Charles de Gaulle (1890 - 1970)  

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle, in France commonly referred to as Général de Gaulle, was a French military leader and statesman.
Prior to World War II, he was primarily known as an armoured warfare tactician and an advocate of the concentrated use of armoured and aviation forces.
During World War II, he reached the rank of brigadier-general and then became the leader of the Free French government-in-exile and an anti-Nazi guerrilla leader. Between 1944 and 1946, following the liberation of France from German occupation, he was head of the French Provisional Government.
Called to form a government after the Algiers putsch of 1958, he inspired a new constitution and was the Fifth Republic's first president, serving from 1958 to 1969. His political ideology is known as Gaullism, and it has been a major influence in subsequent French politics.
Charles de Gaulle resigned the presidency on 28 April 1969. He retired to Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, where he died suddenly in 1970, two weeks before his 80th birthday, in the middle of writing his memoirs.


(Source: Wikipedia)