 December 9 – Felicity Huffman, American actress
 December 22 
 Andres Cantor, Argentine/American sportscaster
 Ralph Fiennes, English actor
Deaths

January

February

March

April 
 April 10 – Stuart Sutcliffe, English musician (The Beatles) (b. 1940)

May

June

July 
 July 11 – Polly Adler, Russian writer (b. 1900)

August 
 August 5 – Marilyn Monroe, American actress (b. 1926)
 August 9 – Hermann Hesse, German writer (b. 1877)

September

October

November 
 November 7- Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States, wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt (b. 1884)
 November 18 – Niels Bohr, Danish physicist (b. 1885)

December
Evolution is a biological process. It is how living things change over time and how new species develop. The theory of evolution explains how evolution works, and how living and extinct things have come to be the way they are. The theory of evolution is a very important idea in biology. Theodosius Dobzhansky, a well-known evolutionary biologist, said: "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution".

Evolution has been happening since life started on Earth and is happening now. Evolution is caused mostly by natural selection. Living things are not identical to each other. Even living things of the same species look, move, and behave differently to some extent. Some differences make it easier for living things to survive and reproduce.
Differences may make it easier to find food, hide from danger, or give birth to offspring which survive. The offspring will have some of the things which made it easier for their parents to have and raise them. Over time, these good differences continue and are spread through the population. Many generations pass and living things change enough to become new species.

Individuals who have differences that make it harder to find food, have offspring or avoid being eaten are likely not to have offspring at all and so will not give rise to future generations.
It is known that living things have changed over time, because their remains can be seen in the rocks. These remains are called 'fossils'. This proves that the animals and plants of today are different from those of long ago.  The older the fossils, the bigger the differences from modern forms. This has happened because evolution has taken place. That evolution has taken place is a fact, because it is overwhelmingly supported by many lines of evidence. At the same time, evolutionary questions are still being actively researched by biologists.

Comparison of DNA sequences allows organisms to be grouped by how similar their sequences are. In 2010 an analysis compared sequences to phylogenetic trees, and supported the idea of common descent. There is now "strong quantitative support, by a formal test", for the unity of life.

Evidence 

The evidence for evolution is given in a number of books. Some of this evidence is discussed here.
Fossils show that change has occurred 
The realization that some rocks contain fossils was a very important event in natural history. There are three parts to this story:

1. The realization that things in rocks which looked organic actually were the altered remains of living things. This was settled in the 16th and 17th centuries by Conrad Gessner, Nicolaus Steno, Robert Hooke and others.

2. The realization that many fossils represented species which do not exist today. It was Georges Cuvier, the comparative anatomist, who proved that extinction occurred and that different strata contained different fossils.p108

3. The realization that early fossils were simpler organisms than later fossils. Also, the later the rocks, the more like the present day are the fossils.
"The most convincing evidence for the occurrence of evolution is the discovery of extinct organisms in older geological strata... The older the strata are...the more different the fossil will be from living representatives... that is to be expected if the fauna and flora of the earlier strata had gradually evolved into their descendants. Ernst Mayr p13

Geographical distribution 

Where species live is a topic which fascinated both Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. When new species occur, usually by the splitting of older species, this takes place in one place in the world. Once it is established, a new species may spread to some places and not others.
Australasia 
Australasia has been separated from other continents for many millions of years. In the main part of the continent, Australia, 83% of mammals, 89% of reptiles, 90% of fish and insects, and 93% of amphibians are endemic. Its native mammals are mostly marsupials like kangaroos, bandicoots, and quolls. By contrast, marsupials are today totally absent from Africa and form a small portion of the mammalian fauna of South America, where opossums, shrew opossums, and the monito del monte occur (see the Great American Interchange).
The only living representatives of primitive egg-laying mammals (monotremes) are the echidnas and the platypus. They are only found in Australasia, which includes Tasmania, New Guinea, and Kangaroo Island. These monotremes are totally absent in the rest of the world. On the other hand, Australia is missing many groups of placental mammals that are common on other continents (carnivora, artiodactyls, shrews, squirrels, lagomorphs), although it does have indigenous bats and rodents, which arrived later.

The evolutionary story is that placental mammals evolved in Eurasia, and wiped out the marsupials and monotremes wherever they spread. They did not reach Australasia until more recently. That is the simple reason why Australia has most of the world's marsupials and all the world's monotremes.

Evolution of horses
The evolution of the horse family (Equidae) is a good example of the way that evolution works. The oldest fossil of a horse is about 52 million years old. It was a small animal with five toes on the front feet and four on the hind feet. At that time, there were more forests in the world than today. This horse lived in woodland, eating leaves, nuts and fruit with its simple teeth. It was only about as big as a fox.

About 30 million years ago the world started to become cooler and drier. Forests shrank; grassland expanded, and horses changed. They ate grass, they grew larger, and they ran faster because they had to escape faster predators. Because grass wears teeth out, horses with longer-lasting teeth had an advantage.
For most of this long period of time, there were a number of horse types (genera). Now only one genus exists: the modern horse, Equus. It has teeth which grow all its life, hooves on single toes, great long legs for running, and the animal is big and strong enough to survive in the open plain. Horses lived in western Canada until 12,000 years ago, but all horses in North America became extinct about 11,000 years ago. The causes of this extinction are not yet clear. Climate change and over-hunting by humans are suggested.

So, scientists can see that changes have happened. They have happened slowly over a long time. How these changes have come about is explained by the theory of evolution.

Hawaiian Drosophila (fruit flies)
In about , the Hawaiian Islands have the most diverse collection of Drosophila flies in the world, living from rainforests to mountain meadows. About 800 Hawaiian fruit fly species are known.
Genetic evidence shows that all the native fruit fly species in Hawaii have descended from a single ancestral species that came to the islands, about 20 million years ago. Later adaptive radiation was caused by a lack of competition and a wide variety of vacant niches. Although it would be possible for a single pregnant female to colonise an island, it is more likely to have been a group from the same species.

Distribution of Glossopteris 

The combination of continental drift and evolution can explain what is found in the fossil record. Glossopteris is an extinct species of seed fern plants from the Permian period on the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana.

Glossopteris fossils are found in Permian strata in southeast South America, southeast Africa, all of Madagascar, northern India, all of Australia, all of New Zealand, and scattered on the southern and northern edges of Antarctica.
During the Permian, these continents were connected as Gondwana. This is known from magnetic striping in the rocks, other fossil distributions, and glacial scratches pointing away from the temperate climate of the South Pole during the Permian.p103

Common descent 
When biologists look at living things, they see that animals and plants belong to groups which have something in common. Charles Darwin explained that this followed naturally if "we admit the common parentage of allied forms, together with their modification through variation and natural selection".p402p456
For example, all insects are related. They share a basic body plan, whose development is controlled by master regulatory genes. They have six legs; they have hard parts on the outside of the body (an exoskeleton); they have eyes formed of many separate chambers, and so on. Biologists explain this with evolution. All insects are the descendants of a group of animals who lived a long time ago. They still keep the basic plan (six legs and so on) but the details change. They look different now because they changed in different ways: this is evolution.

It was Darwin who first suggested that all life on Earth had a single origin, and from that beginning "endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved".p490 Evidence from molecular biology in recent years has supported the idea that all life is related by common descent.
Vestigial structures 
Strong evidence for common descent comes from vestigial structures.p397 The useless wings of flightless beetles are sealed under fused wing covers. This can be simply explained by their descent from ancestral beetles which had wings that worked.p49

Rudimentary body parts, those that are smaller and simpler in structure than corresponding parts in ancestral species, are called vestigial organs. Those organs are functional in the ancestral species but are now either nonfunctional or re-adapted to a new function. Examples are the pelvic girdles of whales, halteres (hind wings) of flies, wings of flightless birds, and the leaves of some xerophytes (e.g. cactus) and parasitic plants (e.g. dodder).
However, vestigial structures may have their original function replaced with another. For example, the halteres in flies help balance the insect while in flight, and the wings of ostriches are used in mating rituals and aggressive displays. The ear ossicles in mammals are former bones of the lower jaw.

"Rudimentary organs plainly declare their origin and meaning..." (p262). "Rudimentary organs... are the record of a former state of things, and have been retained solely through the powers of inheritance...  far from being a difficulty, as they assuredly do on the old doctrine of creation, might even have been anticipated in accordance with the views here explained" (p402). Charles Darwin.

In 1893, Robert Wiedersheim published a book on human anatomy and its relevance to man's evolutionary history. This book contained a list of 86 human organs that he considered vestigial. This list included examples such as the appendix and the 3rd molar teeth (wisdom teeth).
The strong grip of a baby is another example. It is a vestigial reflex, a remnant of the past when pre-human babies clung to their mothers' hair as the mothers swung through the trees. Human babies' feet curl up when they are sitting down, while primate babies can grip with their feet as well. All primates except modern man have thick body hair which an infant can grasp, unlike modern humans. The grasp reflex allows the mother to escape danger by climbing a tree using both hands and feet.

Vestigial organs often have some selection against them. The original organs take resources to build and maintain. If they no longer have a function, reducing their size improves fitness. There is direct evidence of selection. Some cave crustacea reproduce more successfully with smaller eyes than do those with larger eyes. This may be because the nervous tissue dealing with sight now becomes available to handle other sensory input.p310
Embryology 
From the eighteenth century, it was known that embryos of different species were much more similar than the adults. In particular, some parts of embryos reflect their evolutionary past. For example, the embryos of land vertebrates develop gill slits like fish embryos. Of course, this is only a temporary stage, which gives rise to many structures in the neck of reptiles, birds, and mammals. The proto-gill slits are part of a complicated system of development: that is why they persisted.

Another example is the embryonic teeth of baleen whales. They are later lost. The baleen filter is developed from different tissue, called keratin. Early fossil baleen whales did actually have teeth as well as the baleen.

A good example is the barnacle. It took many centuries before natural historians discovered that barnacles were crustacea. Their adults look so unlike other crustacea, but their larvae are very similar to those of other crustacea.

Artificial selection
Charles Darwin lived in a world where animal husbandry and domesticated crops were vitally important. In both cases, farmers selected individuals for breeding that had desirable characteristics and prevented the breeding of individuals with less desirable characteristics. The eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries saw growth in scientific agriculture. Some of that growth was due to artificial breeding.

Darwin discussed artificial selection as a model for natural selection in the 1859 first edition of his work On the Origin of Species, in Chapter IV: Natural selection: 
"Slow though the process of selection may be, if feeble man can do much by his powers of artificial selection, I can see no limit to the amount of change... which may be effected in the long course of time by nature's power of selection".p109
Nikolai Vavilov showed that rye, originally a weed, came to be a crop plant by unintentional selection. Rye is a tougher plant than wheat: it survives in harsher conditions. Having become a crop like wheat, rye was able to become a crop plant in harsh areas, such as hills and mountains.
  
There is no real difference in the genetic processes underlying artificial and natural selection, and the concept of artificial selection was used by Charles Darwin as an illustration of the wider process of natural selection. There are practical differences. Experimental studies of artificial selection show that "the rate of evolution in selection experiments is at least two orders of magnitude (that is 100 times) greater than any rate seen in nature or the fossil record".p157

Artificial new species 
Some have thought that artificial selection could not produce new species. It now seems that it can.
New species have been created by domesticated animal husbandry, but the details are not known or not clear. For example, domestic sheep were created by hybridisation, and no longer produce viable offspring with Ovis orientalis, one species from which they are descended. Domestic cattle, on the other hand, can be considered the same species as several varieties of wild ox, gaur, yak, etc., as they readily produce fertile offspring with them.

The best-documented new species came from laboratory experiments in the late 1980s. William Rice and G.W. Salt bred fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, using a maze with three different choices of habitat such as light/dark and wet/dry. Each generation was put into the maze, and the groups of flies that came out of two of the eight exits were set apart to breed with each other in their respective groups.
After thirty-five generations, the two groups and their offspring were isolated reproductively because of their strong habitat preferences: they mated only within the areas they preferred, and so did not mate with flies that preferred the other areas.

Diane Dodd was also able to show how reproductive isolation can develop from mating preferences in Drosophila pseudoobscura fruit flies after only eight generations using different food types, starch, and maltose.

Dodd's experiment has been easy for others to repeat. It has also been done with other fruit flies and foods.

Observable changes 
Some biologists say that evolution has happened when a trait that is caused by genetics becomes more or less common in a group of organisms. Others call it evolution when new species appear.
Changes can happen quickly in smaller, simpler organisms. For example, many bacteria that cause disease can no longer be killed with some antibiotic medicines. These medicines have only been in use since the 1940s, and at first, they worked extremely well. The bacteria have evolved so that they are less affected by antibiotics. The drugs killed off all the bacteria except a few which had some resistance. These few resistant bacteria reproduced, and their offspring had the same drug resistance.

The Colorado beetle is famous for its ability to resist pesticides. Over the last 50 years it has become resistant to 52 chemical compounds used in insecticides, including cyanide. This is natural selection sped up by artificial conditions. However, not every population is resistant to every chemical. The populations only become resistant to chemicals used in their area.

History
History 

Although there were a number of natural historians in the 18th century who had some idea of evolution, the first well-formed ideas came in the 19th century. Four biologists are considered the most important.

Lamarck 

Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (1744–1829), a French biologist, claimed that animals changed according to natural laws. He said that animals could pass on traits they had acquired during their lifetime to their offspring, using inheritance. Today, his theory is known as Lamarckism. Its main purpose is to explain adaptations by natural means. He proposed a tendency for organisms to become more complex, moving up a ladder of progress, plus use and disuse.

Lamarck's idea was that a giraffe's neck grew longer because it tried to reach higher up. This idea failed because it conflicts with heredity (Mendel's work). Mendel made his discoveries about half a century after Lamarck's work.

Darwin
Darwin 

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) wrote his On the Origin of Species in 1859. In this book, he put forward much evidence that evolution had occurred. He also proposed natural selection as the way evolution had taken place. But Darwin did not understand genetics and how traits were actually passed on. He could not accurately explain what made children look like their parents.

Nevertheless, Darwin's explanation of evolution was fundamentally correct. In contrast to Lamarck, Darwin's idea was that the giraffe's neck became longer because those with longer necks survived better.p177/9 These survivors passed their genes on, and in time the whole species got longer necks.

Wallace 
Alfred Russel Wallace OM FRS (1823–1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, biologist, and social activist. He proposed a theory of natural selection at about the same time as Darwin. His idea was published in 1858 together with Charles Darwin's idea.
Mendel 
An Austrian monk called Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) bred plants. In the mid-19th century, he discovered how traits were passed on from one generation to the next.

He used peas for his experiments: some peas have white flowers and others have red ones. Some peas have green seeds and others have yellow seeds. Mendel used artificial pollination to breed the peas. His results are discussed further in Mendelian inheritance. Darwin thought that the inheritance from both parents blended together. Mendel proved that the genes from the two parents stay separate, and may be passed on unchanged to later generations.
Mendel published his results in a journal that was not well-known, and his discoveries were overlooked. Around 1900, his work was rediscovered. Genes are bits of information made of DNA which work like a set of instructions. A set of genes are in every living cell. Together, genes organise the way an egg develops into an adult. With mammals, and many other living things, a copy of each gene comes from the father and another copy from the mother. Some living organisms, including some plants, only have one parent, so get all their genes from them. These genes produce the genetic differences that evolution acts on.

Darwin's theory 
Darwin's On the Origin of Species has two themes: the evidence for evolution, and his ideas on how evolution took place. This section deals with the second issue.

Variation 

The first two chapters of the Origin deal with variations in domesticated plants and animals, and variations in nature.
All living things show variation. Every population which has been studied shows that animals and plants vary as much as humans do.p90 This is a great fact of nature, and without it evolution would not occur. Darwin said that, just as man selects what he wants in his farm animals, so in nature the variations allow natural selection to work.

The features of an individual are influenced by two things, heredity and environment. First, development is controlled by genes inherited from the parents. Second, living brings its own influences. Some things are entirely inherited, others partly, and some not inherited at all.
The colour of eyes is entirely inherited; they are a genetic trait. Height or weight is only partly inherited, and language is not at all inherited. The fact that humans can speak is inherited, but what language is spoken depends on where a person lives and what they are taught. Another example: a person inherits a brain of somewhat variable capacity. What happens after birth depends on many things such as home environment, education, and other experiences. When a person is an adult, their brain is what their inheritance and life experience have made it.

Evolution only concerns the traits which can be inherited, wholly or partly. The hereditary traits are passed on from one generation to the next through genes. A person's genes contain all the characteristics that they inherit from their parents. The accidents of life are not passed on. Each person lives a somewhat different life, which increases the differences.
Organisms in any population vary in reproductive success.p81 From the point of view of evolution, 'reproductive success' means the total number of offspring which live to breed and leave offspring themselves.

Inherited variation 
Variation can only affect future generations if it is inherited. Because of the work of Gregor Mendel, we know that much variation is inherited. Mendel's 'factors' are now called genes. Research has shown that almost every individual in a sexually reproducing species is genetically unique.p204
Genetic variation is increased by gene mutations. DNA does not always reproduce exactly. Rare changes occur, and these changes can be inherited. Many changes in DNA cause faults; some are neutral or even advantageous. This gives rise to genetic variation, which is the seed corn of evolution. Sexual reproduction, by the crossing over of chromosomes during meiosis, spreads variation through the population. Other events, like natural selection and drift, reduce variation. A population in the wild always has variation, but the details are always changing.p90

Natural selection