Born on July 8

A German princess of the House of La Marck, Anne of Cleves became the fourth wife of King Henry VIII of England in January 1540. The marriage, motivated by a diplomatic alliance with the Protestant princes, was annulled after six months.

A Flemish painter of the 17th century, Rubens is one of the masters of the European Baroque. As much a diplomat as an artist, he worked for the greatest courts of Europe. His monumental body of work, rich in color and movement, had a lasting influence on Western painting.

Italian painter

Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945) was a German artist, printmaker and sculptor. Her socially committed work portrays working-class poverty, war and maternal grief. She was the first woman elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts, in 1919.

Ernst Bloch (1885-1977) was a German philosopher and a major figure of heterodox Marxism. He developed a philosophy of hope and utopia, seeing in the "hope principle" a driving force of human history.