1954 births

James_Robert_Wallace

James Robert Wallace, Baron Wallace of Tankerness, (born 25 August 1954) is a Scottish politician serving as a Liberal Democrat life peer in the British House of Lords since 2007 and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from 2021 to 2022. He served as the Deputy First Minister of Scotland from 1999 to 2005, and during that time he served twice as acting First Minister, in 2000, in the aftermath of Donald Dewar's death and in 2001, following Henry McLeish's resignation. He was formerly Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats from 1992 to 2005 and Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords from 2013 to 2016.
Wallace served as a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament (MP) for Orkney and Shetland from 1983 to 2001 and a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Orkney from 1999 to 2007. He also served as Advocate General for Scotland from 2010 to 2015. He was the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from 1 May 2021 to 23 May 2022.

Susan_Butcher

Susan Howlet Butcher (December 26, 1954 – August 5, 2006) was an American dog musher, noteworthy as the second woman to win the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in 1986, the second four-time winner in 1990, and the first to win four out of five sequential years. She is commemorated in Alaska by the Susan Butcher Day.

Mark_A._Foley

Mark Adam Foley (born September 8, 1954) is an American former politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives. He served from 1995 until 2006, representing the 16th District of Florida as a member of the Republican Party, before resigning due to revelations that he had sent sexually explicit messages to teenaged boys who had served as congressional pages in what came to be known as the Mark Foley scandal.
Foley resigned from Congress on September 29, 2006, acting on a request by the Republican leadership after allegations surfaced that he had sent suggestive emails and sexually explicit instant messages to teenage boys who had formerly served and were at that time serving as Congressional pages. As a result of the disclosures, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducted investigations of the messages to find possible criminal charges. Each ended with no criminal finding. In the case of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the "FDLE conducted as thorough and comprehensive investigation as possible considering Congress and Mr. Foley denied us access to critical data," said FDLE commissioner Gerald Bailey with the closure of the case. The House Ethics Committee also conducted an investigation into the response of the House Republican leadership and their staff to possible earlier warnings of Foley's conduct.

Hugo_Chavez

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈuɣo rafaˈel ˈtʃaβes ˈfɾi.as] ; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician and military officer who served as president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period of forty-seven hours in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when it merged with several other parties to form the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which he led until 2012.
Born into a middle-class family in Sabaneta, Barinas, Chávez became a career military officer and, after becoming dissatisfied with the Venezuelan political system based on the Puntofijo Pact, he founded the clandestine Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (MBR-200) in the early 1980s. Chávez led the MBR-200 in its unsuccessful coup d'état against the Democratic Action government of President Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992, for which he was imprisoned. Pardoned from prison two years later, he founded the Fifth Republic Movement political party, and then receiving 56.2% of the vote, was elected president of Venezuela in 1998. He was re-elected in 2000 with 59.8% of the vote and again in 2006 with 62.8% of the vote. After winning his fourth term as president in the October 2012 presidential election with 55.1% of the vote, he was to be sworn in on 10 January 2013. However, the inauguration was postponed due to his cancer treatment, and on 5 March at age 58, he died in Caracas.Following the adoption of a new constitution in 1999, Chávez focused on enacting social reforms as part of the Bolivarian Revolution. Using record-high oil revenues of the 2000s, his government nationalized key industries, created participatory democratic Communal Councils and implemented social programs known as the Bolivarian missions to expand access to food, housing, healthcare and education. The high oil profits coinciding with the start of Chavez's presidency resulted in temporary improvements in areas such as poverty, literacy, income equality and quality of life between primarily 2003 and 2007, though extensive changes in structural inequalities did not occur. On 2 June 2010, Chávez declared an "economic war" on Venezuela's upper classes due to shortages, arguably beginning the crisis in Venezuela. By the end of Chávez's presidency in the early 2010s, economic actions performed by his government during the preceding decade, such as deficit spending and price controls, proved to be unsustainable, with Venezuela's economy faltering. At the same time, poverty, inflation and shortages increased.
Under Chávez, Venezuela experienced democratic backsliding, as he suppressed the press, manipulated electoral laws, and arrested and exiled government critics. His use of enabling acts and his government's use of propaganda were controversial. Chávez's presidency saw significant increases in the country's murder rate and continued corruption within the police force and government.Across the political spectrum, Chávez is regarded as one of the most influential and controversial politicians in the modern history of Venezuela and Latin America. His 14-year presidency marked the start of the socialist "pink tide" sweeping Latin America—he supported Latin American and Caribbean cooperation and was instrumental in setting up the pan-regional Union of South American Nations, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, the Bank of the South and the regional television network TeleSUR. Internationally, Chávez aligned himself with the Marxist–Leninist governments of Fidel and then Raúl Castro in Cuba, as well as the socialist governments of Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Chávez's ideas, programs, and style form the basis of "Chavismo", a political ideology closely associated with Bolivarianism and socialism of the 21st century. Chávez described his policies as anti-imperialist, being a prominent adversary of the United States's foreign policy as well as a vocal critic of neoliberalism and laissez-faire capitalism. He described himself as a Marxist.

Robert_Wesley_Knepper

Robert Wesley Knepper (born May 25, 1954) is an American former Major League Baseball pitcher. From 1976 to 1990, he pitched 15 seasons for the San Francisco Giants and Houston Astros, earning two All-Star appearances as well as the 1981 NL Comeback Player of the Year award. He gained notoriety with his 1988 remarks disparaging umpire Pam Postema, the National Organization for Women, and gay people.

Conde_Só_Brega

Ivanildo Marques da Silva (Recife, November 15, 1954), better known by his stage name Conde Só Brega or Conde, is a Brazilian singer and songwriter.The artist is known for being the lead singer of the band O Conde & Banda Só Brega, which released hits of brega music in Pernambuco between the 1990s and 2000s.

Thomas_Ebbesen

Thomas Ebbesen (born 30 January 1954) is a Franco-Norwegian physical chemist and professor at the University of Strasbourg in France, known for his pioneering work in nanoscience. He received the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience “for transformative contributions to the field of nano-optics that have broken long-held beliefs about the limitations of the resolution limits of optical microscopy and imaging”, together with Stefan Hell, and Sir John Pendry in 2014.

Per_Thomas_Andersen

Per Thomas Andersen (8 February 1954 - 13 December 2023) was a Norwegian literary historian and novelist.
He was appointed professor at the University of Tromsø from 1992, and at the University of Oslo from 1993. His thesis from 1992 treated the decadence of Scandinavian literature of the period from 1880 to 1900. Among his other scientific works are Stein Mehren – en logosdikter from 1982, Norsk litteraturhistorie from 2001, and Tankevaser from 2003. He published the novels Hold in 1985 and Arr in 1992. He was a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. In 2023 he received the King's Medal of Merit.

Kristin_Solli_Schøien

Kristin Solli Schøien (born July 14, 1954 in Oslo) is a Norwegian author and composer.
Schøien studied at NLA University College, the University of Oslo, and the Norwegian Academy of Music. She is especially known for her hymnwriting.
Schøien lives in Eidskog and was previously employed as a lecturer at the Norwegian School of Theology. She also became known for the cabaret show Jeg synger min sang for vinden (I Sing My Song to the Wind), which sets to music poetry by Herman Wildenvey. It was first staged in 1990, and later in many places throughout Norway. A CD with the same title was later issued.

Kjell_Grandhagen

Kjell Grandhagen (7 October 1954 – 3 May 2019) was a Norwegian military officer. He was born in Oslo.
He served as head of the Norwegian Military Academy from 1996 to 1999. From 2002 to 2003 he headed the 6th Division, with the rank of major general. From 2006 he served at the Ministry of Defence, as assistant military secretary with the rank of lieutenant general. In 2009 he was appointed head of the Norwegian Intelligence Service. He died
from multiple myeloma