September 29, 1955

1955Ann Bancroft, American explorer and author^[†]

Ann Bancroft is an American author, teacher, adventurer, and public speaker. She was the first woman to finish a number of expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1995.

1955Joe Donnelly, American politician and lawyer^[†]

Joseph Simon Donnelly Sr. is an American attorney, politician, and diplomat who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2013 and as a U.S. Senator from 2013 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party from Indiana, he would later serve as the United States Ambassador to the Holy See from 2022 to 2024 under President Joe Biden.

1955Gwen Ifill, American journalist (died 2016)^[†]

Gwendolyn L. Ifill was an American journalist, television newscaster, and author. In 1999, she became the first African-American woman to host a nationally televised U.S. public affairs program with Washington Week in Review. She was the moderator and managing editor of Washington Week and co-anchor and co-managing editor, with Judy Woodruff, of the PBS NewsHour, both of which air on PBS. Ifill was a political analyst and moderated the 2004 and 2008 vice-presidential debates. She authored the best-selling book The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.

1955Louis Leon Thurstone, American psychologist (born 1887)^[†]

Louis Leon Thurstone was an American pioneer in the fields of psychometrics and psychophysics. He conceived the approach to measurement known as the law of comparative judgment, and is well known for his contributions to factor analysis. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Thurstone as the 88th most cited psychologist of the 20th century, tied with John Garcia, James J. Gibson, David Rumelhart, Margaret Floy Washburn, and Robert S. Woodworth.

1955Hubert Maitland Turnbull, British pathologist (born 1875)^[†]

Hubert Maitland Turnbull FRS was a British pathologist.