may

• 1 Joseph Addison, essayist and critic, b. Wiltshire 1672
• 2 Satyajit Ray, film director, b. Calcutta 1921
• 3 Nicolo Machiavelli, diplomat and writer, b. Florence 1469
• 4 Audrey Hepburn, actress, b. Brussels 1929
• 5 Karl Marx, philospher and economist, b. Trier, Germany 1818
• 6 Sigmund Freud, psychiatrist, b. Moravia 1856
• 7 Gary Cooper, actor, b. Montana1901
• 8 Jean Henri Dunant, founder of International Red Cross, b. Geneva 1828
• 9 Dame Lilian Baylis, theatrical manager, b. London 1874
• 10 Fred Astaire, dancer and actor, Omaha, b. Nebraska 1899
• 11 Martha Graham, dancer and choreographer, b. Pittsburgh 1893
• 12 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, poet and painter, b. London 1828
• 13 Daphne Du Maurier, novelist, b. London 1907
• 14 Thomas Gainsborough, artist, b. 1727
• 15 Katherine Anne Porter, writer, b. Indian Creek, Texas 1890
• 16 Woody Herman, clarinetist/band-leader, b. Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1913
• 17 Dorothy Richardson, novelist, b. Abingdon, Berkshire 1873
• 18 Dame Margot Fonteyn, dancer, b. Surrey 1919
• 19 Dame Nellie Melba, singer, b. Melbourne, Australia 1861
• 20 Margery Allingham, novelist b. 1904
• 21 Henri Rousseau, painter, b. Laval, France 1844
• 22 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, writer, b. Edinburgh 1859
• 23 Par Lagerkvist, novelist and poet, b. Sweden 1891
• 24 Bob Dylan, folk-singer, b. Minnesota 1941
• 25 Miles Davis, jazz trumpeter and composer, b. Illinois 1926
• 26 Peggy Lee, singer, b. North Dakota 1920
• 27 Amelia Bloomer, campaigner for women’s rights, b. New York 1818
• 28 The Dionne quintuplets, b. Callendar, Ontario, Canada 1934
• 29 Beatrice Lillie, singer and entertainer, b. Toronto, Canada 1898
• 30 Benny Goodman, clarinetist and bandleader, b. Illinois 1909
• 31 Judith Wright, poet and critic, b. 1915