1863 births

Swami Vivekananda (; Bengali: [ʃami bibekanɔndo] ; IAST: Svāmī Vivekānanda ; 12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendranath Datta (Bengali: [nɔrendronatʰ dɔto]), was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the introduction of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world, and the father of modern Indian nationalism who is credited with raising interfaith awareness and bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion.Born into an aristocratic Bengali Kayastha family in Calcutta, Vivekananda was inclined from a young age towards religion and spirituality. He later found his guru Ramakrishna and became a monk. After the death of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda extensively toured the Indian subcontinent acquiring first-hand knowledge of the living conditions of Indian people in then British India. Moved by their plight, he resolved to help his countrymen and found a way to travel to the United States, where he became a popular figure after the 1893 Parliament of Religions in Chicago at which he delivered his famous speech beginning with the words: "Sisters and brothers of America ..." while introducing Hinduism to Americans. He was so impactful at the Parliament that an American newspaper described him as "an orator by divine right and undoubtedly the greatest figure at the Parliament".After great success at the Parliament, in the subsequent years, Vivekananda delivered hundreds of lectures across the United States, England and Europe, disseminating the core tenets of Hindu philosophy, and founded the Vedanta Society of New York and the Vedanta Society of San Francisco (now Vedanta Society of Northern California), both of which became the foundations for Vedanta Societies in the West. In India, Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Math, which provides spiritual training for monastics and householder devotees, and the Ramakrishna Mission, which provides charity, social work and education.Vivekananda was one of the most influential philosophers and social reformers in his contemporary India, and the most successful missionaries of Vedanta to the Western world. He was also a major force in contemporary Hindu reform movements and contributed to the concept of nationalism in colonial India. He is now widely regarded as one of the most influential people of modern India and a patriotic saint. His birthday in India is celebrated as National Youth Day.

Paul (Louis-Toussaint) Héroult (10 April 1863 – 9 May 1914) was a French scientist. He was one of the inventors of the Hall-Héroult process for smelting aluminium, and developed the first successful commercial electric arc furnace. He lived in Thury-Harcourt, Normandy.

Jules Destrée (French: [dɛstʁe]; Marcinelle, 21 August 1863 – Brussels, 3 January 1936) was a Walloon lawyer, cultural critic and socialist politician. The trials subsequent to the strikes of 1886 determined his commitment within the Belgian Labour Party. He wrote a Letter to the King in 1912, which is seen as the founding declaration of the Walloon movement. He is famous for his quote "Il n'y a pas de Belges" (There are no Belgians), pointing to the lack of patriotic feelings in Flemings and Walloons, while pleading for some kind of federal state.

Victor Larchandet (29 December 1863 – 8 November 1936) was a French rugby union player. He competed at the 1900 Summer Olympics and won gold as part of the French team in what was the first rugby union competition at an Olympic Games.

Otto Reiniger (27 February 1863, Stuttgart - 24 July 1909, near Weilimdorf, now part of Stuttgart) was a German landscape painter in the Impressionistic style. Most of his works feature the area immediately surrounding Stuttgart, and he was particularly praised for his depictions of flowing water.

Séverin Cafferra, known as Séverin or mime Séverin (1863-1930), was one of the best-known French Pierrots or mime artists around the turn of the twentieth century.

Friedrich August Ferdinand Christian Went (June 18, 1863 – July 24, 1935) was a Dutch botanist.
Went was born in Amsterdam. He was professor of botany and director of the Botanical Garden at the University of Utrecht. His eldest son was the Dutch botanist Frits Warmolt Went, who in 1927 as a graduate student worked on plant hormones, specifically the role of auxin in phototropism.
He became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1898.Went died, aged 72, in Wassenaar.

Sir James Walker FRS FRSE FCS LLD (6 April 1863 – 6 May 1935) was a Scottish chemist.

Karl Wilhelm von Meister (3 February 1863 – 14 February 1935) was a German politician and diplomat.

André Rochon-Duvigneaud (7 April 1863 – 24 November 1952) was a French ophthalmologist born in Dordogne.
He studied medicine in Bordeaux, and in 1889 became an intern at the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris. In 1892 he earned his doctorate with a thesis on the anatomical angle of the eye's anterior chamber and Schlemm's canal. In 1895 he was appointed chef de clinique. In 1926 he retired from clinical medicine, dedicating himself to comparative studies on the eyes of various animal species. In 1940 he became a member of the Académie de Médecine.
In 1896 he described a neurological disorder characterized by exophthalmos, diplopia, and anaesthesia in regions innervated by the trigeminal nerve, occurring with a traumatic collapse of the superior orbital fissure. At the time he referred to the condition as "sphenoidal fissure syndrome", later to be known as "Rochon-Duvigneaud's syndrome". Also, he is credited with identifying recessive-inherited glaucoma with buphthalmos in New Zealand white rabbits.