1886 births

Amelie Hedwig Boutard-Beese (13 September 1886 – 22 December 1925), also known as Melli Beese, was the first female German pilot, and airplane engineer female aviator.

Pierre Kemp (1 December 1886 – 21 July 1967) was a Dutch poet and painter, the recipient of the Constantijn Huygens Prize in 1956 and the P. C. Hooft Award in 1958. His younger brother was the writer Mathias Kemp.
Kemp was born in Maastricht and died there in 1967. In Limburg, the province where he was born, people made fun of his surname; in several dialects of Dutch and the regional Limburgian language, 'kemp' (as kennep and general Dutch hennep) is the colloquial term for marijuana.

Rudolf Seeliger (12 November 1886 – 20 January 1965) was a German physicist who specialized in electric discharges in gases and plasma physics.
From 1906 to 1909, Seeliger studied at the University of Tübingen and the University of Heidelberg. He then became a student of Arnold Sommerfeld at the University of Munich, where he got his doctorate in 1910. The topic of his thesis, the physics of electrical currents in gas, set the theme for his life’s field of research. He then went to conduct postgraduate research, on the same topic, at the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt (PTR) in Berlin. In 1915, he was also a Privatdozent at the University of Berlin. In 1918, he was called by Johannes Stark, Director of the Institute of Physics at the University of Greifswald, to be extraordinarius professor there. In 1921, Seeliger took the position of ordinarius professor for theoretical physics at the University. He became Director of the Institute of Physics in 1940, and was succeeded in 1955, by Walter Schallreuter, who had been a co-author with Seeliger on a physics textbook series.In collaboration with Ernst Gehrcke at the PTR, Seeliger continued his research on electrical discharges in gases. In the spring of 1912, Gehrcke and Seeliger determined that light from cathode rays (electron beams) passing through gases, such as nitrogen and mercury vapor, became longer in wavelength, as the velocity of the cathode rays were slowed, i.e., becoming lower in energy. These results, through experiments in 1912 and 1913, were clarified and interpreted, by James Franck and Gustav Hertz, nephew of Heinrich Hertz; for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom, Franck and Hertz were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1925.In 1946, Paul Schulz founded the Forschungsstelle für Gasentladungsphysik (Research Center for Gas Discharge Physics) under the Academy of Sciences. When Schulz left in 1949, Seeliger became director. In 1950, the center was renamed the Institut für Gasentladungsphysik (Institute for Gas Discharge Physics). In 1969, the institute was reassigned to the Zentralinstitut für Elektronenphysik (Central Institute of Electron Physics). On 31 December 1991 the Institut für Gasentladungsphysik was dissolved and reopened the next day as the Institut für Niedertemperatur-Plasmaphysik e.V. and became part of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community.From 1946 to 1948, Seeliger was Rector of the University of Greifswald.

Armin Theophil Wegner (October 16, 1886 – May 17, 1978) was a German soldier and medic in World War I, a prolific author, and a human rights activist. Stationed in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, Wegner was a witness to the Armenian genocide and the photographs he took documenting the plight of the Armenians today "comprises the core of witness images of the Genocide.": 258–259 In the years following World War I, Wegner also voiced his opposition, at great risk to his own life, to the antisemitic policies of the Nazi regime. In 1933, he authored an impassioned plea to Adolf Hitler on behalf of German Jews. He suggested that the persecution of the Jews was not just a question of "the fate of our Jewish brothers alone, [but also] the fate of Germany.": 240  Noting that he was writing the letter as a proud German who could himself trace his Prussian familial roots back to the time of the Crusades, Wegner asked Hitler what would become of Germany if it continued its persecution of Jews. Answering his own question, Wegner declared, "There is no Fatherland without justice!": 244  He was persecuted by the Nazi regime and fled after being released from a concentration camp.
After leaving Germany, Wegner lived the rest of his life in Italy. He was later recognized for his anti-genocide efforts, including recognition by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations. His story and his pictures have featured in multiple later efforts to document the Armenian genocide.

Jimmy McGonigal (21 April 1886 – 7 October 1967), known professionally as Jimmy Gold, was a Scottish comedian and part of the music hall act of Naughton and Gold. Later they became part of the Crazy Gang.
Gold was born in Glasgow. His parents were John McGonigal, a painter and decorator, and Elizabeth (whose maiden name was Gold). He had either four or five brothers and three sisters. Harry was the oldest and Jimmy was second oldest. Others included Danny, Johnny and Peter (the youngest). The sisters were Elizabeth, Agnes and another one who died when just a few years old. He is remembered as a happy, good natured man.
Jimmy went into the family trade of painting and decorating till he joined up with Naughton. They were tap dancers to start with but the comedy gradually took over.
As part of the Crazy Gang, he, and they, held the record for the number of appearances at the Royal Variety Show in front of the Queen. The Crazy Gang were favourites of the young Princess Margaret.
Once, when playing the Palladium, he noticed his bottle of whisky had less in it than it had when he went out on stage. He blamed his younger brother Peter McGonigal for drinking it. Peter denied it. Jimmy asked him if he saw anyone else backstage whilst he was on stage. Peter described a man he had seen backstage during the performance. The description fitted His Royal Highness, Edward the Duke of Windsor, who was in attendance.
Another time, when the Crazy Gang were travelling by road and when there were rumours that Jimmy was going to be dropped by them, he told the rest of them "I don't care. I've got 40 grand in the bank". A little while later in the conversation he said "I don't care. I've got 30 grand in the bank". At which one of the other members of the Crazy Gang stopped the car. "What are you doing?" said Jimmy. "I'm going back", said the driver. "Somewhere between here and the last petrol station you lost 10 grand and I'm going back to look for it".
He died in London, aged 81.

Othmar Schoeck (1 September 1886 – 8 March 1957) was a Swiss Romantic classical composer, opera composer, musician, and conductor.
He was known mainly for his considerable output of art songs and song cycles, though he also wrote a number of operas, notably his one-act Penthesilea, which was premiered at the Semperoper in Dresden in 1927 and revived at the Lucerne Festival in 1999. He wrote a handful of instrumental compositions, including two string quartets and concertos for violin (for Stefi Geyer, dedicatee also of Béla Bartók's first concerto), cello and horn.

Marie Marthe Augustine Lemaitre Brémont (née Mesange; 25 April 1886 – 6 June 2001) was a French supercentenarian and the oldest recognized person in the world from November 2000 until her death at age 115 years 42 days. Brémont is the fifth oldest French person to have ever lived, after longevity world record holder Jeanne Calment, Lucile Randon, Jeanne Bot, and Valentine Ligny.

Jacques Rivière (15 July 1886 – 14 February 1925) was a French "man of letters" — a writer, critic and editor who was "a major force in the intellectual life of France in the period immediately following World War I". He edited the magazine La Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF) from 1919 until his death. He was influential in winning a general public acceptance of Marcel Proust as an important writer. His friend and brother-in-law was Alain-Fournier (Henri Alban-Fournier), with whom he exchanged an abundant correspondence.

Philip Murray (May 25, 1886 – November 9, 1952) was a Scottish-born steelworker and an American labor leader. He was the first president of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), the first president of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), and the longest-serving president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

Eugénie "Ninon" Vallin (8 September 1886 – 22 November 1961) was a French lyric soprano who achieved considerable popularity in opera, operetta and classical song recitals during an international career that lasted for more than four decades.