Famous Male Aviators
List of famous male aviators, listed by their level of prominence with photos when available. This greatest male aviators list contains the most prominent and top males known for being aviators. There are thousand of males working as aviators in the world, but this list highlights only the most notable ones. Historic aviators have worked hard to become the best that they can be, so if you're a male aspiring to be a aviator then the people below should give you inspiration.
This list contains people like Peter Tomarken and James Banning.
While this isn't a list of all male aviators, it does answer the questions "Who are the most famous male aviators?" and "Who are the best male aviators?"- George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, was born on July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Connecticut. He was raised in Texas and educated at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and Yale University. His early career included co-founding an oil exploration company and managing a Major League Baseball team. His political career began when he was elected Governor of Texas in 1994. Bush's presidency, which spanned from 2001 to 2009, was marked by significant events and policy shifts. His tenure commenced with the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, which shaped his foreign policy and led to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Domestically, Bush enacted tax cuts and promoted education reform through the No Child Left Behind Act. His second term was dominated by efforts to manage two ongoing wars and respond to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. After leaving office, Bush retreated from politics to focus on philanthropy and writing. He established the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas, which includes a library and museum dedicated to his presidency. He has also written several books, including a memoir and a book honoring America's military veterans.
- Birthplace: New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
- Harrison Ford, an iconic figure in Hollywood, carved a niche for himself through his remarkable acting abilities. Born on July 13, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois, Ford's journey to stardom was not immediate. He initially worked as a carpenter to support his passion for acting. His breakthrough came when he was cast as Han Solo in Star Wars (1977) by George Lucas, which catapulted him to international fame. Ford's embodiment of the adventurous archaeologist Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and its subsequent sequels, further solidified his status as a leading man. His ability to balance action-packed roles with dramatic performances was demonstrated in films like Witness (1985), for which he received an Academy Award nomination, and The Fugitive (1993). His portrayal of various characters across genres showcased his versatility and established him as a household name. Beyond his acting career, Ford is a licensed pilot and dedicated environmentalist. He has used his influence to promote conservation efforts, particularly through his association with Conservation International, where he served as Vice Chair. Despite facing several setbacks, including a near-fatal plane crash in 2015, Ford's resilience and commitment to his craft and causes are testament to his enduring appeal and distinction in the entertainment industry.
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Terry Deitz (born October 10, 1959) is a retired U.S. Navy pilot, television host, and two-time contestant on the American reality television show Survivor, where he placed third in the 12th season. He also competed in the 31st season, placing 15th. He is currently a commercial airline pilot and host of Great Planes on the Military Channel.
- Birthplace: Matawan, New Jersey, USA
- Morgan Freeman, an acclaimed figure in the world of cinema, is renowned for his distinctive deep voice and unparalleled acting prowess. Born on June 1, 1937, in Memphis, Tennessee, Freeman embarked on his acting journey at a young age by participating in school plays. His passion for performing arts led him to further refine his skills at Los Angeles City College where he studied theatre arts. In the early phase of his career, Freeman appeared in various television shows and stage productions. However, it was not until the 1980s that he gained significant recognition by playing pivotal roles in films like Street Smart (1987), which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Over time, Freeman's talent brought him universal acclaim with movies like Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and The Shawshank Redemption (1994). His performance as a wise prison inmate in the latter film solidified his position as one of Hollywood's most respected actors. Freeman's dedication to cinema has been widely recognized with numerous awards including the prestigious Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Million Dollar Baby (2004). Despite reaching heights of fame and critical success rarely achieved by other artists of his generation or any other era - Morgan still pursued new challenges; lending his unique voice to narrate several documentaries and even directing films himself. A true testament to longevity and versatility within the art form - Morgan Freeman continues leaving indelible marks on audiences worldwide through each character he brings to life.
- Birthplace: Memphis, Tennessee, USA
- Craig Ferguson, born on May 17, 1962, in Glasgow, Scotland, is a multi-faceted personality who carved his niche in the entertainment world as a comedian, actor, writer, and television host. A man of extraordinary talent, Ferguson has left an indelible imprint on audiences around the globe through his diverse roles and unique comedic style. His journey is a testament to his resilience, creativity, and relentless pursuit of excellence. Ferguson's career trajectory is a compelling narrative of transformation and growth. Initially starting off as a drummer in a rock band called Dreamboys, he transitioned into comedy and acting during the mid-1980s. His breakthrough role came with the character "Nigel Wick" on the sitcom The Drew Carey Show, which cemented his place in American television. However, it was his tenure as the host of CBS's The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson from 2005 to 2014 that truly catapulted him to international fame. The show, revered for its innovative format and Ferguson's witty humor, garnered him a Primetime Emmy Nomination in 2006 and a Peabody Award in 2009. Adding another feather to his cap, Ferguson is also an acclaimed author. He has penned two books: his autobiography American On Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot, and the novel Between The Bridge and The River. Both publications received critical acclaim, further solidifying his reputation as a versatile artist.
- Birthplace: Glasgow, Scotland, UK
- Howard Hughes, a name that resonates with aviation, filmmaking, and business, was born on December 24, 1905, in Houston, Texas. The son of a successful inventor, Hughes was nurtured amidst a backdrop of affluence and industry innovation, which ultimately paved the way for his own grand endeavors. A gifted student, he dropped out of Rice University to take the reins of his family's substantial fortune at the age of 18 following the untimely demise of his parents. This marked the inception of a career characterized by unprecedented achievements, accompanied by a fair share of controversy. Highly ambitious, Hughes dabbled in multiple industries. His initial endeavors were in the film industry where his work demonstrated an audacious flair. His most popular films include Hell's Angels and Scarface, both of which attracted great attention for their unconventional themes during the conservative era of the 1930s. A parallel passion for aviation led him to establish the Hughes Aircraft Company. Hughes, an accomplished aviator himself, set several world air speed records. His success in these diverse domains underscored his risk-taking spirit and innovative mindset. However, Hughes's life was not devoid of struggle. In later years, he was known for his eccentric behavior, reclusiveness, and health issues, widely speculated to be symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Despite these challenges, Hughes never ceased to astound the world with his ventures. He purchased and expanded Trans World Airlines (TWA) making it one of the leading airlines of its time. He also invested in real estate, notably in Las Vegas, contributing to its transformation into a major leisure and entertainment center. A life as intriguing as his ended on April 5, 1976, leaving behind a legacy that continues to inspire and fascinate.
- Birthplace: Texas, USA, Humble
- Harry Houdini, born Erik Weisz in 1874, was a Hungarian-American magician and escapologist, stunt performer, actor, and film producer renowned for his sensational escape acts. His early life was marked by poverty, as he was one of seven children born to a Rabbi and his wife who immigrated to the United States from Hungary. Yet, despite these humble beginnings, he would go on to become one of the most famous performers of the 20th century. Houdini's illustrious career began with card tricks before he ventured into escape acts which earned him international acclaim. With an uncanny ability to escape from seemingly impossible situations, including handcuffs, straightjackets underwater, and sealed milk cans, he came to be known as "The Handcuff King". Notably, he also debunked spiritualists as part of his act, exposing frauds that claimed to have supernatural powers. This aspect of his career demonstrated his commitment to the truth behind the illusion, making him not just an entertainer but a crusader against deception. In addition to his stage performances, Houdini made significant contributions to the world of cinema. He acted in several films and founded his own film production company. Despite his death in 1926 from peritonitis, his legacy continues to thrive. Houdini's influence is prominent in the sphere of magic and performance artistry, with his daring stunts and imaginative performances setting the bar for future generations. His life story serves as a testament to his tenacity, creativity, and enduring appeal.
- Birthplace: Budapest, Hungary
- John McCain, born in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone, was a decorated figure in American political history. His life was characterized by tenacious service to his country and a commitment to principled leadership. His journey began with his enrollment in the U.S. Naval Academy, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, both four-star admirals. McCain's military service would prove to be a defining period in his life, marked by his five-year imprisonment during the Vietnam War, from 1967 to 1973. During this time, he displayed extraordinary resilience, courageously refusing early release out of respect for his fellow prisoners. Post his military career, McCain entered the realm of politics, serving Arizona as a Congressman and later as a Senator starting from 1987. Throughout his tenure, he earned a reputation for his 'maverick' stance, often breaking away from party lines in pursuit of what he believed to be right. This led him to make significant strides in areas such as campaign finance reform, immigration policy, and foreign relations. He became a respected voice on defense and foreign policy, known for his passionate advocacy of democracy and human rights globally. In 2000 and again in 2008, McCain ran for the presidency of the United States, securing the Republican nomination in the latter year. Although he did not win either election, the campaigns highlighted his dedication to national service, bipartisanship, and uncompromising integrity. Even after being diagnosed with brain cancer in 2017, John McCain continued to serve his country until his death in August 2018. His legacy endures as a testament to his unwavering commitment to principled leadership and steadfast dedication to the betterment of his country.
- Birthplace: Canal Zone, Panama
- Mark-Paul Gosselaar is a distinguished actor of Dutch and Indonesian descent who made his mark in the entertainment industry with a diverse range of performances. Born on March 1, 1974, in Panorama City, Los Angeles, he was raised in Southern California where he discovered his passion for acting at a young age. His acting journey began with guest appearances on television shows, but it didn't take long for his talent to get recognized. Gosselaar catapulted into stardom when he landed the role of "Zack Morris" in the iconic American sitcom Saved by the Bell, which aired from 1989 to 1993. His portrayal of the charming, quick-witted high school student won hearts globally, establishing him as a household name. The success of the show led to several spin-offs, in which Gosselaar reprised his role, further cementing his popularity. Beyond Saved by the Bell, Gosselaar continued to demonstrate his acting prowess with significant roles in other popular television series. He starred as "Detective John Clark Jr." in the critically acclaimed crime drama NYPD Blue and as Peter Bash in the legal comedy-drama Franklin & Bash. He also showcased his versatility with a memorable performance in the mixed martial arts drama series Kingdom. Despite his early typecasting, Gosselaar's career trajectory reflects his ability to master a wide array of characters, solidifying his reputation as a versatile and accomplished actor.
- Birthplace: Panorama City, California, USA
- John Denver, born Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. on December 31, 1943, was an iconic American singer-songwriter, record producer, actor, activist, and humanitarian who became one of the most popular acoustic artists of the 1970s. Raised in a military family, Denver's passion for music was sparked at an early age when he was gifted an old Gibson guitar by his grandmother. He adopted his stage name as a tribute to the capital city of his beloved Colorado, a state that often served as inspiration for his music. Denver's career took flight with his first major hit, "Take Me Home, Country Roads," which reached number two on Billboard's Hot 100 chart in 1971. His subsequent singles, such as "Rocky Mountain High," "Sunshine on My Shoulders," and "Annie's Song," further solidified his status as a leading figure in folk music. His signature lyrical focus on nature, his simple yet evocative melodies, and his warm, tenor voice resonated with audiences worldwide, earning him 12 gold and four platinum albums. Apart from his illustrious music career, Denver was also known for his environmental and humanitarian work. He founded the World Hunger Project in 1977, championing the cause of ending world hunger. A dedicated environmentalist, Denver used his platform to advocate for conservation efforts, notably serving on the Presidential Commission on World and Domestic Hunger. In addition to his activism, Denver also ventured into acting, starring in films like Oh, God! alongside George Burns. His life was cut tragically short in a plane crash in 1997, but his legacy continues to influence the music industry and inspire countless artists.
- Birthplace: USA, Roswell, New Mexico
- Buzz Aldrin, born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr., is an American astronaut and mechanical engineer who made significant contributions to the history of space exploration. Born on January 20, 1930, in Montclair, New Jersey, Aldrin graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and later earned a doctorate in astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Aldrin's name came into prominence when he joined NASA's Astronaut Group 3 in 1963. His first spaceflight occurred in 1966 aboard Gemini 12, where he set a record for extravehicular activity and effectively proved that astronauts could work outside spacecraft. However, it was his second spaceflight that would etch his name in gold in the annals of history. As a member of the Apollo 11 mission, Aldrin became the second person to walk on the moon on July 20, 1969, following mission commander Neil Armstrong. This monumental achievement was watched by millions around the globe and stands as a pivotal moment in human space exploration. Post-NASA career, Aldrin continued to advocate for space exploration and has written numerous books and papers on the subject. He proposed a special spacecraft cycling system, now known as the Aldrin cycler, aiming to provide regular, cost-effective travel to Mars. To this day, Aldrin has remained a prominent figure in the public eye, often speaking at events and appearing in popular culture as an icon of human adventure and discovery. His life serves as a testament to the power of human ambition and the limitless possibilities of exploration.
- Birthplace: USA, Glen Ridge, New Jersey
- John F. Kennedy Jr., born on November 25, 1960, was a prominent figure in American history, not just for his family lineage but also for his personal achievements and charisma. He was the only son of the 35th U.S. President, John F. Kennedy, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. His birth took place just a few weeks after his father's historic election, making him an immediate national icon. This early public exposure laid the foundation for his future endeavors in media and law. Kennedy Jr. graduated from Brown University in 1983 with a degree in American Studies. He later obtained his Juris Doctor (J.D.) from New York University Law School in 1989. Despite facing early challenges in his legal career, including failing the bar exam twice, he eventually became an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, serving from 1989 to 1993. During this time, he demonstrated his commitment to public service, a trait shared by many members of the Kennedy clan. In 1995, Kennedy Jr. ventured into publishing, co-founding the political magazine George. As editor-in-chief, he combined politics and celebrity culture in a way that was both innovative and engaging. This new direction in his career showcased his ability to leverage his unique position at the intersection of politics, media, and fame. Kennedy Jr.'s life, however, was tragically cut short when he died in a plane crash in July 1999, leaving behind a legacy that continues to captivate and inspire.
- Birthplace: Washington, D.C., USA
Hunter Ellis
Age: 56Hunter Ellis (born July 5, 1968, Alexandria, Virginia) is an American military veteran and television personality.A former naval aviator, he was first noted for his participation on Survivor before going on to host several television shows for the History Channel, including Tactical to Practical; Man, Moment, Machine; and Digging for the Truth, before hosting The CW reality show In Harm's Way. He is the current spokesperson for Atomic Beam- Birthplace: Alexandria, Virginia, USA
- Charles Lindbergh, born in Detroit, Michigan on February 4, 1902, was an American aviator who achieved worldwide fame as the first person to fly solo and non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean. Born to a congressman father and a schoolteacher mother, his love for machinery and technology was evident from a young age. Lindbergh's early years were marked by frequent moves, following his father's political career, which ultimately led him to develop a strong sense of independence and a curiosity about the world. Lindbergh's fascination with flight took root during his time as a U.S. Air Mail pilot, but it was his daring transatlantic flight in May 1927 that put his name in the history books. In his single-engine plane, "The Spirit of St. Louis," he flew from New York to Paris, covering an astonishing distance of nearly 3,600 miles in thirty-three and a half hours. The feat was not only a triumph of engineering but also a testament to Lindbergh's skill, courage, and unwavering determination. This historic achievement won him the prestigious Orteig Prize and secured his place in aviation history. However, Lindbergh's life was not without controversy. His first-born son was tragically kidnapped and murdered in 1932, a case that became known as "The Crime of the Century". Later, his apparent sympathy towards Nazi Germany prior to World War II stirred public outcry. Yet, despite these tumultuous personal trials and public scrutiny, Lindbergh continued his work in aviation and conservation until his passing in 1974. A complex figure, Charles Lindbergh remains emblematic of the bold spirit of exploration and the relentless pursuit of progress that characterized the early 20th century.
- Birthplace: Michigan, USA, Detroit
- Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. (June 2, 1930 – July 8, 1999) (Captain, USN), was an American NASA astronaut, aeronautical engineer, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and during the Apollo 12 mission became the third man to walk on the Moon. Conrad was selected in NASA's second astronaut class. He set an eight-day space endurance record along with his Command Pilot Gordon Cooper on his first spaceflight, the Gemini 5 mission. Conrad also commanded the Gemini 11 mission. He became the third human to walk on the moon during the Apollo 12 mission. After Apollo, he commanded Skylab 2, the first crewed Skylab mission. On the mission, he and his crewmates repaired significant launch damage to the Skylab space station. For this, President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978. After he retired from NASA in 1973, he became a vice president of American Television and Communications Company. He went on to work for McDonnell Douglas, as a vice president. During his tenure, he served as vice president of marketing, senior vice president of marketing, staff vice president of international business development, and vice president of project development. Conrad died on July 8, 1999, from internal injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.
- Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Rear Admiral Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and businessman. In 1961 he became the first American to travel into space, and in 1971 he walked on the Moon. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Shepard saw action with the surface navy during World War II. He became a naval aviator in 1946, and a test pilot in 1950. He was selected as one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts in 1959, and in May 1961 he made the first crewed Project Mercury flight, MR-3, in a spacecraft he named Freedom 7. His craft entered space, but was not capable of achieving orbit. He became the second person, and the first American, to travel into space, and the first space traveler to manually control the orientation of his craft. In the final stages of Project Mercury, Shepard was scheduled to pilot the Mercury-Atlas 10 (MA-10), which was planned as a three-day mission. He named Mercury Spacecraft 15B Freedom 7 II in honor of his first spacecraft, but the mission was canceled. Shepard was designated as the commander of the first crewed Project Gemini mission, but was grounded in 1963 due to Ménière's disease, an inner-ear ailment that caused episodes of extreme dizziness and nausea. This was surgically corrected in 1969, and in 1971, Shepard commanded the Apollo 14 mission, piloting the Apollo Lunar Module Antares to the most accurate landing of the Apollo missions. At age 47, he became the fifth, the oldest, and the earliest-born person to walk on the Moon, and the only one of the Mercury Seven astronauts to do so. During the mission, he hit two golf balls on the lunar surface. Shepard was Chief of the Astronaut Office from November 1963 to July 1969 (the approximate period of his grounding), and from June 1971 until his retirement from the United States Navy and NASA on August 1, 1974. He was promoted to rear admiral on August 25, 1971, the first astronaut to reach that rank.
- Birthplace: New Hampshire, USA, Derry
- Neal A Boortz Jr. (born April 6, 1945) is an American author, former attorney, and former conservative radio host. His nationally syndicated talk show, The Neal Boortz Show, which ended in 2013, was carried throughout the United States. It was ranked seventh in overall listeners, with more than 4.25 million per week. The content of the show included politics, current events, social issues, and topics of interest, which Boortz discussed with callers, correspondents, and guests. Boortz touched on many controversial topics. Boortz's first involvement with radio was in the 1960s, while he was a student at Texas A&M University, working as a local on-air personality at WTAW. After moving to Georgia, he became an avid listener of Atlanta's first talk radio station. Boortz became a regular caller to the morning talk show. When the show's host died, it created a job opening, which Boortz actively pursued. He was initially hired on a two-week "trial run", and later offered the permanent position. Boortz attended night law school, earning a law degree in 1977. For some years he worked as both an attorney and as a talk show host. He eventually closed his law practice to concentrate on his work in radio. Boortz has received many industry accolades. He was named as one of the "25 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts in America" by Talkers magazine, and one of "Georgia's 100 Most Influential People" by Georgia Trend. In 2009, Boortz was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. Boortz's first book was The Commencement Speech You Need To Hear in 1997, followed by The Terrible Truth About Liberals, in 1998. In 2005, he co-wrote The FairTax Book with Congressman John Linder, proposing to implement a variant of a national retail sales tax in lieu of other federal taxes. Boortz's involvement with the FairTax is covered in the documentary film An Inconvenient Tax.
- Birthplace: Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA
- Jacob Lynn "Jake" Pavelka (born January 27, 1978) is an American pilot who appeared on six reality TV programs, most notably The Bachelor.
- Birthplace: Dallas, Texas, USA
- Theodore Samuel "Ted" Williams was an American Major League Baseball left fielder, and later manager. Williams played his entire 19-year major league career for the Boston Red Sox from 19391942 and 19461960. Nicknamed "The Kid", "The Splendid Splinter", "Teddy Ballgame", "The Thumper" and "The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived", Williams is regarded as one of the greatest hitters in baseball history.
- Birthplace: USA, California, San Diego
- Guion Stewart Bluford Jr., Ph.D. (born November 22, 1942), (Col, USAF, Ret.), is an American aerospace engineer, retired U.S. Air Force officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut, who is the first African American and the second person of African descent to go to space. Before becoming an astronaut, he was an officer in the U.S. Air Force, where he remained while assigned to NASA, rising to the rank of colonel. He participated in four Space Shuttle flights between 1983 and 1992. In 1983, as a member of the crew of the Orbiter Challenger on the mission STS-8, he became the first African American in space as well as the second person of African ancestry in space, after Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez.
- Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Walter Marty Schirra Jr. (, March 12, 1923 – May 3, 2007) (Captain, USN, Ret.) was an American naval aviator and NASA astronaut. In 1959, he became one of the original seven astronauts chosen for Project Mercury, which was the United States' first effort to put human beings into space. On October 3, 1962, he flew the six-orbit, nine-hour, Mercury-Atlas 8 mission, in a spacecraft he nicknamed Sigma 7. At the time of his mission in Sigma 7, Schirra became the fifth American and ninth human to travel into space. In the two-man Gemini program, he achieved the first space rendezvous, station-keeping his Gemini 6A spacecraft within 1 foot (30 cm) of the sister Gemini 7 spacecraft in December 1965. In October 1968, he commanded Apollo 7, an 11-day low Earth orbit shakedown test of the three-man Apollo Command/Service Module and the first crewed launch for the Apollo program. He was the first astronaut to go into space three times, and the only astronaut to have flown in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. In total, Schirra logged 295 hours and 15 minutes in space. After Apollo 7, he retired as a captain from the U.S. Navy as well as from NASA, subsequently becoming a consultant to CBS News in the network's coverage of following Apollo flights. Schirra joined Walter Cronkite as co-anchor for all seven of NASA's Moon landing missions.
- Birthplace: Hackensack, New Jersey
- Paul Bruce Dickinson (born 7 August 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, airline pilot, entrepreneur, author, and broadcaster. He is known for his work as the lead singer of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden and is renowned for his wide-ranging operatic vocal style and energetic stage presence. Born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, Dickinson began his career in music fronting small pub bands in the 1970s while attending school in Sheffield and university in London. In 1979, he joined the new wave of British heavy metal band Samson, with whom he gained some popularity under the stage name "Bruce Bruce" and performed on two studio records. He left Samson in 1981 to join Iron Maiden, replacing Paul Di'Anno, and debuted on their 1982 album The Number of the Beast. During his first tenure in the band, they issued a series of US and UK platinum and gold albums in the 1980s. Dickinson quit Iron Maiden in 1993 (being replaced by Blaze Bayley) to pursue his solo career, which saw him experiment with a wide variety of heavy metal and rock styles. He rejoined the band in 1999, along with guitarist Adrian Smith, with whom he has released five subsequent studio albums. Since his return to Iron Maiden, he issued one further solo record in 2005, Tyranny of Souls. His younger cousin, Rob Dickinson, is the former lead singer of British alternative rock band Catherine Wheel, while his son, Austin, fronted the metalcore band Rise to Remain. Outside his career in music, Dickinson is well known for his wide variety of other pursuits. Most notably, he undertook a career as a commercial pilot for Astraeus Airlines, which led to a number of media-reported ventures such as captaining Iron Maiden's converted charter aeroplane, Ed Force One, during their world tours. Following Astraeus' closure, he created his own aircraft maintenance and pilot training company in 2012, Cardiff Aviation. Dickinson presented his own radio show on BBC Radio 6 Music from 2002 to 2010, and has also hosted television documentaries, authored novels and film scripts, created a successful beer with Robinsons Brewery and competed at fencing internationally.
- Birthplace: Worksop, United Kingdom
- Robert Henry Lawrence Jr. (October 2, 1935 – December 8, 1967) was a United States Air Force officer and the first African-American astronaut.
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- Edwin Jacob "Jake" Garn (born October 12, 1932) is an American astronaut, politician, and member of the Republican Party, who served as a U.S. Senator representing Utah from 1974 to 1993. Garn became the first sitting member of the United States Congress to fly in space when he flew aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery as a Payload Specialist during NASA mission STS-51-D (April 12–19, 1985).
- Birthplace: Richfield, Utah, USA
- Alexander Nikolaievich Prokofiev de Seversky was a Russian-American aviation pioneer, inventor, and influential advocate of strategic air power.
- Birthplace: Tbilisi, Georgia
- Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry, simply known as Saint-Exupéry (French: [ɑ̃twan də sɛ̃tɛɡzypeʁi]; 29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of several of France's highest literary awards and also won the United States National Book Award. He is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) and for his lyrical aviation writings, including Wind, Sand and Stars and Night Flight. Saint-Exupéry was a successful commercial pilot before World War II, working airmail routes in Europe, Africa and South America. At the outbreak of war, he joined the French Air Force (Armée de l'Air), flying reconnaissance missions until France's armistice with Germany in 1940. After being demobilised from the French Air Force, he travelled to the United States to help persuade its government to enter the war against Nazi Germany. Following a 27-month hiatus in North America, during which he wrote three of his most important works, he joined the Free French Air Force in North Africa, although he was far past the maximum age for such pilots and in declining health. He disappeared and is believed to have died while on a reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean in July 1944. Prior to the war, Saint-Exupéry had achieved fame in France as an aviator. His literary works – among them The Little Prince, translated into 300 languages and dialects – posthumously boosted his stature to national hero status in France. He earned further widespread recognition with international translations of his other works. His 1939 philosophical memoir Terre des hommes (titled Wind, Sand and Stars in English) became the name of an international humanitarian group; it was also used to create the central theme of the most successful world's fair of the 20th century, Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec. Saint-Exupéry's birthplace, Lyon, has also named its main airport after him.
- Birthplace: Lyon, France
- A laconic performer who possessed an Everyman quality that rendered him perfect for the small screen, actor Dennis Weaver was a television mainstay for more than 40 years, appearing in a variety of television movies while starring on two long-running series, "Gunsmoke" (CBS, 1955-1975) and "McCloud" (1970-77). Having started his career in features, Weaver made the jump to television with a few guest appearances before spending several seasons playing the popular Chester Goode on "Gunsmoke." After leaving the show in 1964, he built off that success into a number of false starts until finally hitting his stride as the star of "McCloud," which showcased him as an easygoing cowboy lawman dealing with the stark pessimism of New York City - a role that many associated with Weaver above all others. While on the show, he starred as an unassuming motorist terrorized by a trucker in "Duel" (ABC, 1971), and spent the decades after "McCloud" ended in a series of made-for-TV movies and series like "Cocaine: One Man's Seduction" (NBC, 1983) and "Buck James" (ABC, 1987-88). An avowed environmentalist and champion of liberal causes, Weaver forged a legacy beyond Hollywood that highlighted his unending empathy for his fellow man, all while retaining his stature as a notable performer.
- Birthplace: Joplin, Missouri, USA
- Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith, MC, AFC (9 February 1897 – 8 November 1935), often called by his nickname Smithy, was an early Australian aviator. In 1928, he made the first trans-Pacific flight from the United States to Australia. He also made the first non-stop crossing of the Australian mainland, the first flights between Australia and New Zealand, and the first eastward Pacific crossing from Australia to the United States; and, also, made a flight from Australia to London, setting a new record of 10.5 days.
- Birthplace: Hamilton, Australia
- Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr. (July 25, 1915 – August 12, 1944) was a United States Navy lieutenant. He was killed in action during World War II while serving as a land-based patrol bomber pilot, and was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. He was the eldest of nine children born to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. (1888–1969) and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (1890–1995). He was the only Kennedy son who never sought political office, though he had planned to. His three younger brothers attained distinguished political positions: John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) served as a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and as U.S. President, Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) served as U.S. Attorney General and as a U.S. Senator from New York, and Senator Ted Kennedy (1932–2009) also served as a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts. Joe Sr. had aspirations for Joe Jr. to become president. However, Joe Jr. was killed while participating in a top-secret mission in 1944, and the high expectations of the father then fell upon Joe Jr.'s younger brother John, who was later elected president.
- Birthplace: Brookline, Massachusetts
- Herbert John Louis Hinkler (8 December 1892 – 7 January 1933), better known as Bert Hinkler, was a pioneer Australian aviator (dubbed "Australian Lone Eagle") and inventor. He designed and built early aircraft before being the first person to fly solo from England to Australia, and the first person to fly solo across the Southern Atlantic Ocean. He married in 1932 at the age of 39, and died less than a year later after crashing into remote countryside near Florence, Italy during a solo flight record attempt.
- Birthplace: Bundaberg, Australia
- Philippe Perrin (Colonel, French Air Force) (born January 6, 1963) is a French test pilot and former CNES and European Space Agency astronaut.
- Birthplace: Meknes, Morocco
- Reginald Denny was an actor who had a successful Hollywood career. Denny's early acting career consisted of roles in various films, such as "Sherlock Holmes" (1922), "The Abysmal Brute" (1923) and "Oh, Doctor!" (1924). He also appeared in "Sporting Youth" (1924), "Where Was I?" (1925) and "California Straight Ahead" (1925). He kept working in film throughout the thirties, starring in the Victor McLaglen drama "The Lost Patrol" (1934), "We're Rich Again" (1934) and "The Richest Girl in the World" (1934) with Miriam Hopkins. He also appeared in the romance "The Little Minister" (1934) with Katharine Hepburn. Nearing the end of his career, he tackled roles in the Marlene Dietrich adventurous drama "Seven Sinners" (1940), "Spring Parade" (1940) and "Appointment for Love" (1941). He also appeared in "International Squadron" (1941) with Ronald Reagan and the Milton Berle comedy "Over My Dead Body" (1942). Denny last acted in the Adam West action flick "Batman: The Movie" (1966). Denny had zero children. Denny passed away in June 1967 at the age of 76.
- Birthplace: Richmond, Surrey, England, UK
- James Patrick "Mash" Dutton, Jr. (born November 20, 1968) is a NASA astronaut pilot of the Class of 2004 (NASA Group 19), and a former test pilot in the US Air Force with the rank of colonel.
- Birthplace: Eugene, Oregon
- Peter David Tomarken (December 7, 1942 – March 13, 2006) was an American television personality primarily known as the host of the game show Press Your Luck.
- Birthplace: USA, New York, Olean
- James Dougal Adrianus "Ox" van Hoften, Ph.D. (born June 11, 1944) is an American civil and hydraulic engineer, retired U.S. Navy officer and aviator, and a former astronaut for NASA.
- Birthplace: Fresno, California
- Glenn Hammond Curtiss (May 21, 1878 – July 23, 1930) was an American aviation and motorcycling pioneer, and a founder of the U.S. aircraft industry. He began his career as a bicycle racer and builder before moving on to motorcycles. As early as 1904, he began to manufacture engines for airships. In 1908, Curtiss joined the Aerial Experiment Association, a pioneering research group, founded by Alexander Graham Bell at Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia, to build flying machines. Curtiss made the first officially witnessed flight in North America, won a race at the world's first international air meet in France, and made the first long-distance flight in the United States. His contributions in designing and building aircraft led to the formation of the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, now part of Curtiss-Wright Corporation. His company built aircraft for the U.S. Army and Navy, and, during the years leading up to World War I, his experiments with seaplanes led to advances in naval aviation. Curtiss civil and military aircraft were predominant in the interwar and World War II eras.
- Birthplace: Hammondsport, New York
- Richard Noel "Dick" Richards (born August 24, 1946), (Capt, USN, Ret.), is a retired American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, chemical engineer, and a former NASA astronaut. He flew aboard four Space Shuttle missions in the 1980s and 1990s.
- Birthplace: Key West, Florida
- Terry Jonathan "T.J." Hart (Pittsburgh, October 27, 1946 ) is an American mechanical and electrical engineer, a retired United States Air Force lieutenant colonel and pilot, and former NASA astronaut.
- Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu (Romanian pronunciation: [duˈmitru doˈrin pruˈnarju] (listen); born 27 September 1952) is a Romanian cosmonaut. He flew in space aboard Soyuz 40 spacecraft and Salyut 6 space laboratory. He was in team with another Romanian cosmonaut called Dumitru Dediu.- Birthplace: Brașov, Centru, Romania
- Thomas David Jones (born January 22, 1955) is a former United States astronaut. He was selected to the astronaut corps in 1990 and completed four space shuttle flights before retiring in 2001. He flew on STS-59 and STS-68 in 1994, STS-80 in 1996 and STS-98 in 2001. His total mission time was 53 days 48 minutes. He works as a planetary scientist, space operations consultant, astronaut speaker, and author.
- Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
- Gherman Stepanovich Titov (Russian: Герман Степанович Титов; 11 September 1935 – 20 September 2000) was a Soviet cosmonaut who, on 6 August 1961, became the second human to orbit the Earth, aboard Vostok 2, preceded by Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1. He was the fourth person in space, counting suborbital voyages of US astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom. Titov's flight finally proved that humans could live and work in space. He was the first person to orbit the Earth multiple times (a total of 17), the first to pilot a spaceship and to spend more than a day in space. He was also the first to sleep in orbit and to suffer from space sickness (becoming the first person to vomit in space).Titov made the first manual photographs from orbit, thus setting a record for modern space photography. He also was the first person to film the Earth using a professional quality Konvas-Avtomat movie camera, which he used for ten minutes. A month short of 26 years old at launch, he remains the youngest person to fly in space.In his subsequent life Titov continued to work for the Soviet space program, and played a major role in the Spiral project where he trained to become the first pilot of an orbital spaceplane. However, after the death of Yuri Gagarin in a military aircraft accident in 1968, the Soviet government decided it couldn't afford to lose its second cosmonaut, and so Titov's career as test pilot ended. Titov served in the Soviet Air Force, attaining the rank of colonel-general. In his final years in post-Soviet Russia he became a Communist politician. Despite having been chosen second, after Gagarin, to fly into space, it was Titov who later proposed the Soviet Government regularly celebrate Cosmonautics Day on April 12, the day of Gagarin's flight.
- Birthplace: Altai Krai, Russia
- Juan de la Cierva y Codorníu, 1st Count of la Cierva (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈxwan de la ˈθjeɾβa i koðoɾˈni.u]; 21 September 1895 in Murcia, Spain – 9 December 1936 in Croydon, United Kingdom) was a Spanish civil engineer, pilot and aeronautical engineer. His most famous accomplishment was the invention in 1920 of the Autogiro, a single-rotor type of aircraft that came to be called autogyro in the English language. In 1923, after four years of experimentation, De la Cierva developed the articulated rotor, which resulted in the world's first successful flight of a stable rotary-wing aircraft, with his C.4 prototype. De la Cierva was born to a wealthy family. After several successful experiments with aviation as a boy, he eventually earned a civil engineering degree. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1925 where, with the support of Scottish industrialist James G. Weir, he established the Cierva Autogiro Company. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, De la Cierva supported the National forces, helping the rebels to obtain the De Havilland DH-89 'Dragon Rapide' which flew General Franco from the Canary Islands to Spanish Morocco. His brother was killed by the Republican army in Paracuellos del Jarama.
- Birthplace: Murcia, Spain
- Timothy Lennart "Tim" Kopra (born April 9, 1963) is an engineer, a Colonel in the United States Army and a retired NASA astronaut. He served aboard the International Space Station as a flight engineer for Expedition 20, returning to Earth aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on the STS-128 mission on September 11, 2009. He returned to the ISS for the second time in December 2015, as part of Expedition 46 and as the Commander of 47.
- Birthplace: Austin, Texas
Marc Garneau
Age: 75Joseph Jean-Pierre Marc Garneau, (born February 23, 1949) is a Canadian politician and the Minister of Transport in the Government of Canada. He is a retired military officer, former astronaut, and engineer; Garneau was the first Canadian in space, taking part in three flights aboard NASA Space Shuttles in 1984, 1996 and 2000. Garneau was the president of the Canadian Space Agency from 2001 to 2006, and in 2003 was installed as the ninth Chancellor of Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario.Garneau has served as the Member of Parliament for the riding of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, and its predecessor Westmount—Ville-Marie, in Montreal since the 2008 federal election, winning by over 9000 votes. He was re-elected to the House of Commons in the 2011 federal election by 642 votes, and in the 2015 federal election with a majority of over 18,000. Previously, he unsuccessfully stood in the riding of Vaudreuil-Soulanges at the 2006 federal election. On November 28, 2012, Garneau announced his candidacy for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada to be decided in April 2013. On March 13, 2013, Garneau formally withdrew his bid for the party leadership. On November 4, 2015, Garneau was appointed as Minister of Transport in the 29th Canadian Ministry.- Birthplace: Quebec City, Canada
- Mark Charles Lee USAF Colonel, (born August 14, 1952) is a former NASA astronaut who flew on four Space Shuttle missions. He retired from the Air Force and NASA on July 1, 2001.
- Birthplace: Viroqua, Wisconsin
- David Cornell Leestma (born May 6, 1949) is a former American astronaut and retired Captain in the United States Navy.
- Birthplace: Muskegon, Michigan
- Colonel Gary Eugene Payton, USAF, (born June 20, 1948) is an American astronaut, and worked as a payload specialist for NASA. Payton flew on the STS-51-C mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in January 1985 which launched and returned to land at the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida. STS-51C was the first dedicated Space Shuttle Department of Defense mission. Payton traveled over 1.2 million miles in 48 Earth orbits, and logged more than 73 hours in space.He is currently Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Schriever Chair in Astronautics at the United States Air Force Academy, teaching Astronautical Engineering.
- Birthplace: Rock Island, Illinois
- William Anthony "Bill" Oefelein (; born March 29, 1965) is an American test pilot instructor and former NASA astronaut who, on his only spaceflight, piloted the STS-116 Space Shuttle mission.Oefelein gained media attention on February 5, 2007 when fellow astronaut Lisa Nowak was arrested in Florida and charged with attempting to kidnap his girlfriend, U.S. Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman. Nowak later pleaded guilty to felony burglary and misdemeanor battery. Oefelein admitted to a two-year affair with Nowak, and he and Nowak became the first astronauts ever dismissed from NASA. Following the dismissals, NASA created its first astronaut Code of Conduct.
- Birthplace: Fort Belvoir
- Jerome Clarke Hunsaker (August 26, 1886 – September 10, 1984) was an American airman born in Creston, Iowa, and educated at the Naval Academy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- Birthplace: Creston, Iowa
- Donn Fulton Eisele (June 23, 1930 – December 2, 1987) (Colonel, USAF) was a United States Air Force officer, test pilot, and later a NASA astronaut. He occupied the command module pilot seat during the flight of Apollo 7 in 1968. After retiring from both NASA and the Air Force, he became the Peace Corps country director for Thailand, before moving into private business.
- Birthplace: Columbus, Ohio, USA
- Claire Lee Chennault (September 6, 1890 – July 27, 1958) was an American military aviator best known for his leadership of the "Flying Tigers" and the Republic of China Air Force in World War II. Chennault was a fierce advocate of "pursuit" or fighter-interceptor aircraft during the 1930s when the United States Army Air Corps was focused primarily on high-altitude bombardment. Chennault retired from the United States Army in 1937, and went to work as an aviation adviser and trainer in China. Starting in early 1941, Chennault commanded the 1st American Volunteer Group (nicknamed Flying Tigers). He headed both the volunteer group and the uniformed U.S. Army Air Forces units that replaced it in 1942. He feuded constantly with General Joseph Stilwell, the U.S. Army commander in China, and helped China's Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to convince President Roosevelt to remove Stilwell in 1944. The China-Burma-India theater was strategically essential in order to fix many vital elements of the Imperial Japanese Army on the Chinese mainland to limit their use against Allied forces advancing towards Japan in the two Pacific campaigns.
- Birthplace: Commerce, Texas
- Vladimir Aleksandrovich Shatalov (Russian: Владимир Александрович Шаталов; born December 8, 1927) is a former Soviet cosmonaut who flew three space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 4, Soyuz 8, and Soyuz 10.
- Birthplace: Petropavl, Kazakhstan
- Hugh Armstrong Robinson (May 13, 1881 – 1963) was a pioneer in the earliest days of aviation, combining his skills of inventor, pilot, and daredevil. Among other things, he is said to have been the third person to successfully fly an aircraft after the Wright Brothers in a plane of his own design and construction and the first person to make an air-sea rescue. His many firsts also include the first medical flight transporting a doctor to patient in Hammond, N.Y. in June 1912 and first U.S. airmail flight in 1911. Robinson also devised the term and art of dive-bombing.
- Birthplace: Neosho, Missouri
- Koichi Wakata (若田 光一, Wakata Kōichi, born 1 August 1963) is a Japanese engineer and a JAXA astronaut. Wakata is a veteran of four NASA Space Shuttle missions, a Russian Soyuz mission, and a long-duration stay on the International Space Station. During a nearly two-decade career in spaceflight, he has logged more than eleven months in space. During Expedition 39, he became the first Japanese commander of the International Space Station. Wakata flew on the Soyuz TMA-11M/Expedition 38/Expedition 39 long duration spaceflight from 7 November 2013 to 13 May 2014. During this spaceflight he was accompanied by Kirobo, the first humanoid robot astronaut.
- Birthplace: Ōmiya, Saitama
- Yury Valentinovich Lonchakov (Russian: Юрий Валентинович Лончаков; born 4 March 1965) is a Russian former cosmonaut and a veteran of three space missions. He has spent 200 days in space and has conducted two career spacewalks.
- Birthplace: Lake Balkhash, Kazakhstan
- Gennady Ivanovich Padalka (Russian: Гeннадий Иванович Падалка; born 21 June 1958 in Krasnodar, Russia) is a Russian Air Force officer and an RKA cosmonaut. Padalka currently has the world record for the most time spent in space, having spent 879 days in space, more than any other person. He worked on both Mir and the International Space Station.
- Birthplace: Krasnodar, Russia
- Salizhan Shakirovich Sharipov (Russian: Салижан Шакирович Шарипов) (born 24 August 1964) is a Kyrgyzstani cosmonaut. Sharipov is a co-author and investigator for the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity project. He has been to space twice (launched from the U.S. as an astronaut in 1998 and from Russia as a cosmonaut in 2004) and has conducted two spacewalks. Sharipov retired on 18 July 2008.
- Birthplace: Uzgen, Kyrgyzstan
- Sigmund Werner Paul Jähn (born 13 February 1937) is a German cosmonaut and pilot, who in 1978 became the first German to fly in space as part of the Soviet Union's Interkosmos programme.
- Birthplace: Vogtlandkreis, Germany
- Roman Yurievich Romanenko (Major, Russian Air Force; Russian: Роман Юрьевич Романенко; born August 9, 1971) is a retired cosmonaut at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.
- Birthplace: Shchyolkovo, Russia
- John Lynch Phillips (born April 15, 1951) is a NASA astronaut. Phillips is also a Naval Aviator and retired captain, United States Navy Reserve. Phillips has received numerous awards and special honors. He is a National Merit Scholar, graduated 2nd in his class of 906 people at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1972. Phillips has also been awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal, NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Gagarin Medal and several others. Phillips has logged over 4,400 flight hours and 250 aircraft carrier landings, flying the A-7 Corsair II carrier-based light attack aircraft while on active duty in the Regular Navy and subsequently during his time as a Navy Reservist from 1982 to 2002. At the time of his retirement, Phillips had retained the rank of captain.
- Birthplace: Fort Belvoir
- Pavel Romanovich Popovich (Russian: Па́вел Рома́нович Попо́вич, Ukrainian: Павло Романович Попович, Pavlo Romanovych Popovych) (October 5, 1930 – September 29, 2009) was a Soviet cosmonaut.He was the fourth cosmonaut in space, the sixth person in orbit, and the eighth person in space.
- Birthplace: Uzyn, Ukraine
- Harry Clement Stubbs (May 30, 1922 – October 29, 2003), better known by the pen name Hal Clement, was an American science fiction writer and a leader of the hard science fiction subgenre. He also painted astronomically oriented artworks under the name George Richard.In 1998 Clement was inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame and named the 17th SFWA Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (presented in 1999).
- Birthplace: Somerville, USA, Massachusetts
- Vladimir Vasiliyevich Kovalyonok (Belarusian: Уладзі́мір Васі́льевіч Кавалёнак; Russian: Влади́мир Васи́льевич Ковалёнок; born March 3, 1942 in Beloye, Minsk Oblast, Belorussian SSR) is a retired Soviet cosmonaut. He entered the Soviet space programme on July 5, 1967 and was commander of three missions. He retired from the cosmonaut team on June 23, 1984. From 1990 to 1992 he was a Director of the 30th Central Scientific Research Institute, Ministry of Defence (Russia).
- Birthplace: Krupki Raion, Krupki, Belarus
- Wiley Hardeman Post (November 22, 1898 – August 15, 1935) was a famed American aviator during the interwar period and the first pilot to fly solo around the world. Also known for his work in high-altitude flying, Post helped develop one of the first pressure suits and discovered the jet stream. On August 15, 1935, Post and American humorist Will Rogers were killed when Post's aircraft crashed on takeoff from a lagoon near Point Barrow in the Territory of Alaska. Post's Lockheed Vega aircraft, the Winnie Mae, was on display at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center from 2003 to 2011. It is now featured in the "Time and Navigation" gallery on the second floor of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
- Birthplace: Grand Saline, Texas
- Valeri Ivanovich Tokarev (Russian: Валерий Иванович Токарев; born October 29, 1952) is a Russian Air Force Colonel and test cosmonaut at the Yuri A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. Tokarev traveled to space twice, and has performed two career spacewalks, before retiring in June 2008.
- Birthplace: Kapustin Yar, Russia
- Abdul Ahad Mohmand (Pashto: عبدالاحد مومند; born January 1, 1959) is a former Afghan Air Force aviator who became the first Afghan and fourth Muslim to journey to outer space. He became one of Soyuz TM-6 crew members and spent nine days aboard the Mir space station in 1988 as an Intercosmos Research Cosmonaut. He holds many records as an Afghan Astronaut. During this mission, Abdul Ahad Mohmand was the first cosmonaut to speak the Pashto language after he made a telephone call to Afghanistan, making it the fourth language to be officially spoken in space. He became the first Afghan citizen and the fourth Muslim to visit outer space, after Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, Muhammed Faris, and Musa Manarov. Mohmand is also believed to be the first Muslim who took the Qur'an to space.
- Birthplace: Afghanistan
- Col. Yuri Ivanovich Onufriyenko (Russian: Юрий Иванович Онуфриенко, Ukrainian: Юрій Іванович Онуфрієнко) (born 6 February 1961) is a retired Russian cosmonaut. He is a veteran of two extended spaceflights, aboard the space station Mir in 1996 and aboard the International Space Station in 2001-2002.
- Romain Gary (pronounced [ʁɔ.mɛ̃ ga.ʁi]; 21 May [O.S. 8 May] 1914 – 2 December 1980), born Roman Kacew (also known by the pen name Émile Ajar), was a French novelist, diplomat, film director, and World War II aviator of Jewish origin. He is the only author to have won the Prix Goncourt under two names.
- Birthplace: Vilnius, Lithuania
- Sergei Viktorovich Zalyotin (Russian: Серге́й Викторович Залётин; born April 21, 1962) is a Russian cosmonaut and a veteran of two space missions. Zalyotin was born in Tula and attended the Borisoglebsk Higher Military School before becoming a fighter pilot in the Russian Air Force. He also holds a degree in ecological management. Zalyotin was selected as a cosmonaut candidate in 1990. In 2000, Zalyotin was a member of the final resident crew aboard the Mir space station. He briefly visited the International Space Station aboard Soyuz TMA-1 in 2002.
- Birthplace: Shchyokino (town), Tula Oblast, Russia
- Georgy Stepanovich Shonin (Ukrainian: Гео́ргій Степа́нович Шо́нін) (August 3, 1935 – April 7, 1997; born in Rovenky, Luhansk Oblast, (now Ukraine) but grew up in Balta of Ukrainian SSR) was a Soviet cosmonaut, who flew on the Soyuz 6 space mission. Shonin was part of the original group of cosmonauts selected in 1960. He left the space programme in 1979 for medical reasons. Shonin's family hid a Jewish family from the Nazis during WWII.Shonin later worked as the director of the 30th Central Scientific Research Institute, Ministry of Defence (Russia). He died of a heart attack in 1997.
- Birthplace: Rovenky, Ukraine
- Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dzhanibekov (Russian: Владимир Александрович Джанибеков, born 13 May 1942) is a former cosmonaut who made five flights.
- Birthplace: Uzbekistan, Samanids
- Leonid Denisovich Kizim (Russian: Леонид Денисович Кизим; 5 August 1941 – 14 June 2010) was a Soviet cosmonaut. Kizim was born in Krasnyi Lyman, Donetsk Oblast, Soviet Union (now Lyman, Ukraine). He graduated from Higher Air Force School in 1975; and served as a test pilot in the Soviet Air Force. He was selected as a cosmonaut on October 23, 1965. Kizim flew as Commander on Soyuz T-3, Soyuz T-10 and Soyuz T-15, and also served as backup commander for Soyuz T-2. All together he spent 374 days 17 hours 56 minutes in space. On Soyuz T-15, he was part of the only crew to visit two space stations on one spaceflight (Mir and Salyut 7). He later served as Deputy Director Satellite Control-Center of the Russian Ministry of Defense; after May 1995 he was Director of the Military Engineering Academy of Aeronautics and Astronautics in St. Petersburg. He retired on June 13, 1987, and died on June 14, 2010. Leonid Kizim was married with two children. He was awarded: Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (December 10, 1980 and October 2, 1984); Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR Order of Honour Order of Friendship Three Orders of Lenin Medal "For the Development of Virgin Lands"Foreign awards: Order of Sukhbaatar (Mongolia); Medal "30 Years of Victory over Japan's Militarists" (Mongolia); Medal "60 Years of the Mongolian People's Revolution"; Knight of the Legion of Honour (France); Kirti Chakra (India); Order of Merit (Ukraine).
- Birthplace: Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine
- Vladimir Georgiyevich Titov (Russian: Владимир Георгиевич Титов; born 1 January 1947 in Sretensk, Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia) is a retired Russian Air Force Colonel and former cosmonaut. He has participated in four spaceflight missions. The catastrophic explosion of a Soyuz rocket in 1983 led to him being one of only four people to use a launch escape system. He is married to Alexandra Kozlova, they have two children.
- Birthplace: Sretensk, Russia
- Yuri Pavlovich Gidzenko (Russian: Юрий Павлович Гидзенко; born March 26, 1962) is a Russian cosmonaut. He was a test cosmonaut of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (TsPK). Gidzenko has flown into space three times and has lived on board the Mir and International Space Stations. He has also conducted two career spacewalks. Although he retired on July 15, 2001, he continued his employment by a special contract until Soyuz TM-34 concluded. Since 2004 to May 2009, Gidzenko was the Director of the 3rd department within the TsPK. Since May 2009 he serves as the Deputy Chief of Cosmonaut Training Center TsPK.
- Birthplace: Russia
- Georgy Timofeyevich Beregovoy (Russian: Гео́ргий Тимофе́евич Берегово́й, Ukrainian: Гео́ргій Тимофі́йович Берегови́й; 15 April 1921 – 30 June 1995) was a Soviet cosmonaut who commanded the space mission Soyuz 3 in 1968. At the time of his flight, Beregovoy was 47 years of age: he was the earliest-born human to go to orbit, being born three months and three days earlier than the second earliest-born man in orbit – John Glenn, but later than X-15 pilot Joe Walker who made 2 (or 3, according to USAF definition) suborbital space flights.
- Birthplace: Poltava Oblast, Ukraine
- Bertalan Farkas (born August 2, 1949) is the first Hungarian cosmonaut and the first Esperantist in space. He is currently the president of Airlines Service and Trade. With Charles Simonyi's space travel, Farkas is no longer the only Hungarian who has been to space (he is still the only astronaut, as Simonyi flew as a space tourist).
- Birthplace: Gyulaháza, Hungary
- Vladimír Remek (born 26 September 1948) is a Czech politician and diplomat as well as a former cosmonaut and military pilot. He flew aboard Soyuz 28 from 2 to 10 March 1978, becoming the first and only Czechoslovak in space. As the first cosmonaut from a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States, and with the entry of the Czech Republic and Slovakia into the European Union, Remek is considered to be the first astronaut from the European Union. Remek was a member of the European Parliament between 2004 and 2013 and, since 2014, has been the Czech Ambassador to Russia.
- Birthplace: České Budějovice, Czech Republic
- Valery Fyodorovich Bykovsky (Russian: Вале́рий Фёдорович Быко́вский; 2 August 1934 – 27 March 2019) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on three space flights: Vostok 5, Soyuz 22, and Soyuz 31. He was also backup for Vostok 3 and Soyuz 37.
- Birthplace: Pavlovsky Posad, Russia
- Viktor Mikhailovich Afanasyev Russian: Виктор Михайлович Афанасьев; born 31 December 1948) is a colonel in the Russian Air Force and a test cosmonaut of the Yu. A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. He was born December 31, 1948, in Bryansk, Russia, and is married to Yelena Ya. Afanasyeva, born 1952. They have two children. His father, Mikhail Z. Afanasyev, is deceased. His mother, Marya S. Afanasyeva, resides in Merkulyevo, Bryansk region, Russia. His recreational interests include football, swimming, and tourism.
- Birthplace: Bryansk, Russia
- Anatoly Vasilyevich Filipchenko (Russian: Анато́лий Васи́льевич Фили́пченко; born February 26, 1928) is a former Soviet cosmonaut of Ukrainian descent. He flew on the Soyuz 7 and Soyuz 16 missions. He was born in Davydovka, Voronezh Oblast, RSFSR.After leaving the space programme in 1982 Filipchenko became the Deputy Director of the OKB in Kharkiv. He was awarded: Hero of the Soviet Union Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR Order of Lenin Order of the Red Banner of Labour Medal "For Merit in Space Exploration" State Prize of the USSR Order of the Flag of the People’s Republic of Hungary Order of the Banner of the Bulgarian People’s Republic Medal "For the Strengthening Military Cooperation" (Czechoslovakia) Medal "Brotherhood in Arms" (GDR)
- Birthplace: Soviet Union
- Vladimir Viktorovich Aksyonov (Влади́мир Ви́кторович Аксёнов) (born in Giblitsy, Kasimovsky District, Ryazan Oblast, Russian SFSR, on 1 February 1935) is a former Soviet cosmonaut, married with two children. He graduated from institute of Engineering with diploma and graduated from Air Force Institute and graduated from polytechnical Institute. He was a candidate technical science. Aksyonov was selected as cosmonaut on 3 March 1973. He was awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union on two occasions. He retired on 17 October 1988. Flew as Flight Engineer on Soyuz 22 and Soyuz T-2. He is currently director of the institute for research of Russian mineral resources.
- Birthplace: Russia
- Vladimir Afanasyevich Lyakhov (Russian: Влади́мир Афана́сьевич Ля́хов; 20 July 1941 – 19 April 2018) was a Ukrainian Soviet cosmonaut. He was selected as cosmonaut on 5 May 1967, and retired on 7 September 1994. Lyakhov was the Commander on Soyuz 32, Soyuz T-9, and Soyuz TM-6, and spent 333 days, 7 hours, 47 minutes in space. He was married and had two children. He was awarded: Twice Hero of the Soviet Union; Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR; Two Orders of Lenin; Order of the October Revolution; Medal "For Merit in Space Exploration" (Russian Federation); Order of Sukhbaatar (Mongolia); Order "The Sun of Liberty" (Afghanistan); Order of Merit 3rd class (Ukraine).
- Birthplace: Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine
- Leonid Ivanovich Popov (Russian: Леони́д Ива́нович Попо́в; born August 31, 1945) is a former Soviet cosmonaut.
- Birthplace: Oleksandriia, Kirovohrad Oblast, Ukraine
- Vladimir Vladimirovich Vasyutin (Russian: Влaдимиp Bлaдимиpoвич Васютин; 8 March 1952 – 19 July 2002) was a Soviet cosmonaut. He was selected as a cosmonaut on 1 December 1978 (TsPK-6). He retired on 25 February 1986.Vasyutin was assigned to the TKS program for a new generation of manned military spacecraft that would be docked to the existing Salyut space stations. He flew as the Commander on Soyuz T-14 to the Salyut 7 space station, for part of the long-duration mission Salyut 7 EO-4. He spent 64 days 21 hours 52 minutes in space. The TKS module was already docked to the Salyut and Vasyutin was due to lead an extended programme of military space experiments. However Vasyutin fell ill soon after arriving at the station and was unable to perform his duties. Although he was originally scheduled to have a six-month stay aboard Salyut 7, his illness forced the crew to make an emergency return to Earth after only two months. His illness is said to have been caused by a prostate infection, which had manifested itself as inflammation and a fever.He graduated from Higher Air Force School and from Test Pilot School, both in Kharkov. He was a Lieutenant General in the Soviet Air Forces, and took cosmonaut basic training in August 1976. He retired for medical reasons. He later became Deputy Faculty Chief, VVA - Gagarin Air Force Academy, Monino.He was married and had two children. He died of cancer.
- Birthplace: Kharkiv, Soviet Union
- Vyacheslav Dmitriyevich Zudov (Russian: Вячесла́в Дми́триевич Зу́дов, born 8 January 1942) is a retired USSR cosmonaut. He was selected as a cosmonaut on 23 October 1965, flew as Commander on Soyuz 23 on 14–16 October 1976 and retired on 14 May 1987.Zudov is married and has two children. He was awarded: Hero of the Soviet Union Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR Jubilee Medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary since the Birth of Vladimir Il'ich Lenin" Jubilee Medal "50 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" Medal "For Merit in Space Exploration" (Russian Federation)
- Birthplace: Bor, Russia
- Valery Grigoryevich Korzun (Russian: Валерий Григорьевич Корзун, born 5 March 1953) is a Russian cosmonaut. He has been in space twice totalling 381 days. He has also conducted four career spacewalks.
- Birthplace: Krasny Sulin, Russia
- Sergei Yevgenyevich Treshchov (Сергей Евгеньевич Трещёв, born 18 August 1958) is a former cosmonaut of the RSC Energia. He spent 184 days in space as a flight engineer of the International Space Station long duration Expedition 5 crew. During the mission Treshchov also conducted a spacewalk.
- Birthplace: Lipetsk Oblast, Russia
- Vasily Vasiliyevich Tsibliyev (Russian: Василий Василиевич Циблиев); born on February 20, 1954) is a Russian cosmonaut. He was selected as a cosmonaut on March 26, 1987. Tsibliyev flew as Commander on Soyuz TM-17 from July 1, 1993 to January 14, 1994 and on Soyuz TM-25 from February 2, 1997 to August 14 of the same year. He retired on June 19, 1998. Tsibliyev is currently Chief of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center at Star City, Russia. Tsibliyev is married with two children. Tsibliyev was the commander in charge of Mir when it was hit by a Progress spacecraft in 1997.
- Birthplace: Crimean Oblast, Ukraine
- Anatoly Nikolayevich Berezovoy (Russian: Анато́лий Никола́евич Березово́й; 11 April 1942 – 20 September 2014) was a Soviet cosmonaut.
- Birthplace: Enem, Russia
- Aleksei Aleksandrovich Gubarev (Russian: Алексе́й Алекса́ндрович Гу́барев; 29 March 1931 – 21 February 2015) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on two space flights: Soyuz 17 and Soyuz 28.
- Birthplace: Samara, Russia
- Yury Nikolayevich Glazkov (Russian: Ю́рий Никола́евич Глазко́в; 2 October 1939 – 9 December 2008) was a Soviet Air Force officer and a cosmonaut. Glazkov held the rank of major general in the Russian Air Force.
- Birthplace: Moscow, Russia
- Pyotr Ilyich Klimuk (Belarusian: Пётр Ільіч Кліму́к; Russian: Пётр Ильич Климу́к; born 10 July 1942) is a former Soviet cosmonaut and the first Belarusian to perform space travel. Klimuk made three flights into space. Klimuk attended the Leninski Komsomol Chernigov High Aviation School and entered the Soviet Air Force in 1964. The following year, he was selected to join the space programme. His first flight was a long test flight on Soyuz 13 in 1973. This was followed by a mission to the Salyut 4 space station on Soyuz 18 in 1975. From 1976 he became involved in the Intercosmos and made his third and final spaceflight on an Intercosmos flight with Polish cosmonaut Mirosław Hermaszewski on Soyuz 30 in 1978.He resigned from the cosmonaut team in 1978 to take up a position as the Assistant to the Chief of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. In 1991 he was promoted to Chief of that facility and remained in that post until retirement in 2003. Klimuk is a graduate of the Gagarin Air Force Academy and the Lenin Military-Political Academy. He is the author of two books on human spaceflight: Beside the Stars, and Attack on Weightlessness.
- Birthplace: Belarus
- Charles Bishop Scarborough III (born November 4, 1943) is an American television journalist and author. Since 1974, he has been the lead news anchor at WNBC, the New York City flagship station of the NBC Television Network, and has also appeared on NBC News. He currently anchors the daily 6:00 pm WNBC news.
- Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
- Lev Stepanovich Dyomin (Russian: Лев Степанович Дёмин; 11 January 1926 – 18 December 1998) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 15 spaceflight in 1974. This spaceflight was intended to dock with the space station Salyut 3, but the docking failed.
- Birthplace: Moscow, Russia
- Yuri Petrovich Artyukhin (Russian: Ю́рий Петро́вич Артю́хин; 22 June 1930 – 4 August 1998) was a Soviet Russian cosmonaut and engineer who made a single flight into space.Artyukhin graduated from the Soviet Air Force Institute with a doctorate in engineering, specializing in military communication systems. He was selected for the space programme in 1963 and would have flown on the Voskhod 3 mission had it not been canceled. He made his single flight on Soyuz 14 in 1974, where his area of expertise was presumably put to good use. He left the space programme in 1982 and held various positions in space-related fields. Most notably, he was involved in the development of the Soviet space shuttle Buran and in cosmonaut training. He died of cancer on 4 August 1998.He was awarded: Hero of the Soviet Union Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR Order of Lenin Order of the Red Star Medal "For Distinction in Guarding the State Border of the USSR" Jan Krasicki Cross (Poland)
- Birthplace: Klinsky District
- Aleksandr Panayotov Aleksandrov (Bulgarian: Александър Панайотов Александров) (born December 1, 1951) is a retired Bulgarian cosmonaut. He is the second Bulgarian to have flown to space, behind Georgi Ivanov.
- Birthplace: Omurtag, Bulgaria
- Viktor Vasilyevich Gorbatko (Russian: Ви́ктор Васи́льевич Горбатко́; 3 December 1934 – 17 May 2017) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 7, Soyuz 24, and Soyuz 37 missions.
- Birthplace: Krasnodar Krai, Russia
- Gennadi Vasiliyevich Sarafanov (Russian: Геннадий Васильевич Сарафанов; b. January 1, 1942 in Sinenkiye, Saratov Oblast, Russia – d. September 29, 2005, Moscow) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 15 spaceflight in 1974. This mission was intended to dock with the space station Salyut 3, but failed to do so after the docking system malfunctioned. Sarafanov graduated from the Soviet Air Force academy and held the rank of Colonel.He only made a single spaceflight before resigning from the space program in 1986 and lecturing in technology.He was awarded: Hero of the Soviet Union Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary since the Birth of Vladimir Il'ich Lenin" Medal "For Distinction in Guarding the State Border of the USSR" Medal "For the Development of Virgin Lands"
- Birthplace: Saratov, Russia
- Beverly Homer DeLay (August 12, 1891 – July 4, 1923) was an American aviator who pioneered many of the popular stunts used in the early barnstorming air-shows. He soon adapted these for the movies, where he appeared with top Hollywood stars. DeLay died in a plane-crash that was almost certainly caused by sabotage, but no-one was ever charged in connection with the death.
- Birthplace: USA, California, Alameda
- Muhammed Ahmed Faris (Arabic: محمد أحمد فارس, Muḥammad ʾAḥmad Fāris; born 26 May 1951) is a Syrian military aviator. He was the first Syrian and the second Arab in space.
- Birthplace: Aleppo, Syria
- Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez (born January 29, 1942) is a Cuban military officer, legislator, and former cosmonaut and the first person of African heritage in space. As a member of the crew of Soyuz 38, he became the first Cuban citizen and the first person from a country in the Western Hemisphere other than the United States to travel into Earth orbit.
- Birthplace: Guantánamo, Cuba
- Igor Petrovich Volk (Russian: Игорь Петрович Волк; Ukrainian: Ігор Петрович Волк; 12 April 1937 – 3 January 2017) was a Russian cosmonaut and test pilot in the Soviet Union.
- Birthplace: Zmiiv, Ukraine
- Ivan Bella (born 25 May 1964 in Brezno, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia)) is a Slovak Air Force officer who became the first Slovak citizen to fly in space. He participated in an eight-day joint Russian-French-Slovak mission to the Mir space station in 1999.
- Birthplace: Brezno, Slovakia
- Georges Guynemer (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ ɡinmɛːʁ], 24 December 1894 – 11 September 1917 missing) was a top fighter ace for France with 54 victories during World War I, and a French national hero at the time of his death.
- Birthplace: Paris, France
- Robert Ritter von Greim (born Robert Greim; 22 June 1892 – 24 May 1945) was a German Field Marshal and First World War flying ace. In April 1945, in the last days of World War II, Adolf Hitler appointed Greim commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) after Hermann Göring had been dismissed for treason. After the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945, Greim was captured by the Allies. He committed suicide in an American-controlled prison on 24 May 1945.
- Birthplace: Bayreuth, Germany
- Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger III (born January 23, 1951) is an American retired airline captain who, on January 15, 2009, landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River off Manhattan after both engines were disabled by a bird strike; all 155 people aboard survived. Sullenberger is a speaker on airline safety and has helped develop new protocols for airline safety. He served as the co-chairman, along with First officer Jeffrey Skiles, of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA)'s Young Eagles youth introduction-to-aviation program from 2009 to 2013.Sullenberger retired from US Airways after 30 years as a commercial pilot on March 3, 2010. In May of the following year, Sullenberger was hired by CBS News as an Aviation and Safety Expert.He is the co-author, with Jeffrey Zaslow, of the New York Times bestseller Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters, a memoir of his life and of the events surrounding Flight 1549, published in 2009 by HarperCollins. His second book, Making a Difference: Stories of Vision and Courage from America's Leaders, was published in May 2012. He was ranked second in Time's Top 100 Most Influential Heroes and Icons of 2009, after Michelle Obama.
- Birthplace: Denison, Texas
- François Denhaut (1877–1952) was a French aviator notable for designing, constructing and flying the first flying boat in 1912.
- Birthplace: Champagnat, Creuse, France
- Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. (October 25, 1888 – March 11, 1957) was an American naval officer and explorer. He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor for valor given by the United States, and was a pioneering American aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics. Aircraft flights in which he served as a navigator and expedition leader crossed the Atlantic Ocean, a segment of the Arctic Ocean, and a segment of the Antarctic Plateau. Byrd claimed that his expeditions had been the first to reach both the North Pole and the South Pole by air. However, his claim to have reached the North Pole is disputed.
- Birthplace: Virginia
- Alexander Augustus Norman Dudley "Jerry" Pentland, (5 August 1894 – 3 November 1983) was an Australian fighter ace in World War I. Born in Maitland, New South Wales, he commenced service as a Lighthorseman with the Australian Imperial Force in 1915, and saw action at Gallipoli. He transferred to the Royal Flying Corps the following year, rising to captain. Credited with twenty-three aerial victories, Pentland became the fifth highest-scoring Australian ace of the war, after Robert Little, Stan Dallas, Harry Cobby and Roy King. He was awarded the Military Cross in January 1918 for "conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty" on a mission attacking an aerodrome behind enemy lines, and the Distinguished Flying Cross that August for engaging four hostile aircraft single-handedly. Pentland served in the fledgling Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and later the Royal Air Force, before going into business in 1927. His ventures included commercial flying around the goldfields of New Guinea, aircraft design and manufacture, flight instruction, and charter work. In the early 1930s, he was employed as a pilot with Australian National Airways, and also spent time as a dairy farmer. Soon after the outbreak of World War II, he re-enlisted in the RAAF, attaining the rank of squadron leader and commanding rescue and communications units in the South West Pacific. Perhaps the oldest operational pilot in the wartime RAAF, Pentland was responsible for rescuing airmen, soldiers and civilians, and earned the Air Force Cross for his "outstanding courage, initiative and skill". He became a trader in New Guinea when the war ended in 1945, and later a coffee planter. Retiring in 1959, he died in 1983 at the age of eighty-nine.
- Birthplace: Maitland, Australia
- Hugh Falkus (15 May 1917 – 30 March 1996) was a British writer, filmmaker and presenter, World War II pilot and angler. In an extremely varied career, he is perhaps best known for his seminal books on angling, particularly salmon and sea trout fishing; however, he was also a noted filmmaker and broadcaster for the BBC.
- Birthplace: Cheam, United Kingdom
- Robert Toru Kiyosaki (清崎 徹, Kiyosaki Tooru, born April 8, 1947) is an American businessman and author. Kiyosaki is the founder of Rich Global LLC and the Rich Dad Company, a private financial education company that provides personal finance and business education to people through books and videos. The company's main revenues come from franchisees of the Rich Dad seminars that are conducted by independent people using Kiyosaki's brand name for a fee. He is also the creator of the Cashflow board and software games to educate adults and children about business and financial concepts.Kiyosaki's seminars in the US and Canada are conducted in collaboration with a company called Whitney Information Network and are contracted out to local companies as franchisees in other countries. However, some attendees have sued Kiyosaki on claims that his high-priced seminars did not deliver anything special.Kiyosaki is the author of more than 26 books, including the international self-published personal finance Rich Dad Poor Dad series of books which has been translated into 51 languages and sold over 27 million copies worldwide. He has been criticized for advocating the practices of debatable legality perceived as "get rich quick" philosophy. Kiyosaki is the subject of a class action suit against him by people who attended his seminars and has been the subject of two investigative documentaries by CBC Canada and WTAE USA. Kiyosaki's company filed for bankruptcy in 2012.
- Birthplace: Hilo, Hawaii
- Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld (later Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands; German: Bernhard Friedrich Eberhard Leopold Julius Kurt Carl Gottfried Peter Graf von Biesterfeld; 29 June 1911 – 1 December 2004) was a Dutch prince who was the consort of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands; they were the parents of four children, including Princess Beatrix, who was Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 to 2013. He belonged to the princely House of Lippe and was a nephew of the Principality of Lippe's last sovereign Leopold IV. From birth he held the title Count of Biesterfeld; his uncle raised him to princely rank with the style of Serene Highness in 1916. He studied law and worked as an executive secretary at the Paris office of IG Farben. In 1937 he married Princess Juliana of the Netherlands, and was immediately given the title Prince of the Netherlands with the style of Royal Highness. Upon his wife's accession to the throne, in 1948 he became the prince consort of the Netherlands. Although his private life was rather controversial, Prince Bernhard was still generally regarded as a popular figure by the majority of the Dutch for his performance as a combat pilot and his activities as a liaison officer and personal aide to Queen Wilhelmina during World War II, and for his work during post-war reconstruction. During World War II, he was part of the London-based Allied war planning councils. He saw active service as a Wing Commander (RAF), flying both fighter and bomber planes into combat. He was a Dutch general and Supreme Commander of the Dutch Armed forces, involved in negotiating the terms of surrender of the German Army in the Netherlands. For proven bravery, leadership and loyalty during his wartime efforts, he was appointed a Commander of the Military William Order, the Netherlands' oldest and highest honour. After the war he was made Honorary Air Marshal of the Royal Air Force by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. In 1969, Bernhard was awarded the Grand Cross (Special Class) of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Bernhard helped found the World Wildlife Fund (later renamed World Wide Fund for Nature), becoming its first president in 1961. In 1970 he established the WWF's financial endowment "The 1001: A Nature Trust". In 1954, he was a co-founder of the international Bilderberg Group, which has met annually since then to discuss corporate globalisation and other issues concerning Europe and North America. He was forced to step down from both groups after being involved in the Lockheed Bribery Scandal in 1976.
- Birthplace: Jena, Germany
- Michael James "Mike" Adams (May 5, 1930 – November 15, 1967) (Maj USAF) was an American aviator, aeronautical engineer, and USAF astronaut. He was one of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the Air Force and NASA. On November 15, 1967, Adams flew X-15 Flight 191 (also known as X-15 Flight 3-65-97) aboard the X-15-3, one of three planes in the X-15 fleet. Flying to an altitude above 50 miles, Adams qualified as an astronaut according to the United States definition of the boundary of space. Moments later the craft broke apart, killing Adams and destroying the X-15-3. He was the first American space mission fatality by the American convention.
- Birthplace: Sacramento, California
- Albert Scott Crossfield (October 2, 1921 – April 19, 2006) was an American naval officer and test pilot. In 1953, he became the first pilot to fly at twice the speed of sound. He was the first of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the United States Air Force and NASA.
- Birthplace: Berkeley, California
- Dean Paul Martin Jr. (November 17, 1951 – March 21, 1987) was an American pop singer and film and television actor. A member of the California Air National Guard, Martin died in a crash during a military training flight. Martin was the son of American entertainer Dean Martin.
- Birthplace: Santa Monica, California, USA
- Thomas John Watson Jr. (January 14, 1914 – December 31, 1993) was an American businessman, political figure, and philanthropist. He was the 2nd president of IBM (1952–1971), the 11th national president of the Boy Scouts of America (1964–1968), and the 16th United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1979–1981). He received many honors during his lifetime, including being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. FORTUNE called him "the greatest capitalist in history" and TIME listed him as one of "100 most influential people of the 20th century".
- Birthplace: Dayton, Ohio
José López Falcón
Age: 74- Birthplace: Havana, Cuba
- James Stephen "Steve" Fossett (April 22, 1944 – September 3, 2007) was an American businessman and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer. He was the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon and in a fixed-wing aircraft. He made his fortune in the financial services industry and was best known for many world records, including five nonstop circumnavigations of the Earth: as a long-distance solo balloonist, as a sailor, and as a solo flight fixed-wing aircraft pilot. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers Club, Fossett set more than one hundred records in five different sports, sixty of which still stood at the time of his death. He broke three of the seven absolute world records for fixed-wing aircraft recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, all in his Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer. In 2002, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Aero Club of the UK, and was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2007. Fossett disappeared on September 3, 2007 while flying a light aircraft over the Great Basin Desert, between Nevada and California. Extensive searches proved unsuccessful, and he was declared legally dead in February of the following year. In September 2008, a hiker found Fossett's identification cards in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, leading shortly after to the discovery of the plane's wreckage. Fossett's only known remains, two large bones, were found half a mile from the crash site, probably scattered by wild animals.
- Birthplace: Jackson, Tennessee
- John Thomas Walton (October 8, 1946 – June 27, 2005) was an American war veteran and a son of Walmart founder Sam Walton. He was also the chairman of True North Partners, a venture capital firm. Walton cofounded the Children's Scholarship Fund, providing tuition scholarships for disadvantaged youth.
- Birthplace: Newport, Arkansas
- Bertrand Blanchard Acosta (January 1, 1895 – September 1, 1954) was a record-setting aviator. With Clarence D. Chamberlin they set an endurance record of 51 hours, 11 minutes, and 25 seconds in the air. He later flew in the Spanish Civil War in the Yankee Squadron. He was known as the "bad boy of the air". He received numerous fines and suspensions for flying stunts such as flying under bridges or flying too close to buildings.
- Birthplace: San Diego, California
