Born in the town of Xi ' e in Nanyang Commandery ( located north of modern Nanyang City, Henan province ), Zhang Heng came from a distinguished but not very affluent family.

Born at Béziers in Lower Languedoc, he was the nephew of Charles Barbeyrac, a distinguished physician of Montpellier.

Born Hyder Naik, he distinguished himself militarily, eventually drawing the attention of Mysore's rulers.

Born in Paris, he was called to the bar in 1879 and distinguished himself by brilliant pleadings in favour of socialist and anarchist leaders, defending Prince Kropotkine at Lyon in 1883, Louise Michel in the same year.

Born in Waltair ( now Visakhapatnam ), Devika Rani came from a distinguished background: she was the great-grandniece of the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore and her father, Col. M. N. Chaudhuri, was the first Indian Surgeon-General of Madras.

Born to a distinguished family of Versailles, he received his artistic training at the Académie Julian from the impressionists Alfred Roll and Henri Gervex.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Dos Passos was the illegitimate son of John Randolph Dos Passos ( 1844 – 1917 ), a distinguished lawyer of Madeiran Portuguese descent, and Lucy Addison Sprigg Madison of Petersburg, Virginia.

Born in Bar-le-Duc, Meuse, France, Raymond Poincaré was the son of Nicolas Antonin Hélène Poincaré, a distinguished civil servant and meteorologist.

Born in Toronto, Ontario, to West Indian immigrants, Lincoln Alexander first distinguished himself in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War.

Born to a wealthy Quaker family, Cope distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested in science ; he published his first scientific paper at the age of nineteen.

Born into Muslim nobility, Sir Syed earned a reputation as a distinguished scholar while working as a jurist for the British East India Company.

Born in Islington, the son of a distinguished neurosurgeon, as a boy Critchley was brought up in Swiss Cottage, north London, and Shropshire, where he attended preparatory school, and later Shrewsbury School.

Born in Annapolis, Johnson was the son of a distinguished Maryland lawyer and politician, John Johnson ( 1770 – 1824 ).

Born in Aquasco, Maryland, Covington served in the Northwest Indian War under Anthony Wayne, where he distinguished himself at Fort Recovery and the Battle of Fallen Timbers and in the War of 1812.

Born in Gower Street, London, the son of the distinguished mathematician Augustus De Morgan and his highly educated wife, De Morgan was always supported in his desire to become an artist.

Born in Paris, Kersaint came from a noble family ; his father, Guy François de Coetnempren, comte de Kersaint, was a distinguished naval officer.

Born to a middle class family in Heraklion, Crete, she distinguished herself academically and politically.

Born to Stephen and Helen ( née Lang ) Kelly, he was the first of five Chicago Mayors from Bridgeport, the first man to voluntarily relinquish the chairmanship of the Cook County Democratic Committee, and he distinguished himself as mayor by reducing the city's debt by $ 100, 000, 000, leaving it solvent.

Born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of Marcus Doherty, an Irish-born judge of the Supreme Court for the Province of Quebec and Elizabeth ( O ' Halloran ) Doherty, Doherty was educated at St. Mary's ( Jesuit ) College and received a Bachelor of Laws degree from McGill University in 1876 winning the Elizabeth Torrance Gold Medal, awarded to the student who completes the program with the most distinguished standing upon graduation.

Born in London, Newman and his brother were both educated at Ealing, and subsequently at Oxford, where he had a distinguished career, obtaining a double first class in 1826.

Born in 1983, Claudia is distinguished by her blue eyes and short dark brown hair.

Born to a distinguished noble family ( see below ) at Carpi near Modena, where his uncle Alberto ( c. 1475-1531 ) was lord of Carpi, Rodolfo was sent to study at the University of Padua and at Rome, where he took up a church career under Pope Clement VII, who made him bishop of Faenza in 1528.

Born in Melbourne, Victoria, Speer was one of the generation of distinguished Melbourne jazz drummers who came onto the music scene in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Born a few steps from the street that now bears his name, Major-General Vanier was a distinguished soldier in World War I and Canada's ambassador to all Allied governments in World War II.

Born Joseph Aloysius Dwan in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Dwan moved with his family to the United States when he was 11 years old.

Born in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, Rhône, Carrel was raised in a devout Catholic family and was educated by Jesuits, though he no longer practiced his religion when he entered the university.

Born into an old, wealthy equestrian branch of the Plebeian Octavii family, Augustus was adopted posthumously by his maternal great-uncle Gaius Julius Caesar in 44 BC following Caesar's assassination.

Born to a wealthy family in Paris, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier inherited a large fortune at the age of five with the passing of his mother.

Born from a noble family of the province of Soule, his father Michel was born in Arrast-Larrebieu and his mother was Irish.

Born in Riga in Livonia, then part of the Russian Empire, the Jewish German-speaking Nimzowitsch came from a wealthy family, where he learned chess from his father, who was a merchant.

Born into a privileged Unitarian family, Potter, along with her younger brother, Walter Bertram ( 1872 – 1918 ), grew up with few friends outside her large extended family.

Born to a middle-class family in Missoula, Montana, Lynch spent his childhood traveling around the United States, before going on to study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he first made the transition to producing short films.

Born to a family of low status in the Roman province of Dalmatia, Diocletian rose through the ranks of the military to become cavalry commander to the Emperor Carus.

Born into a working-class family, from an early age Ortega developed a hatred of the ruling President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, who was widely recognized as a dictator, and became involved in the underground movement to oppose Somoza's regime.

Born into a family of relatively low status, his parents sent him to be educated by the monks of Fulda-one of the most impressive centres of learning in the Frank lands-perhaps due to his small stature ( Einhard referred to himself as a " tiny manlet ") which restricted his riding and sword-fighting ability, Einhard concentrated his energies towards scholarship and especially to the mastering of Latin.

Born into a family of tradesmen, the Imam's family were of Persian origin.

Born into a very wealthy landowning family in the north of Mexico, he was the proto-type of the respectable upper-class politician ; a background which supplied the centre around which opposition to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz could coalesce.

Born in Innsbruck, he was the son of Duke Ernest the Iron of the Leopoldinian line of the Habsburg family, the ruler of Inner Austria, i. e. the duchies of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, and of Ernest's wife Cymburgis of Masovia.

Born into an upper-middle-class family in Blundellsands, Lancashire, Gardner spent much of his childhood abroad in Madeira.

Born into a middle-class family in Etterbeek, Brussels, he took a keen interest in Scouting in early life, something that would prove highly influential on his later work.

Born in Berlin, Germany to Jewish parents, he escaped Nazi Germany in January 1936, emigrating with his family to the United States.

Born into a large family in Dudley, England, Whale early discovered his artistic talent and studied art.

Born Georg Henri Anton Ivens into a wealthy family, Ivens went to work in one of his father's photo supply shops and from there developed an interest in film.

Born in Burslem, Staffordshire, England, the twelfth and last child of Thomas Wedgwood and Margret Wedgwood ( née Stringer ; d. 1766 ), Josiah was raised within a family of English Dissenters.

Born in Southampton into a seafaring family, Jellicoe joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1872 and was posted to HMS Britannia.

Born into a wealthy middle-class family in Trier ( formerly in Prussian Rhineland, now called Rhineland-Palatinate ), Marx studied at both the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin, where he became interested in the philosophical ideas of the Young Hegelians.

Born in Berlin, Germany, on 22 June 1910, he moved with his family in 1912 to Braunsberg, East Prussia, where his father was a postal clerk.