17 August: today's birthdays

• Belinda Carlisle - American singer
• Robert De Niro - American actor. He won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and one for Best Actor
• Maria Deraismes - French writer and women's rights activist
• Jonathan Franzen - American writer. He wrote The Corrections and Freedom
• Vernon Wayne Howell - American religious best known as David Koresh
• Ted Hughes - English poet and writer. He was married to American poet Sylvia Plath
• David Koresh - Pseudonym of American religious Vernon Wayne Howell
• Tina Modotti - Italian photographer, model and actress
• Herta Müller - Romanian-born German writer, Nobel Prize in Literature in 2009
• Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul - Trinidad-born English writer, of  Indian descent, Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. He is best known as V. S. Naipaul
• V. S. Naipaul - Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, Trinidad-born English writer, of Indian descent, Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001
• Sean Penn - American actor and film director, born Sean Justin Penn. He won two Oscars for Best Actor in 2004 and 2009
• Nelson Piquet - Brazilian racing driver
• ​Mark Salling - American actor, musician and singer, born Mark Wayne Salling
• Paul Troost - German architect
• Tarja Turunen - Finnish soprano
• Mae West - American actress and screenwriter, born Mary Jane West