Top 10 February 23 Birthdays

Honorable Mention: February 23, 1960: Emperor Naruhito of Japan. The grandson of Hirohito, he is a purely ceremonial leader. And, like most world leaders, he doesn't like Donald Trump, either.

10. February 23, 1925: Louis Stokes. The brother of Carl Stokes, the 1st black Mayor of a large American city, he represented that same city, Cleveland, in the U.S. House of Representatives, the 1st black one from Ohio. He became the 1st person on the House Appropriations Committee, and eventually chaired the Congressional Black Caucus and the House Intelligence Committee.

9. February 23, 1633: Samuel Pepys. A member of England's Parliament during the reign of King Charles II, he kept a diary that provided great detail on the events of that period, including the Great Plague of London in 1665 and the Great Fire the next year.

Honorable Mention: February 23, 1904: William L. Shirer. Nearly as important a historian, he wrote the greatest chronicle thus far of Nazi Germany, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

8. February 23, 1744: Mayer Rothschild. Founder of the Rothschild banking family that became one of the richest in the world, and also became the target of some ridiculous conspiracy theories, probably due to the family being both rich and Jewish.

7. February 23, 1850: César Ritz. Founder of the Ritz Hotel in Paris, which grew into the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain. Because of the luxury of those hotels, something fancy and expensive became "ritzy."

6. February 23, 1965: Michael Dell. Founder of the computer company that bears his name, which built the laptop on which I wrote this post.

5. February 23, 1929: Elston Howard. The 1st black player for the Yankees, he was the 1st black player to win the Most Valuable Player award in the American League. He won 9 Pennants and 4 World Series.

4. February 23, 1937: Tom Osborne. As a quarterback, he was named Nebraska's high school athlete of the year in 1955. He played at Hastings College, (now an NAIA school that can also claim Bill Parcells as a graduate), and played for the Washington Redskins in 1960 and '61.

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An assistant coach to Bob Devaney on the University of Nebraska's 1970 and 1971 National Champions, he took over in 1973, winning 13 Conference Championships, and the National Championship in 1994, 1995 and 1997 -- after same painful near-misses. He later served 6 years as a Republican Congressman from Nebraska.

Honorable Mention: February 23, 1923: Dante Lavelli. The Hall of Fame receiver won 7 league titles (4 AAFC, 3 NFL) with the Cleveland Browns.

Honorable Mention: February 23, 1940: Jackie Smith. For 15 seasons, he was a Hall of Fame tight end with the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals, but never got into a Super Bowl. In his 16th, he got into one with the Dallas Cowboys, and... uh, let's move on.

Honorable Mention: February 23, 1943: Fred Biletnikoff. The receiver was a Florida State football player long before it was cool. And he was the MVP of Super Bowl XI.

3. February 23, 1889: Victor Fleming. In 1939, he directed a little picture titled The Wizard of Oz, and another little picture titled Gone with the Wind. That was just in 1 year.

From 1932 to 1941, he directed those 2, and Red Dust, and the most familiar film version of Treasure Island, and Captains Courageous, and the most familiar film version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Honorable Mention: February 23, 1932: Majel Barrett. Mrs. Gene Roddenberry was the First Lady of Star Trek, from playing the First Officer "Number One" in the original 1964 pilot "The Cage" to her last role, as the voice of the Enterprise's computer, in the 2009 reboot film.

Honorable Mention: February 23, 1940: Peter Fonda. Henry's son, Jane's brother and Bridget's father might be only the 4th-best actor in the family. And his greatest achievement, Easy Rider, is the kind of film you would think I would like, but I hated it. Nevertheless, the film is beloved by many.

Honorable Mention: February 23, 1951: Patricia Richardson. Best known for playing Jill Taylor on Home Improvement, and telling Tim Allen, "Tiiiim, you're pathetic!"

Honorable Mention: February 23, 1970: Niecy Nash. One of the funniest women in America. Unfortunately, so is the also-alliteratively-named Sherri Shepherd, and I used to get them confused.

Honorable Mention: February 23, 1983: Emily Blunt. She's played Queen Catherine Howard (the 5th Mrs. King Henry VIII), a young Queen Victoria, Mary Poppins, and, in perhaps her toughest role, Miss Piggy's receptionist. Sadly, she's married to Boston Red Sox fan John Krasinski, and that makes her a Chowdahead-in-Law.

Honorable Mention: February 23, 1994: Dakota Fanning. It must have shocked fans who saw her as a child star to see her play Manson Family member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Even more shocking, she's gone from playing Fromme, the would-be assassin of President Gerald Ford, to playing Ford's daughter Susan in the upcoming Showtime miniseries The First Lady.

2. February 23, 1685: George Frideric Handel. Along with Johann Sebastian Bach, he was the leading composer of the 1st half of the 18th Century.

Honorable Mention: February 23, 1944: Johnny Winter. Like his younger brother Edgar, he was an albino who played a mean blues guitar. Unlike Edgar, he was at Woodstock.

Honorable Mention: February 23, 1952: Brad Whitford. Along with Joe Perry, one of the guitarists in Aerosmith. Not to be confused with West Wing actor Bradley Whitford.

1. February 23, 1868: W.E.B. Du Bois. The 1st black person to earn a doctorate at Harvard University, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (and he pronounced it "Doo BOYSS," not the French "Du BWA") was one of the founders of the NAACP.

More than anyone else, he worked to raise the profile of the history of black people in America, making its study an integral part of learning American history. Late in life, he moved to the African nation of Ghana. Born at perhaps the height of Reconstruction, he died the day before the March On Washington in 1963.

Still alive as of this writing: Naruhito, Dell, Osborne, Smith, Biletnikoff, Richardson, Nash, Blunt, Fanning, Whitford.