Cheikh Hamidou Kane in 2011. Mr. Kane subtly captured the shock of colonization from the perspective of the African people.

Catherine Ringer performing in 2007.

Yvette Roudy in 2006. After her death, President Emmanuel Macron of France saluted her for “a life spent making equality between men and women a real right” and for her “untiring capacity for indignation.”

Lam Wing Kee in 2020 at the Causeway Bay Bookstore in Taipei, Taiwan. Taiwan’s ministry of culture saluted the store as “an inspiration and role model for democracy, liberty and human rights across borders.”

Yves Lacoste in 1992. The month after he had published his findings, the U.S. halted Operation Linebacker, a massive bombing campaign on the Red River Delta in North Vietnam.

Edgar Morin in 2003. “I have a permanent sense of the mystery of all things,” he said. “I still have no idea why I was born, why I exist.”

Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi in 2019. A former general and vice president of Yemen, he held the title of president for a decade, leading a weakened, U.S.-backed government.

André Cerdini presiding at the opening of the trial of Klaus Barbie, the former Gestapo chief known as the Butcher of Lyon, on May 11, 1987.

Cynthia Shange competing at a Miss World event in London in 1972. South Africa’s president praised the boldness of her ambitions “in an era when apartheid segregation was at its peak.”