This article explores the extraordinary life of Nobel Laureate Fran¸cois Englert, tracing hispath from the perils of the Holocaust in occupied Belgium to the pinnacle of theoreticalphysics. It examines his pivotal partnership with the American physicist Robert Brout,a collaboration that began at Cornell and flourished at the Universit´e Libre de Bruxelles(ULB). We provide a complete mathematical treatment of their 1964 discovery—the mechanism of Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in gauge theories—which solved the problem ofmass for gauge vector mesons. Furthermore, we analyse the historical sociology of sciencethat led to the moniker “Higgs boson,” overshadowing the priority of the Belgian duo, andconclude with the legacy of their work in the Standard Model and the historic 2012 discoveryat CERN.