Famous People Born In 1825

Johann Strauss II, also known as The Waltz King, was initially pushed by his composer father Johann Strauss I to become a banker, while he learned the violin secretly and conducted a restaurant band. Best remembered for his iconic composition The Blue Danube, he redefined the 19th-century waltzes and operettas.

Pedro II, son of the first Brazilian emperor, Dom Pedro I, is also remembered by his countrymen as the Magnanimous. He made Brazil prosper while other South American nations were torn apart by strife and clashes. Following his deposition, by a coup to overthrow the monarchy, he sailed to Europe.

Paul Kruger was a South African politician who served as the last State President of the South African Republic. Revered by his admirers as a tragic folk hero, Kruger was one of the most influential military and political personalities in 19th-century South Africa. His life inspired the 1941 German film Ohm Krüger, in which Kruger was played by Emil Jannings.

Thomas Henry Huxley was an English biologist and anthropologist. He specialized in comparative anatomy and was a proponent of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Despite having little formal schooling, he went on to become one of the finest comparative anatomists of the 19th century. He was the chair of natural history at the Royal School of Mines for 31 years. 

Dadabhai Naoroji was an Indian scholar and political leader. Dubbed the Grand Old Man of India, Naoroji is remembered for co-founding the Indian National Congress where he served as the president on three occasions. He also played an important role in India's fight for freedom, popularizing the Indian wealth drain theory through his book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India.

The progenitor of the Bush political family, James Smith Bush, was a jurist by training before he was drawn to divinity and ordained as a priest. He began his career as rector of the Grace Church in Orange, New Jersey. Later, he visited other parts of the country, writing several books on religion, most significant of them being Evidence of Religion.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was a French academic painter who enjoyed significant popularity in the United States and France. Renowned for his realistic genre paintings, which focused on the beauty of the female human body, Bouguereau received top prices for his paintings and numerous official honors during his lifetime. 

Apart from being the wife of Prince Alexander of Hesse, Julia, Princess of Battenberg, was also the daughter of German-Polish general Hans Moritz Hauke. Her lack of royal descent was a matter of concern initially, but Alexander eventually married the 6-month pregnant Julia he had fallen in love with.

Catherine Helen Spence was a 19th-century Scottish-born Australian author, teacher, journalist, and politician. One of the leading suffragists of her era, she was also a minister of religion and social worker. She supported electoral proportional representation. Australian writer and feminist Miles Franklin called her the "Greatest Australian Woman". 

Charles Garnier was a French architect best known for designing important landmarks, such as the Opéra de Monte-Carlo and Palais Garnier. Charles Garnier also designed several public and private buildings on the Italian Riviera and is thereby sometimes credited with turning the place into a tourist attraction.

Hans Gude was a Norwegian romanticist painter best remembered for his landscape paintings. Counted among Norway's leading landscape painters along with Johan Christian Dahl, Gude is also considered the backbone of Norwegian National Romanticism. Over the course of his illustrious career, Hans Gude won several honors and medals.

Ferdinand von Mueller was a German-Australian geographer, physician, and botanist. He is credited with founding the National Herbarium of Victoria, the oldest scientific institution in Victoria. He is also credited with naming several Australian plants. Such is his popularity that many plants, animals, journals, and places in Australia are named after him. 

A renowned poet and author from Northern Albania, Vaso Pasha was a key figure of the Rilindja movement, commonly known as the Albanian Renaissance. He was well-versed in multiple languages and had also worked at the British consulate in Shkodër and as the mutasarrif of Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate.

Donald Currie was a Scottish politician, shipowner, and philanthropist. He is credited with founding the Castle shipping company, which had ships plying between Calcutta and Liverpool. A noted philanthropist, Currie donated to several institutions like the University College Hospital and the University of Edinburgh. Donald Currie also received several honors including the Royal Society of Arts' Fothergill gold medal.  

Camilo Castelo Branco was a Portuguese writer who wrote more than 260 books, which include novels, plays, and essays, during an illustrious writing career that spanned more than three decades. Best remembered for his peculiar wit, Camilo Castelo Branco was made a viscount for his contributions to literature in 1885. Some of his works have been adapted into films.

Apart from serving as the Bishop of Durham, Brooke Foss Westcott also established himself as a biblical scholar. A Trinity College alumnus, he later worked as a professor of divinity at Cambridge. His works include the iconic critical edition of the Greek New Testament he had penned with Fenton J.A. Hort.

Émile Ollivier was a French statesman who became the prime minister of France in 1869. He started out as an avid republican and opposed Emperor Napoleon III. Once the emperor fell, Ollivier entered the cabinet and took over as the prime minister. He fell out of favor after the French Army performed badly in the Franco-Prussian War.

Sondre Nordheim was a Norwegian skier who is credited with first demonstrating a technique called telemark skiing around 1868. Widely regarded as a pioneer of modern skiing, Norheim experimented with binding design and introduced side cuts to heel bindings and skis. In 1984, Sondre Nordheim was made an inductee of the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame.