Heaven of Legends

385 extraordinary lives: their stories, epitaphs, galleries, the films about them and the moments they defined.

• Abebe Bikila (1932 to 1973) — Olympic marathon champion who won in Rome barefoot and defended the title in Tokyo
• Abraham Lincoln (1809 to 1865) — Abolished slavery; preserved the Union
• Ada Lovelace (1815 to 1852) — The first computer programmer
• Agatha Christie (1890 to 1976) — The best-selling novelist of all time
• Akira Kurosawa (1910 to 1998) — Japan’s cinematic master
• Al-Khwarizmi (780 to 850) — Persian mathematician who established algebra as a discipline and whose name became the wo
• Alan Rickman (1946 to 2016) — Severus Snape, master of menace and wit
• Alan Turing (1912 to 1954) — Father of computer science; broke Enigma
• Albert Camus (1913 to 1960) — Novelist and philosopher of the absurd, Nobel laureate in literature of 1957
• Albert Einstein (1879 to 1955) — Theory of Relativity, E=mc², Nobel Prize in Physics
• Albert Schweitzer (1875 to 1965) — Physician, organist and thinker of reverence for life, Nobel Peace Prize of 1952
• Alexander Fleming (1881 to 1955) — Discovered penicillin
• Alexander Graham Bell (1847 to 1922) — Inventor of the telephone and lifelong teacher of the deaf
• Alexander Pushkin (1799 to 1837) — Founder of modern Russian literature and its greatest poet
• Alexander the Great (356 BC to 323 BC) — Conquered Persian Empire, Created vast empire, Never lost a battle, Spread Hellenistic cul
• Alexander von Humboldt (1769 to 1859) — Naturalist who saw the Earth as one living whole
• Alfred Hitchcock (1899 to 1980) — The master of suspense
• Alfred Nobel (1833 to 1896) — Invented dynamite; endowed the Nobel Prizes
• Alma Karlin (1889 to 1950) — Travelled the world alone with a typewriter
• Amália Rodrigues (1920 to 1999) — The queen of fado
• Amelia Earhart (1897 to 1939) — First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic
• Amy Winehouse (1983 to 2011) — Once-in-a-generation voice of soul
• Andrew Carnegie (1835 to 1919) — Steel magnate turned great philanthropist
• Andy Warhol (1928 to 1987) — Pope of Pop Art
• Anna Akhmatova (1889 to 1966) — Poet who kept the memory of the terror
• Anne Frank (1929 to 1945) — The Diary of a Young Girl, Holocaust victim, Symbol of human spirit
• Anthony Bourdain (1956 to 2018) — Chef and storyteller who taught the world to travel with an open heart
• Anton Chekhov (1860 to 1904) — Master of the modern short story
• Antoni Gaudí (1852 to 1926) — Architect of the Sagrada Familia
• Antonín Dvořák (1841 to 1904) — Czech composer of the Symphony From the New World and the Slavonic Dances
• Antônio Carlos Jobim (1927 to 1994) — Brazilian composer, father of bossa nova and of The Girl from Ipanema
• Antonio Vivaldi (1678 to 1741) — Composer of The Four Seasons
• Archimedes (287 BC to 212 BC) — Ancient Greek mathematical genius
• Aretha Franklin (1942 to 2018) — The Queen of Soul
• Aristotle (384 BC to 322 BC) — Philosopher who shaped Western thought
• Aristotle Onassis (1906 to 1975) — The Greek shipping tycoon
• Arthur Ashe (1943 to 1993) — Tennis champion and humanitarian
• Arthur C. Clarke (1917 to 2008) — Author of 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Ashoka (304 BC to 232 BC) — The emperor who chose peace
• Ástor Piazzolla (1921 to 1992) — Argentine bandoneonist and composer who created nuevo tango
• Astrid Lindgren (1907 to 2002) — Swedish author of Pippi Longstocking and champion of children's rights
• Audrey Hepburn (1929 to 1993) — Breakfast at Tiffany's, Roman Holiday, humanitarian
• Auguste Rodin (1840 to 1917) — Sculptor of The Thinker
• Augustus (63 BC to 14) — First emperor of Rome
• Avicenna (980 to 1037) — Persian physician and philosopher, author of The Canon of Medicine
• Ayrton Senna (1960 to 1994) — Three-time Formula 1 world champion; rain-master of Monaco
• B.B. King (1925 to 2015) — The King of the Blues
• Babe Ruth (1895 to 1948) — Baseball’s immortal slugger
• Barbara McClintock (1902 to 1992) — American cytogeneticist who discovered transposable elements, genes that move within the g
• Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790) — Founding father, inventor, polymath
• Bertha Benz (1849 to 1944) — Automotive pioneer who made the first long distance drive and proved the motor car worked
• Billie Holiday (1915 to 1959) — Lady Day, tragic genius of jazz
• Bob Marley (1945 to 1981) — Reggae legend, One Love, Redemption Song
• Bob Ross (1942 to 1995) — The gentle painter of happy little trees
• Boris Pahor (1913 to 2022) — Slovene writer from Trieste whose Necropolis bore witness to the Nazi camps
• Bruce Lee (1940 to 1973) — Martial arts legend, Enter the Dragon, Jeet Kune Do founder
• Buddy Holly (1936 to 1959) — Rock pioneer lost too young
• C. S. Lewis (1898 to 1963) — Creator of Narnia
• C. V. Raman (1888 to 1970) — Indian physicist who discovered the Raman effect and won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics
• Caravaggio (1571 to 1610) — Revolutionary of light and shadow
• Carl Linnaeus (1707 to 1778) — Gave every living thing its name
• Carl Sagan (1934 to 1996) — Astronomer who brought the cosmos to millions
• Carrie Fisher (1956 to 2016) — Princess Leia, and a fearless voice on mental health
• Cary Grant (1904 to 1986) — The definition of movie-star charm
• Catherine the Great (1729 to 1796) — Empress of the Russian golden age
• Celia Cruz (1925 to 2003) — The Queen of Salsa, the defining voice of Afro-Cuban music in the twentieth century
• Cesária Évora (1941 to 2011) — The barefoot diva of morna, who carried Cape Verdean song to the world
• Chadwick Boseman (1976 to 2020) — Black Panther, a king on screen and off
• Charles Darwin (1809 to 1882) — Theory of Evolution, Natural Selection, On the Origin of Species, HMS Beagle voyage
• Charles Dickens (1812 to 1870) — Chronicler of Victorian England
• Charlie Chaplin (1889 to 1977) — The Tramp, cinema's first global icon
• Charlton Heston (1923 to 2008) — Moses and Ben-Hur
• Che Guevara (1928 to 1967) — Revolutionary icon
• Chien-Shiung Wu (1912 to 1997) — The physicist whose cobalt-60 experiment proved that parity is not conserved in weak inter
• Chinua Achebe (1930 to 2013) — Author of Things Fall Apart and a founding figure of modern African literature
• Chiune Sugihara (1900 to 1986) — Japanese diplomat who issued transit visas that saved thousands of Jewish refugees
• Christiaan Barnard (1922 to 2001) — South African surgeon who performed the world's first human heart transplant
• Christian Dior (1905 to 1957) — Reinvented postwar fashion
• Christopher Reeve (1952 to 2004) — Superman who became a real-life hero
• Chuck Berry (1926 to 2017) — The father of rock and roll
• Clara Barton (1821 to 1912) — American nurse and relief organiser who founded the American Red Cross
• Claude Monet (1840 to 1926) — Father of Impressionism
• Cleopatra VII (69 BC to 30 BC) — Last Pharaoh of Egypt, Political strategist, Polyglot, Relationship with Julius Caesar and
• Coco Chanel (1883 to 1971) — Liberated women from the corset; built fashion's most enduring house
• Confucius (552 BC to 479 BC) — Confucianism, Chinese philosophy, The Analects, Ethics and morality
• Dale Earnhardt (1951 to 2001) — The Intimidator of NASCAR
• Dante Alighieri (1265 to 1321) — Author of the Divine Comedy
• David Bowie (1947 to 2016) — Ziggy Stardust, Space Oddity, fashion icon
• Desmond Tutu (1931 to 2021) — Archbishop whose voice carried the case against apartheid to the world
• Dian Fossey (1932 to 1985) — Guardian of the mountain gorillas
• Diego Maradona (1960 to 2020) — El Diez, the Hand of God and the Goal of the Century, four minutes apart
• Diego Rivera (1886 to 1957) — Master of the Mexican mural
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 to 1945) — Lutheran theologian executed for his resistance to the Nazi regime
• Dmitri Mendeleev (1834 to 1907) — Russian chemist who formulated the periodic law and created the periodic table of the elem
• Dr. Jure J. Cekuta (1952 to 2019) — Expressionist painting, nudes, figures, symbolism. Famous works: Bacchus Shadow II Trilogy
• Duke Ellington (1899 to 1974) — Jazz royalty
• Edgar Allan Poe (1809 to 1849) — Master of the macabre
• Édith Piaf (1915 to 1963) — The voice of France
• Edvard Munch (1863 to 1944) — Painter of The Scream
• Edward Jenner (1749 to 1823) — Creator of the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine, and founder of immunology
• Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 to 1962) — The First Lady of the world
• Elie Wiesel (1928 to 2016) — Holocaust survivor, author of Night and Nobel Peace laureate who made the world remember
• Elizabeth Taylor (1932 to 2011) — Hollywood royalty and humanitarian
• Ella Fitzgerald (1917 to 1996) — The First Lady of Song
• Elvis Presley (1935 to 1977) — The King of Rock and Roll
• Emil Zátopek (1922 to 2000) — Czech runner who won the 5,000 m, 10,000 m and the marathon at the 1952 Olympic Games
• Emily Dickinson (1830 to 1886) — Recluse who redefined poetry
• Emmeline Pankhurst (1858 to 1928) — Leader of the suffragettes
• Emmy Noether (1882 to 1935) — The greatest woman in mathematics
• Ennio Morricone (1928 to 2020) — Italian composer of more than 400 film scores, from Sergio Leone's westerns to The Mission
• Enrico Fermi (1901 to 1954) — Architect of the nuclear age
• Enzo Ferrari (1898 to 1988) — Founder of the Prancing Horse
• Ernest Hemingway (1899 to 1961) — Nobel laureate who rebuilt the English sentence
• Ernest Rutherford (1871 to 1937) — New Zealand physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus and founded nuclear physics
• Ernest Shackleton (1874 to 1922) — Antarctic explorer who brought every man of the Endurance expedition home alive
• Erwin Schrödinger (1887 to 1961) — Wave mechanics and a famous cat
• Euclid (333 BC) — The father of geometry
• Eusébio (1942 to 2014) — The Black Panther of Portugal
• F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 to 1940) — Author of The Great Gatsby
• Federico Fellini (1920 to 1993) — Italian cinema visionary
• Ferenc Puskás (1927 to 2006) — The Galloping Major
• Ferruccio Lamborghini (1916 to 1993) — Built supercars out of spite
• Florence Nightingale (1820 to 1910) — British reformer and statistician who founded modern professional nursing
• France Prešeren (1800 to 1849) — Slovenia’s greatest poet; wrote Zdravljica, now the national anthem
• Francisco Goya (1746 to 1828) — Chronicler of beauty and horror
• Frank Sinatra (1915 to 1998) — The Voice, greatest interpreter of the American songbook
• Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 to 1945) — Led America through Depression and war
• Franz Beckenbauer (1945 to 2024) — Der Kaiser of football
• Franz Kafka (1883 to 1924) — Prophet of modern anxiety
• Franz Schubert (1797 to 1828) — Austrian composer of the Lied, who wrote over six hundred songs before his death at thirty
• Fred Astaire (1899 to 1987) — The greatest dancer on film
• Freddie Mercury (1946 to 1991) — Voice of Queen; the greatest showman rock ever had
• Frédéric Chopin (1810 to 1849) — Poet of the piano
• Frederick Douglass (1817 to 1895) — From slavery to statesman
• Frida Kahlo (1907 to 1954) — Self-portraits, surrealist art, feminist icon
• Fridtjof Nansen (1861 to 1930) — Norwegian polar explorer and scientist who became the League of Nations High Commissioner
• Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821 to 1881) — Author of Crime and Punishment; explorer of the human soul
• Gabriel García Márquez (1927 to 2014) — Master of magical realism
• Galileo Galilei (1564 to 1642) — Telescope improvements, Astronomical observations, Father of modern science, Heliocentrism
• Gene Wilder (1933 to 2016) — Willy Wonka and comic genius
• Genghis Khan (1162 to 1227) — Built the largest land empire in history
• George Best (1946 to 2005) — Football’s first superstar
• George Harrison (1943 to 2001) — The quiet Beatle
• George Michael (1963 to 2016) — Pop craftsman and soulful voice
• George Orwell (1903 to 1950) — Author of 1984 and Animal Farm
• George Washington (1732 to 1799) — First U.S. president, founding father
• Georgia O'Keeffe (1887 to 1986) — American modernist painter, mother of American modernism: flowers, bones and desert light
• Gerd Müller (1945 to 2021) — Der Bomber: 365 Bundesliga goals and the winner in the 1974 World Cup final
• Gianni Versace (1946 to 1997) — The showman of Italian fashion
• Giuseppe Verdi (1813 to 1901) — Italian composer of Rigoletto, La traviata, Aida and Otello, and voice of the Risorgimento
• Grace Hopper (1906 to 1992) — Pioneer of computer programming
• Grace Kelly (1929 to 1982) — Oscar-winning actress who became a princess
• Gregor Mendel (1822 to 1884) — Father of genetics
• Gregory Peck (1916 to 2003) — Atticus Finch
• Guglielmo Marconi (1874 to 1937) — Italian inventor of practical wireless telegraphy and the first radio signal across the At
• Gustav Klimt (1862 to 1918) — Painter of The Kiss
• Hannah Arendt (1906 to 1975) — Political theorist of totalitarianism, statelessness and the banality of evil
• Hannibal (247 BC to 183 BC) — Crossed the Alps with elephants
• Hans Christian Andersen (1805 to 1875) — Danish writer of 156 fairy tales, among them The Little Mermaid and The Ugly Duckling
• Harriet Tubman (1821 to 1913) — Conductor of the Underground Railroad
• Heath Ledger (1979 to 2008) — His Joker redefined what acting could be
• Henri Matisse (1869 to 1954) — Master of color and the Fauves
• Henry Dunant (1828 to 1910) — Founder of the Red Cross and first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
• Henry Ford (1863 to 1947) — Put the world on wheels
• Herman Potočnik (1892 to 1929) — Slovenian rocketry pioneer who imagined the space station
• Hippocrates (460 BC to 370 BC) — The father of medicine
• Homer (900 BC to 800 BC) — Author of the Iliad and Odyssey
• Humphrey Bogart (1899 to 1957) — Cinema tough-guy with a heart
• Hypatia (360 to 415) — Mathematician, astronomer and Neoplatonist philosopher of ancient Alexandria
• Ida B. Wells (1862 to 1931) — Investigative journalist who documented lynching and co-founded the NAACP
• Ignaz Semmelweis (1818 to 1865) — The physician who proved that handwashing prevents childbed fever, decades before germ the
• Indira Gandhi (1917 to 1984) — The Iron Lady of India
• Ingmar Bergman (1918 to 2007) — Master of the art film
• Ingrid Bergman (1915 to 1982) — Star of Casablanca
• Irena Sendler (1910 to 2008) — Rescued some 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto
• Isaac Asimov (1920 to 1992) — Prophet of robots and the future
• Isaac Newton (1643 to 1727) — Laws of Motion, Universal Gravitation, Calculus, Optics
• Ivan Cankar (1876 to 1918) — Slovenia’s greatest prose writer
• Ivana Kobilca (1861 to 1926) — Slovenias greatest woman painter
• Ivo Andrić (1892 to 1975) — Nobel laureate in literature, author of The Bridge on the Drina
• J. R. R. Tolkien (1892 to 1973) — Creator of Middle-earth
• J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904 to 1967) — Father of the atomic bomb
• Jackie Robinson (1919 to 1972) — Broke baseball’s colour barrier
• Jackson Pollock (1912 to 1956) — Pioneer of abstract expressionism
• Jacques Cousteau (1910 to 1997) — Explorer of the silent world
• James Baldwin (1924 to 1987) — Conscience of a divided America
• James Brown (1933 to 2006) — The Godfather of Soul
• James Dean (1931 to 1955) — Rebel icon who died at 24
• Jane Austen (1775 to 1817) — Pride and Prejudice, the sharpest pen in English literature
• Janez Vajkard Valvasor (1641 to 1693) — Polymath of Carniola, author of The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola
• Janusz Korczak (1878 to 1942) — Paediatrician and educator who went to Treblinka with his orphans
• Jean-François Champollion (1790 to 1832) — Decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and founder of Egyptology
• Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960 to 1988) — From graffiti to icon
• Jesse Owens (1913 to 1980) — Defied Hitler at the 1936 Olympics
• Jim Thorpe (1887 to 1953) — The greatest all-around athlete
• Jimi Hendrix (1942 to 1970) — The greatest electric guitarist
• Joan of Arc (1412 to 1431) — Led French army at 17, Siege of Orléans, Martyr, Catholic saint, National heroine
• Joe Louis (1914 to 1981) — The Brown Bomber
• Johan Cruyff (1947 to 2016) — Father of Total Football
• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 to 1750) — The father of Western music
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 to 1832) — Germanys greatest poet
• Johannes Gutenberg (1400 to 1468) — The printing press, the machine that democratised knowledge
• Johannes Kepler (1571 to 1630) — Laws of planetary motion
• Johannes Vermeer (1632 to 1675) — Girl with a Pearl Earring
• John Coltrane (1926 to 1967) — Spiritual titan of the saxophone
• John D. Rockefeller (1839 to 1937) — The richest man in history
• John F. Kennedy (1917 to 1963) — 35th U.S. president
• John Lennon (1940 to 1980) — Beatle, dreamer, peace activist
• John Steinbeck (1902 to 1968) — Nobel voice of the working poor
• John von Neumann (1903 to 1957) — The architect of the modern computer
• John Wayne (1907 to 1979) — The face of the Western
• Johnny Cash (1932 to 2003) — The Man in Black, country music's outlaw conscience
• Jonas Salk (1914 to 1995) — Created the polio vaccine and gave it away free
• Jorge Luis Borges (1899 to 1986) — Architect of literary labyrinths
• Jože Plečnik (1872 to 1957) — Architect who shaped Ljubljana, Prague Castle and Vienna
• Judy Garland (1922 to 1969) — Dorothy, and one of the great voices
• Julius Caesar (100 BC to 44 BC) — Roman dictator, Military genius, Gallic Wars, Crossed the Rubicon, Julian calendar
• Junko Tabei (1939 to 2016) — First woman to reach the summit of Everest and to climb the highest peak on every continen
• Jurij Vega (1754 to 1802) — Slovenian mathematician of record logarithms
• Karel Čapek (1890 to 1938) — Czech writer whose play R.U.R. gave the world the word robot
• Karl Lagerfeld (1933 to 2019) — The Kaiser of fashion who reinvented Chanel
• Katharine Hepburn (1907 to 2003) — Record four-time Oscar winner
• Käthe Kollwitz (1867 to 1945) — Artist whose prints and sculpture gave a face to poverty, war and grieving mothers
• Katherine Johnson (1918 to 2020) — NASA mathematician who sent humans to space
• Katsushika Hokusai (1760 to 1849) — Japanese master of ukiyo-e who made The Great Wave off Kanagawa
• Kobe Bryant (1978 to 2020) — Mamba Mentality, five NBA titles with the Lakers
• Kofi Annan (1938 to 2018) — Seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace laureate of 2001
• Kurt Cobain (1967 to 1994) — Voice of Generation X; frontman of Nirvana
• Kurt Vonnegut (1922 to 2007) — Dark humorist of Slaughterhouse-Five
• Lata Mangeshkar (1929 to 2022) — Indian playback singer whose voice carried Hindi cinema for eight decades
• Laurence Olivier (1907 to 1989) — The greatest actor of his age
• Leo Tolstoy (1828 to 1910) — Author of War and Peace
• Leon Štukelj (1898 to 1999) — Slovenian gymnast, Olympic champion in 1924 and 1928, who lived to be a hundred
• Leonard Cohen (1934 to 2016) — Poet of song
• Leonardo da Vinci (1452 to 1519) — Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, Renaissance polymath
• Li Bai (701 to 762) — Tang dynasty poet, called the Immortal of Poetry, of whom a thousand poems survive
• Lise Meitner (1878 to 1968) — Austrian-Swedish physicist who explained nuclear fission and gave the process its name
• Louis Armstrong (1901 to 1971) — Satchmo, the founding genius of jazz
• Louis Pasteur (1822 to 1895) — Father of germ theory and vaccination
• Louis XIV (1638 to 1715) — The Sun King of France
• Luciano Pavarotti (1935 to 2007) — The greatest tenor of the modern age
• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 to 1827) — Symphony No. 9, Moonlight Sonata, Composed while deaf, Bridge to Romanticism
• Mahalia Jackson (1911 to 1972) — American gospel singer, the Queen of Gospel and a voice of the civil rights movement
• Mahatma Gandhi (1869 to 1948) — Non-violent resistance, Indian independence movement, Civil disobedience, Satyagraha
• Malcolm X (1925 to 1965) — Fierce voice of Black liberation
• Marcus Aurelius (121 to 180) — Philosopher-emperor of Rome
• Maria Callas (1923 to 1977) — La Divina, the greatest soprano
• Marie Curie (1867 to 1934) — Radioactivity research, First woman Nobel Prize winner, Discovered Polonium and Radium
• Marilyn Monroe (1926 to 1962) — Hollywood icon, Some Like It Hot, The Seven Year Itch
• Mark Twain (1835 to 1910) — The father of American literature
• Marlene Dietrich (1901 to 1992) — Star of The Blue Angel who chose exile and sang for the Allies rather than serve Hitler
• Marlon Brando (1924 to 2004) — The Godfather; revolutionised screen acting
• Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 to 1968) — Civil Rights Movement, I Have a Dream speech, Nonviolent activism, Nobel Peace Prize
• Marvin Gaye (1939 to 1984) — Prince of Soul
• Mary Anning (1799 to 1847) — Fossil hunter of Lyme Regis whose discoveries opened a lost prehistoric world
• Mary Shelley (1797 to 1851) — Author of Frankenstein, the novel that began modern science fiction
• Max Planck (1858 to 1947) — Founder of quantum physics
• Maya Angelou (1928 to 2014) — I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, poet, civil rights activist
• Michael Faraday (1791 to 1867) — Pioneer of electromagnetism
• Michael Jackson (1958 to 2009) — King of Pop, Thriller album, Moonwalk dance
• Michael Jordan (1963) — The greatest basketball player of all time
• Michael Schumacher (1969) — Seven-time Formula 1 world champion
• Michelangelo (1475 to 1564) — Sculptor of David, painter of the Sistine Chapel
• Miguel de Cervantes (1547 to 1616) — Author of Don Quixote
• Mikhail Gorbachev (1931 to 2022) — Ended the Cold War
• Miles Davis (1926 to 1991) — The most influential jazz trumpeter
• Miriam Makeba (1932 to 2008) — Mama Africa: the singer who carried South Africa through exile to the world
• Mother Teresa (1910 to 1997) — Humanitarian work, Missionaries of Charity, Nobel Peace Prize, Served the poorest
• Muhammad Ali (1942 to 2016) — Boxing champion, civil rights activist, 'The Greatest'
• Murasaki Shikibu (973 to 1014) — Heian court lady who wrote The Tale of Genji, often called the first novel
• Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881 to 1938) — Founder of modern Turkey
• Naguib Mahfouz (1911 to 2006) — Egyptian novelist of Cairo and the first writer in Arabic to win the Nobel Prize
• Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 to 1821) — Emperor who reshaped Europe
• Neil Armstrong (1930 to 2012) — First human to walk on the Moon
• Nelson Mandela (1918 to 2013) — Anti-apartheid revolutionary, first Black president of South Africa
• Nicholas Winton (1909 to 2015) — British humanitarian who brought 669 children out of Czechoslovakia in 1939
• Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 to 1543) — Placed the Sun at the centre of the universe
• Niels Bohr (1885 to 1962) — Father of quantum theory
• Niki Lauda (1949 to 2019) — F1 champion who returned from the fire
• Nikola Tesla (1856 to 1943) — AC electricity, Tesla coil, wireless communication
• Nina Simone (1933 to 2003) — High priestess of soul and civil rights
• Norman Borlaug (1914 to 2009) — Plant scientist behind the Green Revolution and the wheat varieties credited with averting
• Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948 to 1997) — Pakistani qawwali singer who carried Sufi devotional music to the world
• Orson Welles (1915 to 1985) — Made Citizen Kane at 25
• Oscar Wilde (1854 to 1900) — Wit and playwright
• Otis Redding (1941 to 1967) — Voice of Southern soul
• Pablo Neruda (1904 to 1973) — Nobel poet of love and revolution
• Pablo Picasso (1881 to 1973) — Cubism, Guernica, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Prolific artist
• Paul Newman (1925 to 2008) — Screen legend and philanthropist
• Paul Walker (1973 to 2013) — Fast & Furious star and quiet humanitarian
• Pelé (1940 to 2022) — Three World Cups, over a thousand goals, the King of Football
• Peter OToole (1932 to 2013) — Lawrence of Arabia
• Peter the Great (1672 to 1725) — Dragged Russia into the modern world
• Plato (427 BC to 347 BC) — Founder of Western philosophy
• Primož Trubar (1508 to 1586) — Author of the first printed book in Slovenian; father of the written language
• Prince (1958 to 2016) — Musical genius who played every instrument himself
• Princess Diana (1961 to 1997) — Princess of Wales, humanitarian work, fashion icon
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 to 1893) — Composer of Swan Lake
• Pythagoras (550 BC to 490 BC) — Mathematics and the harmony of numbers
• Qin Shi Huang (259 BC to 210 BC) — First emperor of a united China
• Queen Elizabeth II (1926 to 2022) — The longest-reigning British monarch, seven decades of duty
• Queen Victoria (1819 to 1901) — Gave her name to an age
• Rabindranath Tagore (1861 to 1941) — Bengali poet, first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature
• Rachel Carson (1907 to 1964) — Founder of the environmental movement
• Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 to 1926) — Austrian poet of the Duino Elegies and the Sonnets to Orpheus
• Raphael (1483 to 1520) — Master of the High Renaissance
• Ravi Shankar (1920 to 2012) — Indian sitar virtuoso who made Indian classical music known across the world
• Ray Bradbury (1920 to 2012) — Author of Fahrenheit 451
• Ray Charles (1930 to 2004) — The genius who fused soul and gospel
• Rembrandt (1606 to 1669) — Master of light in Dutch painting
• Richard Feynman (1918 to 1988) — Nobel physicist and great explainer
• Rihard Jakopič (1869 to 1943) — Leading light of Slovenian impressionism
• Roald Amundsen (1872 to 1928) — First to reach the South Pole
• Roald Dahl (1916 to 1990) — Storyteller of childhood wonder
• Roberto Clemente (1934 to 1972) — Baseball great who died bringing aid to strangers
• Robin Williams (1951 to 2014) — Comic genius with the most human heart in Hollywood
• Rosa Parks (1913 to 2005) — The mother of the civil rights movement
• Rosalind Franklin (1920 to 1958) — Her work revealed the structure of DNA
• Rudolf Diesel (1858 to 1913) — Invented the engine that carries the modern world
• Rudolf Maister (1874 to 1934) — Slovenian general and poet who secured the northern border
• Rumi (1207 to 1273) — Mystic poet whose verses crossed every border
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933 to 2020) — Supreme Court justice who won women their constitutional equality
• Saladin (1138 to 1193) — The chivalrous sultan of the Crusades
• Sally Ride (1951 to 2012) — Physicist and astronaut, the first American woman to fly in space
• Salvador Dalí (1904 to 1989) — Surrealism’s wild imagination
• Sam Cooke (1931 to 1964) — The King of Soul
• Satyajit Ray (1921 to 1992) — Film director whose Apu Trilogy carried the life of rural Bengal to the world
• Sean Connery (1930 to 2020) — The original James Bond
• Selena (1971 to 1995) — The Queen of Tejano music
• Sidney Poitier (1927 to 2022) — First Black man to win the Best Actor Oscar
• Sigmund Freud (1856 to 1939) — Father of psychoanalysis
• Simón Bolívar (1783 to 1830) — The liberator of South America
• Simone Veil (1927 to 2017) — Auschwitz survivor, health minister and first president of the European Parliament
• Sitting Bull (1831 to 1890) — Lakota leader at Little Bighorn
• Slavko Avsenik (1929 to 2015) — Composer whose Avsenik Brothers Ensemble created the Oberkrainer sound
• Socrates (470 BC to 399 BC) — Socratic method, Western philosophy founder, Ethics, Examined life
• Soichiro Honda (1906 to 1991) — From mechanic to global carmaker
• Sophie Scholl (1921 to 1943) — Student of the White Rose who resisted the Nazis
• Spartacus (103 BC to 71 BC) — The slave who defied Rome
• Srečko Kosovel (1904 to 1926) — Poet of the Karst who died at twenty-two
• Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887 to 1920) — Self-taught mathematical genius
• Stan Lee (1922 to 2018) — Co-creator of Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Marvel universe
• Stanley Kubrick (1928 to 1999) — Visionary director
• Stefan Zweig (1881 to 1942) — Chronicler of a Europe that vanished
• Stephen Hawking (1942 to 2018) — Cosmologist who mapped black holes and time itself, from a wheelchair
• Steve Irwin (1962 to 2006) — The Crocodile Hunter who made the world love wildlife
• Steve Jobs (1955 to 2011) — Co-founder of Apple Inc., iPhone, iPad, Macintosh
• Steve McQueen (1930 to 1980) — The King of Cool
• Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910 to 1995) — Theoretical astrophysicist who derived the Chandrasekhar limit for white dwarf stars
• Suleiman the Magnificent (1494 to 1566) — The golden age of the Ottomans
• Susan B. Anthony (1820 to 1906) — Fought for women to vote
• Sylvia Plath (1932 to 1963) — Poet of raw honesty
• Terry Fox (1958 to 1981) — Ran a marathon a day across Canada on one leg
• Terry Pratchett (1948 to 2015) — Creator of the Discworld
• The Wright Brothers (1871 to 1948) — Invented and flew the first powered aircraft
• Theodore Roosevelt (1858 to 1919) — The Rough Rider president
• Thomas Edison (1847 to 1931) — Inventor of the light bulb and phonograph
• Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826) — Author of the Declaration of Independence
• Tina Turner (1939 to 2023) — The Queen of Rock 'n' Roll, history's greatest comeback
• Toni Morrison (1931 to 2019) — Nobel laureate of memory and freedom
• Tupac Shakur (1971 to 1996) — Poet of a generation
• Umm Kulthum (1898 to 1975) — The voice of Egypt and star of the East
• Usain Bolt (1986) — The fastest human who ever lived
• Václav Havel (1936 to 2011) — Playwright and dissident who led the Velvet Revolution and became president
• Věra Čáslavská (1942 to 2016) — Olympic gymnast who won seven golds and protested in silence in 1968
• Vera Rubin (1928 to 2016) — Astronomer whose galaxy rotation measurements gave the first strong evidence for dark matt
• Victor Hugo (1802 to 1885) — Author of Les Misérables
• Vincent van Gogh (1853 to 1890) — The Starry Night, Sunflowers, Post-Impressionist master
• Virginia Woolf (1882 to 1941) — Pioneer of modernist literature
• Vivien Leigh (1913 to 1967) — Scarlett OHara
• Walt Disney (1901 to 1966) — Imagineer of the modern fairy tale
• Walt Whitman (1819 to 1892) — The poet of America
• Wangari Maathai (1940 to 2011) — Founder of the Green Belt Movement and first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize
• Werner Heisenberg (1901 to 1976) — The uncertainty principle
• Whitney Houston (1963 to 2012) — The Voice, the most awarded female artist of all time
• Wilhelm Röntgen (1845 to 1923) — German physicist who discovered X-rays in 1895 and left the discovery unpatented
• William Shakespeare (1564 to 1616) — Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, Sonnets, Inventor of words
• William the Conqueror (1028 to 1087) — Won England at Hastings
• Wilma Rudolph (1940 to 1994) — From polio to Olympic gold
• Winston Churchill (1874 to 1965) — UK Prime Minister during WWII, Nobel Prize in Literature, Inspiring orator, Iron Curtain s
• Wisława Szymborska (1923 to 2012) — Polish poet of ironic precision, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 to 1791) — Classical music genius, The Magic Flute, Requiem
• Yuri Gagarin (1934 to 1968) — The first human being to travel into space, aboard Vostok 1 in 1961
• Yves Saint Laurent (1936 to 2008) — Dressed the modern woman
• Zaha Hadid (1950 to 2016) — Architect who bent the straight line, and the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize

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