List of Famous people born on February 12nd

Jean Jacques Machado is a renowned Brazilian Jiu jitsu practitioner. He is one of the five Machado brothers. Machado is nephew of BJJ co-founder and Grandmaster Carlos Gracie, and learned the martial art from an early age.

Jessica Jane Harrington is an Irish professional horse trainer. Harrington specialises in National Hunt racing but has also had success in Flat racing.

Dayananda Saraswati was an Indian philosopher, social leader and founder of the Arya Samaj, a reform movement of the Vedic dharma. He was the first to give the call for Swaraj as "India for Indians" in 1876, a call later taken up by Lokmanya Tilak. Denouncing the idolatry and ritualistic worship, he worked towards reviving Vedic ideologies. Subsequently, the philosopher and President of India, S. Radhakrishnan called him one of the "makers of Modern India", as did Sri Aurobindo.

Forrest Meredith Tucker was an American actor in both movies and television who appeared in nearly a hundred films. Tucker worked as a vaudeville straight man at the age of only fifteen years old. A mentor provided funds and contacts for a trip to California, where party hostess Cobina Wright persuaded guest Wesley Ruggles to give Tucker a screen test because of Tucker's photogenic good looks, thick wavy hair and height of six feet, five inches. Tucker was a sight reader who needed only one take and his film career started well despite a perception in most Hollywood studios that blond men were not photogenic. He enlisted in the Army during World War II. After twenty years spent mainly in Westerns and action roles, he returned to his roots, showing versatility as a comedic and stage musical actor. In the television series F Troop, he became identified with the character of Cavalry Sgt. Morgan O'Rourke. Tucker struggled with a drinking problem that began to affect his performances in the later years of his career.

João Victor Gomes da Silva, commonly known as João Gomes, is a Brazilian footballer who plays as a midfielder for Flamengo.

Edward Jones is an Emirati-born British racing driver. At different points in his career Jones has competed under both British and Emirati licences. He is the 2016 Indy Lights champion, winning for Carlin Motorsport in his second season in the series. He joined the IndyCar Series in 2017 driving for Dale Coyne Racing, and placed third at the 2017 Indianapolis 500. He later raced in IndyCar for Chip Ganassi Racing and a joint entry between Ed Carpenter Racing and sports car team Scuderia Corsa.

Oladapo Joshua Afolayan is an English professional footballer who plays as a winger or centre-forward for League One club Bolton Wanderers.

Fang Lizhi was a Chinese astrophysicist, vice-president of the University of Science and Technology of China, and activist whose liberal ideas inspired the pro-democracy student movement of 1986–87 and, finally, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Because of his activism, he was expelled from the Communist Party of China in January 1987. For his work, Fang was a recipient of the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Award in 1989, given each year to an individual whose courageous activism is at the heart of the human rights movement and in the spirit of Robert F. Kennedy's vision and legacy. He was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980, but it was revoked after 1989.

Johanna Bertha Julie Jenny Edle von Westphalen was a German theatre critic and political activist. She was married to philosopher Karl Marx.

Alistair Appleton is a British television presenter and writer.