Born on December 9

Spanish navigator and sailor (c. 1476–1526), he took command of Magellan's expedition after the latter's death in the Philippines and completed the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1522, returning the Victoria to Seville.

French chemist (1748–1822), collaborator of Lavoisier and founder of modern chemistry. He discovered the bleaching properties of chlorine and formulated the laws of chemical affinity, challenging the notion of complete chemical reactions.

French general and diplomat, Duke of Vicenza, he served as Napoleon's ambassador to Russia (1807–1811) and was a privileged eyewitness to the Russian campaign of 1812. Minister of Foreign Affairs during the Hundred Days, he left behind essential Memoirs on the Napoleonic saga.

Tabitha Babbitt (1779-1853) was an American inventor and a member of the Shaker community in Harvard, Massachusetts. She is credited with inventing the circular saw adapted for sawmills, as well as improvements to cut nails and carding teeth.

A New Zealand Māori activist, Whina Cooper dedicated her life to defending her people's land rights. In 1975, at the age of 80, she led the great Māori Land March from Te Hapua to Wellington. Regarded as the 'Mother of the Nation' of the Māori people, she remains a symbol of peaceful resistance.

Grace Hopper, American mathematician and rear admiral, is one of the pioneers of computer science. She developed one of the first compilers and contributed to the creation of the COBOL programming language, revolutionizing programming. She popularized the term "bug" in computing after finding a real insect inside a computer.

Judi Dench is a British actress born in 1934, considered one of the greatest stage and screen performers of her country. Trained at the Royal Shakespeare Company, she achieved worldwide fame in cinema, notably in the role of M in the James Bond saga.

French materialist feminist sociologist, Christine Delphy co-founded the Women's Liberation Movement in 1970. She theorized patriarchy as a system of economic exploitation of women and developed the concept of the domestic mode of production.

Born Edvige Antonia Albina Màino in 1946 in Italy, Sonia Gandhi married Rajiv Gandhi in 1968 and became an Indian citizen. Following her husband's assassination in 1991, she took over the leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1998 and led the UPA coalition to victory in 2004, declining the position of Prime Minister.