Famous People Born In 1752

John Graves Simcoe was a British Army general best remembered for founding York (present-day Toronto, Canada). Simcoe, who served as the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, was responsible for introducing institutions like trial by jury, courts of law, freehold land tenure, and English common law. John Graves Simcoe also played a key role in abolishing slavery in Canada.

Born into an affluent family, French mathematician Adrien-Marie Legendre probably never had to earn a living till the beginning of the French Revolution. Excelling in math and physics, he later contributed to areas such as elliptic functions, developed the least squares method, and lent his name to Legendre polynomials.

A pioneer of physical anthropology, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach laid down one of the first racial classification systems for humans after studying human skulls, dividing mankind into five racial groups. Born into a family of academics, he was a prodigy. He was against scientific racism, though his theory promoted the degenerative hypothesis.

Jemima Wilkinson was an American preacher who later became known as the Public Universal Friend after becoming a genderless evangelist. The Public Universal Friend preached throughout the northeastern US. The Friend's teachings attracted several followers who became part of the Society of Universal Friends.

Born to a bookseller in Sagami Province, Torii Kiyonaga became of the significant figures of the ukiyo-e movement woodblock prints. His works depict exceptionally tall woman drawn in a realistic fashion. He was largely inspired by kabuki actors and courtesans and mastered the nishiki-e and bijin-ga paintings.

Maria Carolina of Austria, the wife of King Ferdinand IV of Naples, was also the de facto queen of Naples and Sicily. It is believed, she came under the influence of French-born English Sir John Acton and imposed many pro-British and anti-French reforms. She revoked the ban on Freemasonry and enlarged the navy, too.

John Nash was a British architect of the Regency and Georgian eras, during which he designed several prominent areas of London using the picturesque and neoclassical styles. He is best remembered for designing popular edifices like Buckingham Palace, Marble Arch, and the Royal Pavilion. Nash also taught many future architects like John Adey Repton and James Pain.

Muzio Clementi was an Italian virtuoso pianist, composer, conductor, music publisher, editor, pedagogue, and piano manufacturer. He developed a technical legato style and then passed it on to a generation of musicians, including Johann Baptist Cramer, John Field, and Friedrich Kalkbrenner among others. Muzio Clementi also influenced world-renowned musicians like Frédéric Chopin and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Jacques Roux was a French Roman Catholic priest. During the French Revolution, Roux expounded the ideals of the classless society and popular democracy to working class wage earners, Parisian sans-culottes, and shopkeepers, turning ordinary men into a revolutionary force. He is thus remembered as a radical revolutionary who went on to lead a popular far-left in France.