Recep Tayyip Erdo?an is a Turkish politician who currently serves as the incumbent 12th President of Turkey as of 28 August 2014. He previously served as the 25th Prime Minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as the Mayor of ?stanbul between 1994 and 1998. He founded the Justice and Development Party in 2001, leading it to three general election victories in 2002, 2007 and 2011 before stepping down as leader upon his election as President in 2014. Educated at a Imam Hatip school and graduating from Marmara University in 1981, Erdo?an was also a semi-professional footballer playing for Kas?mpa?a between 1969 and 1982 before being elected Mayor of ?stanbul from the Islamist Welfare Party in 1994. He was banned from office and sentenced to prison for 10 months after reciting a religiously incriminating poem in Siirt in 1998. He founded the moderately conservative AKP in 2001 and won the 2002 general election with nearly two-thirds of the seats in parliament with Abdullah G�l becoming Prime Minister of the first single-party government since 1987. Erdo?an became Prime Minister in March 2003 after G�l?s government annulled his political ban. [More at Wikipedia]

February 26th, 1954 in Istanbul (Age 70)