On October 9, 1835, French composer, organist, conductor, and pianist of the Romantic era Camille Saint-Saëns was born. He was something of an anomaly among French composers of the nineteenth century in that he wrote in virtually all genres, including opera, symphonies, concertos, songs, sacred and secular choral music, solo piano, and chamber music.
On September 20, 450 AD, the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains also referred to as the Battle of Chalons took place. A coalition led by the Roman general Flavius Aëtius and the Visigothic king Theodoric I against the Huns and their allies commanded by their leader Attila faced each other in a decisive battle that should decide the fate of Europe and the whole Western civilization...
On Sep 19, 1840, Marie Lafarge became the first person convicted largely on direct forensic toxicological evidence http://yovisto.blogspot.it/2013/09/madame-lafarge-first-victim-of-marsh.html
On August 19, 1839, French artist and physicist Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, after announcing his invention to the French Academy of Sciences, went public with his newly developed photographic process called Daguerrotype, the wold's first practicable photographic process.
On August 15, 1785, the Cardinal de Rohan was arrested and the 'Affair of the Diamond Necklace', an extraordinary expensive piece of jewelry intended for Madame du Barry, the maitresse of King Louis XV of France, became a public scandal that led to the French populace's disillusionment with the monarchy, which, among other causes, eventually culminated in the French Revolution.
On August 1, 1785, French Navy officer Jean-François de La Pérouse with 2 ships, the Astrolabe and the Boussole, and 200 men left Brest to lead an expedition around the world. The objectives of the journey were to complete the Pacific discoveries of James Cook (whom Lapérouse greatly admired), correct and complete maps of the area, establish trade contacts, open new maritime routes and enrich French science and scientific collections.
On July 27, 1740, French natural scientist Jeanne Baret was born. She was probably the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, but with certainty she was the first woman who achieved this disguised as a man.
On July 24, 1802, French writer Alexandre Dumas, also known as Alexandre Dumas, père, was born. He is best known for his historical novels of high adventure. Translated into nearly 100 languages, these have made him one of the most widely read French authors in history.
During the night of 23 to 24 July 1775, French criminal and criminalist Eugene Vidocq was born. Vidocq is considered the world's first private detective and father of modern criminology. His life story inspired several writers, including Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac.
On July 8, 1621, Jean de la Fontaine, the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century, was born. He is best known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists all across Europe.
On July 7, 1752, French weaver and merchant Joseph Marie Jacquard was born. He is best known for his invention of the programmable loom, the "Jacquard loom", which in turn played an important role in the development of the computer.
On June 7, 1848, French painter Paul Gauguin was born. He is considered a leading French Post-Impressionist artist who was not well appreciated until after his death. Then he was finally recognized for his experimental use of colors and synthetist style that were distinguishably different from Impressionism.
On May 20, 1799, French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac was born. He is best known for his his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, which is reflected in his opus magnum, the Comédie Humaine, sequence of short stories and novels, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy (1815–1848).
On May 4, 1555, The first edition of Michel de Nostredame's 'Les Propheties', a famous collection of long-term predictions that have since become famous worldwide, was published.
On March 31, 1596, French philosopher, mathematician, and writer René Descartes was born. The Cartesian coordinate system is named after him, allowing reference to a point in space as a set of numbers, and allowing algebraic equations to be expressed as geometric shapes in a two-dimensional coordinate system. He is credited as the father of analytical geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, crucial to the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution and has been described as an example of genius. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy'. His Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments.
On March 21, 1768, French mathematician and physicist Jean Baptiste Joseph Baron de Fourier was born. He is probably best known for his work in thermodynamics, where he introduced the concept of the Fourier Analysis, named in honor after him. There, he claimed that every mathematical function of a variable can be expanded to a sum of sines of multiples of that variable. What people most likely don't know is that Fourier also was the first to describe the greenhouse effect, which is responsible also for global warming.
On March 7, 1765, French inventor Nicéphore Niépce was born, who is best known as one of the inventors of photography and a pioneer in the field. He developed heliography, a technique used to produce the world's first known photograph in 1825.
On February 24, 1709, French inventor and artist Jacques Vaucanson was born, who is best known for the creation of impressive and innovative automata and machines such as the first completely automated loom.
On January 30, 1873, Jules Verne's famous novel 'Around the World in 80 Days' (Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) was published by Pierre-Jules Hetzel in Paris, France. It is one of Jules Verne's most acclaimed stories, where Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager set by his friends at the London Reform Club.
(Probably) on January 14th, 1622, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, French playwright and actor who is known by his stage name Molière was born. He is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature.