Jacques Brel was a Belgian French-speaking author-composer, considered by many a poet as well, for the strong power of expression in his lyrics. Remembered in the anglophone world for the translations of his songs, he is also remembered in...

Patrice Emery Lumumba, African nationalist leader, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (June-September 1960). Forced out of office during a political crisis, he was assassinated a short time later. In January...

Georges Prosper Remi, known by the pen name Hergé, was a Belgian cartoonist. He is best known for creating The Adventures of Tintin, the series of comic albums which are considered one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century...

Astrid of Sweden was the Queen consort of King Leopold III of the Belgians. She was the third daughter of Prince Carl, Duke of Westrogothia, and his wife Princess Ingeborg of Denmark. She married Leopold on November 4, 1926, and became Q...

René François Ghislain Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging obs...

Paul van Ostaijen was a Flemish poet and writer. Van Ostaijen was born in Antwerp. His nickname was Mister 1830, because of his habit of walking along the streets of Antwerp clothed as a dandy from that year. His poetry shows influences by...

Georges Lemaître was a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, honorary prelate, professor of physics and astronomer at the Catholic University of Leuven. He sometimes used the title Abbé or Monseigneur. Lemaître proposed what became known as the Bi...

Willem Elsschot was a Flemish writer and poet (pseudonym of Alphonsus Josephus de Ridder). A few of his works have been translated into English. Elsschot published poems in a magazine titled "Alvoorder". His writing took off while he worked...

Paul Marie Ghislain Otlet was a Belgian author, entrepreneur, visionary, lawyer and peace activist; he is one of several people who have been considered the father of information science, a field he called "documentation". Otlet created the...

Adrien de Gerlache, Belgian naval officer and explorer. Sailing with Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen who would later be the first to reach the South Pole, Gerlache led a scientific expedition to Antarctica in 1897–99. During the expeditio...

Théo van Rysselberghe, Belgian painter, was born in Ghent in 1862. He studied art at the Academies in Ghent and Brussels, and in 1881 exhibited for the first time at the Salon in Brussels. After the success of the French Impressionists exhi...

Leopold Louis-Philippe Marie Victor of Saxe-Coburg, succeeded his father, Leopold I of Belgium, to the Belgian throne in 1865 as Leopold II, King of the Belgians and remained king until his death. Outside of Belgium, however, he is chiefly...

Charles-Theodore-Henri De Coster was a Belgian novelist whose efforts laid the basis for a native Belgian literature. His masterpiece was The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak (1867), a 16th-century romance, in which Belgian patr...

Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir was a Belgian engineer who developed the internal combustion engine in 1859. Prior designs for such engines were patented as early as 1807, but none were commercially successful. Lenoir's engine was commercialized...

Henri Vieuxtemps was a Belgian violinist and composer. He was a child prodigy and one of the most important composers of violin music in the latter-nineteenth century. He was an innovator within the Romantic movement, though he was not alwa...