Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Prophets & Divine Messengers

5

🕯️ 0

Rik Wouters

Hendrik Emil Wouters

Belgium

1882 – 1916 (33 years old)

Beloved Brabant Fauvist painter and sculptor whose vibrant, light-filled domestic canvases of his muse Nel and ecstatic bronze sculpture The Mad Virgin (Het zotte geweld) crowned early Belgian modernism before his tragic death at 33.

Mechelen, Belgium

5 Full Record →

Arts & Music

39

🕯️ 0

Bertrand-Jean Redon

Odilon Redon

France

1840 – 1916 (76 years old)

French Symbolist painter and printmaker whose visionary charcoals ('Noirs') and radiant late pastels ('The Cyclops', 'Ophelia') unlocked the surreal landscape of the subconscious.

Bièvres, France

39 Full Record →

Politics

1

🕯️ 0

Nana Olomu

Nana Olomu

Nigeria

1852-01-01 – 1916-07-03 (64 years old)

Prominent Itsekiri merchant prince and Governor of the Benin River whose military resistance to British commercial monopolies culminated in the 1894 Siege of Brohimie.

Koko, Nigeria

1 Full Record →

History

2

🕯️ 0

Gabrielle Petit

Gabrielle Alida Céline Petit

Belgium

1893 – 1916 (23 years old)

Heroic young Belgian resistance fighter who gathered intelligence for British military services in occupied Belgium during World War I, refusing a blindfold before facing a German firing squad with 'Vive la Belgique!'.

Schaerbeek (Brussels), Belgium

2 Full Record →

Arts & Music

36

🕯️ 0

Vasily Ivanovich Surikov

Василий Иванович Суриков

Russia

1848 – 1916 (68 years old)

Premier Russian historical painter whose monumental crowd canvases—such as 'Morning of the Streltsy Execution' and 'Boyarynya Morozova'—captured epic historical tragedies.

Moscow, Russia

36 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

2,700

🕯️ 49

Ernst Mach

Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach

Czech Republic

1838 – 1916 (78 years old)

Austrian physicist and philosopher who pioneered supersonic shockwave aerodynamics and influenced Einstein's relativity.

Munich, Bavaria, Germany

2,700 Full Record →

Art

2

🕯️ 0

Vilhelm Hammershøi

Vilhelm Hammershøi

Denmark

1864-05-15 – 1916-02-13 (51 years old)

Master Danish painter acclaimed internationally as 'the painter of silence', renowned for enigmatic, muted grey interiors featuring open white doors, dust motes, and his wife Ida seen from behind.

Copenhagen, Denmark

2 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

31

🕯️ 0

Richard Dedekind

Julius Wilhelm Richard Dedekind

Germany

1831 – 1916 (84 years old)

German mathematician who established the rigorous foundation of real numbers using Dedekind cuts and pioneered modern abstract algebra through ideals and ring theory.

Braunschweig, Germany

31 Full Record →

Politics

0

🕯️ 0

Sultan Said Ali bin Said Omar

Said Ali bin Said Omar

Comoros

c. 1855 – 1916-02-10 (61 years old)

Last unified sovereign Sultan of Grande Comore who united the rival sultanates of Ngazidja in 1892 and fought legal battles in Paris to protect Comorian customary land rights from colonial concessions.

Moroni, Grande Comore, Comoros

0 Full Record →

Medicine

1

🕯️ 0

Isala Van Diest

Anne Catherine Isala Van Diest

Belgium

1842-05-07 – 1916-02-06 (73 years old)

Pioneering physician who overcame immense institutional sexism to become Belgium's first female medical doctor in 1884, co-founding the Belgian League for the Rights of Women.

Knokke-Heist, Belgium

1 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

35

🕯️ 0

Ruben Dario

Félix Rubén García Sarmiento

Nicaragua

1867 – 1916 (49 years old)

Nicaraguan poet widely celebrated as the father of modernismo, whose 1888 collection Azul... revolutionized Spanish literature across both Latin America and Spain.

Leon, Nicaragua

35 Full Record →

Arts & Music

38

🕯️ 0

Marie Bracquemond

Marie Bracquemond

France

1840 – 1916 (75 years old)

French Impressionist painter acclaimed by Gustave Geffroy as one of the 'Three Great Ladies' of Impressionism alongside Cassatt and Morisot, master of sun-drenched outdoor light.

Sèvres, France

38 Full Record →

Politics

0

🕯️ 0

Muhammad Bakhit

Muhammad Bakhit of Dar Sila

Chad

c. 1860 – 1916-01-01 (56 years old)

Courageous Sultan of the Daju people of Dar Sila who maintained sovereign independence in eastern Chad for sixteen years until falling in combat in 1916 defending his fortress at Goz Beïda.

Goz Beïda, Sila, Chad

0 Full Record →

Science

5

🕯️ 0

Thomas Willson

Carbide Willson

Canada

14 March 1860 – 20 December 1915 (55 years old)

Pioneering Canadian electrical inventor whose electric arc furnace discovery of commercial calcium carbide founded the global acetylene lighting and welding industries.

Guelph, Canada

5 Full Record →

Politics

4

🕯️ 0

Mubarak Al-Sabah

مبارك الصباح / مبارك الكبير

Kuwait

1844 – 28 November 1915 (71 years old)

Founding father of modern Kuwait who concluded the historic 1899 Anglo-Kuwaiti Treaty, securing independence from Ottoman annexation.

Kuwait City, Kuwait

4 Full Record →

Resistance & Human Rights

35

🕯️ 0

Kartar Singh Sarabha

ਕਰਤਾਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਸਰਾਭਾ

India

1896 – 1915 (19 years old)

Heroic revolutionary of the international Ghadar Party executed in the Lahore Conspiracy Case at just 19 years old, revered as Bhagat Singh's principal inspiration.

Sarabha, India

35 Full Record →

Resistance & Human Rights

37

🕯️ 870

Booker T. Washington

Booker Taliaferro Washington

United States

5 April 1856 – 14 November 1915 (59 years old)

Influential educator, reformer, and first leader of the Tuskegee Institute who championed self-reliance, vocational education, and economic independence for African Americans in the Jim Crow South.

Tuskegee, Alabama, United States

37 Full Record →

Politics

4

🕯️ 0

Charles Tupper

Sir Charles Tupper, 1st Baronet

Canada

1821 – 1915 (94 years old)

Formidable Father of Confederation who brought Nova Scotia into the union, established free public schools in Nova Scotia, and served as Canada's sixth prime minister and high commissioner to London.

Halifax (Nova Scotia), Canada

4 Full Record →