Top 10 January 25 Birthdays
10. January 25, 1783: William Colgate. The native Kent moved to Baltimore, and built a soap factory into what became the Colgate-Palmolive corporate empire. 9. January 25, 1882: Virginia Woolf. She might not be the highest-ranking British writer on this list -- or even the 2nd-highest -- but she wrote Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando , and A Room of One's Own . 8. January 25, 1927: Antônio Carlos Jobim . The guitarist and composer, "The Father of Bossa Nova," is probably the most famous native of Brazil other than soccer players. But he is not the highest-ranking Portuguese speaker on this list. 7. January 25, 1874: W. Somerset Maugham. He might not be the highest-ranking British writer on this list, but he wrote Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, Cakes and Ale and The Razor's Edge . In their 1965 obituary of him, The Times of London wrote , "no writer of his generation... graced the world of English letters with ...