1657) Saint Sava

Saint Sava (1169 or 1174 – 1235/6), known as the Enlightener or the Illuminator. Serbian prince and Orthodox monk, the first Archbishop of the autocephalous Serbian Church, the founder of Serbian law, and a diplomat.
Sava, born as Rastko Nemanjić, was the youngest son of Serbian Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja (founder of the Nemanjić dynasty), and ruled the appanage of Zachlumia briefly in 1190–92. He then left for Mount Athos, where he became a monk tonsured with the name Sava (Sabbas). At Athos he established the monastery of Hilandar, which became one of the most important cultural and religious centres of the Serbian people. In 1219 the Patriarchate exiled in Nicea recognized him as the first Serbian Archbishop, and in the same year he authored the oldest known constitution of Serbia, the Zakonopravilo nomocanon, thus securing full religious and political independence. Sava is regarded as the founder of Serbian medieval literature.
He is the patron saint of Serbia, Serbs, Serbian education and medicine. The Church of Saint Sava in Belgrade is dedicated to him, built on the site where the Ottomans burnt his remains in 1594, during an uprising in which Serbs used icons of Sava as their war flags; the church is one of the largest church buildings in the world.
In order to distinguish him from other saints and canonized Serbian archbishops of the same name, he is also posthumously titled Saint Sava I of Serbia.

 

1656) Te Whatuiāpiti

Te Whatuiāpiti (circa 1620 - ?). Māori rangatira (chieftain) of Ngāti Kahungunu from the Hawke’s Bay region of New Zealand and the ancestor of the Ngāti Te Whatuiāpiti hapū.

As a member of Te Hika a Pāpāuma, Te Whatuiāpiti was locked in a multi-generational feud with his cousins in Te Hika a Ruarauhanga. As a result, in his youth he was driven out of the Hawke’s Bay region, finding sanctuary in the Wairarapa. Later, he returned and, after a conflict with a rival chief named Pokia, he established himself at Te Kauhanga (modern Haumoana) and on Lake Rotoatara (near Te Aute). After further conflict, he fell in love with Te Huhuti, daughter of Te Rangitaumaha of Te Hika a Ruarauhanga, who married him and ended the feud between the two families. Their courtship is considered to be one of the great romances of Māori tradition.

 

- "Te Whatuiāpiti had red hair, and is said to have been one of the most handsome chiefs of his time... Te Whatuiāpiti heard that he had been called a kumukumu (red gurnard), on account of his red hair." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Te_Whatui%C4%81piti

 

1655) Jim McCarthy

James (Jim) Stephen McCarthy (1924 – 2015). Irish rugby union player who played for Munster, the Irish national team, and the British and Irish Lions. He was a member of the Grand Slam winning Irish squad in the 1948 Five Nations Championship.

 

- ""A flying redhead, he was an invaluable ally to Jack Kyle..." https://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/munster-legend-jim-mccarthy-dies-aged-90-a-great-character-and-an-even-greater-player/31161646.html 

 

- "The red head of McCarthy popped up everywhere,” https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/rugby/arid-20325368.html 

 

- "... his red hair and all-action displays making him stand out in the Irish back row..." https://www.irishrugby.ie/2015/04/21/jim-mccarthy-a-rugby-life-in-quotes/

 

 

1654) Roei Sadan

Roei Sadan (1982 – 2021). Israeli adventurer who became famous worldwide for cycling around the world.
Roei’s worldwide cycling voyage started in July 2007, in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, a voyage that lasted four and a half years.
Sadan next planned a kayak trip across the West Coast of North America. In 2015, while taking a break from his training for the trip, he vacationed in India where he was seriously injured in a mountain climbing accident in the Stok Kangri mountain range. After being stabilized, he was flown to Israel where he was hospitalized at Sheba Medical Center and was in a coma for more than a month before awakening. He had to undergo lengthy rehabilitation and physical therapy.
On 11 March 2021, while riding his bicycle near Rosh Hanikra, Sadan was hit by a bus and suffered permanent brain damage. He died at the hospital the next day.

 

- "An inspiring interview with a courageous Israeli red-head who is about to go cycling around the world for the second time." https://www.outlooktraveller.com/explore/adventure/back-to-faith-an-interview-with-roei-sadan 

 

1653) Liu Yuan

Liu Yuan (died in 310), also known by his posthumous name as the Emperor Guangwen of Han (Zhao). Founding emperor of the Xiongnu-led Han-Zhao dynasty of China during the Sixteen Kingdoms period. Due to Tang dynasty naming taboo, he is referred to by his courtesy name as Liu Yuanhai in the Book of Jin.
With the dissolution of the Southern Xiongnu in 216, the last vestiges of their power were divided into Five Divisions in Bing province around modern-day Shanxi. Liu Yuan was born into the aristocracy of the Five Divisions and was sent to the Chinese capital, Luoyang as a hostage during his youth, where he became highly sinicized and later held several government offices under the Western Jin dynasty. As the War of the Eight Princes weakened Jin authority in northern China, Liu Yuan was called upon by the Five Divisions to lead their rebellion, and in 304, he declared independence from the Jin and founded the Han-Zhao dynasty, one of the first of the Sixteen Kingdoms. His declaration, along with the founding of the Cheng-Han dynasty in Sichuan that same year, marked the formal end of the Western Jin's brief unification of China following the Three Kingdoms period.

 

- "In the Book of Wei, Chinese author Wei Shou notes that Liu Yuan was over six feet tall and that he had strands of red hair in his long beard." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Yuan_(Han-Zhao)#Physical_appearance 

 

1652) Edith Harms

Edith Harms (1893 - 1918). Wife of Austrian painter Egon Schiele.
She and her sister Adéle met Schiele in 1914. They lived with their parents across the street from his studio in the Viennese district of Hietzing. They were a middle-class family and Protestant by faith; their father was a master locksmith. In 1915, Schiele chose to marry Edith, who asked him to break his relatioship with her model and lover Wally Neuzil.
The couple died of Spanish flu in 1918. Edith was six months pregnant with their first child. 

 

Judging from the two paintings below, Adéle too might have had reddish hair (although the two sisters looked very similar and so it is sometimes difficult for art critics to distinguish one sister from the other).

 

1651) Gertrude Schiele

Gertrude Schiele (1894-1981). Younger sister of the Austrian painter Egon Schiele (1890 - 1918) and one of his first models. 

In 1914, she married the painter Anton Emanuel Peschka and their son, Anton, (1914–1997), also became a painter.

Below, some of the portrait paintings made by Egon Schiele.