Laurence Fishburne (shown here with wife and Serenity co-star Gina Torres) celebrates a birthday this week.

July 29: Grigoriy Rasputin, born in 1871; French historian Alexis de Tocqueville in 1805; novelist Booth Tarkington in 1869; Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1883; actress Theda Bara in 1885; composer Sigmund Romberg (The Student Prince, The Desert Song, Lover Come Back to Me, When I Grow Too Old to Dream), in 1887; actors William Powell in 1892 and Richard Egan in 1923; former Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole in 1936; TV anchorman Peter Jennings in 1938; actor David Warner in 1941; former second lady Marilyn Tucker Quayle in 1949; documentary filmmaker Ken Burns in 1954; country singer Martina McBride in 1966; actor Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next Generation) in 1972 and Smallville's Allison Mack in 1982

July 30: English novelist Emily Bronte in 1818; auto pioneer Henry Ford in 1863; baseball player/manager Casey Stengel in 1890; English sculptor Henry Moore in 1898; Baseball Commissioner Allan "Bud" Selig in 1934; film director Peter Bogdanovich in 1939; singer Paul Anka in 1941; bodybuilder-turned-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1947; Anita Hill, of the Clarence Thomas hearings fame, in 1956; and actors Ken Olin in 1954, Delta Burke in 1956, Laurence Fishburne in 1961, Lisa Kudrow in 1963, and Hilary Swank in 1974

July 31: author and jurist James Kent in 1763; Confederate Army guerrilla leader William Quantrill, whose wartime raid on Lawrence, Kan., left some 150 people dead, in 1837; pollster Elmo Burns Roper Jr., in 1900; economist Milton Friedman and former TV talk-show host and columnist Irv Kupcinet, both in 1912; actor Don Murray in 1929; actress France Nuyen in 1939 and Geraldine Chaplin in 1944; singer Gary Lewis in 1946; Australian tennis player Evonne Goolagong in 1951; Bill Berry, guitarist for the rock band R.E.M., in 1958; and actors Wesley Snipes in 1962 and Dean Cain (Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman) in 1966

August 1: Claudius I, born in 19 BC; French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck, known for his theory of evolution, in 1744; explorer William Clark in 1770; Francis Scott Key, composer of "The Star-Spangled Banner," in 1779; lawyer and writer Richard Henry Dana Jr., author of Two Years Before the Mast, in 1815; author Herman Melville in 1819; actors Arthur Hill in 1922 and Geoffrey Holder in 1930; comic actor Dom DeLuise in 1933; French fashion designer Yves St. Laurent in 1936; Jerry Garcia, co-founder of the Grateful Dead, in 1942; and actress Tempestt Bledsoe in 1973

August 2: They include movie studio chief Jack Warner of Warner Bros. in 1892; actresses Myrna Loy in 1905 and Beatrice Straight in 1918; author James Baldwin and actor Carroll O'Connor, both in 1924; filmmaker Wes Craven in 1939; and actors Peter O'Toole in 1932, Joanna Cassidy in 1944, Kathryn Harrold in 1950, and Edward Furlong in 1977

August 3: Elisha Graves Otis, inventor of the modern elevator, in 1811; World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle in 1900; actress Dolores del Rio in 1905; author Leon Uris in 1924; singer Tony Bennett in 1926; horror director Wes Craven in 1939; actors Martin Sheen in 1940; notorious interior style maven Martha Stewart in 1941; magical realism/fantasy writer Isabelle Allende in 1942; Jay North, television's "Dennis the Menace," in 1951, Victoria Jackson in 1958 and and Lost's Evangeline Lilly in 1979

August 4 notables: English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1792; Scottish comedian Sir Harry Lauder in 1870; the dowager Queen Elizabeth, mother of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, in 1900; legendary jazz musician Louis Armstrong in 1901; former UPI White House reporter Helen Thomas, in 1920; Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in 1929; and actors Richard Belzer in 1944 and Billy Bob Thornton in 1955

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Laurence Fishburne (shown here with wife and Serenity co-star Gina Torres) celebrates a birthday this week.		Lost star Evangeline Lilly		The ubiquitous Billy Bob Thornton
Hilary Swank		Allison Mack