Top 10 May 22 Birthdays

Dishonorable Mention: May 22, 1942: Theodore Kaczynzski. He could have been one of the great scientists or mathematicians of his generation. Instead, he turned to a primitive life. When the encroachment of society rendered that too difficult, he became the "Unabomber": From 1978 to 1995, he killed 3 people and injured 23 others in 16 separate bombings. Thanks to assistance from his own brother, the FBI arrested him in 1996. In 2021, he was transferred to a federal prison hospital for health reasons.

10. May 22, 1844: Mary Cassatt. One of the few women in the Impressionist painting movement, she was probably the leading female American painter until Georgia O'Keeffe came along.

9. May 22, 1930: Harvey Milk. The 1st openly gay politician elected to office in America, he didn't even get to serve one full year as a member of the Board of Supervisors (San Francisco's equivalent of a City Council) before he was assassinated. He might not have become so big an icon if he had lived longer.

Dishonorable Mention: May 22, 1874: Daniel Malan. Prime Minister of South Africa from 1948 to 1954, he took his country's unofficial system of apartheid, and made it official.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1885: Giacomo Matteotti. The opposition leader in the Italian Parliament after Benito Mussolini's fascist government took over, he was kidnapped and executed in 1924.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1901: Maurice Tobin. Mayor of Boston from 1938 to 1945, Governor of Massachusetts from then until 1947, and U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Harry S Truman from 1948 to 1953.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1957: Lisa Murkowski. The daughter of Alaska Senator and Governor Frank Murkowski, her father appointed her to his former seat in the Senate. She was one of the Republicans who voted to convict Donald Trump in his impeachment trial.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1980: Sharice Davids. A Congresswoman from Kansas, she is one of the few Native Americans in the U.S. House of Representatives, and one of the few openly gay people in it.

8. May 22, 1922: Quinn Martin. Through QM Productions, he produced some legendary TV series: The Fugitive, Twelve O'Clock High, The F.B.I., Barnaby Jones, The Streets of San Francisco and Cannon.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1938: Richard Benjamin. He starred in Goodbye Columbus, Catch-22, Westworld, The Sunshine Boys and Love at First Bite. He directed My Favorite Year, City Heat, The Money Pit, Little Nikita and Mrs. Winterbourne. Since 1961, he has been married to actress Paul Prentiss.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1939: Paul Winfield. He starred in Sounder, and played Martin Luther King in a TV miniseries. He also appeared in Star Trek twice: As a human starship captain in The Wrath of Khan, and as a Tamarian captain in the Next Generation episode "Darmok."

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1970: Naomi Campbell. One of the top models of her generation.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1972: Max Brooks. The son of comedian-writer-actor-director Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft, he specializes in writing zombie stories.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1972: Alison Eastwood. The daughter of actor-director Clint Eastwood and his 1st wife, secretary Margaret Johnson, she appeared in a few of Clint's films as a child, before a film career in her own right.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1978: Katie Price. Sometimes known as Jordan, she is another of the world's top models.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1978: Ginnifer Goodwin. She played Mary Margaret Blanchard, a.k.a. Snow White, on Once Upon a Time.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1979: Maggie Q. She starred in the 2010-13 TV version of Nikita, and played an FBI Agent on Designated Survivor.

7. May 22, 1946: George Best. By the time he was 22 years old, the winger had already helped Manchester United win 2 Football League titles, and, in 1968, he led them to the European Cup (the 1st time an English team had won it) and won the Ballon d'Or (Golden Ball) for himself as world player of the year.

He had become soccer's first rock star, with his long hair, his stylish play, and his constant appearance in the British tabloids, due to his carousing. To this day, there are T-shirts produced with his face on them, with the caption, "Maradona Good, Pelé Better, George Best." The airport in his native Belfast, Northern Ireland is named for him, and outside United's stadium, Old Trafford, is a statue of that team's 1960s "Holy Trinity": Best, England's Bobby Charlton, and Scotland's Denis Law.

But he was also a cautionary tale. He was the Mickey Mantle of British soccer, right down to the fact that he usually wore Number 7. And, in terms of his drinking and womanizing, Mantle was a bit more discreet. Best didn't know the meaning of the word "discretion," and seemed to enjoy the attention his bad behavior got. Until, like Mantle, his drinking led to his needing a liver transplant. That didn't stop him, and he died at age 59, 4 years younger than Mantle.

And he is not the highest-ranking native of Northern Ireland on this list. That person is yet to come.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1902: Jack Lambert. Not to be confused with the later Hall of Fame linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers who had the same name, this forward helped North London soccer team Arsenal win the 1930 FA Cup, and the 1931 and 1933 Football League titles, scoring 109 goals for the team. He was only 38 when he was killed in a car crash.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1902: Al Simmons. Born Alois Harry Szymanski, he is a serious challenger to Stan Musial and Carl Yastrzemski for the title of the greatest Polish-American baseball player. The left fielder had a .334 lifetime batting average. He collected 2,927 hits, including 307 home runs. He won the AL RBi title in 1929, and the AL batting title in 1930 and '31.

He helped the Philadelphia Athletics win the 1929, '30 and '31 American League Pennants, and the 1929 and '30 World Series; and later a National League Pennant with the 1939 Cincinnati Reds. He appeared in Major League Baseball's 1st 3 All-Star Games, in 1933, '34 and '35.

He has been largely forgotten today, partly because he played his best seasons for a team that, in a manner of speaking, no longer exists, and because he fell 73 hits short of the magic number of 3,000. But he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The team now known as the Oakland Athletics does not retire uniform numbers from its Philadelphia period (Simmons wore 7), but they have elected Simmons to their team Hall of Fame, and the Philadelphia Phillies have honored Simmons with other A's greatest with election to the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame.

In 1999, The Sporting News ranked him 43rd on their list of the 100 Greatest Players. In his 2001 book The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked him 71st, 7th among left fielders.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1940: Mick Tinglehoff. He may have had one of the all-time "sounds dirty but really isn't" names, but this center was a 6-time Pro Bowler, and helped the Minnesota Vikings reach 4 Super Bowls (though losing them all). He holds the record for most consecutive starts for an offensive lineman, 240. The Vikings retired his Number 53, and he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1942: Roger Brown. A forward, he never played in the NBA, due to a gambling scandal, even though he was never charged with anything, only with associating with a known gambler. He was never reinstated. But later Indiana Pacers legend Reggie Miller has called him the greatest basketball player never to play in the NBA.

He was a 4-time All-Star in the ABA, helping the Pacers win 3 ABA Championships, and winning the Playoffs MVP in 1970. The Pacers retired his Number 35. He was named to the ABA All-Time Team. And, since the NBA doesn't control it, he was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. He later served on the Indianapolis City Council.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1943: Tommy John. He appeared in 4 World Series, 3 for the Los Angeles Dodgers, 1 for the New York Yankees -- and lost them all, 2 for the Dodgers against the Yankees, and the 1 with the Yankees against the Dodgers.

Bad luck? Hardly: He had 2 decent careers in Major League Baseball: He won 124 games before the nasty elbow injury, which led to the pioneering surgery that now bears his name; and 164 games after it. He made 4 All-Star Games: 1 before, 3 after. His 288 wins are the most of any post-1900 pitcher not yet in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He has become a good broadcaster.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1946: Howard Kendall. As a player, the midfielder helped Everton, "the blue club of Liverpool," to win the Football League title in 1970. As a manager, he took them to the FA Cup in 1984, the League title and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1985, and the League title again in 1987.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1959: David Blatt. He played basketball at Princeton University, coached Maccabi Tel Aviv to 5 Israeli League titles, and coached the Cleveland Cavaliers to the 2016 NBA Championship. Before you dismiss that achievement by saying he had LeBron James, let me remind you that he also had Kyrie Irving.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1982: Apolo Ohno. One of the greatest short-track speed skaters of all time: At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, he won a Gold Medal and a Silver Medal; at Turin in 2006, he won a Gold and 2 Bronzes; and at Vancouver in 2010, he won a Silver and 2 Bronzes. Totals: 2 Golds, 2 Silvers, 4 Bronzes. In 2007, he and Julianne Hough won ABC's Dancing with the Stars.

6. May 22, 1987: Novak Djokovic. Since 2008, "Joker" has won a record 9 Australian Opens, 6 Wimbledons, 3 U.S. Opens, and 2 French Opens, for a total of 20 majors. He might have won more, if not for his stubborn refusal to get vaccinated against COVID.

Concluding with the 2016 French Open, he won all 4 majors in a row, although it's only considered an official Grand Slam if it's all done in a single calendar year. At 35, he is ranked the world's Number 1 player.

5. May 22, 1943: Betty Williams. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976, for her work for peace in her native Northern Ireland.

4. May 22, 1950: Bernie Taupin. If you think Elton John is one of the greatest rock and roll performers of all time, then you should know (and probably already do) that Bernie wrote most of his lyrics.

Somewhat Honorable Mention: May 22, 1813: Richard Wagner. The author of the Ring Cycle was, sadly, anti-Semitic enough for the Nazis to appropriate his works for their purposes.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1914: Sun Ra. Born Herman Poole Blount, he claimed to be an alien (inspiring basketball star Darryl Dawkins) and became a pioneer of experimental jazz music (inspiring funk master George Clinton).

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1924: Charles Azanvour. He was known as "France's Frank Sinatra."

Somewhat Honorable Mention: May 22, 1959: Morrissey. There's a fine line between being soulful and whining, and Stephen Patrick Morrissey, the lead singer of The Smiths, often forgot that. He's also come to match Eric Clapton in terms of English white nationalism, putting a cloud over him.

Honorable Mention: May 22, 1966: Johnny Gill. One of the few "R&B" singers of the last 40 years who actually sounds like he can sing rhythm and blues.

3. May 22, 1907: Laurence Olivier. Considered the British stage actor of all time, he specialized in the works of William Shakespeare, and both directed and starred in 3 films based on The Bard's work: Henry V (1944), Hamlet (1948) and Richard III (1955).

2. May 22, 1783: William Sturgeon. In 1825, he invented the electromagnet. In 1832, he invented the electric motor. The Industrial Revolution was on.

1. May 22, 1859: Arthur Conan Doyle. A Scottish physician, much like his 2nd-greatest literary creation, Dr. John H. Watson. His greatest literary creation was the man Watson assisted, scientific detective Sherlock Holmes.

Still alive as of this writing: Kaczynski, Markowski, Davids, Benjamin, Campbell, Brooks, Price, Goodwin, Maggie Q, John, Blatt, Ohno, Djokovic, Taupin, Morrissey and Gill.