1923 births

Frederick James Kroesen Jr. (February 11, 1923 – April 30, 2020) was a United States Army four-star general who served as the Commanding General of the Seventh United States Army and the commander of NATO Central Army Group from 1979 to 1983, and Commanding General, United States Army Forces Command from 1976 to 1978. He also served as Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1978 to 1979. He commanded troops in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, enabling him to be one of the very small number who ever was entitled to wear the Combat Infantryman Badge with two Stars, denoting active combat in three wars.

Warren Eastman Hearnes (July 24, 1923 – August 16, 2009) was an American politician who served as the 46th governor of Missouri from 1965 to 1973. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first officeholder eligible to serve two consecutive four-year terms as Governor. He previously served as the Secretary of State of Missouri from 1961 to 1965.
After leaving office Hearnes was dogged by a tax investigation, relating to finances in and out of his administration. While later cleared of any wrongdoing, Hearnes faced trouble in future bids for office. He was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in 1976, replacing Jerry Litton who died after winning the nomination, but lost to John Danforth in November. He subsequently lost bids for Missouri Auditor in 1978, and a Circuit Court Judge position in 1980.

Walter Marty Schirra Jr. (, March 12, 1923 – May 3, 2007) was an American naval aviator, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. In 1959, he became one of the original seven astronauts chosen for Project Mercury, which was the United States' first effort to put humans into space. On October 3, 1962, he flew the six-orbit, nine-hour, Mercury-Atlas 8 mission, in a spacecraft he nicknamed Sigma 7, becoming the fifth American and ninth human to travel into space. In December 1965, as part of the two-man Gemini program, he achieved the first space rendezvous, station-keeping his Gemini 6A spacecraft within 1 foot (30 cm) of the sister Gemini 7 spacecraft. In October 1968, he commanded Apollo 7, an 11-day low Earth orbit shakedown test of the three-man Apollo Command/Service Module and the first crewed launch for the Apollo program.
Before becoming an astronaut, Schirra graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1945, and served at sea during World War II. In 1948, he became a naval aviator, served as a fighter pilot and flew 90 combat missions in the Korean War, and then in 1958 he graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. Schirra retired from the Navy in 1969 with the rank of captain.
Schirra was the first astronaut to go into space three times, and the only astronaut to have flown into space in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. In total, he logged 295 hours and 15 minutes in space. After Apollo 7, he retired as a captain from the U.S. Navy as well as from NASA, subsequently becoming a consultant to CBS News in the network's coverage of following Apollo flights. Schirra joined Walter Cronkite as co-anchor for all seven of NASA's Moon landing missions.

Ralph A. Anderson Jr. (January 1, 1923 – February 3, 1990) was an architect, based in Houston, Texas, USA. After completing his B.A. in architecture at Rice University in 1943, he served in the United States Infantry in the European Theatre of Operations. He received a head wound at the Battle of the Bulge, and was consequently awarded both the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. He became partner in the firm Wilson, Morris, Crain & Anderson in 1952, which had become just Crain and Anderson by 1978. Anderson retired in 1988.

Héctor Mayagoitia Domínguez (7 January 1923 – 4 October 2023) was a Mexican chemical bacteriologist and politician, who was a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, Governor of Durango between 1974 and 1979, and Director of the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) from 1979 to 1982.

Eddie Locke Jr. (January 13, 1923 – March 2, 1992) was an American Negro league outfielder between 1943 and 1950.
A native of Gatesville, Texas, Locke made his Negro leagues debut in 1943 with the Cincinnati Clowns and the Kansas City Monarchs. He went on to play several seasons with the Monarchs, and also played for the New York Black Yankees. Locke played minor league baseball in the 1950s, including stints with the Springfield Giants and Vancouver Capilanos, and three seasons with the Amarillo Gold Sox. He died in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1992 at age 69.

K.R.H. Sonderborg (1923–2008) was a German painter, graphic artist, university professor, and from 1980 prorector of the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart for several years.
He was born in Sønderborg/Als, Denmark. Starting in 1953, he became a member of the group Zen 49, and studied at the Atelier 17 in St. W. Hayter in Paris. In the years 1953-1965, he spent time working in London, New York City, Tokyo, Chicago, Osaka, Cornwall, Ascona, Rome and Paris.
In 1951, the artist Kurt Rudolf Hoffmann called himself K.R.H. Sonderborg, after the town he was born in. Sonderborg went to school in Hamburg and completed a merchant's apprenticeship in 1939. He became a private student of the painter Ewald Becker-Carus in Hamburg in 1946. From 1947 to 1949 he studied painting, graphic art, and textile design at the State Art School in Hamburg under Willem Grimm and Maria May. In 1953 he joined the artists group Zen 49. He went to Paris the same year where he received training in engraving from Stanley William Hayter in the Atelier 17. Paris is also the place where he first encountered Tachism. In the following years, the artist went on longer journeys and worked for some time in London, Cornwall, New York, Ascona, Rome, and Paris again. In New York K.R.H. Sonderborg came into contact with Action Painting.
His own style became abstract, painting in swift broad strokes, that reveal the painting process, with spontaneous color application. Black and white contrasts are an important feature, later he added colors such as cadmium red. K.R.H. Sonderborg took part in the 1958 Biennale in Venice. He was awarded the Prize for Graphic Art at the Biennale in Tokyo in 1960 and the Great International Prize for Drawing at the 1963 Biennale in São Paulo. The artist showed works at the Documenta in Kassel in both 1959 and 1964. From 1965 to 1990 he held a post as Professor for Painting at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart. In 1969/70 he was a guest lecturer at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, as well as at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1986. Along with artists such as Karl Otto Götz, and Bernhard Schulze, K.R.H. Sonderborg is one of the most important and most impressive representatives of German Informal Art.
K.R.H. Sonderborg died in Hamburg on 18 February 2008, aged 84.

Donald Rex Clark (December 22, 1923 – August 6, 1989) was an American football player and coach who was perhaps best known as the head coach of the USC Trojans football team from 1957 to 1959. He compiled a 13–16–1 record while coaching at USC, going 0–5–1 against rivals UCLA and Notre Dame. The highlight of his career was in 1959, when USC shared the inaugural AAWU title in a three-way tie. However, he remains the only coach to post a losing record at USC over more than one season.

Maria Hart (née Barbara Ann McGhee; May 28, 1923 in Los Angeles, California – August 9, 2012, Canoga Park, California ) was an American actress and singer.

Gordon Baxter (December 25, 1923 – June 11, 2005), nicknamed Bax, was a well-known Texas radio personality, an author of books and a columnist for newspapers and magazines. He was a lifelong resident of Southeast Texas, having grown up in Port Arthur where he was born.
He lived near Beaumont during most of his professional years and was probably best known locally as a radio heartland humorist in the Jean Shepherd tradition. He was also known nationally to several generations of pilots who read his columns on the joys of flying in the aviation magazine, Flying.
Baxter was entranced by aviation from childhood. At the age of ten, he paid "a 1933 fortune" of five dollars for his first airplane ride in a Curtiss Condor and was hooked on flying. Despite a slow start in the cockpit and as a writer, by the end of his writing career he had spent more than 25 years with Flying, written 13 books and contributed to a Microsoft CD-ROM title, World of Flight.
During World War II, Baxter joined the Army Air Corps, hoping to be a pilot. Baxter himself noted that his ruination as a military pilot was predicted in high school by a math teacher who told Gordon that he spent too much time dreaming and drawing airplanes and not enough time studying. In the Army Air Corps, he trained in a Stearman. He entered the Merchant Marine as an officer, but after his ship was sunk in the South Pacific, he became a turret gunner in B-17s. Once there, he became a sharpshooter in every turret position. It was only after World War II that he succeeded in soloing in a Luscombe, eventually becoming an active pilot in the late 1950s.