Curated playlist
Members of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
- Benjamin BrittenAfter fire destroyed his concert hall in 1969, Benjamin Britten had it rebuilt within a year.
- James ChadwickJames Chadwick signed up for physics by mistake. He meant to study mathematics, then found the neutron.
- Charles DarwinCharles Darwin likened confessing his theory to confessing a murder. He told botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1844.
- Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill escaped a prisoner-of-war camp in Pretoria by hiding on freight trains. It made him famous.
- Salvador DalíSalvador Dalí was born nine months after his older brother, also named Salvador, died.
- Marc ChagallMarc Chagall fled Europe in 1941 on a ship carrying 119 refugee children. He taught them drawing.
- Dmitri ShostakovichStalin walked out of Dmitri Shostakovich's opera in 1936, and the next day Pravda attacked it.
- Svante ArrheniusSvante Arrhenius nearly failed his doctorate, then won a Nobel Prize for it.
- Georges DumézilGeorges Dumézil was shut out of French academic jobs after his thesis. His teacher told him to go abroad, to Istanbul.
- Erwin PanofskyIn 1934, Erwin Panofsky argued a famous Flemish painting was really a legal contract.