354 - [Christian] Aurelius Augustine, bp of Hippo in Roman Africa

Famous Birthday on this Day in History

Augustine of Hippo (November 13, 354 – August 28, 430), Bishop of Hippo Regius, also known as St. Augustine or St. Austin, was a Berber philosopher and theologian.

Augustine, a Latin church father, is one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity. Augustine was heavily influenced by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. He framed the concepts of original sin and just war. When the Roman Empire in the West was starting to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Church as a spiritual City of God (in a book of the same name) distinct from the material City of Man. His thought profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Augustine's City of God was closely identified with the church, and was the community which worshipped God.

Augustine was born in the city of Thagaste, the present day Souk Ahras, Algeria, to a pagan father named Patricius and a Catholic mother named Monica. He was educated in North Africa and resisted his mother's pleas to become Christian. Living as a pagan intellectual, he took a concubine and became a Manichean. Later he converted to Christianity, became a bishop, and opposed heresies, such as the belief that people can have the ability to choose to be good to such a degree as to merit salvation without divine aid (Pelagianism).

In the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, he is a saint and pre-eminent Doctor of the Church, and the patron of the Augustinian religious order; his memorial is celebrated 28 August. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists, consider him to be one of the theological fathers of Reformation teaching on salvation and divine grace. In the Eastern Orthodox Church he is blessed, and his feast day is celebrated on 15 June, though a minority are of the opinion that he is a heretic, primarily because of his statements concerning what became known as the filioque clause. Among the Orthodox he is called Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed.

1503 - Isabella of Portugal, queen of Spain and empress of Germany (d. 1539)

Famous Birthday on this Day in History

Isabella of Portugal ( 24 October 1503 – 1 May 1539) was the daughter of Manuel I of Portugal and Maria of Aragon. By her marriage to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Isabella was also Holy Roman Empress and Queen consort of Aragon and Castile.

Isabel was the second child and eldest daughter of Manuel I of Portugal and his second wife, Infanta Maria of Castile and Aragon. She was named after her maternal grandmother, Isabella I of Castile and her aunt Isabella, Princess of Asturias, who had been her father's first wife.

Through her father, she was a granddaughter of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu (the second son of king Edward of Portugal and brother of Afonso V of Portugal) and Infanta Beatrice, the daughter of Infante João, Lord of Reguengos (brother of king Edward). Through her mother she was a granddaughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon.

Isabel was second-in-line to the throne until the birth of her brother Louis in 1505. However, as the oldest daughter of Manuel I of Portugal, she was a rather attractive party. She married her first cousin, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, the son of Joanna of Castile and Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy, who as Holy Roman Emperor, King of Aragon and Castile, Archduke of the Habsburg dominions, titular Duke of Burgundy, and ruler of the Netherlands and the Spanish empire in the Americas and the Mediterranean and Italy was one of the most powerful men of his time.

William IX, Duke of Aquitaine and poet (d. 1126)

Famous Birthdays on this Day in History

William IX (Occitan: Guilhèm de Peitieus; 22 October 1071 - 10 February 1126), called the Troubador, was the Duke of Aquitaine and Gascony and Count of Poitou (as William VII) between 1086 and his death. He was also one of the leaders of the Crusade of 1101 and the first troubadour, that is, vernacular lyric poet in the Occitan language.

William was the son of William VIII of Aquitaine by his third wife, Hildegarde of Burgundy. His birth was a cause of great celebration at the Aquitanian court, but the Church at first considered him illegitimate because of his father's earlier divorces and his parents' consanguinity. This obliged his father to make a pilgrimage to Rome soon after his birth to seek Papal approval of his third marriage and the young William's legitimacy.

1201 - Robert de Sorbon, founded Sorbonne University, Paris

Famous Birthdays on this Day in History

Robert de Sorbon (October 9, 1201 - August 15, 1274) was a French theologian and founder of the Sorbonne college in Paris.

Born into a poor family in Sorbon, in what is now the Ardennes département, Robert de Sorbon entered the Church and was educated in Reims and Paris. He was noted for his piety and attracted the support of the Comte d'Artois and King Louis IX of France, known as Saint Louis. He became the canon of Cambrai around 1251 before being appointed canon of Paris and the king's confessor in 1258.

Sorbon began to teach around 1253 and in 1257 established the Maison de Sorbonne, a college in Paris originally planned to teach theology to twenty poor students. It was sponsored by King Louis and received the endorsement of Pope Alexander IV in 1259. It subsequently grew into a major centre of learning and became the core of what would become the University of Paris. Sorbon served as chancellor of the university, taught and moralize there from 1258 until his death in 1274.

1452 - King Richard III, of England

Famous Birthdays on this Day in History

Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England from 1483 until his death. He was the last king of the House of York and the Plantagenet dynasty. His trounce at the Battle of Bosworth Field was the decisive clash of the Wars of the Roses, and is sometimes regarded as the end of the middle Ages in England. He is the central character of a well-known play by William Shakespeare.


After the death of his brother King Edward IV, Richard briefly governed the country on behalf of Edward's son King Edward V, but then seized the crown himself. Edward and his brother Richard seem to have disappeared shortly afterwards; there is a good deal of dispute over their alleged kill by Richard.

Two large-scale rebellions rose against Richard. The first, in 1483, was led by staunch opponents of Edward IV and, most famous able, Richard's own 'kingmaker', Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. The revolt collapsed and Buckingham was executed at Salisbury, near the Bull's Head Inn. However, in 1485, another revolt arose against Richard, headed by Henry Tudor, 2nd Earl of Richmond (later King Henry VII) and his uncle Jasper. The rebels landed troops and Richard fell in the Battle of Bosworth Field, the last English king to die in battle.

1207 - Henry III, king of England (1216-72)

Famous Birthdays on this Day in History

Henry III (1 October 1207 – 16 November 1272) was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for fifty-six years from 1216 to his death. His contemporaries know him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready. England prospered during his time in power and his greatest monument is Westminster, which he made the seat of his government and where he expanded the abbey as a holy place to Edward the Confessor.

He assumed the crown under the regency of the popular William Marshal, but the England he inherited had undergone several drastic changes in the reign of his father. He spent much of his reign combating the barons over Magna Carta and the royal rights, and was eventually forced to call the first "parliament" in 1264. He was also ineffective on the Continent, where he endeavoured to re-establish English control over Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitaine.