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.
Fascinated with works of Sigmund Freud, Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was an Austrian novelist, playwright, biographer and one of the most popular writers of the 1920s. Protesting against Hitlerism, together with his wife he left Europe and moved to Brazil. Depressed about the situation on the old continent, the pair committed suicide in 1942. Zweig saw Europe as a lasting community of culture and values.
With his ideology of ‘Gaullism’, Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) fought in World War I, but went into exile during World War II, leading the Free French from London. In 1959 he became the first president of the Fifth Republic. He supported the idea of a Free United Europe and built Franco-German cooperation, the cornerstone of the European Economic Community.
Six hours of training per day, incredible talent and lots of self-confidence all paid off for Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci (born 1961). She was the first gymnast in history to score the ‘perfect 10’ at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, proving that perfection can be achieved through persistence. Comaneci, a five-time Olympic gold medallist, is now a passionate leader of a gymnastic academy for teenagers.
