The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
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List of the most influential people in Communications,
#13701
George Oscar Russell
1890 - 1962 (72 years)
George Oscar Russel was an American speech scientist. He was a professor at the Ohio State University and published an influential book in 1928 called The Vowel: Its Physiological Mechanism as Shown by X-Ray. He was a student of Ludimar Hermann.
Go to Profile#13702
Bobby Scott
1937 - 1990 (53 years)
Robert William Scott was an American musician, record producer, and songwriter. Biography Scott was born in Mount Pleasant, New York, United States, and became a pianist, vibraphonist, and singer, and could also play the accordion, cello, clarinet, and double bass. He studied under Edvard Moritz at the La Follette School of Music at the age of eight, and was working professionally at 11. In 1952, he began touring with Louis Prima, and also toured and performed with Gene Krupa, Lester Young, and Tony Scott in the 1950s. In 1956 he hit the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 with the song "Chain Gang", peaking at number 13.
Go to Profile#13703
Josef Rheinberger
1839 - 1901 (62 years)
Josef Gabriel Rheinberger was organist and composer from Liechtenstein, residing in Bavaria for most of his life. As court conductor in Munich, he was responsible for the music in the royal chapel. He is known for sacred music, works for organ and vocal works, such as masses, a Christmas cantata and the motet Abendlied; he also composed two operas and three singspiele, incidental music, secular choral music, two symphonies and other instrumental works, chamber music, and works for organ.
Go to Profile#13704
Hermann Wilken
1522 - 1603 (81 years)
Hermann Wilken , also known as Hermann Witekind and with the pseudonym of Augustin Lercheimer, was a German humanist and mathematician. Biography Originary of Neuenrade, in Westphalia, he studied in Frankfurt and in Wittenberg , where he was an alumn of Philipp Melanchthon. In 1552 Wilken was recommended by him to teach at the Latin Cathedral School in Riga, becoming rector in 1554. In 1561 he studied at the University of Rostock and in 1563 he became professor of Greek language in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Heidelberg.
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Chen Yinke
1890 - 1969 (79 years)
Chen Yinke, or Chen Yinque , was a Chinese historian, linguist, orientalist, politician, and writer. He was a fellow of Academia Sinica, considered one of the most original and creative historians in 20th century China. His representative works are Draft essays on the origins of Sui and Tang institutions , Draft outline of Tang political history , and An Alternative Biography of Liu Rushi .
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Jack Hoxie
1885 - 1965 (80 years)
John Hartford Hoxie was an American rodeo performer and motion-picture actor whose career was most prominent in the silent film era of the 1910s through the 1930s. Hoxie is best recalled for his roles in Westerns and rarely strayed from the genre.
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Gustave J. Stoeckel
1819 - 1907 (88 years)
Gustave Jakob Stoeckel was a longtime music instructor and college organist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Biography Born in Maikammer, Bavarian Palatinate, Stoeckel graduated from the seminary in Kaiserslautern in 1838, and then pursued a post-graduate course in musical composition under Joseph Krebs. He was a teacher and organist until 1847, when he emigrated to the United States. He joined Yale University in 1849 when he became a music teacher there, and was appointed organist of Yale College Chapel. Yale gave him the degree of Mus.D. in 1864.
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Lowell Thomas
1892 - 1981 (89 years)
Lowell Jackson Thomas was an American writer, broadcaster, and traveler, best remembered for publicising T. E. Lawrence . He was also involved in promoting the Cinerama widescreen system. In 1954, he led a group of New York City-based investors to buy majority control of Hudson Valley Broadcasting, which, in 1957, became Capital Cities Television Corporation.
Go to Profile#13709
Gail Kubik
1914 - 1984 (70 years)
Gail Thompson Kubik was an American composer, music director, violinist, and teacher. Early life, education, and career Kubik was born to Henry and Evelyn O. Kubik. He studied at the Eastman School of Music, the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago with Leo Sowerby, and Harvard University with Walter Piston and Nadia Boulanger. He taught violin and composition at Monmouth College and composition and music history at Columbia University , Teachers College and Scripps College.
Go to Profile#13710
William Hayes
1708 - 1777 (69 years)
William Hayes was an English composer, organist, singer and conductor. Life Hayes was born in Gloucester. He trained at Gloucester Cathedral where the cathedral account books record his name amongst the choristers from 1717. He spent the early part of his working life as organist of St Mary's, Shrewsbury and Worcester Cathedral . The majority of his career was spent at the University of Oxford where he was appointed organist of Magdalen College in 1734, and established his credentials with the degrees of B.Mus in 1735 and D.Mus in 1749. In 1741 he was unanimously elected Heather Professor of Music and organist of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin.
Go to Profile#13711
Juan Tizol
1900 - 1984 (84 years)
Juan Tizol Martínez was a Puerto Rican jazz trombonist and composer. He is best known as a member of Duke Ellington's big band, and for writing the jazz standards "Caravan", "Pyramid", and "Perdido".
Go to Profile#13712
Jeanette MacDonald
1903 - 1965 (62 years)
Jeanette Anna MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy . During the 1930s and 1940s she starred in 29 feature films, four nominated for Best Picture Oscars , and recorded extensively, earning three gold records. She later appeared in opera, concerts, radio, and television. MacDonald was one of the most influential sopranos of the 20th century, introducing opera to film-going audiences and inspiring a generation of singers.
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D. L. Narasimhachar
1906 - 1971 (65 years)
Doddabele Lakshmi Narasimhachar was a Kannada linguist, grammarian, lexicographer, writer, literary critic and editor who taught at the Department of Kannada Language Studies, University of Mysore between 1932 - 1962. His knowledge of Halegannada helped him in reading ancient epigraphic records. He authored four books in Kannada, edited about nine volumes, penned eleven prefaces, wrote nearly hundred articles across three decades, seven monographs in English and outlined introductions to four Kannada works. He presided over the forty first Kannada Sahitya Sammelan held at Bidar in 1960. He was the recipient of the Kannada Rajyotsava Award from the Mysore State.
Go to Profile#13714
Albert Sammons
1886 - 1957 (71 years)
Albert Edward Sammons CBE was an English violinist, composer and later violin teacher. Almost self-taught on the violin, he had a wide repertoire as both chamber musician and soloist, although his reputation rests mainly on his association with British composers, especially Elgar. He made a number of recordings over 40 years, many of which have been re-issued on CD.
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Reidar Djupedal
1921 - 1989 (68 years)
Reidar Djupedal was a professor of North Germanic languages and literature at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Djupedal was born in Oslo. After graduating from the English program at Firda Upper Secondary School in Sandane in 1941, Djupedal studied at the University of Oslo until the fall of 1943. He was arrested on November 30 that year and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp as one of the approximately 650 male students at the University of Oslo interned in German prison camps during the Second World War II from December 1943 to liberation in May 1945 and known as the "German students" .
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Kinuyo Tanaka
1909 - 1977 (68 years)
Kinuyo Tanaka was a Japanese actress and film director. She had a career lasting over 50 years with more than 250 acting credits, but was best known for her 15 films with director Kenji Mizoguchi, such as The Life of Oharu and Ugetsu . With her 1953 directorial debut, Love Letter, Tanaka became the second Japanese woman to direct a film, after Tazuko Sakane.
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John Fox Jr.
1862 - 1919 (57 years)
John Fox Jr. was an American journalist, novelist, and short story writer. Biography Born in Stony Point, Kentucky, to John William Fox Sr. and Minerva Worth Carr, Fox studied English at Harvard University. He graduated in 1883 before becoming a reporter in New York City. After working for both New York Times and the New York Sun, he published a successful serialization of his first novel, A Mountain Europa, in Century magazine in 1892. Two moderately successful short story collections followed, as well as his first conventional novel, The Kentuckians in 1898. Fox gained a following as a war...
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Jason Robards Sr.
1892 - 1963 (71 years)
Jason Nelson Robards was an American stage and screen actor, and the father of actor Jason Robards Jr. Robards appeared in many films, initially as a leading man, then in character roles and occasional bit parts. Most of his final roles were in television.
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Frederick Corder
1852 - 1932 (80 years)
Frederick Corder was an English composer and music teacher. Life Corder was born in Hackney, the son of Micah Corder and his wife Charlotte Hill. He was educated at Blackheath Proprietary School and started music lessons, particularly piano, early. Later he studied with Henry Gadsby. After that he studied harmony with Claude Couldery.
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Eddie Heywood
1915 - 1989 (74 years)
Edward Heywood Jr. was an American jazz pianist and composer particularly active in the 1940s and 1950s. Biography Heywood was born in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. His father, Eddie Heywood Sr., was also a jazz musician from the 1920s and provided him with training from the age of 12 as an accompanist playing in the pit band in a vaudeville theater in Atlanta, occasionally accompanying singers such as Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters. Heywood moved, first to New Orleans and then to Kansas City, when vaudeville began to be replaced by sound pictures. Heywood played with jazz musicians such as...
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Chano Pozo
1915 - 1948 (33 years)
Luciano Pozo González , known professionally as Chano Pozo, was a Cuban jazz percussionist, singer, dancer, and composer. Despite only living to the age of 33, he played a major role in the founding of Latin jazz. He co-wrote some of Dizzy Gillespie's Latin-flavored compositions, such as "Manteca" and "Tin Tin Deo", and was the first Latin percussionist in Gillespie's band. According to Rebeca Mauleón, "Few percussionists have played as integral a role in shaping Latin music as Luciano 'Chano' Pozo González".
Go to Profile#13722
Cláudio Santoro
1919 - 1989 (70 years)
Cláudio Franco de Sá Santoro was an internationally renowned Brazilian composer, conductor and violinist. Biography Early life A native of Manaus, the capital of Amazonas, Santoro started to study violin and piano as a child. His efforts made the Government of Amazonas send him to study at the Conservatório Brasileiro de Música in Rio de Janeiro.
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Nur Ali Elahi
1895 - 1974 (79 years)
Nur Ali Elahi was an Iranian philosopher, judge and musician of Kurdish descent whose work investigated the metaphysical dimension of human beings. Early life Elahi was born in Jeyhunabad, a small Kurdish village near the eponymous capital of Kermanshah Province. His father, Hajj Nematollah , was a mystic and poet who was a leader of the Ahl-e Haqq and revered as a saint. From early childhood, he led an ascetic, secluded life of rigorous discipline under his father's supervision with a special focus on mysticism, music, and ethics. In addition to religious and moral instruction, he received the classical education of the time.
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Bill Lee
1916 - 1980 (64 years)
William Lee was an American playback singer who provided a voice or singing voice in many films, for actors in musicals and for many Disney characters. Biography Lee was born on August 21, 1916, in Johnson, Nebraska, and grew up in Des Moines, Iowa. His initial musical focus was as a trombone player, but after singing in several college vocal groups, he decided to concentrate on his voice. He served as an ensign in the United States Navy during World War II, then moved to Hollywood upon discharge. The bulk of Lee's income consisted of singing commercials for radio and television, much of which Lee felt was "silly" but he appreciated the financial independence this work gave him.
Go to Profile#13725
Georges Jacobi
1840 - 1906 (66 years)
Georges Jacobi was a German violinist, composer and conductor who was musical director of the Alhambra Theatre in London from 1872 to 1898. His best-known work was probably The Black Crook written with Frederick Clay for the Parisian operetta-star Anna Judic and which ran for 310 performances. Although never achieving the standing of Hervé, or Offenbach or Sullivan, he composed over 100 pieces for ballet and the theatre which were popular at the time.
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Carlyle Blackwell
1884 - 1955 (71 years)
Carlyle Blackwell was an American silent film actor, director and producer. Early years Blackwell was born in Troy, Pennsylvania. He studied at Cornell University before J. Stewart Blackton discovered him and turned his interest to acting.
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Richard Deacon
1921 - 1984 (63 years)
Richard Lewis Deacon was an American television and motion picture actor, best known for playing supporting roles in television shows such as The Dick Van Dyke Show, Leave It To Beaver, and The Jack Benny Program, along with minor roles in films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds .
Go to Profile#13728
Vissarion Shebalin
1902 - 1963 (61 years)
Vissarion Yakovlevich Shebalin was a Soviet composer. Biography Shebalin was born in Omsk, where his parents were school teachers. He studied in the musical college in Omsk, and was also enrolled in the Institute of Agriculture. He was 20 years old when, following the advice of his professor, he went to Moscow to show his first compositions to Reinhold Glière and Nikolai Myaskovsky. Both composers thought very highly of his compositions. Shebalin graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1928. His diploma work was the 1st Symphony, which the author dedicated to his professor Nikolai Myaskovsky.
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Keith Whitley
1954 - 1989 (35 years)
Jackie Keith Whitley was an American country music singer and songwriter. During his career, Whitley released only two albums but charted 12 singles on the Billboard country charts, and 7 more after his death.
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Charley Patton
1891 - 1934 (43 years)
Charlie Patton , more often spelled Charley Patton, was an American Delta blues musician and songwriter. Considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", he created an enduring body of American music and inspired most Delta blues musicians. The musicologist Robert Palmer considered him one of the most important American musicians of the twentieth century.
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Karl Maria Zwißler
1900 - 1984 (84 years)
Karl Maria Zwißler was a German conductor, and academic. He was for decades the Generalmusikdirektor and Intendant of the Staatstheater Mainz. He taught conducting at the music universities of Stuttgart and Frankfurt.
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J. J. M. de Groot
1854 - 1921 (67 years)
Jan Jakob Maria de Groot was a Dutch sinologist and historian of religion. He taught at the Leiden University and later at the University of Berlin, and is chiefly remembered for his monumental work, The Religious System of China, Its Ancient Forms, Evolution, History and Present Aspect, Manners, Customs and Social Institutions Connected Therewith. The two "books" of this detailed and well-illustrated treatise appeared in six volumes - and, according to the preface in the first volume, the System was originally meant to include several more "books".
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David Blair
1932 - 1975 (43 years)
David Blair was a British ballet dancer and a star of England's Royal Ballet during the 1950s and 1960s. Early life and training Born David Butterfield in Halifax, Yorkshire, he started taking ballet lessons after watching his sister in a class at their local dance school. He won a scholarship to the Sadler's Wells Ballet School in London and began training there in 1946, when he was 14. As he was very short in comparison with many of his classmates, Blair's acceptance into the school was on the understanding that he had to grow significantly during his first term or he would receive injections of growth-inducing hormones.
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Frankie Trumbauer
1901 - 1956 (55 years)
Orie Frank Trumbauer was an American jazz saxophonist of the 1920s and 1930s. His main instrument was the C melody saxophone, a now-uncommon instrument between an alto and tenor saxophone in size and pitch. He also played alto saxophone, bassoon, clarinet and several other instruments.
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Earl Hooker
1929 - 1970 (41 years)
Earl Zebedee Hooker was a Chicago blues guitarist known for his slide guitar playing. Considered a "musician's musician", he performed with blues artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Junior Wells, and John Lee Hooker and fronted his own bands. An early player of the electric guitar, Hooker was influenced by the modern urban styles of T-Bone Walker and Robert Nighthawk. He recorded several singles and albums as a bandleader and with other well-known artists. His "Blue Guitar", a slide guitar instrumental single, was popular in the Chicago area and was later overdubbed with vocals by Muddy ...
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Giacomo Zanella
1820 - 1888 (68 years)
Giacomo Zanella was an Italian poet. Biography He was born at Chiampo, near Vicenza, and was educated for the priesthood. After his ordination he became professor at the lyceum of his native place, but his patriotic sympathies excited the jealousy of the Austrian authorities, and although protected by his diocesan, he was compelled to resign in 1853. After the liberation of Venetia, the Italian government conferred upon him a professorship at Padua, and he achieved distinction as a poet on the publication of his first volume of poems in 1868.
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Daniel Guilet
1899 - 1990 (91 years)
Daniel Guilet was a French, and later, American, classical violinist, best known for being a founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio. He was born at Rostov-on-Don in the Russian Empire and raised in Paris, where his family moved when he was less than a year old. His teachers at the Conservatoire de Paris included George Enescu and Guillaume Rémy. He played in the Calvet Quartet and as a soloist, and toured France with Maurice Ravel playing his accompaniments.
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Frank Churchill
1901 - 1942 (41 years)
Frank Edwin Churchill was an American film composer and songwriter. He wrote most of the music for films produced by Walt Disney, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Dumbo, Bambi, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, and Peter Pan.
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Barry Galbraith
1919 - 1983 (64 years)
Joseph Barry Galbraith was an American jazz guitarist. Galbraith moved to New York City from McDonald, PA in the early 1940s and found work playing with Babe Russin, Art Tatum, Red Norvo, Hal McIntyre, and Teddy Powell. He played with Claude Thornhill in 1941–1942 and again in 1946–1949 after serving in the Army. He did a tour with Stan Kenton in 1953.
Go to Profile#13740
Roland West
1885 - 1952 (67 years)
Roland West was an American film director, known for his innovative proto-film noir movies of the 1920s and early 1930s. He is however best known for his possible involvement in the death of Hollywood actress Thelma Todd in 1935.
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Hemant Kumar
1920 - 1989 (69 years)
Hemanta Mukhopadhyay , known professionally as Hemant Kumar and Hemanta Mukherjee, was a legendary Indian music director and playback singer who primarily sang in Bengali and Hindi, as well as other Indian languages like Marathi, Gujarati, Odia, Assamese, Tamil, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Konkani, Sanskrit and Urdu. He was an artist of Bengali and Hindi film music, Rabindra Sangeet, and many other genres. He was the recipient of two National Awards for Best Male Playback Singer and was popularly known as the "voice of God".
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Italo Montemezzi
1875 - 1952 (77 years)
Italo Montemezzi was an Italian composer. He is best known for his opera L'amore dei tre re , once part of the standard repertoire. It is now seldom performed. Biography Montemezzi was born in Vigasio, near Verona. He studied music at the Milan Conservatory and subsequently taught harmony there for one year.
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Lucien Cailliet
1891 - 1985 (94 years)
Lucien Cailliet was a French-American composer, conductor, arranger and clarinetist. Biography Cailliet was born in 1891 at Dampierre-sur-Moivre, in northern France. He studied at several French music conservatories, most notably the Conservatory in Dijon, where he graduated at age 22. He also received a degree from the National Conservatory in Paris. He became a bandmaster in the French Army and, in 1915, toured the United States with the French Army Band, including performances at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition.
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Herbie Nichols
1919 - 1963 (44 years)
Herbert Horatio Nichols was an American jazz pianist and composer who wrote the jazz standard "Lady Sings the Blues". Obscure during his lifetime, he is now highly regarded by many musicians and critics.
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Carlo Yvon
1798 - 1854 (56 years)
Carlo Yvon was an Italian composer, virtuoso oboist and English horn player, and music educator. He studied at the Milan Conservatory in his native city and later was a teacher at that school. For many years he served as principal oboist at La Scala. Several of his symphonic and chamber works feature the oboe, many of which are still performed today.
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John Balsir Chatterton
1804 - 1871 (67 years)
John Balsir Chatterton was an English harpist. Biography John Balsir Chatterton was born at Portsmouth on 25 November 1804 the son of Mary née Callow and John Chatterton, a 'professor of music'. He was the third oldest of eight brothers and three sisters. He came to London, and studied the harp under Bochsa and Labarre, succeeding the former as professor at the Royal Academy of Music. His first appearance in London took place at a concert given by Aspull in 1824. Chatterton married Eliza Davenport Latham on 1 August 1835 and they had five sons. In 1842 he received the appointment of harpist to Queen Victoria.
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Mary Martin
1913 - 1990 (77 years)
Mary Virginia Martin was an American actress and singer. A muse of Rodgers and Hammerstein, she originated many leading roles on stage over her career, including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific , the title character in Peter Pan , and Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music . She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989. She was the mother of actor Larry Hagman.
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J. William Jones
1836 - 1909 (73 years)
J. William Jones was an American Southern Baptist preacher and writer who became known for his evangelism and devotion to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. During the American Civil War of 1861–1865, the newly ordained Jones was a Confederate chaplain and conducted many revival meetings. Later, he became a campus minister at several universities and in his final years, chaplain for the United Confederate Veterans. After editing the papers of Gen. Robert E. Lee, Jones became the Secretary-Treasurer of the Southern Historical Society for 14 years and served on his denomination's Home Missions Board.
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Leonid Kogan
1924 - 1982 (58 years)
Leonid Borisovich Kogan was a preeminent Soviet violinist during the 20th century. Many consider him to be among the greatest violinists of the 20th century. In particular, he is considered to have been one of the greatest representatives of the Soviet School of violin playing.
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Balys Dvarionas
1904 - 1972 (68 years)
Balys Dvarionas , was a Soviet and Lithuanian composer, pianist, conductor and educator. Dvarionas first became known as a composer after World War II. His works are in a romantic vein, with roots in folk song.
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