Happy Birthday to…!

Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715)

A French philosopher and littérateur. The crux of his thought was that public ethics has a utilitarian basis, and he insisted strongly on the importance of culture and education in national development. The original ideas in his system are those of the natural equality of intelligences and the omnipotence of education, neither of which gained general acceptance. His poetic ambitions resulted in the poem called Le Bonheur (published posthumously, with an account of Helvétius’s life and works, by Jean François de Saint-Lambert, 1773), in which he develops the idea that true happiness is only to be found in making the interest of one person that of all.

Francis Marion (1732)

A military officer who served in the American Revolutionary War. Acting with Continental Army and South Carolina militia commissions, he was a persistent adversary of the British in their occupation of South Carolina in 1780 and 1781, even after the Continental Army was driven out of the state in the Battle of Camden. Due to his irregular methods of warfare, he is considered one of the fathers of modern guerrilla warfare, and is credited in the lineage of the United States Army Rangers. He is known as the Swamp Fox.

Maria Amalia of Austria (1746)

The Duchess of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla by marriage. Maria Amalia was a daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I. She was thus younger sister to Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor and older sister to Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples and Marie Antoinette, Queen of France.