Portrait of Chico Mendes

Birthday profile

Chico Mendes

Chico Mendes, Brazilian trade union leader and activist (died 1988)

Born
December 15, 1944
Died
December 22, 1988
Zodiac sign
Sagittarius
Birth year
1944

About Chico Mendes

Francisco Alves Mendes Filho (15 December 1944 – 22 December 1988), better known as Chico Mendes (Brazilian Portuguese: ), was a Brazilian rubber tapper, trade union leader, and environmentalist who fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest and advocated for the human rights of Brazilian peasants and Indigenous people. He was assassinated by a hired assassin on 22 December 1988. The Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade or ICMBio), a body under the jurisdiction of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, is named in his honour. Francisco "Chico" Alves Mendes Filho was born on 15 December 1944, in a rubber reserve called Seringal Bom Futuro, outside of Xapuri, a small town in the state of Acre. Chico was one of 17 siblings—only six of whom survived childhood. At age nine, Chico began work as a rubber tapper alongside his father.

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

Career and life highlights

The world when Chico Mendes was born

Chico Mendes was born in 1944. 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 1944

  • #1 song"Swinging on a Star" – Bing Crosby
  • Top movieGoing My Way
  • Best-selling bookStrange Fruit – Lillian Smith

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentGreen Bay Packers win NFL Championship
  • Top headlineD-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6
  • Technology milestoneHarvard Mark I computer begins operations
  • Defining fadBobby socks
  • Notable inventionKidney dialysis machine
  • World population2.39 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population138.4M

1944 versus 2026

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

Measure19442026
Gas$0.21$3.45/gal
Average home$5,800$435,000
Average income$4,200$67,500
Minimum wage$0.30$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.27$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population138.4M341 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.