Born on December 15

Italian diplomat, writer, and courtier (1478–1529), Castiglione is the author of The Book of the Courtier, a treatise defining the ideal of the Renaissance court gentleman. Close to the great princes and artists of his time, he embodies the humanism of the court of Urbino.

French engineer and entrepreneur (1832–1923), Gustave Eiffel is famous for building the tower that bears his name, erected for the 1889 World's Fair. A pioneer of iron architecture, he also designed the internal framework of the Statue of Liberty.

French physicist (1852–1908), Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity in 1896 by observing that uranium salts exposed photographic plates without any exposure to light. This fundamental discovery earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, shared with Pierre and Marie Curie.

British biophysicist of New Zealand origin. His X-ray diffraction work on DNA contributed to the discovery of the double-helix structure, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1962 alongside James Watson and Francis Crick.