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Curated category

Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)

  • VoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet was born in Paris on the 21st of November 1694. He entered the world as the youngest child of a minor treasury official and a woman…
  • Giuseppe VerdiGiuseppe Verdi was born on the 9th of October 1813 in a small village called Le Roncole. His parents Carlo and Luigia ran an inn there while he learned to…
  • James ChadwickJames Chadwick was born on the 20th of October 1891 in Cheshire, England. His father John Joseph Chadwick worked as a cotton spinner while his mother Anne…
  • Charles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin was born on the 12th of February 1809 at his family's home, The Mount, in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. He was the fifth of six children of…
  • T. S. EliotThomas Stearns Eliot was born on the 26th of September 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. He lived at a house on Locust Street for his first sixteen years before…
  • Eugène IonescoEugène Ionesco was born in the Romanian city of Slatina on the 26th of November 1909. His father belonged to the Orthodox Christian church while his mother…
  • Gioachino RossiniOn the 29th of February 1792, a boy named Gioachino Antonio Rossini was born in Pesaro. His father Giuseppe played the trumpet and horn while his mother Anna…
  • Johannes BrahmsJohannes Brahms was born on the 7th of May 1833 in a poor apartment in the quarter of Hamburg. His father Johann Jakob worked as a double bass player and…
  • Eugène BurnoufEugène Burnouf entered the world on the 8th of April 1801 within the city of Paris. His father Jean-Louis Burnouf held a position as a professor and…
  • Robert KochHeinrich Hermann Robert Koch entered the world on the 11th of December 1843 in Clausthal, Germany. His father worked as a mining engineer and raised thirteen…
  • Felix MendelssohnFelix Mendelssohn was born on the 3rd of February 1809 in Hamburg. His father Abraham Mendelssohn was a banker who had converted to Christianity before…
  • Henry Wadsworth LongfellowHenry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on the 27th of February 1807 in Portland, Maine. He grew up in a house that now stands as a historic site called the…
  • Richard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was born on the 11th of June 1864 in Munich. His father Franz worked as a principal horn player at the Court Opera and taught at the…
  • Hermann HesseHermann Karl Hesse was born on the 2nd of July 1877 in the Black Forest town of Calw. His grandparents had served as missionaries in India under the Basel…
  • Thomas CarlyleThomas Carlyle was born on the 4th of December 1795 in the village of Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire. His father James worked as a stonemason before becoming a…
  • Erwin SchrödingerErwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger entered the world on the 12th of August 1887 in Vienna. He was the only child of Rudolf Schrödinger, a botanist, and…
  • Hendrik LorentzHendrik Antoon Lorentz entered the world on the 18th of July 1853 in Arnhem, Netherlands. He was born to Gerrit Frederik Lorentz and Geertruida van Ginkel.
  • Friedrich HayekFriedrich August von Hayek was born on the 8th of May 1899 in Vienna to a family that valued scholarship. His father worked as a medical doctor for the…
  • August Wilhelm SchlegelAugust Wilhelm Schlegel entered the world on the 8th of September 1767 in Hanover. His father Johann Adolf Schlegel served as a Lutheran pastor there.
  • Max PlanckMax Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck was born on the 23rd of April 1858 in Kiel, Holstein. He entered the world into a family where theology and law ruled supreme.
  • Werner HeisenbergWerner Karl Heisenberg was born on the 5th of December 1901 in Würzburg, Germany. His father Kaspar Ernst August Heisenberg taught classical languages and…
  • Carl Friedrich GaussOn the 30th of April 1777, Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss was born in Brunswick within the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.
  • Jacob GrimmJacob Ludwig Karl Grimm entered the world on the 4th of January 1785 in Hanau, Hesse-Kassel. His father Philipp worked as a lawyer but died while Jacob was…
  • Rudolf BultmannRudolf Karl Bultmann was born on the 20th of August 1884 in Wiefelstede, Oldenburg. His father Arthur Kennedy Bultmann served as a Lutheran minister.
  • Alexander von HumboldtOn the 14th of September 1769, a boy named Alexander von Humboldt drew his first breath in Berlin. His father held the rank of major in the Prussian Army and…
  • Sofia GubaidulinaOn the 24th of October 1931, a girl named Sofia Gubaidulina was born in the city of Chistopol within the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
  • Walter BurkertWalter Burkert was born in Neuendettelsau on the 2nd of February 1931. He began his studies at the Universities of Erlangen and Munich between 1950 and 1954.
  • Jan AssmannJohann Christoph Assmann, known as Jan, was born on the 7th of July 1938 in Germany. He studied Egyptology and classical archaeology across four cities…
  • Michael FaradayMichael Faraday could not do trigonometry. His mathematical abilities were limited to the simplest algebra. Yet James Clerk Maxwell, the physicist who turned…
  • Elias LönnrotElias Lönnrot was born in a small wooden cabin called Paikkarin torppa, located in the village of Sammatti. This event took place on the 9th of April 1802.
  • Karl JaspersKarl Theodor Jaspers was born on the 23rd of February 1883 in Oldenburg. His father worked as a jurist while his mother came from a local farming community.
  • George F. KennanGeorge Frost Kennan arrived in the world on the 16th of February 1904, within a household in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His father was Kossuth Kent Kennan, a…
  • Horace VernetÉmile Jean-Horace Vernet entered the world on the 30th of June 1789 inside the Paris Louvre. His parents stayed there during the French Revolution to house…
  • Jean-Auguste-Dominique IngresJean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was born on the 29th of August 1780 in Montauban, France. He grew up as the first of seven children to Joseph Ingres and Anne…
  • Pieter GeylPieter Geyl entered the world on the 15th of December 1887 in Dordrecht. He completed his studies at the University of Leiden by 1913.
  • Niels BohrOn the 7th of October 1885, Niels Henrik David Bohr was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He grew up as the second of three children to Christian Bohr and Ellen…
  • Vasily ZhukovskyVasily Zhukovsky was born on the 24th of February 1783 in the village of Mishenskoe within the Tula Governorate. His mother Salkha had been captured during…
  • Theodor MommsenTheodor Mommsen entered the world on the 30th of November 1817 in Garding, a small town within the Duchy of Schleswig. His father served as a Lutheran…
  • Ronald SymeRonald Syme arrived in the world on the 11th of March 1903 within the quiet town of Eltham, New Zealand. His father David and mother Florence raised him…
  • Lawrence Alma-TademaOn the 8th of January 1836, a boy named Lourens Alma Tadema was born in Dronryp. This village sat in Friesland, the northern province of the Netherlands.
  • Max MüllerFriedrich Max Müller was born on the 6th of December 1823 in Dessau, Germany. His father Wilhelm Müller wrote lyrics that Franz Schubert set to music for his…
  • John C. FrémontJohn Charles Frémont was born on the 21st of January 1813, in Savannah, Georgia. His parents were Anne Beverley Whiting and Charles Frémon, a French-Canadian…
  • Paul HindemithPaul Hindemith was born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, on the 16th of November 1895. He grew up as the eldest child of Robert Hindemith and his wife Marie…
  • Paul DelarochePaul Delaroche entered the world on the 17th of July 1797 in Paris. He was born into a family deeply embedded in the art trade as dealers, collectors, and…
  • Erwin PanofskyErwin Panofsky was born on the 30th of March 1892 in Hanover. His parents, Arnold and Caecilie (Solling) Panofsky, were a rentier mining family from Upper…
  • Santiago Ramón y CajalOn the 1st of May 1852, Santiago Ramón y Cajal was born in Petilla de Aragón. This small town in Navarre became his first laboratory and prison.
  • Walther NernstWalther Hermann Nernst entered the world on the 25th of June 1864 in Briesen, a town within the Prussian Province of West Prussia.
  • Anton RubinsteinAnton Grigoryevich Rubinstein was born to Jewish parents in the village of Vikhvatinets, located within the Podolia Governorate of the Russian Empire.