Famous People Born In 1816

German electrical engineer Werner von Siemens is remembered as a pioneer of the telegraph industry. The founder of Siemens also inspired the name to the SI unit of electrical conductance. He was part of the Prussian army and had begun his chemistry experiments while in prison for a minor crime.

Montgomery C. Meigs was an American civil engineer and US Army officer who played an important role during and after the Civil War, serving as Quartermaster General of the US Army. His work as Quartermaster General is widely regarded as an important factor in the Union victory in the Civil War. Meigs is also credited with masterminding Arlington National Cemetery.    

Maria Theresa of Austria was the Queen of the Two Sicilies by virtue of her marriage to King Ferdinand II. The daughter of Archduke Charles and Princess Henrietta, she wasn’t liked by the Sicilian court and spent most of her time inside her room with her children, absorbed in needlework.

Charles Frédéric Gerhardt was a French chemist. He developed an early interest in chemistry and studied the subject under German chemist Otto Linné Erdmann. He later went to Paris and attended Jean Baptiste Dumas’ lectures before embarking on an academic career. He is best known for his work on reforming the notation for chemical formulas. 

Gustav Freytag was a German playwright and novelist best remembered for his 1852 comedy The Journalists which is regarded as one of the 19th century's best German comedies. It is still counted among the most successful German comedies of all time. A respected playwright, Freytag is credited with developing a dramatic structure called Freytag's pyramid which is widely used today.

Ion Ghica was a Romanian mathematician, statesman, politician, and diplomat. He is best remembered for his service as the Prime Minister of Romania. Ion Ghica is also remembered for his association with Academia Mihăileană, where he served as a professor of mineralogy, geology, and political economy.

Leonilla Bariatinskaya was a Russian aristocrat. Born to Prince Ivan Ivanovich Bariatinsky, Leonilla belonged to one of the most influential families in Russia. Renowned for her beauty, Leonilla Bariatinskaya served as the subject of several portraits by popular painter Franz Xaver Winterhalter.

Swiss astronomer Rudolf Wolf initially taught math and physics at the University of Bern and later switched to teaching astronomy. He then joined both the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich. Best remembered for his studies on sunspot activity, he established what are now known as Wolf’s sunspot numbers.

Charles Gavan Duffy was an Irish poet and journalist active during the late 19th-century. He studied at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and began his journalistic career soon after under the guidance of political activist and journalist Charles Hamilton Teeling. Later in life, he moved to Australia and became the 8th Premier of Victoria.

Copley Medal-winning German physician and physiologist Carl Ludwig founded the physicochemical school of physiology and studied topics such as urine secretion and blood pressure. He had been a professor at the University of Leipzig. His inventions include the kymograph, and he was the first to keep animal parts alive in vitro.

Grace Aguilar was raised in a closed Jewish circle and wasn’t allowed to mingle much outside her family. In spite of the regulations, she grew up to educate people about Jewish culture and history and later penned the iconic domestic novels Home Influence and its sequel, The Mother's Recompense.

Arthur de Gobineau was a French aristocrat best remembered for his efforts to legitimize racism. He cited scientific racist theory as legitimate evidence in an attempt to coerce people into believing that the Aryan race is superior. He was also known as a novelist, travel writer, and diplomat among his contemporaries. 

Born to Swiss parents in Italy, Giovanni Morelli later studied medicine in Switzerland and Germany, but never practiced. A connoisseur of arts, he established himself as an art historian and collector. He also dabbled in politics and passed an act forbidding the sale of artwork from public or religious institutions.

Charles-Eugène Delaunay was a French mathematician and astronomer, known for his theory of lunar motion, explained in two volumes of La Théorie du mouvement de la lune.  A prolific writer, he wrote several other books, which contributed to the development of planetary-motion theories, functional analysis and computer algebra. In his last years, he served as the director of Paris Observatory.