Today in History: Born on April 15

Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, scientist and visionary

Catherine I, empress of Russia

Charles Wilson Peale, portrait painter and inventor

Sir James Clark Ross, Scottish explorer who located the Magnetic North Pole.

Wilhelm Busch, German painter and poet, created the precursor to the comic strip.

Henry James, writer and critic.

George Harrison Shull, American botanist, developer of hybrid corn.

Johannes Stark, Novel Prize-winning German physicist.

Max Wertheimer, Czech-born psychologist.

Asa Phillip Randolph, American labor leader and Civil Rights advocate.

Thomas Hart Benton, painter, muralist.

Bessie Smith, American blues singer.

Arshile Gorky, abstract painter.

Neville Mariner, conductor.

Harold Washington, first black mayor of Chicago

Eva Figes, British novelist.

Jeffrey Archer, English novelist and politician (Kane and Abel, Honor Among Thieves).

Robert Louis Stevenson, 1889 (photo)