Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Politics

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Louis de Buade de Frontenac

Louis de Buade, comte de Frontenac et de Palluau

France

1622 – 1698 (76 years old)

Flamboyant and formidable Governor General of New France who expanded western fur trade forts and famously repelled Sir William Phips's English invasion of Quebec in 1690.

Quebec City, Canada

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Science

10

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Rasmus Bartholin

Rasmus Bartholin

Denmark

1625-08-13 – 1698-11-04 (73 years old)

Pioneering Danish physician and mathematician who discovered the double refraction of light in Iceland spar in 1669, laying the experimental foundation for polarization and wave optics.

Copenhagen, Denmark

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Sculpture

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Lucas Faydherbe

Lucas Faydherbe

Belgium

1617 – 1697 (80 years old)

Foremost Flemish Baroque sculptor and architect of Mechelen who trained in the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens and designed the monumental Basilica of Our Lady of Hanswijk.

Mechelen, Belgium

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Politics

8

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Muhammad Bey al-Muradi

محمد باي المرادي

Tunisia

c. 1660 AD – 1696 (~36 years old)

Muradid Bey of Tunis who built the magnificent Ottoman-style domed Mosque of Sidi Mahrez in the Bab Souika quarter of Tunis, modeled on the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul.

Tunis, Tunisia

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Monarchs, Kings & Royalty

40

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John III Sobieski

Jan III Sobieski

Ukraine

1629 – 1696 (66 years old)

King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania whose legendary Winged Hussar charge saved Vienna from Ottoman conquest in 1683.

Kraków, Poland

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Literature & Poetry

8

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Jean de La Bruyère

Jean de La Bruyère

France

1645 – 1696 (50 years old)

Brilliant French moralist and satirist whose 1688 masterpiece Les Caractères ou les Mœurs de ce siècle captured the vanities, social climbing, and hypocrisy of seventeenth-century court and bourgeois society.

Paris, France

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Literature & Poetry

8

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Madame de Sévigné

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné

France

1626 – 1696 (70 years old)

French aristocrat and preeminent epistolary writer whose celebrated collection of over 1,100 letters, primarily to her beloved daughter the Comtesse de Grignan, painted an immortal, sparkling portrait of seventeenth-century court life.

Grignan (Drôme), France

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Arts & Music

1,157

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Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell

Great Britain

1 – 1695 (36 years old)

Greatest English Baroque composer whose sublime theatrical music, anthems, and opera Dido and Aeneas defined British music.

London, United Kingdom

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Resistance & Human Rights

40

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Zumbi dos Palmares

Zumbi dos Palmares

Brazil

1655 – 1695 (40 years old)

Heroic military commander and last sovereign king of the Quilombo dos Palmares, the legendary free fugitive state of 30,000 Africans, indigenous peoples, and poor whites that resisted Portuguese colonial assaults for nearly a century.

Uniao dos Palmares (Alagoas), Brazil

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Sciences & Discovery

37

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Christiaan Huygens

Christiaan Huygens

Germany

14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695 (66 years old)

Dutch polymath who formulated the wave theory of light (Huygens' principle), invented the pendulum clock, discovered Saturn's rings and moon Titan, and derived centrifugal force formulas.

The Hague, Netherlands

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Literature & Poetry

35

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Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana

Mexico

1648 – 1695 (46 years old)

Mexican Hieronymite nun, Baroque polymath, and poet known as 'The Tenth Muse' and the first published feminist of the Americas.

Mexico City, Mexico

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Literature & Poetry

47

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Jean de La Fontaine

Jean de La Fontaine

France

8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695 (73 years old)

Preeminent French fabulist and poet whose 243 Fables—adapting Aesop and Indian Panchatantra tales into sparkling verse like The Crow and the Fox—provided a witty, razor-sharp critique of court politics and human nature.

Paris, France

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Sciences & Discovery

40

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Marcello Malpighi

Marcello Malpighi

Italy

10 March 1628 – 29 November 1694 (66 years old)

Italian physician who discovered blood capillaries in frog lungs, completing Harvey's circulatory loop, and pioneered histology (Malpighian corpuscles of the kidney and spleen).

Bologna, Italy

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Literature & Poetry

49

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Matsuo Munefusa (Matsuo Basho)

松尾芭蕉

Japan

1644 CE – 28 November 1694 (~50 years old)

Supreme master of Japanese haiku poetry whose Zen-infused verses and travelogue The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no Hosomichi) elevated the 17-syllable poem into a timeless spiritual art form.

Osaka, Japan

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Politics

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Jean Talon

Jean Talon, comte d'Orsainville

France

1626 – 1694 (68 years old)

Visionary first Intendant of New France who conducted the first census in North America (1666), stimulated population growth through the Filles du Roy, and founded domestic industries.

Châlons-en-Champagne (Memorial in Quebec City), France

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Resistance & Human Rights

48

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Dandara dos Palmares

Dandara dos Palmares

Brazil

c. 1658 – 1694 (36 years old)

Afro-Brazilian warrior queen, capoeira master, and military commander of Quilombo dos Palmares alongside her partner Zumbi, who chose death by leaping from a mountain precipice rather than submit to colonial re-enslavement.

Serra da Barriga (Alagoas), Brazil

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Literature & Poetry

36

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Ihara Saikaku

井原西鶴 (Hirayama Togo)

Japan

1642 – 1693 (51 years old)

Seventeenth-century Japanese poet and novelist (1642–1693) who created the 'ukiyo-zoshi' (books of the floating world) genre, revolutionizing Japanese popular prose fiction with realistic depictions of urban merchant life and courtesan culture.

Tennoji-ku (Osaka), Japan

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Arts & Music

37

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Willem Kalf

Willem Kalf

Netherlands

1619 – 1693 (73 years old)

Foremost Dutch painter of pronkstilleven (sumptuous still lifes) whose dramatic chiaroscuro rendered peeled lemons, Ming porcelain, and Venetian glass with astonishing optical brilliance.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

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