09 December: today's birthdays

• Juan Atkins - American musician. He is considered the father of techno music
• Jousha Bell - American violinist and conductor
• Claude Louis Berthollet - French chemist and scientist
• Richard Brooks - American writer and film director. He won an Oscar for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) in 1961
• John Cassavetes - American actor and film director
• Judi Dench - English actress. She won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1999
• Kirk Douglas - American actor of Russian descent, born Issur Danielovitch. He is the father of Michael Douglas. He is best known for having played the leading role in the 1960 blockbuster Spartacus.
• Kirsten Gillibrand - American lawyer and politician, born Kirsten Elizabeth Gillibrand. She is a member of the Democratic Party
• Imogen Heap - English singer-songwriter
• Simon Helberg - American actor, born Simon Maxwell Helberg
• Felicity Huffman - American actress, born Felicity Kendall Huffman. She is best known for her role as Lynette Scavo in the TV series Desperate Housewives
• Jean-Claude Juncker - Luxembourgish and European. He is the current President of the European Commission
• Pëtr Alekseevič Kropotkin (Pyotr Alexeevich Kropotkin) - Russian philosopher, geographer, and scientist. He was also an activist who advocated anarchism
• John Milton - English poet, writer and philosopher. He wrote the epic poem Paradise Lost 
• Morwenn Moguerou - Real name of French radio and TV host Ema Stokholma.
• Joseph Pilates - German-born American inventor of the Pilates method
• Bruno Trentin - Italian-born French trade unionist, politician and partisan
• Johann Joachim Winckelmann - German archaeologist