Skip to content
Curated category

Knights of the Legion of Honour

  • Joseph BeaumeJoseph Beaume entered the world on the 27th of September 1796 in Marseilles. This port city provided his first view of a bustling Mediterranean harbor before…
  • Giuseppe VerdiGiuseppe Verdi was an intensely private man who liked to claim he had risen from illiterate peasants. The truth was tidier and less romantic.
  • Orson WellesOrson Welles was born on the 6th of May 1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and died on the 10th of October 1985. In between those dates, he directed what is…
  • Elton JohnElton John performed "Candle in the Wind 1997" live exactly once: on the 6th of September 1997, at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, in Westminster…
  • Jim LovellJim Lovell flew to the Moon twice and never set foot on it. That distinction alone would make him one of the most unusual figures in the history of human…
  • Pierre-Auguste RenoirPierre-Auguste Renoir painted the portrait of the composer Richard Wagner in just thirty-five minutes. It was the 15th of January 1882, and Wagner received…
  • Elizabeth TaylorElizabeth Taylor was born on the 27th of February 1932 in Hampstead Garden Suburb, northwest London, in a family home called Heathwood.
  • Édouard ManetEdouard Manet was born in Paris on the 23rd of January 1832, into a household where his father was a French judge who had mapped out a clear future: law…
  • Claude DebussyClaude Debussy was nearly 40 years old before the world knew his name. Then, on the 30th of April 1902, his opera Pelléas et Mélisande opened at the…
  • Miles DavisMiles Dewey Davis III was born on the 26th of May 1926 in Alton, Illinois, to a family that owned a 200-acre estate in Arkansas with a profitable pig farm.
  • Tom HanksTom Hanks lost 35 pounds for a single role. He thinned his hair, learned to walk differently, and prepared to play a dying man on screen.
  • Walt DisneyWalt Disney holds the record for most Academy Awards won by an individual, with 22 wins from 59 nominations. Yet the man behind that record was, in private…
  • Didier DeschampsDidier Deschamps was once called "the water-carrier" by a former teammate, and it was not a compliment. Eric Cantona, the flamboyant Manchester United star…
  • Tony ParkerWilliam Anthony Parker Jr. arrived in the world on the 17th of May 1982, inside a hospital in Bruges, Belgium. His father Tony Parker Sr.
  • Édouard DaladierÉdouard Daladier was born in Carpentras, a town in the Vaucluse region of France, on the 18th of June 1884. He grew up as the son of a village baker and…
  • Allen Lawrence PopeAllen Lawrence Pope was born in Miami, Florida on the 20th of October 1928. He grew up as the son of a moderately prosperous fruit grower in Perrine, Florida.
  • Robert StephensonRobert Stephenson was born on the 16th of October 1803 at Willington Quay, east of Newcastle upon Tyne, to a father who would become known to history as the…
  • Kylian MbappéKylian Mbappé stood in a stadium of 80,000 people on the 16th of July 2024, wearing the number 9 shirt of Real Madrid. He was 25 years old.
  • Eldar RyazanovEldar Ryazanov was born on the 18th of November 1927, in Samara, to a diplomat father and a Jewish mother, in a country that would spend the next several…
  • Zinedine ZidaneZinedine Zidane scored two goals in the 1998 World Cup Final, both headers, both from corners, in front of the entire world.
  • Alexis de TocquevilleAlexis de Tocqueville sailed to the United States in 1831 on a narrow assignment. The July Monarchy had sent him to examine American prisons and…
  • PeléEdson Arantes do Nascimento was born on the 23rd of October 1940 in Três Corações, Minas Gerais, Brazil, and he died on the 29th of December 2022 at the age…
  • Just FontaineJust Fontaine scored thirteen goals at the 1958 FIFA World Cup. Not across a tournament run that stretched years or multiple competitions.
  • Edison DenisovEdison Vasilievich Denisov was born in Tomsk, Siberia on the 6th of April 1929. He initially studied mathematics before making a decisive turn toward…
  • Jack MaJack Ma rode his bicycle 17 miles every day for nine years to reach the Hangzhou International Hotel, where foreign tourists gathered, so he could practice…
  • George SteinerFrancis George Steiner was born on the 23rd of April 1929 in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris. His right arm withered from birth yet his mother insisted he use…
  • Arsène WengerArsène Wenger was born on the 22nd of October 1949 in Strasbourg, in the Alsace region of France, the youngest of three children.
  • Michel PlatiniMichel Platini scored nine goals in five matches at the 1984 European Championship, a record that stood for 37 years. That tournament, played on home soil in…
  • Fabien BarthezFabien Alain Barthez entered the world on the 28th of June 1971 in the small town of Lavelanet, located within the Ariège department of France.
  • Paul PogbaPaul Labile Pogba was born on the 15th of March 1993 in Lagny-sur-Marne, France, to Guinean parents, and by his early twenties he had become the most…
  • Ivan AivazovskyIvan Aivazovsky was born Hovhannes Aivazian in Feodosia, a Black Sea port city on the Crimean peninsula, the son of an Armenian merchant family that had…