Born on April 24

Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer (1452–1519), Leonardo da Vinci embodies the ideal of the universal man. Creator of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, he revolutionized art through perspective and scientific observation, while pursuing research in anatomy, botany, and engineering.

General and Marshal of France, Gallieni was a great colonial administrator in Madagascar and Indochina. Military Governor of Paris in 1914, he organized the counter-offensive at the Marne, saving the capital thanks to the famous “taxis of the Marne.”

Marshal of France and celebrated military commander known for his victory at Verdun in 1916, Philippe Pétain became head of the French government in 1940 and established the authoritarian French State of Vichy. A collaborator during the German occupation, he remains one of the most controversial figures in French history.

Willem de Kooning was an American painter of Dutch origin and a leading figure of abstract expressionism. He settled in the United States in 1926 and, alongside Jackson Pollock, became one of the leaders of the New York School. His “Women” series blends gestural abstraction with figuration.

Joe Henderson (1937-2001) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and composer. A major figure of hard bop and post-bop, he made his name in the 1960s at Blue Note before achieving belated recognition and numerous awards in the 1990s.

American singer and actress born in 1942 in New York, Barbra Streisand is one of the most awarded artists in entertainment history. She has shaped American pop music and cinema across more than six decades of career.