Born on October 5

Official favorite of Louis XIV from 1667 to 1681, she reigned over the court of Versailles and had seven legitimized children with the Sun King. Implicated in the Affair of the Poisons, she subsequently fell from grace.

French philosopher, writer, and encyclopedist (1713–1784), a leading figure of the Enlightenment. Co-editor of the Encyclopédie with d'Alembert, he embodies the critical spirit and pursuit of rational knowledge that defined the 18th century. Author of philosophical novels such as Jacques the Fatalist, he helped transform European intellectual thought.

Ludwig Borchardt (1863-1938) was a German Egyptologist and architect. He led the excavations at Tell el-Amarna, where his team unearthed the famous bust of Nefertiti in 1912. He founded the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo.

French inventor and industrialist, Louis Lumière developed the Cinématographe with his brother Auguste in 1895. On December 28, 1895, they organized the first paid public film screening in Paris, a founding moment in the history of cinema worldwide. He also invented the Autochrome process, the first commercially available color photography technique.

American engineer and physicist (1882–1945), pioneer of astronautics. He designed and launched the first liquid-fueled rocket in 1926, laying the foundations of modern space exploration.

John Cage (1912-1992) was an American composer, theorist, and visual artist, a major figure of the 20th-century musical avant-garde. A pioneer of chance music and of silence as sonic material, he profoundly reshaped the very conception of the musical work.

French mathematician born in 1973, awarded the Fields Medal in 2010 for his work on the Boltzmann equation and optimal transport. Director of the Institut Henri-Poincaré, then a member of the National Assembly.

Kate Winslet is a British actress born in 1975 in Reading, England. She rose to worldwide fame through James Cameron's Titanic in 1997 and is considered one of the greatest actresses of her generation. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2009 for her role in The Reader.