Eileen Gray, Evelina Haverfield, Tove Jansson, Sarah McBride, Louisa Jo Killen

Born: Eileen Gray (1878), Evelina Haverfield (1867), Tove Jansson (1914), Sarah McBride (1990)
Died: Louisa Jo Killen (2013)

Born on this day

An Irish designer and architect whose furniture and houses joined modern form with everyday comfort.

She punched a policeman for women’s suffrage, nursed soldiers in Serbia’s war – and left everything to her companion Vera Holme.

The creator of the Moomins spent her summers on a tiny island with her partner, the artist Tuulikki Pietilä.

In 2024 she became the first openly transgender person elected to the US Congress.

One of the great voices of the British folk revival began living as a woman at 76 – and regretted nothing.