Claude Jacqueline Pompidou (13 November 1912 – 3 July 2007) was the wife of President of France Georges Pompidou. She was a philanthropist and a patron of modern art, especially through the Centre Georges Pompidou.

She was born Claude Jacqueline Cahour in Château-Gontier, Mayenne, one of two daughters of a doctor. Her mother died when she was three years old.

She moved to Paris to study law. She met Georges Pompidou, her future husband, during the first year of her studies; he was then working as a literature teacher at a lycée. The couple married in 1935. Their adopted son, Alain Pompidou, was born in 1942.

Georges Pompidou fought in the Battle of France in the Second World War, before resuming his career as a teacher. He joined the staff of Charles de Gaulle after France was liberated. He joined de Rothschild Frères as a banker in 1953, and became general manager of a bank in 1956.

De Gaulle appointed Georges Pompidou as Prime Minister of France in 1962 and he served until 1968. The couple did not move to the Prime Minister's official residence at the Hôtel Matignon, staying instead in their apartment in Quai de Béthune on Île Saint-Louis. Pompidou won public acclaim for his handling of the May 1968 strike but it caused friction with De Gaulle, leading to his resignation as Prime Minister once the crisis had passed. Meanwhile, Mme Pompidou was noted for her interest in fashion.

Fernande Grudet (born 6 July 1923), also known as Madame Claude, is the most famous French procurer. In the 1960s she was the head of a French network of call girls who worked especially for dignitaries and civil servants.

Born on 6 July 1923 in Angers, France, Fernande Grudet was reared in a convent by nuns. After acting as an agent of the Resistance during the German Occupation of France during World War II and doing several other jobs, she created her exclusive prostitution network in Paris during the 1960s.

Her clientelle included not only political figures, but also members of the Mafia, as well as police administrators who ensured her protection. One of her friends was the gangster, Pierrot le Fou.^{[citation needed]}

In 1976, the judge Jean-Louis Bruguière began dismantling Grudet's organization. She soon exiled herself in the United States to escape the French tax administration.

During the 1980s she returned to France, convinced that she was protected by new tax laws, and set up a new prostitution organization. The French Treasury, however, prosecuted her in 1986. In 1992 she was sentenced to a term in Fleury-Mérogis Prison for procuring.

Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ pɔ̃pidu]; 5 July 1911 – 2 April 1974) was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 1962 to 1968, holding the longest tenure in this position, and later President of the French Republic from 1969 until his death in 1974.

He was born in the commune of Montboudif, in the department of Cantal in central France. After his khâgne at Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he befriended Senegalese future poet and statesman Léopold Sédar Senghor, he graduated from the École Normale Supérieure with a degree of Agrégation in literature.

He first taught literature at the lycée Henri IV in Paris until hired in 1953 by Guy de Rothschild to work at Rothschild. In 1956, he was appointed the bank's general manager, a position he held until 1962. Later, he was hired by Charles de Gaulle to manage the Anne de Gaulle Foundation for Down's Syndrome (de Gaulle's daughter Anne had Down's Syndrome).

He served as prime minister under de Gaulle after Michel Debré resigned, from 16 April 1962 to 21 July 1968, and to this day is the longest serving French prime minister under the Fifth Republic. His nomination was controversial because he was not a member of the National Assembly. In October 1962, he was defeated by a vote of non-confidence, but de Gaulle dissolved the National Assembly. The Gaullists won the legislative election and Pompidou was reappointed as Prime Minister. In 1964, he was faced with a miners' strike. He led the 1967 legislative campaign of the Union of Democrats for the Fifth Republic to a narrow victory. Pompidou was widely regarded as being responsible for the peaceful resolution of the student uprising of May 1968. His strategy was to break the coalition of students and workers by negotiating with the trade-unions and employers (Grenelle conference). Until this crisis, he was the Prime Minister of a quiet and prosperous France.

Alain Pompidou (born April 5, 1942, Paris, France ) is a French scientist and politician. A former professor of histology, embryology and cytogenetics, he was the fourth president of the European Patent Office (EPO) from July 1, 2004 to June 30, 2007. He is the son of Georges Pompidou, former President of France.

He took doctorates in medicine, biology and science. From 1974 to 2004, he was professor of histology, embryology and cytogenetics in the medical faculty of the University of Paris. Until 2004 he was also director of the laboratory of the Cochin - St Vincent de Paul - La Roche Guyon Hospital in Paris, head of the cytogenetics and pathology department, and chairman of the hospital group's advisory board. He hold tenures at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New-York.^{[citation needed]}

He is also the author of numerous articles and monographs on science, ethics and society, as well as on biomedical ethics.

Pompidou served on the consultative and scientific committee of numerous national, European and international organisations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), UNESCO and the European Commission.^{[citation needed]}

Maria Callas, Commendatore OMRI (Greek: Μαρία Κάλλας) (December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts. An extremely versatile singer, her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria to the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini; further, to the works of Verdi and Puccini; and, in her early career, to the music dramas of Wagner. Her remarkable musical and dramatic talents led to her being hailed as La Divina.

Born in New York City and raised by an overbearing mother, she received her musical education in Greece and established her career in Italy. Forced to deal with the exigencies of wartime poverty and with myopia that left her nearly blind onstage, she endured struggles and scandal over the course of her career. She turned herself from a heavy woman into a svelte and glamorous one after a mid-career weight loss, which might have contributed to her vocal decline and the premature end of her career. The press exulted in publicizing Callas's allegedly temperamental behaviour, her supposed rivalry with Renata Tebaldi and her love affair with Aristotle Onassis. Her dramatic life and personal tragedy have often overshadowed Callas the artist in the popular press. However, her artistic achievements were such that Leonard Bernstein called her "The Bible of opera"; and her influence was so enduring that, in 2006, Opera News wrote of her: "Nearly thirty years after her death, she's still the definition of the diva as artist—and still one of classical music's best-selling vocalists."