September 3 is the 246th day of the year (247th in leap years). There are 119 days remaining.
1916 - Eddie Stanky, baseball player (d. 1999)
1918 - Helen Wagner, American soap opera actress
1923 - Mort Walker, cartoonist
1926 - Anne Jackson, actress
1927 - Hhgh Sidey, contributing editor at Time Magazine
1929 - Irene Papas, actress
1930 - Cherry Wilder, author
1933 - Tompall Glaser, country music singer
1938 - Caryl Churchill, playwright
1938 - Ryoji Noyori, Japanese chemist
1938 - Eileen Brennan, actress
1942 - Al Jardine, rock and roll musician, member of the Beach Boys
1943 - Valerie Perrine, US actress
1947 - Kjell Magne Bondevik Prime Minister of Norway
1955 - Steve Jones, musician (Sex Pistols)
1964 - Adam Curry, MTV VJ and Internet entrepreneur
1965 - Charlie Sheen, American actor
1658 - Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England
1857 - John McLoughlin, Hudson's Bay Company Factor
1883 - Ivan Turgenev, author
1893 - James Harrison, Australian pioneer of mechanical refrigeration, (b. 1816)
1914 - Albéric Magnard, composer
1948 - Edvard Benes, President of Czechoslovakia
1962 - E. E. Cummings, poet
1964 - Stewart Holbrook, American author
1967 - Woody Guthrie, American musician and songwriter
1969 - Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese revolutionist
1970 - Vince Lombardi, American football coach
1974 - Harry Partch, microtonal composer
1980 - Duncan Renaldo, actor
1991 - Frank Capra, American movie director
2001 - Pauline Kael, American movie critic
2003 - Rudolf Leiding, car designer, Volkswagen CEO