This is John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) who was noted for his (excellent) portraits of people like Theodore Roosevelt and one of his most famous (and scandalous) of ‘Madame X’. This painting is his self-portrait. 

Frederick Bates (June 23, 1777 – August 4, 1825), older brother of Edward Bates and James Woodson Bates, was an American attorney and politician. He was elected in 1824 as the second governor of Missouri and died in office in 1825. Before that he had served as a Justice of the Territorial Supreme Court for Michigan Territory, was appointed by Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of the Louisiana Territory and started to build his political base in St. Louis.

Called the “spitting beast” by fellow congressmen for spitting on one after he made a comment about his war record. Matthew Lyon an Irish Immigrant stood up against Alexander Hamilton for “screwing the hard-earnings out of the poor people’s pockets”. He was the first person arrested after the Sedition Acts passed and spent four months in prison. O yeah he won re-election by a landslide while serving his term. BADASS

This looker right here is Judah P. Benjamin, second Jewish senator in American history, first Jew appointed to a Cabinet position, and first Jew to be considered for a U.S. Supreme Court position. He lived from 1811 to 1884 and was personally appointed by Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Aside from the fact he was on the losing side of the US Civil War, he was born in England and returned there after the war. 

But wowowow what a hottie.

Segment of Napoleon Crossing the Alps (Alt. Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass, Bonaparte Crossing the Alps) by Jaques Louis David 1801-1805.

Typically I would never put “Napoleon” and “UNF” in the same sentence, but in this painting it only seems fitting. The eyes are killer.

I am learning for my finals, and while I was busy with the religious wars in 16th century Europe, this dude suddenly turned up and rushed away with my feelings, thoroughly destroying my ability to concentrate.

Meet Charles IX of France, who did little of note in short life except order the Massacre on St. Bartholomew’s Day (probably on insistence of the Queen Mother), which caused the estimated death of about 20,000 Huguenots. 

But damn, does he pull off that beard..

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), besides being fabulously handsome, was a  Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic, and religious author and is often regarded as the first existentialist philosopher. His theological works dealt with Christian love and an individual’s relationship with Jesus Christ versus proof of faith and he was extremely critical of Christianity as a state-religion. He dabbled in psychology, mainly focusing on the feelings and emotions of an individual when faced with major life choices.

Plus, look at that hair!

Antonin Dvorak, 19th century Romantic composer…

Immensely talented and tasty.

This gorgeous man is Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. He was an astrophysicist, born in what is now present-day Pakistan in 1910.

The Chandrasekhar limit is named after him, and it describes the maximum mass of a white dwarf star. He estimated this limit when he was just 19, on a voyage from British India to England while running calculations of observations done by prominent astronomers at the time. His findings were pretty much ignored by the British scientific community because that limit implied the natural formation of black holes and a prominent astrophysicist didn’t want to accept that black holes could exist - this pompous idiot derided Chandra’s findings and, thus, kept other astrophysicists from publicly declaring their support for his research on stellar evolution.

He was a well-liked professor of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Chicago later in his life and was eventually awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 for his work on the evolution of stars.

He died in 1995 at the age of 84 - it’s undisputed that he is one of the great minds of theoretical astrophysics, but I think we can also agree that in his earlier years he was also damn fine.

Oh, and NASA’s X-ray observatory is named the Chandra X-ray Observatory in honor of him, so that’s not like a big deal or anything either.

(Photo credit: http://chandra.harvard.edu/graphics/resources/illustrations/chandraYoungPose-72.jpg)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Musical genius, fun personality, adorable face.

Love him to pieces.