About Svetlana Savitskaya
Svetlana Yevgenyevna Savitskaya (Russian: Светла́на Евге́ньевна Сави́цкая; born 8 August 1948) is a Russian former aviator and Soviet cosmonaut who flew aboard Soyuz T-7 in 1982, becoming the second woman in space. On her 1984 Soyuz T-12 mission she became the first woman to fly to space twice, and the first woman to perform a spacewalk. She set several FAI world records as a pilot. == Early life and early career == Svetlana Savitskaya was born in a privileged family. Her father, Yevgeny Savitsky, was a highly decorated fighter pilot during the Second World War, which later brought him to the position of Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Air Defense. Her mother was a Muscovite Communist party leader. Without the knowledge of her parents, Savitskaya began parachuting at the age of 16. Her father realized her secret extracurricular activity upon the discovery of a parachute knife in his daughter's school bag. After his discovery, he further promoted this tendency. On her seventeenth birthday she already had 450 parachute jumps.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.