Portrait of Lou Gehrig

Birthday profile

Lou Gehrig

Lou Gehrig, American baseball player (died 1941)

Born
June 19, 1903
Died
June 2, 1941
Zodiac sign
Gemini
Birth year
1903

About Lou Gehrig

Henry Louis Gehrig was an American professional baseball first baseman who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees. Gehrig was renowned for his prowess as a hitter and for his durability, which earned him the nickname "the Iron Horse", and he is regarded as one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Gehrig was an All-Star seven consecutive times, a Triple Crown winner once, an American League (AL) Most Valuable Player twice and a member of six World Series champion teams. He had a career.340 batting average,.632 slugging average, and a.447 on-base average. He hit 493 home runs and had 1,995 runs batted in (RBIs). He is also one of 21 players to hit four home runs in a single game. In 1939, Gehrig was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame and was the first MLB player to have his uniform number retired by a team when his number 4 was retired by the Yankees. Henry Louis Gehrig ( GAIR-ig; born Heinrich Ludwig Gehrig; June 19, 1903 – June 2, 1941) was an American professional baseball first baseman who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees. In 1969, the Baseball Writers' Association of America voted Gehrig the greatest first baseman of all time, and he was the leading vote-getter on the MLB All-Century Team, chosen by fans in 1999.

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

Lou Gehrig timeline

  1. Henry Louis Gehrig ( GAIR-ig; born Heinrich Ludwig Gehrig; June 19, 1903 – June 2, 1941) was an American professional baseball first baseman who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees.
  2. In 1939, Gehrig was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame and was the first MLB player to have his uniform number retired by a team when his number 4 was retired by the Yankees.
  3. In 1969, the Baseball Writers' Association of America voted Gehrig the greatest first baseman of all time, and he was the leading vote-getter on the MLB All-Century Team, chosen by fans in 1999.

The world when Lou Gehrig was born

Lou Gehrig was born in 1903. 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 1903

  • Top movieThe Great Train Robbery (first narrative film)
  • Best-selling book"Lady Rose's Daughter" – Mrs. Humphry Ward

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst World Series — Boston vs Pittsburgh
  • Top headlineWright brothers achieve first powered flight
  • Technology milestoneFirst powered airplane flight (12 seconds, 120 feet)
  • World population~1.63B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderTheodore Roosevelt
  • U.S. population80.4M

1903 versus 2026

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

Measure19032026
Population80.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, MLB, 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.