The most important person in history who was born on January 7 is Millard Fillmore, the 13th president of the United States and a key figure in American politics before the Civil War. Full Name: Millard Fillmore; Nationality: American; Profession: Lawyer, statesman, 13th President of the United States, former Vice President, U.S. Congressman, and New York State Comptroller. Born on January 7, 1800, in Locke Township (now Summerhill), Cayuga County, New York, USA; Generation: Romantic and early Industrial eras (before the Civil War in the US); Your Chinese Zodiac sign is Metal Monkey (1800), and your Zodiac sign is Capricorn. Age in 2026: 226 (died); Married twice: first to Abigail Powers Fillmore and then to Caroline Carmichael McIntosh. They had two children: a son named Millard Powers Fillmore and a daughter named Mary Abigail Fillmore. Millard Fillmore grew up in extreme poverty on the frontier in rural upstate New York, where he worked as a farm laborer and learned how to make cloth and textiles. He went on to become a self-taught lawyer and one of the most important political figures of the 1850s. He got into politics through the Anti-Masonic movement and then the Whig Party. He served several terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and became known for supporting protective tariffs and bankruptcy reforms. In 1848, he was elected vice president of Zachary Taylor. Fillmore became president after President Taylor died suddenly in July 1850. He pushed through the Compromise of 1850, a set of laws that made California a free state and strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act. The act temporarily eased tensions between the North and South, but it also made many Northerners irate and helped break up the Whig Party. His administration also pushed for an active foreign policy. For example, it supported Commodore Matthew Perry's mission that opened Japan to American trade and worked to improve relations with Mexico. This act showed that the U.S. was becoming more involved in the Pacific and the Americas, even as the country moved closer to civil war. He went back to Buffalo, New York, after leaving office in 1853. There, he lost his wife, Abigail, and daughter, Mary, and then in 1856, he ran for president as the candidate of the American (Know-Nothing) and remnant Whig coalition. He got more than 20% of the popular vote and the electoral votes of Maryland, but he couldn't bring his old party back to life. In his later years, he worked on civic and charitable projects in Buffalo, supporting schools and cultural institutions and the Union cause during the Civil War. However, his enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act and his perceived support for Southern interests clouded his legacy. Fillmore's life story exemplifies a self-made ideal, as he rose from being born in a log cabin and attending school only a few times to becoming president. However, historians often say that his time in office was cautious and reactive, giving him credit for temporarily preventing disunion but blaming him for being morally blind to slavery and the collapse of the Whig coalition he once helped lead. Cause of Death: He died in Buffalo, New York, on March 8, 1874, because of a stroke he had in February 1874.