Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

King Moka

Moka

Historical Fernando Po

c. 1820 – c. 1899 (79 years old)

Legendary 19th-century King of the Bubi people who unified the clans of Bioko Island into a centralized spiritual confederation, established the Botuku warrior council, and preserved indigenous autonomy.

Moka, Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea

1 Full Record →

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Ahmed Ould Cadi

أحمد ولد قاضي

Algeria

1830 – 1899 (69 years old)

Eminent 19th-century legal scholar and historian of Mascara whose bilingual editions preserved traditional Algerian administrative and judicial institutions.

Mascara, Algeria

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Georges Rodenbach

Georges Raymond Almir Rodenbach

Belgium

1855 – 1898 (43 years old)

Eminent Belgian Symbolist novelist and poet whose 1892 masterpiece Bruges-la-Morte immortalized the melancholic canals of Bruges and was the first novel in literary history illustrated with photographs.

Paris, France

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Military

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Calixto García

Calixto García Íñiguez

Cuba

1839-08-04 – 1898-12-11 (59 years old)

Heroic Major General who fought in all three Cuban wars of independence, surviving a bullet to the head rather than surrender, immortalized in the military history essay 'A Message to Garcia'.

Holguín, Cuba

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Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

France

1824 – 1898 (73 years old)

Foremost mural painter of the French Third Republic whose serene, muted monumental frescoes at the Panthéon and Boston Public Library deeply inspired Gauguin and Picasso's Blue Period.

Paris, France

42 Full Record →

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Étienne Stéphane Mallarmé

Stéphane Mallarmé

France

18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898 (56 years old)

Intellectual leader of French Symbolism whose weekly Tuesday gatherings (Les Mardis) mentored Gide, Valéry, and Proust, and whose hermetic masterpieces—L'Après-midi d'un faune and Un Coup de dés—pioneered modern abstract poetry.

Valvins (Avon, Seine-et-Marne), France

52 Full Record →

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Statesmanship & Statesmen

Félicien Rops

Belgium

1833 – 1898 (65 years old)

Belgian Symbolist printmaker and illustrator whose dark, erotic, and satirical prints—such as 'Pornokrates'—illustrated Baudelaire and captured the decadent spirit of late 19th-century Europe.

Namur, Belgium

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Otto von Bismarck

Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck

Germany

1815-04-01 – 1898-07-30 (83 years old)

Unified Germany into a dominant European power and invented the modern social security system to integrate the working class into the state.

Friedrichsruh, Germany

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Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones

Edward Burne-Jones

Great Britain

1833 – 1898 (64 years old)

Leading late Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist painter whose dreamy Arthurian legends, stained glass for William Morris, and masterworks like 'The Golden Stairs' brought medieval romance to life.

Brighton, United Kingdom

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Humanitarian & Peace

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Statesmanship & Statesmen

Samuel Plimsoll

Great Britain

1824 – 1898 (74 years old)

Parlementaire et réformateur social britannique surnommé « l'Ami des marins », inventeur de la ligne de charge (ligne de Plimsoll) empêchant le naufrage des navires surchargés.

Cheriton, Folkestone, Kent, United Kingdom

41 Full Record →

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William Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone

Great Britain

1809-12-29 – 1898-05-19 (88 years old)

Dominant moral voice of Victorian British politics; introduced the secret ballot, expanded the voting franchise, and fought for Irish self-determination.

Hawarden, Flintshire, Great Britain

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Humanitarian & Peace

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Dr. Louis Paul Amédée Appia

Louis Paul Amédée Appia

Germany

13 October 1818 – 1 May 1898 (79 years old)

Dr. Louis Appia was a Swiss-German surgeon and co-founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The preeminent battlefield doctor among the 'Committee of Five', he was the first person in history to wear a Red Cross armband during an active military conflict during the Second Schleswig War in 1864, testing international humanitarian medical neutrality in the field.

Geneva, Switzerland

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Resistance & Human Rights

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Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana

Mbuya Nehanda

🌐 Zimbabwe

c. 1840 – 1898 (~58 years old)

Spiritual medium of the Shona people whose leadership of the First Chimurenga against Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company made her Zimbabwe's foremost national symbol.

Harare, Zimbabwe

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Gustave Moreau

France

1826 – 1898 (72 years old)

Patriarch of French Symbolism whose jewel-encrusted, mythological masterworks like 'The Apparition' and 'Jupiter and Semele' mentored Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault.

Paris, France

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Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin

Иван Иванович Шишкин

Russia

1832 – 1898 (66 years old)

Supreme Russian landscape painter of majestic pine forests and ancient oak groves whose masterwork 'Morning in a Pine Forest' is the most recognizable painting in Russian culture.

Saint Petersburg, Russia

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Zachris Topelius

Zacharias Topelius

Finland

1818-01-14 – 1898-03-12 (80 years old)

Distinguished Finnish author, historian, and poet celebrated as 'the fairy-tale uncle' who wrote Fältskärns berättelser (The Surgeon's Stories) and the foundational school reader Boken om vårt land.

Helsinki, Finland

10 Full Record →

Humanitarian & Peace

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