Sir Peter Paul Rubens (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈrybə(n)s]; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640), was a Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasised movement, colour, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.

In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar, art collector, and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, King of Spain, and Charles I, King of England.

Rubens was born in Siegen, Westphalia, to Jan Rubens and Maria Pypelincks. His father, a Calvinist, and mother fled Antwerp for Cologne in 1568, after increased religious turmoil and persecution of Protestants during the rule of the Spanish Netherlands by the Duke of Alba. Jan Rubens became the legal advisor (and lover) of Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange, and settled at her court in Siegen in 1570. Following Jan Rubens's imprisonment for the affair, Peter Paul Rubens was born in 1577. The family returned to Cologne the next year. In 1589, two years after his father's death, Rubens moved with his mother to Antwerp, where he was raised as a Catholic. Religion figured prominently in much of his work and Rubens later became one of the leading voices of the Catholic Counter-Reformation style of painting (he had said "My passion comes from the heavens, not from earthly musings").

Paul Alfred Rubens (29 April 1875 – 5 February 1917) was an English songwriter and librettist who wrote some of the most popular Edwardian musical comedies of the early twentieth century. He contributed to the success of dozens of musicals.

Born in Kensington, London, he attended Winchester College before studying law at University College, Oxford. He began writing songs for shows at the age of 10 and had his first major success with "The Little Chinchilla" for the hit musical The Shop Girl when he was 19 years old. This was soon followed by songs for, among others, the hit musical San Toy. In 1899, he wrote songs for the international hit Florodora, which brought him wider fame. Producer George Edwardes hired him as an "additional material" writer for, among others, The Messenger Boy (1900), The Toreador (1901), A Country Girl (1902), The Girl from Kays (1902), The School Girl (1903), The Cingalee (1904) and The Blue Moon (1905), writing some of the most successful songs in these shows. He composed the hit musical Miss Hook of Holland (1907).

The Massacre of the Innocents was an episode of infanticide by Herod the Great, the king of Iudaea Province. According to the Gospel of Matthew Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth had been announced to him by the Magi. The incident, like others in Matthew, is described as the fulfillment of a passage in the Old Testament read as prophecy, in this case a reading of Jeremiah: "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, A voice was heard in Ramah, Weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children."

The infants, known as the Holy Innocents, have been claimed as the first Christian martyrs. The number of infants killed is not stated, with modern scholars disputing earlier accounts. The historicity of the episode is disputed: it is "an open question that probably can never be definitively decided", however according to Paul Maier "most recent biographers of Herod ... deny it entirely".