Martyr, saint and military leader Joan of Arc, acting under divine guidance, led the French army to victory over the British during the Hundred Years' War.

• Warrior, Military Leader
  (c. 1412–1431)

Author Voltaire wrote the satirical novella Candide and, despite controversy during his lifetime, is widely considered one of France's greatest Enlightenment writers.

• Historian, Writer, Philosopher
  (1694–1778)

Playwright, poet. Christopher Marlowe was a poet and playwright at the forefront of the 16th-century dramatic renaissance. His works influenced William Shakespeare and generations of writers to follow.

• Poet, Playwright
  (c. 1564–1593)

Wilbur Wright is best known for developing the first successful airplane with his brother, Orville.

• Inventor
  (1867–1912)

Rafael Trujillo was a dictator of the Dominican Republic for decades. He was assassinated in 1961.

• War Crimes, Dictator, President (non-U.S.)
  (1891–1961)

Fashion designer Perry Ellis launched a new wave of fashion that was defined by his signature baggy look. His clothes were lauded as both classic and adventurous.

• Fashion Designer
  (1940–1986)

In his thirty year career, actor Claude Rains appeared in close to sixty films. He was nominated for four Best Supporting Actor Academy Awards.

• Theater Actor, Film Actor
  (1889–1967)

A student of such famed physicists as Albert Einstein and Max Planck, Leo Szilard was key in getting the United States to work on the atomic bomb.

• Scientist, Physicist
  (1898–1964)

Peter Paul Rubens was one of the most famous and successful European artists of the 17th century, and isknown for such works as "The Descent from the Cross," "Wolf and Fox Hunt" and "The Garden of Love."

• Painter
  (1577–1640)

Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet best known for his epic poem, The Rape of the Lock, and his translation of Homer's Iliad.

• Academic, Philosopher, Poet, Scholar, Literary Critic
  (1688–1744)

Boris Pasternak was a Russian novelist and poet who wrote the epic Dr. Zhivago.

• Author, Poet
  (1890–1960)

Charles IX was King of France from 1560 until 1574 during the turbulent time of the Wars of Religion.

• King
  (1550–1574)

Milton Bradley was a businessman and a manufacturer of toys and board games. He founded Milton Bradley Co.

• (1836–1911)

Steve Prefontaine is best known as the runner who once held the U.S. record in every long-distance event. He died in a car crash in 1975 at age 24.

• Track and Field Athlete
  (1951–1975)

Sun Ra was a highly productive jazz musician, composer, poet and bandleader best known for his "cosmic" philosophies on life and music, and for leading his musical ensemble, the Arkestra.

• Songwriter, Poet, Singer, Pianist
  (1914–1993)

Juan Carlos Onetti was an Uruguayan novelist and short-story writer whose existential works, including A Brief Life, chronicled the decay of modern urban life.

• Author, Journalist
  (1909–1994)

Rosalyn S. Yalow was a Nobel Prize-winning medical physicist who conducted groundbreaking research on type II diabetes.

• Physicist, Academic
  (1921–2011)