January 17
January 17 birthdays of geeky note:
1560 – Gaspard Bauhin, Swiss botanist (d. December 5, 1624) who wrote Pinax theatri botanici (1596), which described thousands of plants and classified them in a manner that draws comparisons to the later binomial nomenclature of Linnaeus.
1961 – Maia Chiburdanidze, Russian women’s Chess grandmaster. In Russia, chessmasters are celebrated like movie stars.