a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II.

a French scientific instrument inventor and physicist. He was one of the pioneers in studying the problem of friction, which is the resistance to motion when bodies make contact.

a British mineralogist and analytical chemist who discovered the element niobium

a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language.

an Italian inventor and electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based wireless telegraph system. This led to Marconi being credited as the inventor of radio,

a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, philosopher and journalist. His literary works explore the human condition in the troubled political, and social atmospheres of 19th-century Russia