Born on March 5

Italian Renaissance philosopher and humanist, a key figure of Florentine Neoplatonism. Author of the Oration on the Dignity of Man, he defends humanity's freedom to shape itself and attempts a synthesis of all knowledge.

Born in 1500 in Ghent, Charles V inherited a vast empire spanning Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, and much of Italy. King of Spain as Charles I, then elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1519, he ruled the largest European empire of the Renaissance. He abdicated in 1556 and retired to the monastery of Yuste, where he died in 1558.

Italian writer, poet and filmmaker, a major figure of the politically engaged post-war intelligentsia. A heterodox Marxist and critic of consumer society, he left his mark on literature as much as on cinema before his murder in 1975.

Daniel Kahneman was an Israeli-American psychologist and economist, a pioneer of behavioral economics. His work on cognitive biases and decision-making under uncertainty earned him the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002.

French philosopher and historian, born in 1944, heiress to the Publicis group. She profoundly renewed thinking on the female condition, motherhood and identity, championing a universalist and republican feminism.

Amina Annabi is a French-Tunisian singer and actress born in 1962. A figure of world music blending Arab-Andalusian influences with Western pop, she represented France at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1991 while also pursuing a parallel career in film.