International Left-Handers Day Quick Facts: Celebrities Who Are Lefties

Left-handed people are a rare breed as they make up about 10 percent of the population across the world. To raise awareness about their needs, August 13 is celebrated as the International Left-Handers Day.

The day was first marked in 1992 by the Left-Handers Club when the group launched an annual event to celebrate their sinistrality and inform the public about the advantages of being a left-hander. The club was formed in 1990 in the United Kingdom in response to requests from customers to produce a newsletter and campaign on behalf of left-handers to raise more awareness.

The Left-Handers Day is now celebrated worldwide. In 2010, there were over 20 regional events in the U.K. alone to mark the day. The country witnessed interesting activities like left-handed vs. right-handed sports matches, a left-handed tea party, left-handers opening bottles in pubs with corkscrews and patrons drinking and playing various games with just the left hand. There were nationwide "Lefty Zones" where lefties' creativity, adaptability and sporting abilities were recognized.

It is worth mentioning the figure of 10 left-handed people for every 90 right-handed individuals in the world has remained constant "for more than 5,000 years," according to Live Science, a science news website.

And if you look at A-list celebrities, there are dozens of them who are lefties. Some of them are:

1. Angelina Jolie

2. Oprah Winfrey

3. Tom Cruise

4. Jerry Seinfeld

5. Justin Bieber

6. Nicole Kidman

7. Keanu Reeves

8. Paul McCartney

9. Whoopi Goldberg

10. Pierce Brosnan

11. Bruce Willis

12. Robert De Niro

13. Owen Wilson

14. Ben Stiller

15. Eminem

16. Julia Roberts

17. Jim Carrey

18. Lisa Kudrow

19. Lady Gaga

20. Sylvester Stallone

Lefties tend to perform better in music, mathematics, and athletics, according to an ABC News report published in 2012 that cited several studies. There were rumors that tennis champion Rafael Nadal, who is a natural right-handed player, was trained to be a left-handed player by his coach and uncle Toni Nadal, so that he could "pose greater challenge" to his rivals.

However, "the King of Clay" dismissed such reports, and said it was just a "story" made up by the newspapers.

But the observation that a lefty player has an advantage over a right-handed tennis player often makes the commentators use a term "difficult lefty serve" during tennis matches. A majority of the players are right-handed, and it gets challenging for them if they are playing with a left-handed player as the ball would come from the opposite direction.

Lefties have an upper hand in boxing and cricket too. Researchers have suggested that left-handed swimmers such as Mark Spitz adjusted more readily to seeing underwater, the Telegraph reported.

Curiously, eight presidents in the United States so far have been left-handed.

Further, left-handed drivers have an edge over their right-handed peers as they are more likely to pass their driving test the first time, according to a study commissioned by AA Driving School in the U.K. The study revealed almost 57 percent of the left-handed participants in the U.K. passed their driving test the first time. This implied that they had 10 percent more chances to pass the driving test in the first attempt than the right-handed people.