Philip V of Spain by Miguel Jacinto Melendez, 1718-1722
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Adolf Frederick or Adolph Frederick (1710)
King of Sweden, son of Christian August of Holstein-Gottorp, Prince of Eutin and Albertina Frederica of Baden-Durlach. Asides from a few attempts to, supported with pro-absolutist factions among the nobility reclaim the absolute monarchy held by former predecessors he remained a mere constitutional figurehead until his death. Following his death, his son Gustav III seized power through violent means in a 1772 coup d’etat, reinstating absolute rule.
Thomas Gainsborough (1727)
An English portrait and landscape painter. He was born the youngest son of John Gainsborough, and, in 1740, left home to study art in London with Hubert Gravelot, Francis Hayman, and William Hogarth. In 1769, he became a founding member of the Royal Academy, but his relationship with the organization was thorny and he sometimes withdrew his work from exhibition. In his last years, Gainsborough painted relatively simple landscapes and is credited (with Richard Wilson) as the originator of the 18th century British landscape school. Gainsborough died of cancer in 1788 and is interred at St. Anne’s Church, Kew, Surrey.
Robert Owen (1771)
A Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement. Owen’s philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars: First, no one was responsible for his will and his own actions because his whole character is formed independently of himself; people are products of their heredity and environment, hence his support for education and labour reform, rendering him a pioneer in human capital investment. Second, all religions are based on the same ridiculous imagination and third, support for the putting-out system instead of the factory system.
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Louis Philippe d’Orléans (1725)
A member of a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon and First Prince of the Blood after 1752. As such he was the most senior male at the French court after the immediate royal family. He was the father of Philippe Égalité. Serving with the French armies in the War of the Austrian Succession, he distinguished himself in the campaigns of 1742, 1743 and 1744, and at the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745.
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Victoire de France, Daughter of France (1733)
The seventh child and fifth daughter of King Louis XV of France and his Queen consort Maria Leszczyńska. Originally known as Madame Quatrième (her older sister died in February 1733, before her birth) she was later known as Madame Victoire. She outlived eight of her nine siblings, and was survived by her older sister Madame Adélaïde by less than a year. After the storming of Versailles, Mesdames Victoire and Adélaïde took up residence at the Château de Bellevue. The two left France for Italy on 20 February 1791, although they were arrested and detained for several days at Arnay-le-Duc before they were allowed to depart.
John Lowell, Jr. (1799)
A U.S. businessman, early philanthropist, and through his will, founder of the Lowell Institute. Under its first trustee, the founder’s cousin, John Amory Lowell (the Institute flourished. The list of Lowell Lecturers during his tenure was a veritable pantheon of the most internationally celebrated figures in science, literature, political economy, philosophy, and theology, including Britain’s most celebrated geologist, Sir Charles Lyell, Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz, and novelists Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray.
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Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune (1727)
A French economist and statesman. Turgot was a student of Francois Quesnay and as such belonged to the Physiocratic school of economic thought. Today he is best remembered as an early advocate for economic liberalism. Turgot owed his appointment as minister of the navy in July 1774 to Maurepas, the “Mentor” of Louis XVI. A month later he was appointed controller-general. His first act was to submit to the king a statement of his guiding principles: “No bankruptcy, no increase of taxation, no borrowing.” Turgot’s policy, in face of the desperate financial position, was to enforce the most rigid economy in all departments. As minister of the navy from 1774 to 1776, he opposed financial support for the American Revolution. He believed in the virtue and inevitable success of the revolution but warned that France could neither financially nor socially afford to overtly aid it.
Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle (1760)
A French Army officer of the Revolutionary Wars. He is known for writing the words and music of the Chant de guerre pour l’armée du Rhin in 1792, which would later be known as La Marseillaise and become the French national anthem.
