About Bill King (Royal Navy officer)
Commander William Donald Aelian King, DSO & Bar, DSC (23 June 1910 – 21 September 2012) was a British naval officer, yachtsman and author. He was the oldest participant in the first solo non-stop, around-the-world yacht race, the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, and the only person to command a British submarine on both the first and last days of World War II. Brought up by his mother and grandmother, King went to the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. He was first assigned to the battleship Resolution, and later became commanding officer of the submarine Snapper. He commanded three separate RN submarines in World War II, and was promoted to commander and awarded seven medals during the war. King not only survived World War II, but succeeded in a singlehanded circumnavigation in 1973 on his third attempt. During the latter journey, he managed to reach port despite a collision with a large sea creature 400 miles (640 km) southwest of Australia. == Family background and childhood == William Donald Aelian King was born to William Albert de Courcy King and Georgina Marie MacKenzie in 1910. King's great-grandfather, William King, was Chair of Mineralogy and Geology at Queen's College, Galway. He was appointed when the College first opened in 1849. William King was the first to argue that Neanderthals were a species separate from modern humans.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.