Famous people born on July 25th

July 25 brings together an unusually wide range of public figures, from pivotal political leaders and philosophers to artists, performers, and athletes. The date also captures stories that shaped modern history alongside voices that influenced how we think, write, and create. With 19 notable birthdays, it is a snapshot of achievement across centuries and disciplines.

Notable highlights

• Eric Hoffer (1902) - The longshoreman-philosopher whose book The True Believer became a classic study of mass movements and fanaticism.
• Arthur Balfour (1848) - British prime minister remembered in part for the 1917 Balfour Declaration, a document with lasting geopolitical impact.
• Gavrilo Princip (1894) - The Bosnian Serb nationalist whose assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand helped ignite World War I.
• Elias Canetti (1905) - Nobel Prize-winning author whose landmark work Crowds and Power examines the psychology of groups and authority.
• James Lafferty (1985) - Actor known for anchoring the long-running teen drama One Tree Hill as Nathan Scott.
• Louise Brown (1978) - The first person born via IVF (in 1978), a milestone that transformed reproductive medicine worldwide.
• Henry Knox (1750) - American Revolutionary War general who hauled artillery from Fort Ticonderoga, aiding the strategy that pressured the British to evacuate Boston.
• Maxfield Parrish (1870) - Illustrator and painter famous for luminous color and idyllic scenes that became icons of early 20th-century American visual culture.
• Thurston Moore (1958) - Sonic Youth co-founder whose guitar experimentation helped define alternative and noise rock.
• Illeana Douglas (1965) - Actress and writer celebrated for sharp character work in films such as To Die For and Goodfellas.

On this day

• 1909 - Louis Blériot makes the first flight across the English Channel, proving the strategic and practical promise of powered aviation.
• 1946 - The United States conducts the first postwar atomic test, launching the Operation Crossroads nuclear trials at Bikini Atoll.
• 1978 - Louise Brown is born in England as the first baby conceived by in vitro fertilization (IVF).
• 1984 - Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a spacewalk.