Born on August 9

Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter, architect, and writer of the Renaissance. Author of "Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects" (1550), he is considered the first art historian. He also designed the Uffizi Palace in Florence.

Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist, biologist, and epistemologist, the founder of developmental psychology and genetic epistemology. His work on the stages of children's intellectual development profoundly reshaped pedagogy and the educational sciences in the twentieth century.

Mary Golda Ross (1908-2008) was an American aerospace engineer, the first female engineer of the Cherokee Nation. A pioneer of astronautics, she took part in the founding work of the American space and defense programs at Lockheed.

Yinka Shonibare is a British visual artist of Nigerian descent, born in 1962. He is famous for his installations and sculptures using wax fabric — that colorful cloth associated with Africa but with complex colonial origins — to question identity, colonialism, and cultural hybridity.

Whitney Houston (1963-2012) is one of the greatest American singers of all time, celebrated for her exceptional voice. She dominated global charts throughout the 1980s and 1990s and starred in the blockbuster film The Bodyguard (1992).