1878 births

Hubert Jean Daniel Lefèbvre (28 November 1878 in Paris – 26 September 1937 in Labaroche) was a French rugby union player who competed in the 1900 Summer Olympics. He was a member of the French rugby union team, which won the gold medal. Lefèbvre played forward.Lefèbvre played club rugby with Racing Club de France from 1895 to 1902 and was a member of the 1900 and 1902 French championship teams. In the 1902 final, a 6–0 victory, he scored the final try just before the half.Lefèbvre was educated at the Lycée Charlemagne and Centrale Graduate School in engineering. He served in World War I, rising to the rank of captain.

Léon Binoche (16 August 1878 – 28 August 1962) was a French rugby union player who competed in the 1900 Summer Olympics. He was a member of the French rugby union team, which won the gold medal. His great-niece is the actress Juliette Binoche.

Suzanne Blanche Gros Noël (1878–1954), also known as Madame Noël, was one of the world’s first plastic surgeons and the first female plastic surgeon in the world. She was known for her efficient face lift technique, the “petite operation.” Noël was also a very active feminist, a philosophy which was considered radical for a practicing cosmetic surgeon. She is the founder of Soroptimist International of Europe (SIE) and had a career spanning from 1916 to 1950.
At the outbreak of the war in 1914, without having been able to defend her doctoral thesis, like all the interns, Suzanne Gros was allowed to practise medicine in the city. She then joined Professor Morestin at the Val-de-Grâce military hospital in Paris. In 1916, she trained in the techniques of reparative and corrective surgery. From there, under extremely precarious conditions, she participates in the war effort by operating on the “broken mouths”, the wounded in the face.

Albert Weisgerber (21 April 1878 – 10 May 1915) was a German painter whose work forms a bridge between Impressionism and early Expressionism.

Robert de Besange, SJ (15 March 1878 – 10 September 1946), also known as Jacquinot de Besange and in China as Rao Jia-ju (Chinese: 饶家驹), was a French Jesuit who set up a successful model of safety zones that saved over half-a-million Chinese people during the Second Sino-Japanese War.Jacquinot de Besange's family originates from aristocratic lineages in Lorraine, in northeastern France. He arrived in China in 1913 as a missionary and served the Portuguese congregation at the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Hongkou. He also served as a chaplain to the Shanghai Volunteer Corps. He had lost his right arm in an explosion while conducting chemistry experiments in his youth, and was known as the "one-armed priest."
De Besange acted as president of the China International Famine Relief Commission during the 1932 Battle of Shanghai, where his relief work for refugees, including negotiating a four-hour truce between the Chinese and the Japanese armies to allow the evacuation of civilians and casualties from the war zone, made him a household name in Shanghai.
The "de Besange model" began with the Shanghai Safety Zone (南市难民区, "Nanshi Refugee Zone"), or "Jacquinot de Besange Safe Zone", in 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It was a demilitarised zone for Chinese civilians located in a part of the Old City of Shanghai that was adjacent to the Shanghai French Concession. The demilitarised zone was respected by both sides of the war and by the concession authorities. It was administered by an international committee composed of representatives of the American, British, and French communities and policed by the Chinese police. The zone was credited with saving the lives of thousands of Chinese residents between 1937 and 1940, when it was abolished after de Besange left Shanghai. Aside from setting up the Safety Zone, de Besange was also responsible for arranging for refugee camps to be set up in the Tu-seh-weh Orphanage and the Fuh Tan College to shelter refugees fleeing the war zone.Following the example of de Besange in Shanghai, the foreigners in Nanjing created the Nanking Safety Zone (南京安全区), managed by the International Committee for the Nanjing Safety Zone and led by the German businessman John Rabe. The same model also inspired the Hankou Safety Zone, the Zhangzhou Safety Zone, and the Shenzhen Safety Zone.
His work is acknowledged in the Protocols and Commentaries to the 1949 Geneva Convention. A film of his life and work, Jacquinot: A Forgotten Hero directed by Krzysztof Zanussi, was featured in the 2009 Shanghai International Film Festival.On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the events, a memorial stone was unveiled in the Shanghai City God Temple in December 2017.

Werner Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Rheinbaben (19 November 1878 – 14 January 1975) was a German diplomat and author.Rheinbaben was born in Schmiedeberg, Silesia. He was a naval attaché to Rome during 1911–1913. He later wrote of the 1914 July Crisis that it was Wilhelm von Stumm who downplayed the possibility of British intervention and strongly advised the Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg to act quickly. After the First World War, Stumm told Rheinbaben: "I erred in 1914 and advised Bethmann falsely".Rheinbaben was a member of the German delegation to the League of Nations.During the 1920s and early 1930s Rheinbaben was a politician belonging to the German People's Party. He was a close political associate of Gustav Stresemann and wrote a sympathetic biography of him in 1928.In 1942 and 1943 Rheinbaben worked in Portugal on matters relating to prisoners of war for the German Red Cross.In 1968 he argued against the views of those post-1945 German historians who claimed that Germany had sought world domination, writing: "Poor Germany! You honestly did not reach for 'world hegemony'!"

Alfred Sittard (4 November 1878 –– 31 March 1942) was a German cantor, composer of church music and one of the most important organists of his time.

Karl Gustav Vollmöller (or Vollmoeller; 7 May 1878 – 18 October 1948) was a German philologist, archaeologist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and aircraft designer. He is most famous for the elaborate religious spectacle-pantomime The Miracle and the screenplay for the celebrated 1930 film The Blue Angel (Der blaue Engel), which made a star of Marlene Dietrich.

Pierre Camille Cartier (March 10, 1878 – October 27, 1964) was a French jeweler. He was one of three sons of Alfred Cartier and the brother of Jacques Cartier and Louis Cartier. Pierre's grandfather, Louis-François Cartier had taken over the jewelry workshop of his teacher Adolphe Picard, in 1847, thereby founding the famous Cartier jewelry company.

Ludwig Dürr (4 June 1878 in Stuttgart – 1 January 1956 in Friedrichshafen) was a German airship designer.