20 historically significant individuals born on February 17. February 17 is the birth date of eleven notable individuals throughout history, encompassing literature, science, politics, and cinema. Among those born on this day are Spanish Romantic poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836), Nobel Prize-winning physicist Otto Stern (1888), North Korean defector and political figure Hwang Jang-yop (1923), Chilean-French filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929), and Chinese Nobel Prize-winning author Mo Yan (1955). Each has contributed to poetry, experimental physics, international politics, avant-garde cinema, and contemporary literature.
Headline Figures
Alejandro Jodorowsky
1929 – PresentAvant-garde filmmaker and comics artist known for surreal cult films like 'El Topo' and 'The Holy Mountain.' He also created the acclaimed science fiction comic series 'The Incal' with Moebius.
Mo Yan
1955 – PresentChinese novelist who won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature for his surrealistic novels that blend folk tales, history and contemporary life. His works include Red Sorghum and Big Breasts and Wide Hips, often depicting rural Chinese life with magical realism.
Otto Stern
1888 – 1969German-American physicist who won the 1943 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing the molecular beam method. His experiments provided crucial evidence for quantum mechanics and space quantization.
Birth Distribution by Century
20th Century
9
19th Century
7
18th Century
2
17th Century
1
15th Century
1
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