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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To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
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List of the most influential people in History,
#7301
Samuel A. Eliot
1862 - 1950 (88 years)
Samuel Atkins Eliot II was an American Unitarian minister. In 1898 the American Unitarian Association elected him secretary but in 1900 the position was redesignated as president and Eliot served in that office from inception to 1927, significantly expanding the association's activities and consolidating denominational power in its administration.
Go to Profile#7302
Obadiah Walker
1616 - 1699 (83 years)
Obadiah Walker was an English academic and Master of University College, Oxford, from 1676 to 1688. Life Walker was born at Darfield, Yorkshire, and was educated at University College, Oxford, becoming a fellow and tutor of this College and a prominent figure in University circles. In July 1648, an act of parliament deprived him of his academic appointments, and he passed some years in teaching, studying and travelling. He returned to Oxford at the Restoration of 1660, and a few years began later to take a leading part in the work of University College. In June 1676, he became head or "Maste...
Go to Profile#7303
Pieter Anton Tiele
1834 - 1889 (55 years)
Pieter Anton Tiele was for many years the librarian of Utrecht University. Life He was distinguished himself by his bibliographical studies, more especially by his several works on the history of colonization in Asia.
Go to Profile#7304
Heinrich Ritter
1791 - 1869 (78 years)
Heinrich August Ritter was a German philosopher and historian of philosophy. He was born in Zerbst, and studied philosophy and theology at the University of Göttingen and Berlin until 1815. In 1824 he became an associate professor of philosophy at Berlin, later transferring to Kiel, where he occupied the chair of philosophy from 1833 to 1837. He then accepted a similar position at the University of Göttingen, where he remained till his death. Friedrich Schleiermacher was a major influence in his thinking.
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Victor Delbos
1862 - 1916 (54 years)
Étienne Marie Justin Victor Delbos was a Catholic philosopher and historian of philosophy. Delbos was appointed a lecturer at the Sorbonne in 1902. In 1911 he became a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. He died in July 1916 as a result of an infectious myocarditis brought on by pleurisy. Maurice Blondel, a close friend, wrote an obituary account of Delbos and saw various posthumous publications through the press.
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Peder Hansen Resen
1625 - 1688 (63 years)
Peder Hansen Resen was a Danish historian, legal scholar and president of Copenhagen. Early life and education Peder Hansen Resen was born 17 June 1625 in Copenhagen. He was the son of the Bishop of Zealand, and Thale Vinstrup. As a young child he was privately tutored until 1641, when he began attending Vor Frue Skole. In 1643 he matriculated at the University of Copenhagen where he passed the theological exam in 1645. After graduating, he worked returned to Vor Frue Skole as a teacher.
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Johann David Köhler
1684 - 1755 (71 years)
Johann David Köhler was a German historian. His academic focuses were on Roman coins as historical artifacts, ancient weapons, and genealogy. Köhler also served as university librarian at Altdorf and contributed to the early library science literature.
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William Sharp McKechnie
1863 - 1930 (67 years)
William Sharp McKechnie was a Scottish scholar, historian, lecturer in Constitutional Law and History, and author of Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John with an Historical Introduction. He later held the Chair of Conveyancing at the University of Glasgow from 1916 until 1927. Upon his retirement, he was awarded an honorary LL.D.
Go to Profile#7309
René Albrecht-Carrié
1904 - 1978 (74 years)
René Albrecht-Carrié was a diplomatic historian. Born in Smyrna, Albrecht-Carrié was educated at Columbia University, where he gained an AB in 1923 and a PhD in 1938. He spent his academic career as Professor of History at Barnard College and at Columbia's School of International Affairs .
Go to Profile#7310
Roark Bradford
1896 - 1948 (52 years)
Roark Whitney Wickliffe Bradford was an American short story writer and novelist. Life He attended University of California, Berkeley, and served as a first lieutenant in the Coast Artillery during World War I.
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Royall Tyler
1884 - 1953 (69 years)
Royall Tyler , was an American historian, who was a descendant of the American jurist and playwright Royall Tyler. He was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, and educated at Harrow School in England. After a time at New College, Oxford, he moved to the University of Salamanca, where he became a friend of Miguel de Unamuno. In 1909 he published Spain, a Study of her Life and Arts, the first work in English to recognize the genius of El Greco. Appointed by the British government to edit the Calendar of State Papers related to negotiations between England and Spain in the time of Charles V, Holy Roman...
Go to Profile#7312
Innocent
1600 - 1683 (83 years)
Innokenty Gizel was a Prussian-born historian, writer, and political and ecclesiastic figure, who had adopted Orthodox Christianity and made a substantial contribution to Ukrainian culture. Innokentiy Gizel was a rector of the Kyivan Theological School. In 1656, he was appointed archmandrite of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. Innokentiy Gizel is known to have supported the unification of Ukraine and autonomy of the Kyiv clergy, simultaneously. Innokentiy Gizel is generally credited for writing the Synopsis in 1674, but some researchers deny his authorship.
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François Laurent
1810 - 1887 (77 years)
François Laurent was a Belgian historian and jurisconsult. Life and works He was born in Luxembourg City. He held a high appointment in the ministry of justice for some time before he became professor of civil law at the university of Ghent in 1836. His advocacy of liberal and anti-clerical principles both from his chair and in the press made him bitter enemies, but he retained his position until his death in 1887.
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Gottlob Benedikt von Schirach
1743 - 1804 (61 years)
Gottlob Benedikt von Schirach was a Sorbian historian, philosopher and writer, and later a diplomat in Danish service. He was a son of the Sorbian theologian Christian Gottlob Schirach . After studying history and philology at the University of Leipzig, he became a lecturer at the University of Halle in 1764. In 1769 he became Professor of Philosophy at the University of Helmstedt. He published several books and was regarded as a well-known author in his lifetime.
Go to Profile#7315
Ivan Božić
1915 - 1977 (62 years)
Ivan Božić was a Yugoslavian historian and academic. He was expert in history of medieval Zeta and the Venetian Republic's policy toward its coastal areas. Works * Dubrovnik i Turska u XIV i XV veku , Naučna knjiga, Belgrade, 1952.Dohodak carski-povodom 198. člana Dušanovog zakonika , Naučno delo, Belgrade, 1956.Paštrovske isprave 16.-18. vijeka, Naučno delo, Belgrade, 1959Pregled istorije jugoslovenskih naroda, Zavod za izdavanje udžbenika Narodne Republike Srbije, Belgrade, 1960.Istorija ljudskog društva i kulture od najstarijih vremena do XI veka za I razred gimnazije, Zavod za izdavanj...
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Fritz Arnheim
1866 - 1922 (56 years)
Fritz Arnheim was a German historian, traveler, and lecturer. Arnheim was born in Berlin, Brandenburg, Kingdom of Prussia and educated at the universities of Berlin and Halle. He made prolonged tours through Sweden, Belgium, and Norway , and subsequently lectured on those countries. In 1915 he became an editor of the Mittheilungen aus der historischen litteratur.
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Caroline Mays Brevard
1860 - 1920 (60 years)
Caroline Mays Brevard was an educator, historian and author in Brevard County, Florida. She was a history professor at Florida State College for Women She was added to the List of Great Floridians in 2012. She was a member of the Florida Historical Society and the group maintains a Caroline Mays Brevard Award in her honor.
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Eliza Marian Butler
1885 - 1959 (74 years)
Eliza Marian Butler , who published as E. M. Butler and Elizabeth M. Butler, was an English scholar of German, Schröder Professor of German at the University of Cambridge from 1945. Her most influential book was The Tyranny of Greece over Germany , in which she wrote that Germany has had "too much exposure to Ancient Greek literature and art. The result was that the German mind had succumbed to 'the tyranny of an ideal'. The German worship of Ancient Greece had emboldened the Nazis to remake Europe in their image." It was controversial in Britain and its translation was banned in Germany.
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Merl R. Eppse
1893 - 1967 (74 years)
Merl Raymond Eppse was an African-American historian. He was a History professor at Tennessee State University for three decades, and the author of several books. Early life Eppse was born in 1893 in Greenville, Ohio. He graduated from Drake University in 1927, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in History. He earned a master's degree from the Teachers College, Columbia University in 1935.
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Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf
1739 - 1799 (60 years)
Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf was an Austrian composer, violinist, and silvologist. He was a friend of both Haydn and Mozart. Life 1739–1764 Dittersdorf was born in the Laimgrube district of Vienna, Austria, as Johann Carl Ditters. His father was a military tailor in the Austrian Imperial Army of Charles VI, for a number of German-speaking regiments. After retiring honorably from his military obligation, he was provided with royal letters of reference and a sinecure with the Imperial Theatre. In 1745, the six-year-old August Carl was introduced to the violin and his father's moderate financi...
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John Kenrick
1788 - 1877 (89 years)
Reverend John Kenrick was an English classical historian. Life He was born on 4 February 1788 at Exeter, the eldest son of Timothy Kenrick, Unitarian minister, and his first wife, Mary, daughter of John Waymouth of Exeter. He was educated at the local grammar school run by the Rev. Charles Lloyd and later at the nonconformist academy conducted by his father and the Rev. Joseph Bretland.
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Vladimir Simkhovitch
1874 - 1959 (85 years)
Vladimir Gregorievitch Simkhovitch was an economist and Professor of Economic History and Economics at Columbia University. Simkhovich was seen in the 1930s as "the hard core of the old department," a difficult professor who "devoted much of his time and energy to creating and maintaining feuds." His 1908 book Marxism versus Socialism was lauded as being "a work of incomparable thoroughness."
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Alrutheus Ambush Taylor
1893 - 1955 (62 years)
Alrutheus Ambush Taylor was a historian from Washington D.C. He was a specialist in the history of blacks and segregation, especially during the Reconstruction Era. The Crisis cited him as a "painstaking scholar and authority on Negro history". An African-American, he taught at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama, at the West Virginia Collegiate Institute in West Virginia, and at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Following a grant from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund, Taylor began researching the role of African Americans in the South during Reconstruction. He authored...
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Wilhelm Creizenach
1851 - 1919 (68 years)
Wilhelm Michael Anton Creizenach was a German historian and librarian. He was the son of Theodore , poet, Hebraist, a prominent expert on work of Goethe, and Luise Flerscheim. He was educated at the gymnasium in Frankfurt, then studied history and Germanic Philology at the University of Göttingen , neofilologię at the University of Leipzig , Indo-European comparative syntax and Sanskrit at the University of Jena . In 1873 he received his doctorate in Leipzig . During his studies at Jena while working in the university library in the years 1876–1878 was an assistant in the library of the University of Wroclaw.
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John Milton Mackie
1813 - 1894 (81 years)
John Milton Mackie was a United States writer who specialized in topics from German history and literature. Biography He graduated from Brown University in 1832, and studied at the University of Berlin, Germany, 1833–1834. On his return to the United States, he was tutor at Brown 1835–1838. He contributed articles on German topics to the North American Review, American Whig Review, and Christian.
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Ernest Bramsted
1901 - 1978 (77 years)
Ernest Kohn Bramsted was a German-born historian and sociologist of literature who spent large parts of his career in Germany, England and Australia. Early life Ernst Kohn-Bramstadt was born in Augsburg in 1901 to a textile manufacturer who died seven years later. The family was Jewish and liberal. In 1917, he began following left-liberal newspapers which argued for greater democratisation in Germany, and reading Max Weber's sociological writings. The following year, he anonymously contributed to the socialist newspaper, Schwabische Volkszeitung.
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Guglielmo Audisio
1802 - 1882 (80 years)
Guglielmo Audisio was an Italian Catholic priest and writer. Life Guglielmo Audisio was born January 27, 1802, and graduated with degrees in philosophy and theology from the University of Turin. After teaching for four years in the seminary of Bra, in 1837 he was appointed by King Carlo Alberto, Dean of the Ecclesiastical Academy of Superga, where he taught sacred eloquence, moral theology, canon law and institutions of Roman law. He was expelled from this office because he was opposed to the Piedmontese Government. Audisio was a fervent upholder of papal and Catholic rights against the polit...
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Bernard Deacon
1900 - Present (126 years)
Bernard W. Deacon is a multidisciplinary academic, based at the Institute of Cornish Studies of the University of Exeter at the Tremough Campus. He has an Open University doctorate and displays his thesis on the ICS website.
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Hans Liebeschuetz
1893 - 1978 (85 years)
Hans Liebeschuetz was a medieval historian. He is best known for his study of John of Salisbury. Born in Hamburg in 1893, he attended the universities of Hamburg and Heidelberg. After emigrating from Germany in March 1939 he later became a Reader in Medieval History at the University of Liverpool and later emeritus Professor. He helped found the Leo Baeck College which is now a privately funded rabbinical seminary.
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Hugh Egerton
1855 - 1927 (72 years)
Hugh Edward Egerton was a British historian. Life He was the second son of Edward Christopher Egerton, Member of Parliament for and , and his wife Lady Mary Frances Pierrepont, daughter of Charles Pierrepont, 2nd Earl Manvers. He was educated at Rugby School and matriculated in 1873 Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he gained a First Class degree in literae humaniores in 1876, graduating B.A. and M.A. in 1881. In 1880 he was called to the bar at the Inner Temple and worked on the North Wales and Chester Circuit.
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Johann Kaspar Mörikofer
1799 - 1877 (78 years)
Johann Kaspar Mörikofer was a Swiss literary and ecclesiastical historian. Biography He studied theology at the Carolinum in Zürich, and from 1822 to 1851 was provisor and rector of city schools in Frauenfeld. From 1851 to 1869 he served as a pastor in Gottlieben. He obtained honorary doctorates at the universities of Zürich and Basel .
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John A. Carpenter
1921 - 1978 (57 years)
John Alcott Carpenter was a historian, history professor, and public speaker. Carpenter, who specialized in the Reconstruction Period following the American Civil War, published biographies of Oliver Otis Howard and Ulysses S. Grant.
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E. L. G. Stones
1914 - 1987 (73 years)
Edward Lionel Gregory Stones, FBA was Edwards Professor of Medieval History at the University of Glasgow from 1956 to 1978. Early life and education Stones was born in Croydon. He was educated at the High School of Glasgow and studied English Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow from where he graduated with an MA with first class honours. He studied at Balliol College, University of Oxford where he obtaining a first class honours degree in modern history in 1939. Stones served in the Royal Signals during the Second World War, rising to the rank of Major.
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Ishida Eiichirō
1903 - 1968 (65 years)
Ishida Eiichirō was a Japanese scholar of folklore. Biography He became a communist at an early age, and was convicted under the Peace Preservation Law in 1928 and sentenced to five years jail. During his term of incarceration, he read widely, both in the Chinese classics and Western anthropology. On his release in 1934, he attended a lecture by the doyen of folklore studies, Yanagita Kunio, where he became acquainted with Oka Masao, who had just returned from completing a degree in ethnology at Vienna University. Through Oka's offices he was introduced to, and married, a granddaughter of Yanagita's older brother.
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David Bierens de Haan
1822 - 1895 (73 years)
David Bierens de Haan was a Dutch mathematician and historian of science. Biography Bierens de Haan was a son of the rich merchant Abraham Pieterszoon de Haan and Catharina Jacoba Bierens . In 1843 he completed a study in the exact sciences and received his PhD from the University of Leiden in 1847 under Gideon Janus Verdam for the work . After this he became a teacher of physics and mathematics at a gymnasium in Deventer. In 1852 he married Johanna Catharina Justina de Schepper in Deventer.
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Sverker Arnoldsson
1908 - 1959 (51 years)
Sverker Arnolsson was a Swedish historian and humanist. He was one of the most important Historians and Hispanists of the 20th century. He was born in Sundsvall, February the 17th 1908, and died in Gotemburg, November the 10th 1959. He started his career interested in Swedish military history but quickly got interested in the history of the Spanish Empire. He is most recognized for his work regarding the Spanish Black Legend.
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Thomas Ebendorfer
1388 - 1464 (76 years)
Thomas Ebendorfer was an Austrian historian, professor, and statesman. Born at Haselbach, in Lower Austria, he studied at the University of Vienna, where he received the degree of Master of Arts in 1412. Until 1427 he was attached to the Faculty of Arts and lectured on Aristotle and Latin grammar. After 1419 he was also admitted to the theological faculty as 'cursor biblicus'. In 1427 he was made licentiate and in 1428 Master of Theology; soon after he became dean of the theological faculty, in which body he was a professor until his death.
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Werner Gembruch
1918 - 1988 (70 years)
Werner Gembruch was a German historian. Life Born in Würzburg, the son of a factory owner, Gembruch passed his Abitur at the Heinrich-von-Gagern-Gymnasium in Frankfurt am Main in 1937. Afterwards he performed Reich Labour Service for six months. He started a military career. In November 1942 he became a British prisoner of war in El-Alamein. He taught Latin in a so-called camp university. He studied history, German and philosophy at the Goethe University Frankfurt. His academic teacher was Otto Vossler. He received his doctorate in 1950 with a thesis on Otto von Bismarck. Gembruch was Vossler's assistant until 1956.
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Urban T. Holmes Jr.
1900 - 1972 (72 years)
Urban Tigner Holmes Jr. was an American scholar focusing on medieval literature and Romance philology. The son of Commander Urban T. Holmes, United States Navy, Holmes was born in Washington, D.C. In 1916, he enrolled at the U.S. Naval Academy only to withdraw the following year due to health reasons. In 1917, he began schooling at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied Greek, Russian, Sanskrit, and Old French. After graduating with a Bachelors in 1920, Holmes continued his doctoral studies at Harvard and La Sorbonne. While at the Sorbonne, Holmes studied under scholars such as ...
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William Stith
1707 - 1755 (48 years)
William Stith was an early American historian and an Anglican minister. He was the third president of the College of William & Mary , where Stith Hall was named for him. Early life Stith was the son of Captain John Stith and Mary Randolph, a daughter of William Randolph . Stith's grandfather was Major John Stith, who participated in Nathaniel Bacon's rebellion.
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Georg von Wyß
1816 - 1893 (77 years)
Georg von Wyß was a Swiss historian. He was born and died in Zürich. From 1870, he served as a "full professor" at the University of Zurich, being appointed rector in 1872. He was a founding member of the Allgemeine Geschichtforschenden Gesellschaft , holding the office of president from 1854 to 1893.
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Charles-Honoré Laverdière
1826 - 1873 (47 years)
Charles-Honoré Cauchon dit Laverdière was a French-Canadian priest and historian. Biography Laverdière was born in Château-Richer, East of Quebec City, on 23 October 1826. His parents, Charles Cauchon, dit Laverdière and Théotiste Cauchon, were farmers. He studied at the Séminaire de Québec from 1840 onward, and proved brilliant, being promoted to assistant professor of physics and collaborating to the foundation of the student newspaper, through which he published several collections of canticles. He was ordained in 1851.
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Mangharam Udharam Malkani
1896 - 1980 (84 years)
Mangharam Udharam Malkani was an Indian scholar, critic, writer, playwright, literary historian and professor in the Sindhi language. He was the pioneer of modern Sindhi dramas. He was recognized as the "Grand old man of Sindhi literature".
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Jules Mees
1876 - 1937 (61 years)
Juliaan or Jules Mees was a Belgian professor of historical geography, a specialist on the Portuguese discoveries, who in 1920 was condemned to two years in prison for collaboration during the German occupation of Belgium in World War I.
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Hans Hirsch
1878 - 1940 (62 years)
Hans Hirsch was an Austrian academic who worked between 1903 and 1914 on the vast "Monumenta Germaniae Historica" sources project, and subsequently became a full-time professional historian. He accepted an ordinary professorship in history at the German University in Prague as the war ended, transferring in 1926 to the University of Vienna. The focus of his research and teaching was on medieval history. In parallel he built for himself a reputation as a specialist on the "Sudeten Germans", which marked him out as a more than averagely politicised historian. His application for party membe...
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Leo Stern
1901 - 1982 (81 years)
Leo Stern was an Austrian-German left-wing political activist. In 1933 he switched his party membership from the Social Democratic Party to the Communist Party. During the fascist ascendancy he participated in the Spanish Civil War as an anti-Franco Interbrigadist and later, in the Great Patriotic War, served as an officer in the Soviet Red Army. Between the two he studied successfully for a higher degree at the University of Moscow, receiving his Habilitation degree in 1940 in return for a dissertation of Contemporary Catholicism. Emerging from the war in 1945, almost certainly by now closel...
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Charles William Hanko
1920 - 1990 (70 years)
Charles William Hanko was an American historian and politician. Hanko ran unsuccessfully as a Republican Candidate for the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives in 1948. He was for a time a professor of history at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute in the Dept. of History and Economics. He held a fellowship related to economics at Case Institute of Technology in 1954.
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Friedrich Karl Julius Schütz
1779 - 1844 (65 years)
Friedrich Karl Julius Schütz was a German historian. He was the son of philologist Christian Gottfried Schütz . He studied history at the universities of Jena, Erlangen and Göttingen, obtaining his habilitation in 1801 at Jena. From 1804 onward, he was an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Halle. He was the husband of actress Henriette Hendel-Schütz, with whom he accompanied on her theatrical tours — on occasion he also performed on stage.
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Julius Braun
1825 - 1869 (44 years)
Julius Braun was a German historian, with an interest in art, culture and religion. Biography Braun was born in Karlsruhe and received his early education at the city's lyceum. He then studied at the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin, at first theology, but later philology and art history. He finished his formal studies in 1848, and passed the test for teachers in Karlsruhe that same year. From 1850 to 1853, he undertook an extensive study tour which brought him to Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Rome, Paris and London.
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Villem Orav
1883 - 1952 (69 years)
Villem Orav was an Estonian historian, teacher, and scholar of pedagogy. In 1905 he graduated from Riga Theological Seminary, and in 1911–13 studied at the University of Warsaw, He was teacher from 1917 to 1949 at Gustav Adolf Grammar School history teacher and in 1952 became a Fellow of the Institute of History.
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