July 17 is the birthday of 42 notable people we've found so far, including historical figures, authors, creators and scientists, and 2 of them are billionaires.
Lucio Chua Tan Sr. is a Filipino billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He presides over the Filipino conglomerate company LT Group, Inc., a company with extensive business interests in sports, banking, airline, liquor, tobacco, real estate, beverages, and education.
Share of the 42 people we list, by documented field. People can belong to more than one.
Authors21% (9 people)
Athletes19% (8 people)
Creators19% (8 people)
Scientists19% (8 people)
Actors17% (7 people)
Entrepreneurs17% (7 people)
Politicians17% (7 people)
Countries
22 countries, most often United States
Citizenship as recorded on Wikidata, one country per person.
United States12 (12 people)
France4 (4 people)
Canada3 (3 people)
Brazil2 (2 people)
Finland2 (2 people)
Germany2 (2 people)
Russia2 (2 people)
Life timeline
What were people born on July 17 doing at your age?
Dated milestones from Wikidata (company foundings, awards, top jobs, notable works), placed at the age each person reached them. Add your birth year above to see the ones you have passed.
Donald McNichol Sutherland was a Canadian actor. With a career spanning six decades, he received numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards as well as a BAFTA Award nomination.
Festival TV Monte-Carlo, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Angela Dorothea Merkel is a German stateswoman and retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She is the only woman to have held the office and the only former East German.
EU2017EE Estonian Presidency, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
David Michael Hasselhoff, nicknamed "the Hoff", is an American actor, singer, and television personality. He first gained recognition on the soap opera The Young and the Restless (1975–1982), playing the role of Dr. Snapper Foster.
Jason Clarke is an Australian actor. He has appeared in many TV series, and is known for playing Tommy Caffee on the television series Brotherhood. He has also appeared in many films, often as an antagonist.
James Francis Cagney Jr. was an American actor and dancer. On stage and in film, he was known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing. He won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances.
Warner Bros. Studio (work for hire), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Terence Chi-Shen Tao is an Australian and American mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 2006 for his contributions to partial differential equations, combinatorics, harmonic analysis, and additive number theory.
Institute for Pure & Applied Mathematics, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Gavin Miles McInnes is a Canadian writer, podcaster, far-right commentator and founder of the Proud Boys. He is the host of Get Off My Lawn with Gavin McInnes on his website, Compound Censored. He co-founded Vice magazine in 1996 and relocated to the United States in 2001.
Wong Kar-wai is a Hong Kong filmmaker. His films are characterised by nonlinear narratives, atmospheric music, and vivid cinematography with bold, saturated colours. An auteur of Hong Kong cinema, Wong frequently appears at international film festivals.
Phyllis Ada Diller was an American stand-up comedian, actress, author, musician and visual artist, noted for her eccentric stage persona, characterized by her self-deprecating humor, wild hair and clothes, and exaggerated, cackling laugh.
User:Brian Hamilton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Victor Jörgen Nilsson Lindelöf is a Swedish professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Premier League club Aston Villa and captains the Sweden national team.
Jakob "Jaap" Stam is a Dutch professional football coach and former player. As a player, he played as a centre-back and is regarded as one of the best defenders of all time.
Original: Flovries Derivative work: PeeJay2K3, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Ismail I was the founder and first shah of Safavid Iran, ruling from 1501 until his death in 1524. His reign is one of the most vital in the history of Iran, and the Safavid era is often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history.
Cristofano dell'Altissimo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître was a Belgian Catholic priest, theoretical physicist, and mathematician who made major contributions to cosmology and astrophysics.
unknown photographer, probably a CalTech employee. Cropped by Artistosteles, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Terence Michael Joseph "Geezer" Butler is an English musician, best known as the bassist and primary lyricist of the pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath. He has also recorded and performed with Heaven & Hell, GZR, Ozzy Osbourne, and Deadland Ritual.
Stefan Brending (2eight), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Elbridge Thomas Gerry was an American Founding Father, merchant, politician, and diplomat, who as a member of the Second Continental Congress, and signed the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation.
Carlos Alberto "Capita" Torres, also known as "o Capitão do Tri", was a Brazilian football player and manager who played as an attacking right-sided full-back or wing-back.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Matti Ensio Nykänen was a Finnish ski jumper who competed from 1981 to 1991. Known as "The Flying Finn", he is one of the most successful ski jumpers of all time, having won five Winter Olympic medals, nine World Championship medals, and 22 Finnish Championship medals.
Jakke Nikkarinen / Suomen Moneta, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Toni-Ville Henrik Virtanen, better known by his stage name Darude, is a Finnish DJ and record producer from Eura, Satakunta. His music is characterised by its progressive/uplifting style.
Vass Lauricella, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Marcos Antônio Senna da Silva, known as Marcos Senna, is a former professional footballer who played as a defensive midfielder. He was known for his passing range and long-range shooting and was also a penalty specialist.
Justine Triet is a French film director, screenwriter, and editor. She has received several awards including an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, a Palme d'Or, three César Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards.
Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Maxim Maximovich Litvinov was a Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet statesman and diplomat who served as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs from 1930 to 1939.
Михаил Дубнов / ТАСС, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Robert Sheckley was an American writer. First published in the science-fiction magazines of the 1950s, his many quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist, and broadly comical.
Berenice Alice Abbott was an American photographer best known for her portraits of cultural figures of the interwar period, New York City photographs of architecture and urban design of the 1930s, and science interpretation of the 1940s to the 1960s.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Alejo Julio Argentino Roca Paz was an Argentine army general and statesman who served as President of Argentina from 1880 to 1886 and from 1898 to 1904.
Unknown photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Ivan Strinić is a Croatian former professional footballer who played as a left-back. Strinić spent his professional career playing in a number of clubs from Croatian, Ukrainian and Italian top flight, including Hajduk Split, Napoli and Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk.
1827–1902 · United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Sir Frederick Augustus Abel, 1st Baronet was an English chemist who was recognised as the leading British authority on explosives. He is best known for the invention of cordite as a replacement for gunpowder in firearms.
Wikimedia Commons, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
This page lists 42 people born on July 17, every one traced to a Wikidata record and, where shown, a Wikipedia summary (CC BY-SA) and a licensed Wikimedia Commons photo. 2 of them carry a dated net-worth estimate citing Forbes or Bloomberg; combined wealth is the sum of the low end of those estimates, the newest as of March 2026. Rankings compare all 366 dates in the dataset built on 2026-09-28. Milestone ages come from dated Wikidata statements; a tilde marks year-only dates. Nothing on this page is a prediction about anyone born on July 17. Read the full methodology.
Discover another birthday →
Every date is a different rabbit hole. Try a friend's, a parent's, or a random one.
