List of Famous people born in Poland
Klaudia Jans-Ignacik
Klaudia Jans-Ignacik is a retired Polish tennis player. On 16 August 2004, she reached her best singles ranking of world No. 410. On 10 September 2012, she peaked at No. 28 in the doubles rankings.
Grażyna Wolszczak
Grażyna Wolszczak is a Polish actress.
Hieronim Augustyn Lubomirski
Prince Hieronim Augustyn Lubomirski (1648–1706) was a Polish noble (szlachcic), magnate, politician and famed military commander. He was a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire SRI.
Xavier Branicki
Count Xavier Branicki, born 26 October 1816 in Warsaw, Poland, died 20 November 1879 in Assiut, Khedivate of Egypt, was a Polish nobleman, political exile and landowner who took French nationality. He became a political writer, financier, art collector and philanthropist. He was the owner and restorer of the Château de Montrésor and estate in France. He was descended from a powerful magnate family with immense land holdings in the Duchy of Lithuania and in Ukraine, partly as a result, it is said, of a family connection with Catherine the Great. He was a member of the close circle of Napoleon III. He was a co-founder of the Crédit Foncier de France, a bank that continues to this day.
Duchess Maria Dorothea of Württemberg
Duchess Maria Dorothea of Württemberg was the daughter of Duke Louis of Württemberg (1756–1817) and Princess Henriette of Nassau-Weilburg (1780–1857).
Jan Karski
Jan Karski was a Polish soldier, resistance-fighter, and diplomat during World War II. He is known for having acted as a courier in 1940–43 to the Polish Government-in-Exile and to Poland's Western Allies about the situation in German-occupied Poland. He was reporting about the state of Poland, in which there were many competing factions in the resistance, and also about Germany's destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto and its operation of extermination camps on Polish soil that were murdering Jews, Poles, and others.
Stanisław Poniatowski
Stanisław Poniatowski was a Polish military commander, diplomat, and noble. Throughout his career, Poniatowski served in various military offices, and was a general in both the Swedish and Polish–Lithuanian militaries. He also held numerous civil positions, including those of podstoli of Lithuania and Grand Treasurer of the Lithuanian army in 1722, voivode of the Masovian Voivodeship in 1731, regimentarz of the Crown Army in 1728, and castellan of Kraków in 1752. Throughout his lifetime, he served in many starost positions.
Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski
Prince Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski a.k.a. "Mirobulius Tassalinus" was a Polish noble, politician, patron of the arts and writer.
Przemyslaus I Noszak, Duke of Cieszyn
Przemysław I Noszak, was a Duke of Cieszyn-Bytom-Siewierz from 1358, from 1384 ruler over half of both Głogów and Ścinawa and since 1401 ruler over Toszek.
Isabella Jagiellon
Isabella Jagiellon was the oldest child of Polish King Sigismund I the Old, the Grand Duke of Lithuania and his Italian wife Bona Sforza. In 1539, she married John Zápolya, Voivode of Transylvania and King of Hungary, becoming Queen consort of Hungary. At the time Hungary was contested between Archduke Ferdinand of Austria who wanted to add it to the Habsburg domains, local nobles who wanted to keep Hungary independent, and Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent who saw it as a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. While Isabella's marriage lasted only a year and a half, it did produce a male heir – John Sigismund Zápolya born just two weeks before his father's death in July 1540. She spent the rest of her life embroiled in succession disputes on behalf of her son. Her husband's death sparked renewed hostilities but Sultan Suleiman established her as a regent of the eastern regions of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary on behalf of her infant son. The region developed as a semi-independent buffer state noted for its freedom of religion. Ferdinand, however, never renounced his claims to reunite Hungary and conspired with Bishop George Martinuzzi who forced Isabella to abdicate in 1551. She returned to her native Poland to live with her family. Sultan Suleiman retaliated and threatened to invade Hungary in 1555–56 forcing nobles to invite Isabella back to Transylvania. She returned in October 1556 and ruled as her son's regent until her death in September 1559.