Died On August 4th

A legendary American actress, model, comedienne and singer, Marilyn Monroe emerged as a major sex symbol in Hollywood in the 1950s and early 1960s. Amongst the most successful actresses of her time, she also won critical acclaim for her acting in movies like Some Like It Hot. Her personal and professional life, though from the beginning, were marked by hardships, struggles and controversies.

French nobleman Simon de Montfort gave away his family lands to become the Earl of Leicester instead. Though King Henry III married off his sister Eleanor to Simon without consulting his barons, Simon later turned against the king. After being killed by Roger Mortimer, Simon’s body was mutilated by royalists.

Melvyn Douglas was an American actor who achieved popularity in the 1930s. Over the course of his illustrious acting career, Douglas won two Academy Awards, a Tony Award, and an Emmy Award, becoming one of the few actors to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. Melvyn Douglas also won several other awards, including the prestigious Golden Globe Award. 

Daniel Hale Williams was a general surgeon known for performing the first documented, successful pericardium surgery in the US in 1893. Born to interracial parents, he faced numerous struggles in his journey to become a physician. He later founded the first non-segregated hospital in the United States, Chicago's Provident Hospital. He also founded a nursing school for African Americans. 

Jean Vianney was a French Catholic priest active in the first half of the 19th century. Venerated in the Catholic Church as a saint and as the patron saint of parish priests, he is also referred to as the "Curé d'Ars."  He was devoted to St. Philomena, who he regarded as his guardian. His feast day is 4 August.

Isaac Levitan was a Russian landscape painter remembered for his work that popularized the mood landscape genre. One of the most important landscape painters of his generation, Levitan was elected to the Russian Academy of Arts in 1897. The following year, Levitan was chosen as the head of the Landscape Studio at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.

Wenceslaus III became King of Hungary following the death of Andrew III whose only daughter, Elizabeth, was engaged to Wenceslaus. Wenceslaus renounced his hereditary rights to Austria and claim to Hungary before succeeding his father as King of Bohemia and Poland. His reign in Bohemia was however cut-short as he was assassinated before he could invade his rival's territories in Poland.

Étienne Lenoir was a Belgian-French engineer. He is credited with developing the internal combustion engine which was commercialized in sufficient quantities. Lenoir is also credited with inventing such electrical devices as an improved electric telegraph which played a key role during the Franco-Prussian War. 

Eugène Atget was a French flâneur credited with pioneering documentary photography. Renowned for his obstinacy to document all of the street scenes and architecture of Paris before the advent of urbanization, Atget's works inspired several surrealists. Unfortunately, Eugène Atget did not live to see the kind of reception his works eventually received; he was not celebrated during his lifetime.

Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński was a Polish poet and soldier. Baczyński was one of the most famous poets of the Generation of Columbuses. Like many other poles from his era, Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński suffered during the German occupation of his country and was killed in action at age 23. His life inspired several films including the 1984 film The Fourth Day.

Nobel Prize-winning American pediatrician and virologist Frederick Chapman Robbins is best remembered for his pathbreaking research on the poliomyelitis virus, which later helped in the development of polio vaccines. He also taught pediatrics at the Case Western Reserve University and worked with the US Army’s virus and rickettsia lab.

Apart from being a lawyer and a war historian, Jacob Dolson Cox had served as the governor of Ohio and as a US representative from Ohio's 6th district. During the American Civil War, he was a Union general. As the Secretary of the Interior, he introduced a civil service merit system.

Born to a Polish rabbi, Ernestine Rose was much ahead of her times. As a teenager, she spoke up against the regressive Jewish customs that hindered women’s freedom. She later became a pioneering feminist and suffragist from her community and was also inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

An Austrian refugee, Raul Hilberg escaped the Nazi regime and moved to the U.S. with his family. He later became a pioneer of Holocaust research. He is perhaps best remembered for his three-volume The Destruction of the European Jews. He was also part of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial council.

Austrian chemist and engineer Carl Auer, Freiherr von Welsbach isolated neodymium and praseodymium from didymium. His inventions include the gas mantle and ferrocerium "flints" that are used in lighters. He also worked on the tungsten filament that led to the development of the modern light bulb.

Zoltán Tildy, who started off as an Independent Smallholders' Party leader, soon rose to lead Hungary as its prime minister and then as its president. Initially trained as a Protestant minister, he had also been a pastor and a high-school teacher before venturing into politics.