Angela Dorothea Merkel is a German stateswoman and retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She is the only woman to have held the office and the only former East German. She was Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 2000 to 2018.
Biography from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Also born on July 17
- Donald Sutherland1935 · Canadian actor
- Queen Camilla1947 · Queen of the United Kingdom since 2022
- James Cagney1899 · American actor and dancer
- David Hasselhoff1952 · American actor, singer, and television personality
- Terence Tao1975 · Australian and American mathematician
- Wong Kar-wai1958 · Hong Kong filmmaker
- Ismail I1487 · Shah of Safavid Iran from 1501 to 1524
- António Costa1961 · President of the European Council since 2024
Also born in 1954
- Jackie Chan1954 · Hong Kong martial artist and actor
- James Cameron1954 · Canadian filmmaker and explorer
- John Travolta1954 · American actor
- Denzel Washington1954 · American actor
- Oprah Winfrey1954 · American actress and media mogul
- Condoleezza Rice1954 · American diplomat and political scientist
- Hugo Chávez1954 · President of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013
- Catherine O'Hara1954 · Canadian and American actress