John Nash

John Nash was born June 13, 1928 in Bluefield, West Virginia.

He invented Hex independently of Piet Hein in 1948, though the game was called Nash at the time, to honour its inventor. (See History for more details.)

Nash was the subject of the bestselling book A Beautiful Mind, which has been turned into a successful movie.

Related links
Nash won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1994: 

A long and interesting interview with Dr Nash (some video clips as well):