Portal:Biography/Selected anniversaries/May 2

Births

 * 1729 - Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia (d.1796)
 * 1892 - Manfred von Richthofen, German World War I pilot - the Red Baron (d. 1918)(pictured)
 * 1903 - Bing Crosby, American singer and actor (d. 1977)
 * 1903 - Benjamin Spock, American pediatrician and author (d. 1998)
 * 1935 - King Faisal II of Iraq (d. 1958)
 * 1936 - Engelbert Humperdinck, British-born singer
 * 1975 - David Beckham, English footballer

Deaths

 * 1519 - Leonardo da Vinci, Italian inventor and painter (b. 1452)
 * 1957 - Joseph McCarthy, U.S. Senator (b. 1908)
 * 1972 - J. Edgar Hoover, American director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (b. 1895)
 * 1997 - John Carew Eccles, Australian neurophysiologist, Nobel laureate (b. 1903)