Portrait of Ronnie Biggs

Birthday profile

Ronnie Biggs

Ronnie Biggs, English criminal (died 2013)

Born
August 8, 1929
Died
December 18, 2013
Zodiac sign
Leo
Birth year
1929

About Ronnie Biggs

Ronald Arthur Biggs was a British criminal who helped plan and carry out the Great Train Robbery of 1963. He subsequently became notorious for his escape from prison in 1965, living as a fugitive for 36 years, and for his various publicity stunts while in exile. In 2001, Biggs returned to the United Kingdom and spent several years in prison, where his health rapidly declined. He was released from prison on compassionate grounds in August 2009 and died in a nursing home in December 2013. In 2012, Charmian was a consultant on the five-part ITV Studios docu-drama Mrs Biggs, which recounts the couple's time from first meeting to Biggs's flight to Brazil. Biggs's main task had been to get Agate to move the train, and when it became obvious that the two were useless in that regard, they were banished to a waiting vehicle while the train was looted. During 1974, in Rio, Biggs, an avid jazz fan, collaborated with Bruce Henri (an American double bass player), Jaime Shields, and Aureo de Souza to record Mailbag Blues, a musical narrative of his life that he intended to use as a movie soundtrack.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Ronnie Biggs timeline

  1. He subsequently became notorious for his escape from prison in 1965, living as a fugitive for 36 years, and for his various publicity stunts while in exile.
  2. During 1974, in Rio, Biggs, an avid jazz fan, collaborated with Bruce Henri (an American double bass player), Jaime Shields, and Aureo de Souza to record Mailbag Blues, a musical narrative of his life that he intended to use as a movie soundtrack.
  3. In 2001, Biggs returned to the United Kingdom and spent several years in prison, where his health rapidly declined.
  4. In 2012, Charmian was a consultant on the five-part ITV Studios docu-drama Mrs Biggs, which recounts the couple's time from first meeting to Biggs's flight to Brazil.

The world when Ronnie Biggs was born

Ronnie Biggs was born in 1929. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1929

  • #1 song"Singin' in the Rain"
  • Top movieThe Broadway Melody (first Best Picture winner)
  • Best-selling bookA Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst baseball All-Star Game proposed
  • Top headlineStock market crashes on Black Tuesday
  • Technology milestoneFirst Academy Awards ceremony held
  • Defining fadYo-yos
  • Notable inventionCar radio
  • World population2.10 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHerbert Hoover
  • Sports championPhiladelphia Athletics (World Series)
  • U.S. population121.8M

1929 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Ronnie Biggs's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19292026
Gas$0.21$3.45/gal
Average home$6,300$435,000
Average income$3,850$67,500
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population121.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.