1888 births

Margarita Xirgu Subirá (18 June 1888, Molins de Rei, Barcelona, Spain – 25 April 1969, Montevideo, Uruguay), also Margarida Xirgu, was a Spanish stage actress, who was greatly popular throughout her country and Latin America. A friend of the poet Federico García Lorca, she was forced into exile during Francisco Franco's dictatorship of Spain, but continued her work in America. Notable plays in which she appeared include Como tú me Deseas, La casa de Bernarda Alba, and Mariana Pineda.
An opera, Ainadamar, by the composer Osvaldo Golijov and playwright David Henry Hwang, based on Xirgu's life and her association with Lorca, was premiered in 2003. A recording of the work released in 2006 on the Deutsche Grammophon label (Catalog #642902) won the 2007 Grammy awards for Best Classical Contemporary Composition and Best Opera Recording.

Gianfranco Giachetti (27 September 1888 – 29 November 1936) was an Italian stage and film actor. He played the role of Father Costanzo in Alessandro Blasetti's historical film 1860. The same year he appeared in The Old Guard as Doctor Cardini, the father of a young blackshirt who is killed in a street fight.

Andrés Grillasca Salas (6 January 1888 – 19 December 1973) was a Puerto Rican farmer from Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, and Mayor of Ponce, Puerto Rico, from 2 January 1941 to 9 May 1956. Until the 1990s administration of Rafael Cordero Santiago, Grillasca Salas had the distinction of being the longest-serving mayor of the city (16 years). He was known to always dress in white clothes.

Lucien Baroux (born Marcel Lucien Barou; 21 September 1888 in Toulouse – 21 May 1968 in Hossegor) was a French actor. He began his career working in the theatre, moving on to a long career in films from the 1930s.
In the field of musical comedy he created roles in Brummell in 1931 (Jim), Déshabillez-vous ! in 1928 (Dumontel), Passionément in 1926 (Captain Harris), and J'adore ça in 1925 (Jacques Cocardier). He appeared as Laurent XVII in the 1935 film and 1956 recording of La mascotte.He took part in the complete recording of Le Malade imaginaire (as Monsieur Diafoirus), in 1964 starring Michel Galabru on L'Encyclopédie Sonore Hachette.

René Marx Dormoy (French pronunciation: [ʁəne maʁks dɔʁmwa], 1 August 1888 – 26 July 1941) was a French socialist politician, noted for his opposition to the far right. Under his leadership as Minister of the Interior in the government of Léon Blum, the French police infiltrated La Cagoule, which was planning the overthrow of the French Third Republic, led by the Popular Front government. Dormoy directed the arrest and imprisonment of 70 cagoulards in November 1937. The police recovered 2 tons of armaments from their sites.
After the Occupation of France, Dormoy as a representative refused to approve providing full powers to Marshal Philippe Petain and the Vichy government. He was arrested in 1940 and interned in house arrest in Montélimar. He was assassinated there in July 1941 by a bomb set off at his house. It was believed to be the work of La Cagoule terrorists.

Charles Godefroy (29 December 1888 at La Flèche (Sarthe) – 11 December 1958 at Soisy-sous-Montmorency, (Val d'Oise), north of Paris) was a French aviator who became famous for flying through the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in 1919.

Count Wladimir Lefèvre d'Ormesson (2 August 1888 – 15 September 1973) was a French journalist, essayist, novelist and diplomat.

Raffaele Viviani (10 January 1888 – 22 March 1950) was an Italian author, playwright, actor and musician. Viviani belongs to the turn-of-the-century school of realism in Italian literature, and his works touch on seamier elements of the lives of the poor in Naples of that period, such as petty crime and prostitution. Critics have termed Viviani "an autodidact realist", meaning that he acquired his skills through personal experience and not academic education.
Viviani appeared at age 4 on the stage, and by age 20 he had acquired a solid nationwide reputation as an actor and playwright. He also played in Budapest, Paris, Tripoli, and throughout South America during his career. His plays are in the "anti-Pirandello" style, less concerned with the psychology of people than with the lives they lead. Viviani's best known-work is L'ultimo scugnizzo (The Last Urchin) (1931), scugnizzo being the underclass Neapolitan street child. Viviani composed songs and incidental music for many of his earlier works. One such well-known melodrama is via Toledo di notte, (Via Toledo by Night) a 1918 work which even incorporates American cakewalk and ragtime rhythms to tell the story of the "street people" of via Toledo, the most famous street in Naples.

Friedrich Wolf (23 December 1888 – 5 October 1953) was a German doctor and politically-engaged writer. From 1949 to 1951, he served as East Germany's first ambassador to Poland.

Jan Greshoff (15 December 1888, Nieuw-Helvoet – 19 March 1971, Cape Town) was a Dutch journalist, poet, and literary critic. He was the 1967 recipient of the Constantijn Huygens Prize.