Blaise Pascal was born June 19, 1623 in Clermont-Ferrand, France. Pascal was a truly great mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. I see his name all the time in my work because the SI unit of pressure is the pascal.
Over at Rationally Speaking Massimo Pigliucci has a post with a nice quote from Monsieur Pascal.
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
The Wikipedia entry for Monsieur Pascal I find to be excellent so I’ll send you there for more about this giant of science.