Richard Henry Dana Jr.

Richard Henry Dana Jr. was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts, a descendant of a colonial family, who gained renown as the author of the classic American memoir Two Years Before the Mast and as an attorney who successfully represented the U.S. government before the U.S. Supreme Court during the Civil War in the Prize Cases. Both as a writer and as a lawyer, he was a champion of the downtrodden, from seamen to fugitive slaves and freedmen.

1 August 1815

Born on the same birth day (1 August): Aledmys Díaz • Bob Frankford • Bodene Thompson • Jacques François Dugommier • Madison Bumgarner • Mahmoud Dowlatabadi • Park Si-eun (entertainer) • Robert Todd Lincoln • Tyron Henderson • Wolfgang, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen

Born in the same month (August 1815): Adolf Friedrich von Schack • Edward John Eyre • Harriette Woods Baker • John Bosco