Born on October 20

French politician and member of the Convention during the Revolution, he served in the National Convention before becoming a dignitary under the Napoleonic Empire. His career illustrates the political trajectories of those who navigated both the Revolution and the Empire.

Born Belle van Zuylen in the Netherlands in 1740, Isabelle de Charrière settled in Switzerland after her marriage and became one of the most remarkable women writers of the 18th century. A novelist, letter-writer, and composer, she advocated with great clarity for women's freedom and critiqued the social conventions of her time.

Alphonse Allais (1854-1905) was a French writer, journalist, and humorist, a major figure of absurd humor and *fumisme*. A regular at the “Le Chat Noir” cabaret, he is famous for his puns, his short tales, and his paradoxical aphorisms.

French poet of the 19th century (1854–1891), Rimbaud is a major figure of modern and visionary poetry. He revolutionized poetry through formal innovation and exploration of the unconscious, before abandoning literature at the age of 20 to live as an adventurer in Africa.

American pianist, composer, and bandleader, a major figure in the early days of jazz in New Orleans. He proclaimed himself “the inventor of jazz” and was one of the first to set his compositions down in writing, bridging ragtime and orchestrated jazz.

British physicist (1891–1974), James Chadwick discovered the neutron in 1932, earning him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1935. He later led the British contribution to the Manhattan Project.

Jean-Pierre Melville, whose real name was Jean-Pierre Grumbach, was a French filmmaker and a major figure of film noir and the French crime film. Independent and ahead of his time, he had a profound influence on the French New Wave.

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard is a German biologist born in 1942, a specialist in developmental genetics. Her work on the fruit fly (Drosophila) revealed how genes control the formation of the embryo. She received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1995.

Tebello Nyokong is a South African chemist born in 1951, a specialist in phthalocyanines. She develops a photodynamic therapy against cancer, an alternative to conventional chemotherapy, and works on cleaning up water through photochemistry.

Kamala Harris is an American politician, the first woman, first Black person, and first American of South Asian descent to become Vice President of the United States in 2021. A former Attorney General of California and U.S. Senator, she represents a historic turning point in American political representation.