American football player and sportscaster

Fran Tarkenton

Francis Asbury Tarkenton, nicknamed "the Scrambler", is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons, primarily with the Minnesota Vikings. He is widely regarded as the first great dual-threat quarterback in the NFL. He played college football for the Georgia Bulldogs, where he was recognized as a twice first-team All-SEC, and was selected by the Vikings in the third round of the 1961 NFL draft. After retiring from football in 1979, he became a media personality and computer software executive.

Born

1940

February 3

Died

Living

Era

1940s

Country

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About

Fran, in brief

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Life timeline

Key dates

1940 Born

Also on February 3

What else happened on this day, through history

1047 Drogo of Hauteville is elected as count of the Apulian Normans during the Norman conquest of Southern Italy.
1112 Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, and Douce I, Countess of Provence, marry, uniting the fortunes of those two states.
1451 Sultan Mehmed II inherits the throne of the Ottoman Empire.
1488 Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, becoming the first known European to travel so far south.

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The world in 1940

When Fran arrived

april 14 World War II: Royal Marines land in Namsos, Norway, preceding a larger force which will arrive two days later.
april 23 The Rhythm Club fire at a dance hall in Natchez, Mississippi, kills 198 people.
april 7 Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.
april 8 The Central Committee of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party elects Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal as General Secretary, marking the beginning of his 44-year-long tenure as de facto leader of Mongolia.

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Same-day contemporaries

Also born on February 3

Becky Bayless 1982– American wrestler Billy Meier 1937– Swiss author and photographer Blythe Danner 1943– American actress Bridget Regan 1982– American actress Dave Davies 1947– English musician Elizabeth Blackwell 1821–1910 American physician and educator (died 1910) Elizabeth Holmes 1984– American fraudster, founder of Theranos Felix Mendelssohn 1809–1847 German pianist, composer, and conductor (died 1847) Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz 1721–1773 Prussian general (died 1773)

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Same-year contemporaries

Also born in 1940

Abbas Kiarostami 1940–2016 Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, and photographer (born 1940) Abdurrahman Wahid 1940–2009 Indonesian journalist and politician, fourth President of Indonesia (born 1940) Bruce Chatwin 1940–1989 English-French author (born 1940) Bruce Lee 1940–1973 American actor and martial artist (born 1940) David Jason 1940– English actor, director, and producer Edmund White 1940–2025 American novelist, memoirist, and essayist (died 2025) Fabrizio De André 1940–1999 Italian singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1999) Frank Zappa 1940–1993 American singer-songwriter, guitarist, composer and producer (died 1993) George A. Romero 1940–2017 American director and producer (died 2017)

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Keep going

More to explore

Fran's birthday February 3 Fran's zodiac Aquarius When Fran arrived 1940