Do you know these Belgians?

John of Ruusbroec

José van Dam

Jules Destrée

Justine Henin

Justus Lipsius

Kim Clijsters

King Philippe

Leo Baekeland

Linda Loppa

Louis Scutenaire

Luc Tuymans

Lucia de Brouckère

Marie Gillain

Marie Popelin

Marleen Temmerman

Matthias Schoenaerts

Maurane

Maurice Maeterlinck

Mercator

Nafissatou Thiam

Do you know these Belgians?

This portrait gallery presents a series of familiar faces, even if it's not always known that they are Belgians, and also some less well-known figures who have, however, made particularly interesting discoveries or produced amazing works.

Inventive and imaginative, several Belgians have been responsible for the objects that we use every day... For example, there would be no atlas without Mercator, no euros without Germain Pirlot, no saxophone without Adolphe Sax, no combustion engine without Etienne Lenoir, no dynamo without Zénobe Gramme and no bathroom scales, upright piano or roller skates without Jean-Joseph Merlin!

Thanks to other Belgians, we can today explain the birth of Earth with the Big Bang theory developed by Lemaitre, we can use many plastic items thanks to Baekeland who, as the inventor of Bakelite, created the first plastic made from synthetic polymers, and we can surf the web because of the two Belgians Otlet and Lafontaine, who were the source for the concept of the internet, creating a global knowledge network in 1895 and thanks to another Belgian, Robert Caillau, who one hundred years later developed the specifications for the World Wide Web.

There are also many creative Belgians involved in artistic disciplines with a myriad of Belgian creators including Delvaux, Brel, De Keersmaeker, Magritte, Akerman, Fabre, Alechinsky, Maeterlinck, Hergé, etc. Discovering them is also to discover the Belgian soul, so diverse and so endearing. That's what we invite you to do in this gallery of Belgians.

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Do you know these Belgians?