Famous People Born in 1859

Arthur Conan Doyle

Scottish doctor and writer who created the detective Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr Watson

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He is best known for his four novels and fifty-six short stories about the fictional consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Walter Benington · Public domain

L. L. Zamenhof

Polish-Jewish eye doctor who invented Esperanto in 1887, hoping a shared easy language would bring peace between peoples

L. L. Zamenhof (15 December 1859 – 14 April 1917) was the creator of Esperanto, the most widely used constructed international auxiliary language. Zamenhof published Esperanto in 1887, although his initial ideas date back as far as 1873.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Unknown author · Public domain

Henri Bergson

French philosopher of Creative Evolution, known for his ideas on time, memory and the vital impulse, and a Nobel laureate

Henri-Louis Bergson (French:; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopher who was influential in the traditions of analytic philosophy and continental philosophy, especially during the first half of the 20th century until the Second World War, but also after 1966 when Gilles Deleuze published Le…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Henri Manuel · Public domain

Knut Hamsun

Norwegian novelist of Hunger and Growth of the Soil who won the Nobel Prize but disgraced himself by supporting the Nazis

Knut Hamsun (4 August 1859 – 19 February 1952) was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel Growth of the Soil. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to consciousness, subject, perspective and environment.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Nasjonalbiblioteket from Norway · Public domain

Pierre Curie

Pierre Curie (15 May 1859 – 19 April 1906) was a French physicist and chemist, and a pioneer in crystallography and magnetism. He shared one half of the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife, Maria Skłodowska-Curie, for their work on radioactivity.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Dujardin · Public domain

Wilhelm II

Last German Emperor and King of Prussia, whose aggressive policies helped lead to the First World War and who abdicated in 1918

Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 1859 – 4 June 1941) was the last German Emperor from 1888 until his abdication in 1918. His fall from power marked the end of the German Empire as well as the Hohenzollern dynasty's 400-year rule over Prussia.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Studio of Thomas Heinrich Voigt · Public domain

John Dewey

American philosopher of pragmatism who argued that children learn by doing and wrote Democracy and Education

John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Unknown · Public domain

Svante August Arrhenius

Swedish scientist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Svante August Arrhenius (19 February 1859 – 2 October 1927) was a Swedish scientist. Originally a physicist, but often referred to as a chemist, Arrhenius was one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Photogravure Meisenbach Riffarth & Co. Leipzig. · Public domain