Born on June 16

Condottiere and lord of Urbino (1422–1482), Federico da Montefeltro was one of the most cultured princes of the Italian Renaissance. An exceptional patron of the arts, he made Urbino a major artistic center, commissioning his famous profile portrait from Piero della Francesca.

A Chiricahua Apache war leader and medicine man, Geronimo led the armed resistance against the expansion of the United States and Mexico in the American Southwest. His surrender in 1886 marked the end of the great Indian Wars.

A 19th-century Irish writer, Oscar Wilde is the author of major witty comedies and symbolist novels. An iconic figure of the Aesthetic movement, he left a lasting mark on English literature through his brilliant style, biting irony, and celebrated plays.

Stan Laurel (1890-1965) was a British actor and comedian, famous for forming the comic duo Laurel and Hardy with Oliver Hardy. A pioneer of slapstick comedy in both silent and sound film, he left a lasting mark on cinema history with his poetic and absurdist humor.

Barbara McClintock is a pioneering American geneticist who discovered transposable elements, known as "jumping genes," in maize as early as the 1940s. Long overlooked by the scientific community, she received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1983, the only woman to have received it unshared in that discipline.

Vera Atkins was a British intelligence officer of Romanian origin and a leading figure in the French section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. As a recruiter and trainer of the agents sent into occupied France, she devoted the post-war years to tracing the fate of the agents who had gone missing, especially the women who had been deported.

Andrea Ghez is an American astrophysicist born in 1965 who specializes in observing the galactic center. Her work provided proof of the existence of a supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. She received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020.

Imtiaz Ali is an Indian film director and screenwriter born in 1971 in Jamshedpur. He is known for his romantically charged, poetic films, including Jab We Met (2007) and Rockstar (2011). His work explores themes of love, freedom, and the search for identity.