Born on August 26

Charles Martel was mayor of the palace of Austrasia and then de facto ruler of the kingdom of the Franks. Born into the Pippinid family, he imposed Carolingian authority and halted the Arab-Muslim advance at the Battle of Poitiers in 732. The grandfather of Charlemagne, he paved the way for the rise of the Carolingian dynasty.

An 18th-century French chemist, Lavoisier is the founder of modern chemistry. He established the law of conservation of mass and identified oxygen, revolutionizing the understanding of chemical phenomena.

French poet and writer of Polish origin, a major figure in poetic modernity of the early 20th century. Author of "Alcools" and "Calligrammes," he was also an art critic and defender of avant-garde movements such as Cubism.

American physician and virologist of Polish origin. In the 1950s he developed the live attenuated oral vaccine against poliomyelitis, administered on a sugar cube, which made possible mass vaccination campaigns around the world.

Born in 1910 in Ottoman Macedonia, Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta in 1950 to help the poorest of the poor. A global icon of compassion, she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and was canonized in 2016.

Argentine writer born in Brussels in 1914 and died in Paris in 1984. A major figure of the "boom" in Latin American literature, he is famous for his fantastic short stories and his experimental novel *Hopscotch*.

African-American physicist, mathematician, and space engineer