Dubbed “The travelling pope” Karol Józef Wojtyła (1920-2005) was the first non-Italian head of the Catholic Church in 455 years. As a Pope John Paul II, he undertook more pastoral trips than all of his predecessors combined. His revolutionary teachings about human dignity encouraged nations to rebel against autocratic regimes, such as in his homeland of Poland. He saw Europe as a “union of nations” built on spiritual and economic grounds.
Jacques Delors (born 1925) is the father of the modern day EU as we know it. As president of the European Commission between 1985 and 1995, he was an architect of the euro. An internationalist and former socialist finance minister of France, he argued for a ‘social Europe’, and for the common values of fairness and decency.
Famous for his love for art and literature, Winston Churchill (1874-1965) was a politician, an army officer, and a writer. He was one of the most active pre-war anti-Nazi campaigners, becoming British Prime minister in 1940 and again in 1951. Considered one of the most iconic figures of the 20th Century, Churchill dreamt of building the ‘United States of Europe’. In 1953 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his ‘brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values’.
It sounded like a fairy tale and travellers worldwide convened in Bucharest to find the secret to eternal youth. Crucial to the development of gerontology, Ana Aslan (1897-1988) was hunted out by the likes of de Gaulle, Salvador Dali and Charlie Chaplin for her anti-ageing wonder drug. The visionary Romanian biologist and physician founded the world's first Institute of Geriatrics - and lived to age 91.
Paul David Hewson (born 1960), better known as Bono, is the frontman of one of Europe’s most famous bands, U2, and a committed social activist and entrepreneur. His ‘ONE’ campaign actively advocates debt relief to eradicate poverty in Africa, as well as aiming to raise awareness of HIV. He also runs EDUN – a fair trade clothing company. For his civic engagement he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice, and in 2005 was named one of the Time ‘Persons of the Year’.
The first European to set foot in South America; Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was an Italian explorer from Genoa. His four Renaissance voyages across the Atlantic changed the course of global history. Funded by Spanish royalty, he sailed west with wooden ships, finding the ‘New World’ instead of China. He lived in Portugal and is buried in Spain.
Daphne Anne Caruana Galizia (1965-2017) was a Maltese investigative journalist who was assassinated for her work uncovering corruption. She garnered international attention when she published links to offshore tax evasion in her tiny island nation. A prominent columnist and editor in the Maltese media, she set up her blog Running Commentary in 2008.
Born in Crete (Candia) under Venetian rule, the Greek artist El Greco (1541-1614) – real name Domenikos Theotokopoulos – was an iconographer trained in the Byzantine tradition. He lived in Venice, Rome, and Toledo, where he set up a studio and produced devotional paintings. The Old Master’s modern work was infused with sorrow and spirituality.
After the very first flight by the Wright Brothers in 1903, Henri Coandă (1886-1972) left a military career to build and allegedly fly the world’s first jet aircraft, inventing the ‘Coandă effect’ as he went. The Romanian aeronautical engineer studied in Berlin, Liège and Paris, where he was friends with Gustave Eiffel, and exhibited his flying device in 1910.
While never elected to public office, French political economist Jean Monnet (1888-1979) was a unifying force in the birth of the EU: ‘We are not forming coalitions of states, we are uniting men’. Born into a family of cognac merchants, he lived in London and travelled the world, conceiving the integration of the French and German coal and steel industries.
