Louis Braille

popular name: Ann Putnam Jr.

date_of_death: 1716

age: 37

cause_of_death: Unknown causes

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Ann Putnam's short and miserable life is best remembered as one of the principal accusers in the “circle” of girls who claimed to be afflicted by witchcraft which resulted in the Salem Witch Trials. She is responsible for the accusations of 62 people, which, along with the accusations of others, resulted in the executions of twenty innocent people

popular name: Marquis de Vauban

date_of_death: March 30, 1707

age: 73

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Marquis de Vauban was a French military engineer who revolutionized the art of siege craft and defensive fortifications. He fought in all of France's wars of Louis XIV's reign (1643–1715). He is generally considered the greatest engineer of his time, and one of the most important in Western military history. His principles for fortifications were widely used for nearly 100 years, while aspects of his offensive tactics remained in use until the mid-twentieth century. He viewed civilian infrastructure as closely connected to military effectiveness and worked on many of France's major ports, as well as projects like the Canal de la Bruche, which remain in use today. He founded the Corps royal des ingénieurs militaires, whose curriculum was based on his publications on engineering design, strategy and training. His economic tract, La Dîme royale, used statistics in support of his arguments, making it a precursor of modern economics. Later destroyed by Royal decree, it contained radical proposals for a more even distribution of the tax burden. His application of rational and scientific methods to problem-solving, whether engineering or social, anticipated an approach common in the Age of Enlightenment. Perhaps the most enduring aspect of Vauban's legacy was his view of France as a geographical entity.

popular name: George Pickett

date_of_death: July 30, 1875

age: 50

cause_of_death: Liver disease

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Major General George Pickett was a career United States Army officer who became a major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He attended the US Military Academy at West Point, accumulating a host of demerits and graduating last in his class in 1846 (as did General George Armstrong Custer in 1861). Pickett’s classmates included Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson and George B. McClellan. He is best remembered for being one of the commanders at Pickett's Charge, the futile and bloody Confederate offensive on the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg that bears his name and the wholesale execution of 22 soldiers (including a 15-year-old boy). A broken man after the war, his reputation was thoroughly rehabilitated and sanitized after his death by his third wife, LaSalle Corbell Pickett, whose writings turned the often incompetent general into an idealized “Lost Cause” hero.