Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the last Polymath (Germany)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in 1646 in Leipzig. He is said to have been the last polymath and contributed to mathematics, physics, technology, philosophy, biology, medicine, geology, psychology, linguistics and computer science. 

His parents aroused his interest in juridical and philosophic problems very early and autodidactically he learned Greek and Latin in his father's library. In 1661 he matriculated at the Leipzig University. Aged twenty he wanted to take his doctoral degree in jurisprudence, but the professors refused as they thought he was too young, so he moved to the University of Altdorf. In 1672/73 he finished his calculating machine and became a foreign member of the Royal Society. In 1676 he moved to Hanover. In 1700 he promoted the foundation of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz died in 1716. 

The house in which Leibniz lived in Hanover was destroyed during
World War II, but it was later rebuilt.

Leibniz was a good friend of Sophia Charlotte of Hanover (upper left corner),
 the wife of King Frederick I of Prussia,
and often visited her at the Lietzenburg, modern day Charlottenburg Palace.

Between 1691 and 1716 Leibniz was the librarian of the famous
Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel.

Leibniz in buried in the Church of the New Town in Hanover.