Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias

Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias, nicknamed "the Peacemaker" and "the Iron Duke", was an army officer, politician and monarchist of the Empire of Brazil. Like his father and uncles, Caxias pursued a military career. In 1823 he fought as a young officer in the Brazilian War for Independence against Portugal, then spent three years in Brazil's southernmost province, Cisplatina, as the government unsuccessfully resisted that province's secession in the Cisplatine War. Though his own father and uncles renounced Emperor Dom Pedro I during the protests of 1831, Caxias remained loyal. Pedro I abdicated in favor of his young son Dom Pedro II, whom Caxias instructed in swordsmanship and horsemanship and eventually befriended.

25 August 1803

Born on the same birth day (25 August): Bill Handel • Emil Theodor Kocher • Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, 2nd Duke of Alburquerque • Geoff Downes • Isobel Hogg Kerr Beattie • Louis Antoine de Saint-Just • Patrick F. McManus • Sikander Bakht (cricketer) • Spider One • Ted Birnie • Tom Hollander • Võ Nguyên Giáp • Wilhelm von Homburg

Born in the same month (August 1803): Edward Beecher • Joseph Paxton • Nathan Clifford • Vladimir Odoyevsky