Biruté Galdikas

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Eugénie, Kaiserin von Frankreich

born on May 5, 1826, in Granada
died on July 11, 1920, in Madrid

Empress of France
200th birthday on May 5, 2026

Eugenia Maria de Montijo de Guzman, a Spanish noblewoman who lived in Paris with her mother and had access to the highest circles of society, married Napoleon III in 1853. He was a nephew of Napoleon I, the grandson of his wife Joséphine, and the son of her daughter Hortense. Louis Napoléon, 18 years older than Eugenia, had become Emperor Napoleon III in a referendum held the previous year and had been searching for a suitable wife for some time. He fell deeply in love with the beautiful Eugenia, who was as witty and spirited as she was virtuous, and who met all his expectations. She even gave birth to the long-awaited heir to the throne, albeit only after endless suffering and several miscarriages. In view of her weakened health, her doctors advised her to abstain from intimate relations. Her insatiable husband then soon resumed his premarital habits with a constantly changing string of mistresses. He had already cheated on her just six months after the wedding. The Second…read more

Annemarie Rübens

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Helene Weigel

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Maria Slavona

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Ulrike Meinhof

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Marianne Hainisch

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Grethe Jürgens

born on February 15, 1899 in Holzhausen near Osnabrück
died on May 8, 1981 in Hannover

German painter and graphic artist

Grethe Jürgens studied painting in Hannover at the beginning of the Golden Twenties. In her circle of like-minded artists, she began to capture her impressions of student life and the petty bourgeois milieu in quickly dashed off sketches. The young artist was so impoverished that during her studies she lived in what she referred to as a "dog kennel"—before she moved in, her lodging housed purebred dogs. She once commented on these early years: "We worked, we painted. We were often together. […] I am not a woman of the world, I did not travel much. We sat in Hannover and did not feel like we were 'innovators', only that we were different than the Expressionists, who belonged to a 'higher art movement'. […] We were simple, we had almost no money, but we were together and rode our bicycles out into the countryside." Grethe Jürgens was very close to her fellow student Gerta Overbeck, and it is often difficult to distinguish between their early works. However, after a…read more

Ernesta Bittanti Battisti

Born 5 May 1871 in Brescia
Died 5 October 1957 in Trento

Journalist, educator, intellectual and member of the Italian anti-Fascist resistance movement.

“Siora Battisti mi non capiso perché Ela la se mete sempre con quei che le ciapa.” (Madam Battisti, I don’t understand why you always have to ally yourself with those on the losing side?) These words in the dialect of Trento were spoken by Faustina, the family’s housekeeper, who repeated them regularly. Over time they became a fixture in the family vocabulary and remain so today. Ernesta spent her childhood in Brescia, Cremona and Cagliari. She owed her passion for study to her father, a mathematics teacher and school director. In 1882 she was the first girl in Cagliari to attend a public high school. Eight years later she enrolled under the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy at the University of Florence; she had moved there together with her two sisters and her brother. Soon the Bittanti household had become a meeting place for young intellectuals. Gaetano Salvemini, Ugo Guido, Guglielmo Mondolfo, Alfredo Galletti, Assunto Mori and Cesare Battisti all gathered here to…read more

Gerlind Reinshagen

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Sophie Scholl

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Lydia Gueiler

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