an English journalist and writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, as the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and at 41, its youngest recipient to date

an Italian political leader, novelist, and short-story writer, world-famous during World War II for his powerful anti-Fascist novels

a Spanish poet, a prolific writer. One of his most important contributions to modern poetry was his advocacy of the concept of "pure poetry".

an English industrialist who pioneered the manufacture of cast iron and the use of cast-iron goods during the Industrial Revolution

a Swiss chemist who received the Nobel prize in Medicine for his 1939 discovery of insecticidal qualities and use of DDT in the control of vector diseases such as malaria and yellow fever.

a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art