1930

January

 * January 6
 * The first diesel engine automobile trip is completed (Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York City) by Clessie Cummins, founder of the Cummins Motor Co..
 * An early literary character licensing agreement is signed by A. A. Milne, granting Stephen Slesinger U.S. and Canadian merchandising rights to the Winnie-the-Pooh works.
 * January 13 – The Mickey Mouse comic strip makes its first appearance.
 * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at 356,397 km in recent memory and the next one will be on January 1, 2257 at 356,371 km.
 * January 26 – The Indian National Congress declares this date as Independence Day or as the day for Poorna Swaraj (Complete Independence).
 * January 28 – The first patent for a field-effect transistor is granted in the United States to Julius Edgar Lilienfeld.
 * January 30 – Pavel Molchanov launches a radiosonde from Pavlovsk in the Soviet Union.
 * January 31 – The 3M company markets Scotch Tape, invented by Richard Gurley Drew, in the United States.

February

 * February 2 – The Communist Party of Vietnam is established.
 * February 10 – The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng launch the Yên Bái mutiny in the hope of ending French colonial rule in Vietnam.
 * February 18
 * While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh confirms the existence of Pluto, a celestial body considered a planet until redefined as a dwarf planet in 2006.
 * Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft, and also the first cow to be milked in an aeroplane.

March

 * March 2 – Mahatma Gandhi informs the British viceroy of India that civil disobedience will begin the following week.
 * March 5 – Danish painter Einar Wegener begins sex reassignment surgery in Germany and takes the name Lili Elbe.
 * March 6
 * International Unemployment Day.
 * The first frozen foods of Clarence Birdseye go on sale in Springfield, Massachusetts.
 * March 12 – Mahatma Gandhi sets off on a 200-mile protest march towards the sea with 78 followers to protest at the British monopoly on salt; more will join them during the Salt March that ends on April 5.
 * March 28 – The government of Turkey requests the international community to adopt Istanbul and Ankara as the official names for Constantinople and Angora.
 * March 29 – Heinrich Brüning is appointed Chancellor of Germany.
 * March 31 – The Motion Picture Production Code ("Hays Code") is instituted in the United States, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in films for the next 40 years.

April

 * April 4 – The Communist Party of Panama is founded.
 * April 5 – In an act of civil disobedience, Mahatma Gandhi breaks the Salt laws of British India by making salt by the sea at the end of the Salt March.
 * April 6
 * International Left Opposition (ILO) is founded in Paris, France.
 * Hostess Twinkies are invented.
 * April 17 – Neoprene is invented by DuPont.
 * April 18
 * The Chittagong Rebellion begins in India with the Chittagong armoury raid.
 * BBC Radio from London reports on this day that "There is no news".
 * April 19 – Warner Bros. in the United States release their first cartoon series called Looney Tunes which runs until 1969.
 * April 21
 * A fire in the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus kills 320 people.
 * The Turkestan–Siberia Railway is completed.
 * April 22 – The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States sign the London Naval Treaty to regulate submarine warfare and limit naval shipbuilding.
 * April 28 – The first night game in organized baseball history takes place in Independence, Kansas.

May

 * May 5 – Mahatma Gandhi is re-arrested.
 * May 6 – The 7.1 Mw Salmas earthquake shakes northwestern Iran and southeastern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Up to three-thousand people were killed.
 * May 10 – The National Pan-Hellenic Council is founded in Washington, D.C..
 * May 15 – Nurse Ellen Church becomes the world's first flight attendant, working on a Boeing Air Transport trimotor.
 * May 16 – Rafael Leónidas Trujillo is elected president of the Dominican Republic.
 * May 17 – French Prime Minister André Tardieu decides to withdraw the remaining French troops from the Rhineland (they depart by June 30).
 * May 24 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Australia, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).
 * May 30
 * Sergei Eisenstein arrives in Hollywood to work for Paramount Pictures; they part ways by October.
 * Canadian adventurer William "Red" Hill, Sr., makes a five-hour journey down the Niagara Gorge rapids.

June

 * June 7 – Carl Gustaf Ekman becomes the Prime Minister of Sweden for the second and final time.
 * June 9 – Chicago Tribune journalist Jake Lingle is shot in Chicago, Illinois. Newspapers promise $55,000 reward for information. Lingle is later found to have had contacts with organized crime.
 * June 14 – Bureau of Narcotics established under the United States Department of the Treasury, replacing the Narcotics Division of the Prohibition Unit.
 * June 17 – President of the United States Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act into law.
 * June 21 – One-year conscription comes into force in France.

July

 * July 4 – The dedication of George Washington's sculpted head is held at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.
 * July 5 – The Seventh Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops opens. This conference approves the use of birth control in limited circumstances, a move away from the Christian views on contraception expressed by the Sixth Conference a decade earlier
 * July 7
 * The Lapua Movement marches in Helsinki, Finland.
 * Building of the Boulder Dam (later known as the Hoover Dam) is started on the Colorado River in the United States.
 * July 11 – Australian cricketer Donald Bradman scores a world record 309 runs in one day, on his way to the highest individual Test innings of 334, during a Test match against England.
 * July 13 – The first FIFA World Cup starts: Lucien Laurent scores the first goal, for France against Mexico.
 * July 19 – Georges Simenon's detective character Inspector Jules Maigret makes his first appearance in print under Simenon's own name when the novel Pietr-le-Letton (known in English as The Strange Case of Peter the Lett) begins serialization in a French weekly magazine. Simenon will eventually write 75 novels (as well as 28 short stories) featuring the pipe-smoking Paris detective.
 * July 21 – United States Department of Veterans Affairs established.
 * July 25 – Laurence Olivier marries actress Jill Esmond.
 * July 26 – Charles Creighton and James Hargis of Missouri begin their return journey to Los Angeles using only a reverse gear; the 11,555 km trip lasts 42 days.
 * July 28 – R. B. Bennett defeats William Lyon Mackenzie King in federal elections and becomes the Prime Minister of Canada.
 * July 29 – British airship R100 sets out for a successful 78-hour passage to Canada.
 * July 30
 * Uruguay beats Argentina 4–2 to win the first Association football FIFA World Cup final.
 * New York station W2XBS is put in charge of NBC broadcast engineers.
 * July 31 – The radio drama The Shadow airs for the first time in the United States.

August

 * August 6 – Judge Joseph Force Crater disappears.
 * August 7
 * R. B. Bennett takes office as the eleventh Prime Minister of Canada.
 * Lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana. They are hanged; James Cameron survives. This will be the last recorded lynching of African Americans in the Northern United States.
 * August 9 – Betty Boop premieres in the animated film Dizzy Dishes.
 * August 12 – Turkish troops move into Persia to fight Kurdish insurgents.
 * August 16 – The first British Empire Games open in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
 * August 21 – Princess Margaret Rose is born at Glamis Castle in Scotland, younger daughter of Prince Albert, Duke of York (second son of King George V and Queen Mary, and later King George VI) and Elizabeth, Duchess of York, and sister to The Princess Elizabeth.
 * August 27 – A military junta takes over in Peru.

September

 * September 3 – A huge hurricane in the Caribbean demolishes most of the city of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.
 * September 6 – José Félix Uriburu carries out a military coup, overthrowing Hipólito Yrigoyen, President of Argentina.
 * September 12 – England cricketer Wilfred Rhodes ends his 1,110-game first-class career by taking 5 for 95 for H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI against the Australians.
 * September 14 – German federal election, 1930: National Socialists win 107 seats in the German Parliament, the Reichstag (18.3% of all the votes), making them the second largest party.
 * September 20 – The Eastern Catholic Rite Syro-Malankara Catholic Church is formed.
 * September 27 – İsmet İnönü forms a new government in Turkey (6th government).

October

 * October – The Indochinese Communist Party is formed.
 * October 3 – The German Socialist Labour Party in Poland – Left founded following a split in DSAP in Łódź.
 * October 5 – British airship R101 crashes in France en route to India on its maiden long-range flight resulting in the loss of 48 lives.
 * October 8 – The Philadelphia Athletics win their second straight World Series, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 7-1 in Game 6.
 * October 20 – A British White Paper demands restrictions on Jewish immigration into Mandatory Palestine.
 * October 24 – Brazilian Revolution of 1930: Getúlio Vargas establishes a dictatorship.
 * October 27 – Ratifications exchanged in London on the first London Naval Treaty signed in April modifying the Washington Naval Treaty of 1925. Its arms limitation provisions go into effect immediately, hence putting more limits on the expensive naval arms race between its five signatories (the United Kingdom, the United States, the Japanese Empire, France, and Italy.)

November

 * November 2 – Haile Selassie is crowned emperor of Ethiopia.
 * November 3 – Getúlio Vargas becomes president of Brazil.
 * November 25
 * An earthquake in the Izu Peninsula of Japan kills 223 people and destroys 650 buildings.
 * Cecil George Paine, a pathologist at the Sheffield Royal Infirmary in England, achieves the first recorded cure (of an eye infection) using penicillin.

December

 * December – All adult Turkish women are given the right to vote in elections.
 * December 2 – Great Depression: President Herbert Hoover goes before the United States Congress to ask for a $150 million public works program to help create jobs and to stimulate the American economy.
 * December 7 – The television station W1XAV in Boston broadcasts video and audio from the radio orchestra program The Fox Trappers. This broadcast also includes the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for the I. J. Fox Furriers company which sponsored the telecast.
 * December 19 – Mount Merapi volcano in central Java, Indonesia, erupts, destroying numerous villages and killing thirteen hundred people.
 * December 24 – In London, inventor Harry Grindell Matthews demonstrates his device to project pictures on clouds.
 * December 29 – Sir Muhammad Iqbal's presidential address in Allahabad introduces the two-nation theory, outlining a vision for the creation of Pakistan.
 * December 31 – The Papal encyclical Casti connubii issued by Pope Pius XI stresses the sanctity of marriage, prohibits Roman Catholics from using any form of artificial birth control, and reaffirms the Catholic prohibition on abortion.

Date unknown

 * A "Jake paralysis" outbreak occurs in the United States resulting from adulterated Jamaica ginger sold as an alcohol substitute during Prohibition.
 * Bernhard Schmidt invents the Schmidt camera.
 * The chocolate chip cookie is invented by Ruth Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts.
 * The experimental television station, W9XAP, in Chicago, broadcasts the election for the United States Senate, the first time that a senatorial race, with continual tallies of the votes, is televised.
 * Greater Sudbury is incorporated as a city in northern Ontario.

January

 * January 1 – Gaafar Nimeiry, 4th President of Sudan (d. 2009)
 * January 2 – Julius La Rosa, American singer (d. 2016)
 * January 3
 * Robert Loggia, American actor (d. 2015)
 * Barbara Stuart, American actress (d. 2011)
 * January 4 – Sorrell Booke, American actor (d. 1994)
 * January 5
 * Jesús Rosas Marcano, Venezuelan poet (d. 2001)
 * M.R. Srinivasan, Indian nuclear scientist
 * January 6
 * Charles Kalani, Jr., Asian-American actor (d. 2000)
 * Vic Tayback, American actor (d. 1990)
 * January 10 – Roy E. Disney, American film and television executive (d. 2009)
 * January 11 – Rod Taylor, Australian actor (d. 2015)
 * January 12 – Jennifer Johnston, Irish novelist
 * January 13 – Frances Sternhagen, American actress
 * January 19 – Tippi Hedren, American actress
 * January 20 – Buzz Aldrin, American pilot and astronaut, Apollo 11 second person to set foot on the Moon
 * January 23
 * Derek Walcott, West Indian writer, Nobel Prize laureate
 * William R. Pogue, American astronaut (d. 2014)
 * January 24 – Rita Lakin, American author
 * January 27
 * Usko Meriläinen, Finnish composer (d. 2004)
 * Bobby Bland, American singer (d. 2013)
 * January 30
 * Samuel Byck, American airplane hijacker and murderer (d. 1974)
 * Gene Hackman, American actor

February

 * February 1 – Hussain Muhammad Ershad, former President of Bangladesh
 * February 3 – Mani Krishnaswami, Carnatic music Vocalist of Tamil Nadu, India (d. 2002)
 * February 4 – Jim Loscutoff, American basketball player (d. 2015)
 * February 6 – Allan King, Canadian director (d. 2009)
 * February 8
 * Erich Bohme, German journalist and television host (d. 2009)
 * Jim Dooley, American football coach (d. 2008)
 * Alejandro Rey, Argentine-American actor (d. 1987)
 * February 10 – Robert Wagner, American actor
 * February 12 – Arlen Specter, American politician (d. 2012)
 * February 13 – Ernst Fuchs, Austrian painter (d. 2015)
 * February 15 – Sara Jane Moore, American convicted of attempted murder of President Gerald Ford
 * February 16
 * Peter Adamson, British actor (d. 2002)
 * Noah Weinberg, American-born Israeli rabbi, founder of Aish HaTorah (d. 2009)
 * February 17 – Ruth Rendell, British author (d. 2015)
 * February 19 – John Frankenheimer, American film director (d. 2002)
 * February 20 – Ken Jones, British actor (d. 2014)
 * February 21 – Dr. Dame Joan Metge, New Zealand social anthropologist, educator, lecturer and writer
 * February 22
 * James McGarrell, American painter
 * Marni Nixon, American vocalist (d. 2016)
 * February 24
 * Joan Diener, American musical theatre actress and singer (d. 2006)
 * Barbara Lawrence, American actress and model (d. 2013)
 * Anita Steckel, American feminist artist (d. 2012)
 * February 25 -- Wendy Beckett, British nun and Author
 * February 26 – Robert Francis, American actor (d. 1955)
 * February 27
 * Peter Stone, American writer (d. 2003)
 * John Straffen, British serial killer (d. 2007)
 * Joanne Woodward, American actress
 * February 28 – Leon Cooper, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

March

 * March 3
 * Heiner Geißler, German politician
 * Ion Iliescu, 2nd President of Romania
 * K. S. Rajah, Senior Counsel and former Judicial Commissioner of the Supreme Court of Singapore (d. 2010)
 * March 6
 * Allison Hayes, American actress (d. 1977)
 * Lorin Maazel, French-born American orchestral conductor (d. 2014)
 * March 7 – Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon
 * March 8 – Hector Lombana, Colombian sculptor, painter and architect (d. 2008)
 * March 9 – Ornette Coleman, American jazz saxophonist (d. 2015)
 * March 10 – Claude Bolling, French jazz pianist and composer
 * March 12 – Win Tin, Burmese journalist and politician (d. 2014)
 * March 13 – Liz Anderson, American country music singer-songwriter (d. 2011)
 * March 14 – Helga Feddersen, German actress (d. 1990)
 * March 15 – Zhores Alferov, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
 * March 17 – James Irwin, American astronaut (d. 1991)
 * March 18 – Adam Cardinal Maida, American Roman Catholic prelate; Archbishop of Detroit (1990–2009)
 * March 20 – Willie Thrower, American football player (d. 2002)
 * March 21 – James Coco, American actor, the unemployed actor in Only When I Laugh, and Sancho Panza in Man of La Mancha (d. 1987)
 * March 22
 * Stephen Sondheim, American composer and lyricist
 * Pat Robertson, American televangelist, motivational speaker, author and television host
 * March 24
 * David Dacko, 1st President of the Central African Republic (d. 2003)
 * Steve McQueen, American actor (d. 1980)
 * March 25 – John Keel, American journalist and ufologist (d. 2009)
 * March 26 – Sandra Day O'Connor, American politician and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
 * March 27 -- James Tayoun Member of Pennsylvania State House of Representatives
 * March 28
 * Robert Ashley, American composer (d. 2014)
 * Jerome Isaac Friedman, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
 * March 29 – Anerood Jugnauth, Maurituian politician, 3-time Prime Minister of Mauritius and 4th President of Mauritius
 * March 30
 * John Astin, American actor
 * Rolf Harris, Australian-born entertainer

April

 * April 1 – Grace Lee Whitney, American actress (d. 2015)
 * April 2 – Roddy Maude-Roxby, English actor
 * April 3
 * Lawton Chiles, U.S. Senator and the Governor of Florida (d. 1998)
 * Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany
 * April 4 – Netty Herawaty, Indonesian actress (d. 1989)
 * April 7 – Andrew Sachs, German-born British actor
 * April 8 – Carlos Hugo, Duke of Parma (d. 2010)
 * April 10 – Spede Pasanen, Finnish television personality (d. 2001)
 * April 11 – Anton LaVey, American Satanist (d. 1997)
 * April 12 – Michał Życzkowski, Polish Professor of Engineering (d. 2006)
 * April 15 – Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, President of Iceland
 * April 16
 * Carol Bly, American author of short stories, essays, and nonfiction; teacher (d. 2007)
 * Herbie Mann, American jazz flutist (d. 2003)
 * April 19 – Dick Sargent, American actor and gay activist (d. 1994)
 * April 21 – Silvana Mangano, Italian actress (d. 1989)
 * April 23 – Alan Oppenheimer, American actor
 * April 24
 * Richard Donner, American film director and producer
 * José Sarney, 31st President of Brazil
 * April 25 – Paul Mazursky, American director and writer (d. 2014)
 * April 28
 * James Baker, former United States Secretary of State
 * Carolyn Jones, American actress (d. 1983)
 * Richard C. Sarafian, American film and television director, writer, and actor (d. 2013)
 * April 29
 * Jean Rochefort, French actor
 * Henri Coppens, Belgian football player (d. 2015)

May

 * May 3
 * Juan Gelman, Argentine poet and writer (d. 2014)
 * Bob Havens, American musician
 * May 4
 * Lois de Banzie, UK-born American actress
 * Katherine Jackson, Jackson family matriarch
 * Roberta Peters, American soprano
 * May 8 – Heather Harper, Northern Irish soprano
 * May 9 – Joan Sims, English actress (d. 2001)
 * May 10 – Pat Summerall, American football player and broadcaster (d. 2013)
 * May 11
 * Edsger Dijkstra, Dutch computer scientist (d. 2002)
 * Bud Ekins, American stuntman (d. 2007)
 * May 15 – Jasper Johns, American painter
 * May 19 – Lorraine Hansberry, American playwright (d. 1965)
 * May 21 – Malcolm Fraser, 22nd Prime Minister of Australia (d. 2015)
 * May 22
 * John Barth, American writer
 * Harvey Milk, American politician and civil rights activist of San Francisco (murdered 1978)
 * Agustín Tosco, Argentine union leader (d. 1975)
 * May 25 – Sonia Rykiel, French fashion designer (d. 2016)
 * May 28 – Frank Drake, American radio astronomer and pioneer in SETI
 * May 31 – Clint Eastwood, American actor, director, and producer

June



 * June 1 – Edward Woodward, British actor (d. 2009)
 * June 2 – Charles Conrad, American astronaut and moonwalker, commander of Apollo 12 (d. 1999)
 * June 3 – Marion Zimmer Bradley, American writer (d. 1999)
 * June 4 – Morgana King, American jazz singer and actress
 * June 8 – Robert Aumann, German-born mathematician, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
 * June 9 – Monique Serf, French singer (d. 1997)
 * June 10 – Grace Mirabella, American editor of Vogue
 * June 11 – Charles B. Rangel, American politician
 * June 12 – Jim Nabors, American actor, musician, and comedian
 * June 16 – Vilmos Zsigmond, Hungarian-American cinematographer (d. 2016)
 * June 17 – Brian Statham, English cricketer (d. 2000)
 * June 19 – Gena Rowlands, American actress
 * June 21 – Gerald Kaufman, British Labour politician
 * June 22
 * Yury Artyukhin, Russian cosmonaut (d. 1998)
 * Patricia Nielsen, British former swimmer
 * June 23 – John Elliot, British historian
 * June 24
 * Claude Chabrol, French film director (d. 2010)
 * William B. Ziff, Jr., American publishing executive (d. 2006)
 * June 25 – László Antal, Hungarian linguist (d. 1993)
 * June 27 – Ross Perot, American computer billionaire and politician
 * June 28
 * William C. Campbell, Irish-American biologist and parasitologist, Nobel Prize laureate
 * Itamar Franco, President of Brazil (d. 2011)
 * Horacio Gómez Bolaños, Mexican actor (d. 1999)
 * June 29 – Robert Evans, American producer
 * June 30 – Ahmed Zaki Yamani, Saudi Arabian politician

July

 * July 1
 * Jerome A. Cohen, American professor of law at New York University School of Law
 * Ron Hughes, English professional footballer who played as a full-back
 * July 2
 * Carlos Menem, President of Argentina
 * Magdalen Redman, American professional baseball player
 * Ahmad Jamal, American jazz pianist and composer
 * July 3 – Carlos Kleiber, Austrian conductor (d. 2004)
 * July 4
 * Frunzik Mkrtchyan, Armenian actor (d. 1993)
 * George Steinbrenner, American big businessman and then baseball team owner (d. 2010)
 * July 5 – Tommy Cook, American actor
 * July 6
 * Michael Baume, Australian former Liberal Party politician
 * Françoise Mallet-Joris, Belgian writer (d. 2016)
 * M. Balamuralikrishna, Indian Carnatic vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, playback singer, composer and actor
 * July 9
 * Juan Carlos Frecia, Argentine fencer
 * Yu So-chow, Peking opera family
 * Buddy Bregman, American musical arranger
 * July 11
 * Harold Bloom, American literary critic
 * Jack Alabaster, played 21 Tests for New Zealand
 * Ezra Vogel, American professor
 * July 12 – Irene Sutcliffe, English actress
 * July 14 – Polly Bergen, American actress (d. 2014)
 * July 15
 * Jacques Derrida, Algerian-born French literary critic (d. 2004)
 * Betty Wagoner, American professional baseball player (d. 2006)
 * July 17 – William Heseltine, Australian Private Secretary to Queen Elizabeth II
 * July 20
 * Sally Ann Howes, English actress and singer
 * Oleg Anofriyev, Soviet and Russian stage and screen actor, voice actor, singer, songwriter, film director, and poet
 * Bryan Conquest, Australian politician
 * July 22 – Jeremy Lloyd, British actor and screenwriter (d. 2014)
 * July 25
 * Murray Chapple, New Zealand cricketer (d. 1985)
 * Maureen Forrester, Canadian contralto (d. 2010)
 * July 27 – Andy White, Scottish drummer (d. 2015)
 * July 28
 * Firoza Begum, Bengali singer (d. 2014)
 * Jean Roba, Belgian comics author (d. 2006)

August

 * August 1
 * Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist (d. 2002)
 * Lawrence Eagleburger, United States Secretary of State (d. 2011)
 * August 4 – Ali al-Sistani, Shia Ayatollah
 * August 5 – Neil Armstrong, astronaut, first human to set foot on the Moon, Commander of Apollo 11. He was also an aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. (d. 2012)
 * August 6 – Abbey Lincoln, American singer (d. 2010)
 * August 9 – Jacques Parizeau, French-Canadian politician (d. 2015)
 * August 10 – Jorma Panula, Finnish conductor and composer
 * August 12
 * George Soros, Hungarian-born investor
 * Peter Weck, Austrian film director and actor
 * August 13 – Don Ho, Hawaiian singer & musician (d. 2007)
 * August 14 – Earl Weaver, American professional baseball player and manager (d. 2013)
 * August 15 – Selma James, American-born feminist writer
 * August 16
 * Robert Culp, American actor (d. 2010)
 * Frank Gifford, American football player (d. 2015)
 * August 17 – Ted Hughes, English poet (d. 1998)
 * August 18 – Rafael Pineda Ponce, Honduran educator and politician. (d. 2014)
 * August 19 – Frank McCourt, Irish-American writer (d. 2009)
 * August 21 – Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (d. 2002)
 * August 22 – Gylmar dos Santos Neves, Brazilian footballer (d. 2013)
 * August 23 – Mickey McMahan, American big band musician (d. 2008)
 * August 25 – Sir Sean Connery, Scottish actor
 * August 27 – Gholamreza Takhti, Iranian wrestler (d. 1968)
 * August 28 – Ben Gazzara, American actor (d. 2012)
 * August 30 – Warren Buffett, American billionaire entrepreneur

September

 * September 1 – Charles Correa, Indian architect (d. 2015)
 * September 3 – Cherry Wilder, New Zealand author (d. 2002)
 * September 7
 * King Baudouin I of Belgium (d. 1993)
 * Sonny Rollins, American jazz saxophonist
 * September 8 – Mario Adorf, German actor
 * September 9 – Frank Lucas, African-American drug lord
 * September 11
 * Cathryn Damon, American actress (d. 1987)
 * Renzo Montagnani, Italian actor (d. 1997)
 * September 12 – Akira Suzuki, Japanese chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
 * September 13
 * Mary Baumgartner, American female professional baseball player
 * Bola Ige, Nigerian politician (d. 2001)
 * September 16 – Anne Francis, American actress (d. 2011)
 * September 17
 * Edgar Mitchell, American astronaut (d. 2016)
 * David Huddleston American actor The Big Lebowski (d. 2016)
 * September 20 – Kenneth Mopeli, Chief Minister of QwaQwa bantustan (d. 2014)
 * September 21 – Dawn Addams, British actress (d. 1985)
 * September 22 – T. S. Sinnathuray, Judge of the High Court of Singapore (d. 2016)
 * September 23
 * Colin Blakely, Northern Irish actor (d. 1987)
 * Ray Charles, American singer, musician, and actor (d. 2004)
 * September 24 – Angelo Muscat, Maltese actor (d. 1977)
 * September 25 – Shel Silverstein, American author, poet, and humorist (d. 1999)
 * September 26
 * Philip Bosco, American actor
 * Fritz Wunderlich, German tenor singer (d. 1966)

October

 * October 1
 * Richard Harris, Irish actor and singer (d. 2002)
 * Philippe Noiret, French actor (d. 2006)
 * Rev. Dr. George F. Regas, American Episcopal priest and activist; rector of All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena, California (1967–95)
 * Erica Yohn, American actress
 * October 5
 * Pavel Popovich, Soviet cosmonaut (d. 2009)
 * Reinhard Selten, German economist, Nobel Prize laureate
 * October 6
 * Hafez al-Assad, President of Syria (d. 2000)
 * Richie Benaud, Australian cricketer and commentator (d. 2015)
 * October 8 – Tōru Takemitsu, Japanese composer (d. 1996)
 * October 10
 * Yves Chauvin, Belgian-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2015)
 * Harold Pinter, English playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2008)
 * October 11 – Sam Johnson, American politician
 * October 14
 * Schafik Handal, Salvadoran politician (d. 2006)
 * Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Democratic Republic of the Congo (d. 1997)
 * October 17
 * Robert Atkins, American nutritionist (d. 2003)
 * Jimmy Breslin, American newspaper columnist and author
 * October 19 – Jody Lawrance, American actress (d. 1986)
 * October 24 – The Big Bopper, American singer (d. 1959)
 * October 28 – Bernie Ecclestone, English auto racing tycoon
 * October 29
 * Bertha Brouwer, Dutch athlete (d. 2006)
 * Natalie Sleeth, American composer (d. 1992)
 * Omara Portuondo, Cuban singer and dancer
 * Niki de Saint Phalle, French artist (d. 2002)
 * October 30
 * Daniel Boone, American jazz trumpeter (d. 1956)
 * Timothy Findley, Canadian author (d. 2002)
 * October 31 – Michael Collins, American astronaut, second person to fly around the Moon solo, Command Module pilot on Apollo 11, the first human lunar landing

November

 * November 3 – D. James Kennedy, American evangelist (d. 2007)
 * November 5 – Hans Mommsen, German historian (d. 2015)
 * November 6 – Derrick Bell, law professor, Wilma Briggs, American female baseball player (d. 2011)
 * November 11 – Stuart Briscoe, British-American pastor, motivational speaker and author
 * November 12 – Bob Crewe, American singer, songwriter, manager, and producer (d. 2014)
 * November 14
 * Shirley Crabtree ("Big Daddy"), British professional wrestler (d. 1997)
 * Edward Higgins White, American astronaut (d. 1967)
 * November 15 – J. G. Ballard, English writer (d. 2009)
 * November 16
 * Chinua Achebe, Nigerian writer (d. 2013)
 * Salvatore Riina, Italian multiple murderer
 * November 17 – Bob Mathias, American athlete (d. 2006)
 * November 20 – Bernard Horsfall, British actor (d. 2013)
 * November 24 – Bob Friend, American baseball player
 * November 25 – Clarke Scholes, American freestyle swimmer (d. 2010)
 * November 27 – Rex Shelley, Singaporean author (d. 2009)
 * November 30 – G. Gordon Liddy, organizer of the Watergate burglaries

December

 * December 1 – Joachim Hoffmann, German historian (d. 2002)
 * December 2 – Gary Becker, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2014)
 * December 3 – Jean-Luc Godard, French film director
 * December 4
 * Jim Hall, American jazz guitarist (d. 2013)
 * Ronnie Corbett, British comedian (d. 2016)
 * December 6 – Daniel Lisulo, Prime Minister of Zambia (d. 2000)
 * December 7 – Christopher Nicole, Guyanese-born British writer
 * December 8
 * Stan Richards, English actor (d. 2005)
 * Maximilian Schell, Swiss-Austrian actor (d. 2014)
 * December 9 – Edoardo Sanguineti, Italian writer (d. 2010)
 * December 11
 * Jean-Louis Trintignant, French actor
 * Jim Williams, American antique dealer and preservationist (d. 1990)
 * December 15 – Edna O'Brien, Irish writer
 * December 17 – Armin Mueller-Stahl, German actor
 * December 21
 * Adebayo Adedeji, Nigerian UN official
 * Kalevi Sorsa, Prime Minister of Finland (d. 2004)
 * December 25 – Salah Jahin, Egyptian poet, lyricist, playwright and cartoonist (d. 1986)
 * December 27 – Wilfrid Sheed, English-born American writer (d. 2011)
 * December 28
 * Mariam A. Aleem, Egyptian artist (d. 2010)
 * Gladys Ambrose, English actress (d. 1998)
 * Franzl Lang, German yodeler (d. 2015)
 * December 29 – Frank Dezelan, American baseball umpire (d. 2011)
 * December 30 – Tu Youyou, Chinese pharmaceutical chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
 * December 31
 * Odetta, American singer (d. 2008)
 * Jaime Escalante, American teacher (d. 2010)

Date unknown

 * Kevin Budden, Australian herpetologist (d. 1950)
 * Barney Glaser, American sociologist

January–June

 * January 3 – Guglielmo Plüschow, German photographer (b. 1852)
 * January 9 – Edward Bok, American author (b. 1863)
 * January 13 – John Nathan Cobb, American author, naturalist, conservationist, fisheries researcher, and educator (b. 1868)
 * January 27 – Dewa Shigetō, Japanese admiral (b. 1856)
 * February 3 – Michele Bianchi, Italian fascist leader (b. 1883)
 * February 14 – Sir Thomas MacKenzie, New Zealand Prime Minister and High Commissioner (b. 1854)
 * February 15 – Giulio Douhet, Italian general and air power theorist (b. 1869)
 * February 21 – Ahmad Shah Qajar, Shah of Persia (b. 1898)
 * February 23
 * Mabel Normand, American actress (b. 1895)
 * Horst Wessel, Nazi ideologue and composer (b. 1907)
 * February 28 – Sir Perceval Maitland Laurence, English classical scholar, South African judge and a benefactor of the University of Cambridge (b. 1854)
 * March 2 – D. H. Lawrence, English writer (Lady Chatterley's Lover) (b. 1885)
 * March 6 – Alfred von Tirpitz, German politician and admiral (b. 1848)
 * March 8 – William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States, 10th Chief Justice of the United States (b. 1857)
 * March 12 – William George Barker, Canadian pilot (b. 1894)
 * March 16 – Miguel Primo de Rivera, Spanish military officer and former Prime Minister (b. 1870)
 * March 19 – Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1848)
 * March 24 – Eugeen Van Mieghem, Belgian painter (b. 1875)
 * April 2 – Empress Zewditu I of Ethiopia (b. 1876)
 * April 4 – Victoria of Baden, Queen consort of Sweden (b. 1862)
 * April 9 – Heinrich Ritter von Wittek, Austrian politician and statesman (b. 1844)
 * April 10 – Alfred Williams, British poet (b. 1877)
 * April 14
 * Vladimir Mayakovsky, Russian poet (b. 1893)
 * John B. Sheridan, Irish American sports journalist (b. 1870)
 * April 21 – Robert Bridges, English poet (b. 1844)
 * April 22 – Jeppe Aakjær, Danish poet and novelist (b. 1866)
 * May 13 – Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian explorer, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1861)
 * May 17 – Herbert Croly, American political author (b. 1869)
 * May 25 – Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1848)
 * June 5 – Pascin, Bulgarian painter (b. 1885)
 * June 10 – Adolf von Harnack, German Lutheran theologian and church historian (b. 1851)
 * June 13 – Henry Segrave, British racer and speed record holder (b. 1896)

July–December

 * July 7 – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Scottish-born fiction writer (Sherlock Holmes) (b. 1859)
 * July 8 – Sir Joseph Ward, 17th Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1856)
 * July 15
 * Leopold Auer, Hungarian violinist (b. 1845)
 * Rudolph Schildkraut, Istanbul born American actor (b. 1862)
 * July 19 – Oku Yasukata, Japanese field marshal and a leading figure in the early Imperial Japanese Army (b. 1847)
 * July 23 – Glenn Curtiss, American aviation pioneer (b. 1878)
 * July 26 – Pavlos Karolidis, Greek historian (b. 1849)
 * July 28 – Allvar Gullstrand, Swedish ophthalmologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1862)
 * July 30 – Joan Gamper, Swiss-born businessman and founder of FC Barcelona (b. 1877)
 * August 12 – Horace Smith-Dorrien, English general (b. 1858)
 * August 15 – Florian Cajori, Swiss-born historian of mathematics (b. 1859)
 * August 21 – Aston Webb, British architect (b. 1849)
 * August 24 – Tom Norman, English freak showman (b. 1860)
 * August 26 – Lon Chaney, American actor (b. 1883)
 * August 29 – William Archibald Spooner, English scholar and Anglican priest (b. 1844)
 * September 1 – Peeter Põld, Estonian pedagogical scientist and politician (b. 1878)
 * September 10 – Aubrey Faulkner, South African cricketer (b. 1881)
 * September 15 – Milton Sills, American actor (b. 1882)
 * September 20 – Gombojab Tsybikov, Russian explorer (b. 1873)
 * September 21 – John T. Dorrance, American chemist (b. 1873)
 * September 24 – William A. MacCorkle, American lawyer, Governor of West Virginia (b. 1857)
 * September 28 – Daniel Guggenheim, American mining magnate and philanthropist (b. 1856)
 * October 2 – Gordon Stewart Northcott, American serial killer (executed) (b. 1906)
 * October 15 – Herbert Dow, Canadian-born chemical industrialist (b. 1866)
 * October 20 – Valeriano Weyler, 1st Duke of Rubí, Spanish general (b. 1838)
 * October 26 – Harry Payne Whitney, American businessman and horse breeder (b. 1872)
 * November 5
 * Christiaan Eijkman, Dutch physician and pathologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1858)
 * Luigi Facta, Italian politician, 26th Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1861)
 * November 8 – Alexander Bedward, Jamaican preacher (b. 1848)
 * November 9 – Tasker H. Bliss, American general (b. 1853)
 * November 20 – William B. Hanna, American sportswriter (b. 1866)
 * November 28 – Constantine VI, Turkish-born bishop, briefly Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople (b. 1859)
 * November 30 – Mary Harris Jones, American labor leader (b. 1837)
 * November – Alfred Wegener, German geophysicist and meteorologist (b. 1880)
 * December 9
 * Andrew "Rube" Foster, American Negro league baseball player (b. 1879)
 * Laura Muntz Lyall, Canadian painter (b. 1860)
 * December 12 – Nikolai Pokrovsky, Russian politician and the last foreign minister of the Russian Empire (b. 1865)
 * December 13 – Fritz Pregl, Austrian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1869)
 * December 14 – F. Richard Jones, American director (b. 1893)
 * December 17 – Peter Warlock, Anglo-Welsh composer (b. 1894)
 * December 25 – Eugen Goldstein, German physicist (b. 1850)

Nobel Prizes

 * Physics – Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman
 * Chemistry – Hans Fischer
 * Physiology or Medicine – Karl Landsteiner
 * Literature – Sinclair Lewis
 * Peace – Nathan Söderblom