19 December: today's birthdays

• Jennifer Beals - American actress
• Karim Benzema - French footballer 
• Leonid Brežnev (Brezhnev) - Russian politician
• Cyril Collard - French writer, film director, actor and composer
• Jean Genet - French writer, poet and screenwriter. He wrote The Thief's Journal (Journal du voleur)
• Jake Gyllenhaal - American actor, born Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal. He is the brother of Maggie Gyllenhaal

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  The actor had fun having his name pronounced accordingly to his Swedish origins Jake Gyllenhaal (SE)
• Jake Gyllenhaal (SE) - American actor, born Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal. He had fun having his name pronounced accordingly to his Swedish origins

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  Listen to the correct pronunciation of his name Jake Gyllenhaal
• Albert Abraham Michelson - Prussian-born American physicist. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1907
• Alyssa Milano - American actress
• Édith Piaf - French singer and songwriter, born Édith Giovanna Gassion. She is considered France's national chanteuse 
• Vasja Pirc - Slovenian chess player originator of the Pirc Defense
• Alexis Alejandro Sánchez - Chilean soccer player
• Til Schweiger - German actor, film director and producer
• Italo Svevo - Pseudonym of Italian writer of Jewish descent Aron Ettore Schmitz, author of Zeno's Conscience
• Abraham Yehoshua - Israeli novelist and dramatist. He wrote Mr. Mani, The Lover and Facing the Forest