Rudolf Otto (September 25, 1869–6 March 1937) was an eminent German Lutheran theologian and scholar of comparative religion.

Born in Peine near Hanover, Otto attended the Gymnasium Andreanum in Hildesheim and studied at the universities of Erlangen and Göttingen, where he wrote his dissertation on Martin Luther's understanding of the Holy Spirit, and his habilitation on Kant. By 1906, he held a position as extraordinary professor, and in 1910 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Giessen. In 1915, he became ordinary professor at the University of Breslau, and in 1917, at the University of Marburg's Divinity School, then one of the most famous Protestant seminaries in the world. Although he received several other calls, he remained in Marburg for the rest of his life. He retired in 1929 and died of pneumonia eight years later, after he had suffered serious injuries falling some 20 m from a tower. His death is held to be the result of a suicide attempt., but many have long believed that he was thrown from the tower by Nazi agents, as the Nazi Party was hostile to his views, especially the radical equality implied in those views (and there is some suspicion that Eliade's Encylopedia entry reflects Eliade's well-known Nazi sympathies more than the truth). He is buried in Marburg cemetery.

Henry Corbin (14 April 1903 - 7 October 1978) was a philosopher, theologian and professor of Islamic Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, France.

Corbin was born in Paris in April 1903. As a boy he revealed the profound sensitivity to music so evident in his work. Although he was Protestant by birth, he was educated in the Catholic tradition and at the age of 19 received a certificate in Scholastic philosophy from the Catholic Institute of Paris. Three years later he took his "licence de philosophie" under the great Thomist Étienne Gilson. In 1928 he encountered the formidable Louis Massignon, director of Islamic studies at the Sorbonne, and it was he who introduced Corbin to the writings of Suhrawardi, the 12th century Persian mystic and philosopher whose work was to profoundly affect the course of Corbin’s life. The stage was then set for a personal drama that has deep significance for understanding those cultures whose roots lie in both ancient Greece and in the prophetic religions of the Near East reaching all the way back to Zoroaster. Years later Corbin said “through my meeting with Suhrawardi, my spiritual destiny for the passage through this world was sealed. Platonism, expressed in terms of the Zoroastrian angelology of ancient Persia, illuminated the path that I was seeking.”

Rudolf Friml (December 7, 1879 – November 12, 1972) was a composer of operettas, musicals, songs and piano pieces, as well as a pianist. After musical training and a brief performing career in his native Prague, Friml moved to the United States, where he became a composer. His best-known works are Rose-Marie and The Vagabond King, each of which enjoyed success on Broadway and in London and were adapted for film.

Born in Prague, at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and now capital of the Czech Republic, Friml showed aptitude for music at an early age. He entered the Prague Conservatory in 1895, where he studied the piano and composition with Antonín Dvořák. Friml was expelled from the conservatory in 1901 for performing without permission. In Prague and later in America he composed and published songs, piano pieces and other music, including the prize-winning set of songs, Pisne Zavisovy. The last of these, Za tichych noci, later became the basis for a famous film in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1941.

Otto Abels Harbach, born Otto Abels Hauerbach (August 18, 1873 – January 24, 1963) was an American lyricist and librettist of about 50 musical comedies. He is most remembered for being Oscar Hammerstein II's mentor and was one of the first librettists to believe that songs should be woven into a show, not just placed there. He is also considered one of the first great lyricists, because most of the others were considered hacks. This was because the shows usually didn't care about lyrics, just the music, the costumes, and the stars. Some of his more famous lyrics are for "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "Indian Love Call" and "Cuddle up a Little Closer, Lovey Mine".

Harbach was born in Salt Lake City, Utah to Danish immigrant parents Adolph Christiansen and his wife Sena Olsen. His parents changed their name when they immigrated to the United States, and took the name of the farm they worked on (common practice at the time), and their new last name was Hauerbach.

He attended the Salt Lake Collegiate Institute, transferring to Knox College, in Galesburg, Illinois, where he was a friend of Carl Sandburg, joined Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, and graduated in 1895. He obtained his masters degree in English from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, and attended Columbia University in New York with the goal of becoming an English professor. In the early 1900s, complaining of eye difficulties making prolonged reading uncomfortable, he became a newspaper reporter. He also worked at various advertising agencies. He also worked as at an insurance firm, copywriter in advertising, and later as a journalist. He would have to pull out of Columbia when he could not financially support himself.

Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel (German pronunciation: [ˈʁuːdɔlf ˈkʁɪstjan ˈkaʁl ˈdiːzəl]; March 18, 1858 – September 29, 1913) was a German inventor and mechanical engineer, famous for the invention of the diesel engine.

Diesel was born in Paris, France in 1858 the second of three children of Elise (née Strobel) and Theodor Diesel. His parents were Bavarian immigrants living in Paris. Theodor Diesel, a bookbinder by trade, left his home town of Augsburg, Bavaria, in 1848 . He met his wife, a daughter of a Nuremberg merchant, in Paris in 1855 and became a leather goods manufacturer there.

Rudolf Diesel spent his early childhood in France, but as a result of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, his family (as were many other Germans) was forced to leave. They settled in London. Before the war's end in 1871, however, Diesel's mother sent 12-year-old Rudolf to Augsburg to live with his aunt and uncle, Barbara and Christoph Barnickel, to become fluent in German and to visit the Königliche Kreis-Gewerbsschule (Royal County Trade School), where his uncle taught mathematics.