October 21 is the birthday of 42 notable people we've found so far, including authors, politicians, scientists and entrepreneurs, and 1 of them is a billionaire.
$44.3Bolder estimate, as of September 2017 · Forbes
Liliane Henriette Charlotte Bettencourt was a French heiress, socialite and businesswoman. She was a board member and one of the principal shareholders of L'Oréal.
Share of the 42 people we list, by documented field. People can belong to more than one.
Authors31% (13 people)
Politicians24% (10 people)
Creators21% (9 people)
Entrepreneurs21% (9 people)
Scientists21% (9 people)
Actors19% (8 people)
Musicians19% (8 people)
Countries
24 countries, most often United States
Citizenship as recorded on Wikidata, one country per person.
United States9 (9 people)
United Kingdom4 (4 people)
France3 (3 people)
Spain3 (3 people)
Japan2 (2 people)
Russia2 (2 people)
Sweden2 (2 people)
Life timeline
What were people born on October 21 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.
By 25
~16Lev YashinReceived the Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1945)
Benjamin Netanyahu, nicknamed "Bibi", is an Israeli politician and diplomat who has served as Prime Minister of Israel since 2022. Having previously held office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021, Netanyahu is Israel's longest-serving prime minister.
Kimberly Noel Kardashian is an American media personality, socialite, and businesswoman. She first gained media attention in 2007 following the unauthorized release of a sex tape with American singer Ray J. Afterwards, she and her family began to appear on the E!
Andrew Scott is an Irish actor. Known for his roles on stage and screen, his accolades include two Laurence Olivier Awards, a BAFTA TV Award, and a Silver Bear, in addition to nominations for three Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards.
Alfred Bernhard Nobel was a Swedish chemist, inventor, engineer, and businessman. Nobel is known for inventing dynamite, as well as having bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prizes.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Sir Andre Konstantin Geim is a Russian-born British physicist working in England in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester.
Prolineserver (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Albert Bourla is a Greek-American veterinarian and businessman known for serving as the chairman and chief executive officer of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. He joined the company in 1993 and has held several executive roles across Pfizer's divisions.
World Economic Forum, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Dmitry Ilyich Gordon is a Ukrainian journalist, TV host, and blogger. From 1995 to 2019, he served as the chief editor of the newspaper Gordon Boulevard and has been hosting the program Visiting Dmytro Gordon since 1996.
Octav Botnar was a self-made businessman who founded Datsun UK and its associated car retail business Automotive Financial Group (AFG). He was a noted philanthropist.
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the Earthsea fantasy series.
Marian Wood Kolisch, Oregon State University Restored by Adam Cuerden, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Lev Ivanovich Yashin was a Soviet professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Widely regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time and the best goalkeeper in the history of the sport, he is the only player in his position to win the Ballon d'Or.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Ken Watanabe is a Japanese actor. He is best known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Letters from Iwo Jima and Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu in The Last Samurai, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
在ロサンゼルス日本国総領事館 Consulate-General of Japan in Los Angeles, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Shammi Kapoor was an Indian actor known for his work in Hindi cinema. Kapoor is regarded as one of the greatest actors in the history of Indian cinema.
Bollywood Hungama, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Nemanja Vidić is a Serbian former professional footballer who played as a centre-back. Widely considered as one of the greatest defenders of all time, Vidić is best known for his time at Manchester United, where he won 15 trophies and served as club captain.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth.
Samuel Cousins / After Washington Allston, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso, known as Celia Cruz, was a Cuban-American singer and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century. Cruz rose to fame in Cuba during the 1950s as a singer of guarachas, earning the nickname La Guarachera de Cuba.
Ibrahim Arce (Narcy Studios photographer), most likely, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Waris Dirie is a Somali model, author, actress and human rights activist in the fight against female genital mutilation (FGM). From 1997 to 2003, she was a UN special ambassador against FGM. In 2002 she founded her own organization in Vienna, the Desert Flower Foundation.
Desert Flower Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator, and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic and rhythmic complexity previously unheard in jazz.
William P. Gottlieb, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Ronald Erwin McNair was an American NASA astronaut and physicist. He died at the age of 35 during the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51-L, in which he was serving as one of three mission specialists in a crew of seven.
Ricard Rubio Vives is a Spanish professional basketball player for Joventut Badalona of the Liga ACB. He became the youngest player ever to play in the Spanish Liga ACB on 15 October 2005, at age 14.
Sir Georg Solti was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor, known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt, and London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Francisco "Paco" Gento López was a Spanish footballer who played as an outside left. A fast runner, Gento was referred to as the "Gale of the Cantabrian Sea" in reference to his speed down the wing.
Wim van Rossem for Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Tariq Ali is a Pakistani-British political activist, writer, journalist, filmmaker, and public intellectual. He is a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review and Sin Permiso, and contributes to The Guardian, CounterPunch, and the London Review of Books.
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Tarō Hirai, better known by the pen name Edogawa Ranpo or Edogawa Rampo, was a Japanese author and critic who played a major role in the development of Japanese mystery and thriller fiction.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Jere Mikael Pöyhönen, known professionally as Käärijä, is a Finnish rapper, singer and songwriter. He represented Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 with the song "Cha Cha Cha", placing second with 526 points and finishing first in the public vote with 376.
Martin Gardner was an American writer on popular mathematics and popular science. His interests also encompassed magic, scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literature – especially the writings of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, and G. K. Chesterton.
RobertoTenore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Ivan Stepanovich Silayev was a Soviet and Russian politician. He served as Prime Minister of the Soviet Union through the offices of chairman of the Committee on the Operational Management of the Soviet economy and chairman of the Inter-republican Economic Committee.
Leo Medvedev/Лев Леонидович Медведев, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine was a French author, poet, and statesman. Initially a moderate royalist, he became one of the leading critics of the July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe, aligning more with the Republican Left and Social Catholicism.
Adrien Tournachon, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Sir Malcolm Henry Arnold was an English composer and conductor. His works feature music in many genres, including a cycle of nine symphonies, numerous concertos, concert works, chamber music, choral music and music for brass band and wind band.
Christopher Albert Sims was an American econometrician and macroeconomist. He was the John J.F. Sherrerd '52 University Professor of Economics at Princeton University. Together with Thomas Sargent, he won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2011.
Holger Motzkau, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Jean-Pierre Sauvage is a French coordination chemist working at Strasbourg University. He graduated from the National School of Chemistry of Strasbourg, in 1967.
Bengt Nyman from Vaxholm, Sweden, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Klas Pontus Arnoldson was a Swedish author, journalist, politician, and committed pacifist who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1908 with Fredrik Bajer.
Gen. Stab. Lit. Anst. (Generalstabens Litografiska Anstalt) (Lithographic Institute General Staff). Original uploader=Gr, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
This page lists 42 people born on October 21, every one traced to a Wikidata record and, where shown, a Wikipedia summary (CC BY-SA) and a licensed Wikimedia Commons photo. 1 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 September 2017. 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 October 21. Read the full methodology.
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