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.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
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,
#7501
John O'Donovan
1806 - 1861 (55 years)
John O'Donovan , from Atateemore, in the parish of Kilcolumb, County Kilkenny, and educated at Hunt's Academy, Waterford, was an Irish language scholar from Ireland. Life He was the fourth son of Edmond O'Donovan and Eleanor Hoberlin of Rochestown. His early career may have been inspired by his uncle Parick O'Donovan. He worked for antiquarian James Hardiman researching state papers and traditional sources at the Public Records Office. Hardiman had secured O'Donovan a place in Maynooth College which he turned down. He also taught Irish to Thomas Larcom for a short period in 1828 and worked for Myles John O'Reilly, a collector of Irish manuscripts.
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Anatoly Bokschanin
1903 - 1979 (76 years)
Anatoly Georgiyevich Bokschanin was a Soviet scholar of classical antiquity. He was a Doctor of Sciences and Professor of the Moscow University. Bokschanin researched the political history of the Roman Empire of the 1st century AD and Roman–Parthian relations. He penned several scholar publications and authored and edited several textbooks on Roman history. His major works include "Иудейские восстания II в. н.э." , "Социальный кризис Римской империи в I в. н.э." , Парфия и Рим and "Источниковедение Древнего Рима" . Two articles about Bokschanin appeared in the Russian Journal of Ancient Hist...
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Vladimir Picheta
1878 - 1947 (69 years)
Vladimir Ivanovich Picheta was a Belarusian and Soviet historian, first rector of the Belarusian State University , academician of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR since 1928, Honorary Professor of the BSSR , Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and Arts since 1939, Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences since 1946.
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Padraic Colum
1881 - 1972 (91 years)
Padraic Colum was an Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, biographer, playwright, children's author and collector of folklore. He was one of the leading figures of the Irish Literary Revival. Early life Colum was born Patrick Columb in a County Longford workhouse, where his father worked. He was the first of eight children born to Patrick and Susan Columb.
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Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany
1853 - 1884 (31 years)
Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, was the eighth child and youngest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Leopold was later created Duke of Albany, Earl of Clarence, and Baron Arklow. He had haemophilia, which contributed to his death following a fall at the age of 30.
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David IV of Georgia
1073 - 1125 (52 years)
David IV, also known as David IV the Builder , of the Bagrationi dynasty, was the 5th king of United Georgia from 1089 until his death in 1125. Popularly considered to be the greatest and most successful Georgian ruler in history and an original architect of the Georgian Golden Age, he succeeded in driving the Seljuk Turks out of the country, winning the Battle of Didgori in 1121. His reforms of the army and administration enabled him to reunite the country and bring most of the lands of the Caucasus under Georgia's control. A friend of the Church and a notable promoter of Christian culture, ...
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Simon of Kéza
1250 - 1301 (51 years)
Simon of Kéza was the most famous Hungarian chronicler of the 13th century. He was a priest in the royal court of king Ladislaus IV of Hungary. In 1270–1271, bearing the title "master" , Simon was part of a diplomatic mission led by Sixtus of Esztergom. Andrew of Hungary was also a part of this mission. Sent by King Stephen V of Hungary to congratulate King Charles I of Sicily on the latter's return from the Eighth Crusade, the delegation travelled via Naples to Catona and Messina in December and January, then back with Charles to Rome in February.
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George Grote
1794 - 1871 (77 years)
George Grote was an English political radical and classical historian. He is now best known for his major work, the voluminous History of Greece. Early life George Grote was born at Clay Hill near Beckenham in Kent. His grandfather, Andreas, originally a Bremen merchant, was one of the founders of the banking-house of Grote, Prescott & Company in Threadneedle Street, London . His father, another George, married Selina, daughter of Henry Peckwell , minister of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon's chapel in Westminster, and his wife Bella Blosset , and had one daughter and ten sons, of whom George was the eldest.
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Wacław Sobieski
1872 - 1935 (63 years)
Wacław Sobieski was a Polish historian. Biography Sobieski was a professor at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, a member of the Polish Academy of Learning Among his pupils were Henryk Barycz, Władysław Czapliński, Oskar Halecki, Kazimierz Piwarski, Ludwik Kolankowski, Adam Lewak, Kazimierz Chodynicki, Stanisław Bodniak, Kazimierz Lepszy, Kazimierz Piwarski, Wacław Pociecha.
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Alexios I Komnenos
1048 - 1118 (70 years)
Alexios I Komnenos , Latinized Alexius I Comnenus, was Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118. Although he was not the first emperor of the Komnenian dynasty, it was during his reign that the Komnenos family came to full power and initiated a hereditary succession to the throne. Inheriting a collapsing empire and faced with constant warfare during his reign against both the Seljuq Turks in Asia Minor and the Normans in the western Balkans, Alexios was able to curb the Byzantine decline and begin the military, financial, and territorial recovery known as the Komnenian restoration. His appeals to W...
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Jørgen Moe
1813 - 1882 (69 years)
Jørgen Engebretsen Moe was a Norwegian folklorist, bishop, poet, and author. He is best known for the Norske Folkeeventyr, a collection of Norwegian folk tales which he edited in collaboration with Peter Christen Asbjørnsen. He also served as the Bishop of the Diocese of Kristianssand from 1874 until his death in 1882.
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Gino Luzzatto
1878 - 1964 (86 years)
Gino Luzzatto, born on January 9, 1878, in Padua and deceased on March 30, 1964, in Venice, was an Italian economic historian. He initially worked as a teacher in southern Italy before joining an economic institute in Trieste and later relocated to the University of Venice in 1922, where he eventually became a rector. Luzzatto became a member of the Socialist Party in 1906. However, with the rise of Mussolini's fascists, he faced challenges in publishing his work. He was imprisoned for several months in 1925, and despite his protests, he was compelled to retire in 1938 due to the establishment of Italian racial laws.
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Edward Gaylord Bourne
1860 - 1908 (48 years)
Edward Gaylord Bourne, Ph. D. was an American historian. He was born in Strykersville, New York, and educated at Yale graduating in 1883 with high honors. He taught at Adelbert College, Cleveland from 1888 to 1895 when he became a professor of history at Yale. Bourne is considered one of the founders of Latin American history as a field in the United States. The publication of his Spain in America , was "a major landmark in the development of the field," which "gave a lucid synthesis of the institutional life of Spanish America, ranging also through economic, social, and cultural developmen...
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John Holland Rose
1855 - 1942 (87 years)
John Holland Rose was an influential English historian who wrote famous biographies of William Pitt the Younger and of French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. He also wrote a history of Europe, entitled The Development of the European Nations among other historical works. He was Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at the University of Cambridge between 1919 and his retirement in 1934.
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William Forbes Skene
1809 - 1892 (83 years)
William Forbes Skene WS FRSE FSA DCL LLD , was a Scottish lawyer, historian and antiquary. He co-founded the Scottish legal firm Skene Edwards which was prominent throughout the 20th century but disappeared in 2008 when it merged with Morton Fraser.
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Lester B. Pearson
1897 - 1972 (75 years)
Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson was a Canadian politician, diplomat, statesman, and scholar who served as the 14th prime minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968. Born in Newtonbrook, Ontario , Pearson pursued a career in the Department of External Affairs. He served as Canadian ambassador to the United States from 1944 to 1946 and secretary of state for external affairs from 1948 to 1957 under Liberal Prime Ministers William Lyon Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent. He narrowly lost the bid to become secretary-general of the United Nations in 1953. However, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 fo...
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Pierre Batiffol
1861 - 1929 (68 years)
Pierre Batiffol – was a French Catholic priest and prominent theologian, specialising in Church history. He had also a particular interest in the history of dogma. Batiffol studied from 1878 at the priest seminary Saint-Sulpice in Paris, was ordained in 1884 and continued his studies at the Institut catholique in Paris and at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes. He was taught by church historian Louis Marie Olivier Duchesne.
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Ray Allen Billington
1903 - 1981 (78 years)
Ray Allen Billington was an American historian who researched the history of the American frontier and the American West, becoming one of the leading defenders of Frederick Jackson Turner's "Frontier Thesis" from the 1950s to the 1970s, expanding the field of the history of the American West. He was a co-founder of the Western History Association in 1961.
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Paul Kosok
1869 - 1959 (90 years)
Paul August Kosok , was an American professor of history and government, who is credited as the first serious researcher of the Nazca Lines in Peru. His work on the lines started in 1939, when he was doing field study related to the irrigation systems of ancient cultures. By the 1950s, he had completed extensive mapping of more than 300 ancient canals in Peru, in collaboration with archeologist Richard P. Schaedel. Kosok demonstrated the culture's sophisticated management of water to support their settlements.
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R. B. McCallum
1898 - 1973 (75 years)
Ronald Buchanan McCallum was a British historian. He was a fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, where he taught modern history and politics and was a member of J. R. R. Tolkien's Inklings. McCallum helped popularize the term psephology .
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T. S. R. Boase
1898 - 1974 (76 years)
Thomas Sherrer Ross Boase was a British art historian, university teacher, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. Early life and education Thomas Boase was born in Dundee, Scotland, to Charles Millet Boase , operator of a bleaching mill at Claverhouse, outside Dundee, of which the Boase family were part-owners, and his wife Anne. Boase was educated at a day preparatory school and then at Rugby School in England .
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W. A. B. Coolidge
1850 - 1926 (76 years)
William Augustus Brevoort Coolidge was an American historian, theologian and mountaineer. Life Coolidge was born in New York City as the son of Frederic William Skinner Coolidge, a Boston merchant, and Elisabeth Neville Brevoort, sister of James Carson Brevoort and Meta Brevoort. He studied history and law at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, at Elizabeth College, Guernsey, and at Exeter College, Oxford. In 1875, he became a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. From 1880 to 1881 he was professor of British history at Saint David's College in Lampeter and in 1883 he became a priest o...
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Johannes Haller
1865 - 1947 (82 years)
Johannes Haller was a Baltic German medievalist and teacher at the universities of Tübingen, Marburg and Giessen. Haller was born in Käina and studied history in Tartu and at the Frederick William University in Berlin. He was expert in the field of the history of Christianity. He died in Tübingen.
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Karl Wilhelm Nitzsch
1818 - 1880 (62 years)
Karl Wilhelm Nitzsch was a German historian known for his studies of ancient Rome and medieval Germany. He was the son of classical philologist Gregor Wilhelm Nitzsch . In 1842 he received his doctorate from the University of Kiel with a dissertation involving the Greek historian Polybius. Following graduation, he took an extended study trip to Italy . In 1848 he became an associate professor at Kiel, where in 1858 he was named a full professor of history. Later, he was a professor of history at the Universities of Königsberg and Berlin .
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James II of Aragon
1267 - 1327 (60 years)
James II , called the Just, was the King of Aragon and Valencia and Count of Barcelona from 1291 to 1327. He was also the King of Sicily from 1285 to 1295 and the King of Majorca from 1291 to 1298. From 1297 he was nominally the King of Sardinia and Corsica, but he only acquired the island of Sardinia by conquest in 1324. His full title for the last three decades of his reign was "James, by the grace of God, king of Aragon, Valencia, Sardinia and Corsica, and count of Barcelona" .
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Alfonso II of Aragon
1157 - 1196 (39 years)
Alfonso II , called the Chaste or the Troubadour, was the King of Aragon and, as Alfons I, the Count of Barcelona from 1164 until his death. The eldest son of Count Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona and Queen Petronilla of Aragon, he was the first King of Aragon who was also Count of Barcelona. He was also Count of Provence, which he conquered from Douce II, from 1166 until 1173, when he ceded it to his brother, Ramon Berenguer III. His reign has been characterised by nationalistic and nostalgic Catalan historians as l'engrandiment occitànic or "the Pyrenean unity": a great scheme to unite vario...
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Ernst Dümmler
1830 - 1902 (72 years)
Ernst Ludwig Dümmler was a German historian. Biography Ernst Ludwig was born in Berlin, the son of , a Berlin bookseller. He studied law, classical philology and history, among other things, at Bonn under Johann Wilhelm Löbell, and in Berlin, where his influences were Leopold von Ranke and Wilhelm Wattenbach. His doctorate dissertation, De Arnulfo Francorum rege , was a notable essay among historians.
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Moltke Moe
1859 - 1913 (54 years)
Moltke Moe was a Norwegian folklorist. Biography Ingebret Moltke Moe was born in Krødsherad, Buskerud County, Norway. He was the son of Church of Norway Bishop Jørgen Moe. After school graduation in 1876 he began to study theology, but eventually he was attracted more by folklore and religious history. From the time he was 18 years old, he collected folklore, particularly in Telemark.
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François Louis Ganshof
1895 - 1980 (85 years)
François Louis Ganshof was a Belgian medievalist. After studies at the Athénée Royal, he attended the University of Ghent, where he came under the influence of Henri Pirenne. After studies with Ferdinand Lot, he practiced law for a period, before returning to the University of Ghent. Here he succeeded Pirenne in 1930 as professor of medieval history, after Pirenne left the university as a result of the enforcement of Dutch as language of instruction. He remained there until his retirement in 1961.
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Jean Maitron
1910 - 1987 (77 years)
Jean Maitron was a French historian specialist of the labour movement. A pioneer of such historical studies in France, he introduced it to University and gave it its archives base, by creating in 1949 the Centre d'histoire du syndicalisme in the Sorbonne, which received important archives from activists such as Paul Delesalle, Émile Armand, Pierre Monatte, and others. He was the Center's secretary until 1969.
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Bertrand Gille
1920 - 1980 (60 years)
Bertrand Gille was a French archivist and historian of technology. Although best known for his work on technology, Gille also wrote on diverse subjects including the history of French banking and Russian economics. After teaching at the university of Clermont-Ferrand, he became a director of studies at the École pratique des hautes études, as well as giving a course on the history of technology at the University of Paris I: Panthéon-Sorbonne.
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Yu Pingbo
1900 - 1990 (90 years)
Yu Pingbo , original name Yu Mingheng and courtesy name Pingbo , was a Chinese essayist, poet, historian, redologist, and literary critic. Early life Yu Pingbo's ancestry can be traced to Deqing, Zhejiang. His pet name as a child was Sengbao . He was a descendant of Yu Yue, a renowned scholar during the late Qing period, and Yu Pingbo was trained in the Chinese classics from an early age. In 1915, he qualified by examination for a preparatory course at Peking University, where he became one of Hu Shih's most prominent students. In 1917, he married Xu Baoxun , a gifted female scholar from Hangzhou, and then commenced composing melodies for Kunqu operas.
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Luke Wadding
1588 - 1657 (69 years)
Luke Wadding, O.F.M. , was an Irish Franciscan friar and historian. Life Early life Wadding was born on 16 October 1588 in Waterford to Walter Wadding of Waterford, a wealthy merchant, and his wife, Anastasia Lombard . Educated at the school of Mrs. Jane Barden in Waterford and of Peter White in Kilkenny, in 1604 he went to study in Lisbon and at the University of Coimbra.
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Michał Sczaniecki
1910 - 1977 (67 years)
Michał Sczaniecki was a Polish historian of state and law, especially of Poland and France; professor of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań from 1951 to 1965, and director of the Western Institute in Poznań from 1961 to 1964, later professor at Warsaw University.
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Josef Keil
1878 - 1963 (85 years)
Josef Keil was an Austrian historian, epigrapher and an archaeologist. Keil was born on 13 October 1878 in Reichenberg, northern Bohemia . He studied classical literature, epigraphy and archaeology at the University of Vienna, and received his doctorate there. He began his career in 1904 as a scientific secretary at the Austrian archaeological institute in Smyrna . He excavated archaeological sites in Asia Minor, particularly in Lydia. He led the excavations in Ephesus. He was a professor of ancient history at the University of Greifswald from 1927 to 1936, and at the University of Vienna from 1936 to 1951.
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Steven Gunn
1900 - Present (125 years)
Steven J. Gunn is an English historian and fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford. He teaches and researches the history of late medieval and early modern Britain and Europe, and is the author of a number of academic texts.
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Gregorio Mayans
1699 - 1781 (82 years)
Gregorio Mayans y Siscar was a Spanish historian, linguist and writer of the Enlightenment in Spain. Early life Gregorio Mayans was born on 9 May 1699 in Oliva, Valencia, Spain. His father, Pasqual Maians, fought on the Austrian side in the War of the Spanish Succession and accompanied archduke Charles VI to Barcelona in 1706; this resulted in the later marginalization of Gregorio Mayans, who lived in Spain when it was dominated by the House of Bourbon. Until 1713, when he returned to Oliva, Mayans studied with the Jesuits of Cordelles, but his grandfather, a mayor named Juan Siscar, encouraged him in the study of law.
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Manfred Kridl
1882 - 1957 (75 years)
Manfred Kridl was a Polish historian of literature. From 1932 Kridl taught at Wilno's Stefan Batory University, where he was an opponent of anti-semitic ghetto-bench policy. In 1940, during World War II, Kridl managed to escape from occupied Poland and settled in the United States. There he taught at Smith College, then at Columbia University.
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Friedrich Karl Hermann Kruse
1790 - 1866 (76 years)
Friedrich Karl Hermann Kruse was a German historian born in Oldenburg. In 1813 he obtained his doctorate from the University of Leipzig. Beginning in 1816 he taught classes at Maria Magdalena Gymnasium in Breslau, and in 1821 was appointed professor of ancient and medieval history and geography at the University of Halle. From 1828 to 1853 he was a professor at the University of Dorpat.
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Xiao Yishan
1902 - 1978 (76 years)
Xiao Yishan was a modern Chinese historian. Biography Xiao Yishan entered Peking University in 1921, learned from the prominent scholar Liang Qichao. He later taught history of Qing Dynasty at Tsinghua University, Henan University, Northeastern University and Northwest University. In winter 1948, Xiao moved to Taiwan. General History of the Qing Dynasty is his masterpiece, in that book he promoted a historical view of nationalism.
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Donald Alexander Mackenzie
1873 - 1936 (63 years)
Donald Alexander Mackenzie was a Scottish journalist and folklorist and a prolific writer on religion, mythology and anthropology in the early 20th century. Life and career Mackenzie was born in Cromarty, son of A.H. Mackenzie and Isobel Mackay. He became a journalist in Glasgow and in 1903 moved to Dingwall as owner and editor of The North Star. His next move, in 1910, was to the People's Journal in Dundee. From 1916 he represented the Glasgow paper, The Bulletin, in Edinburgh. As well as writing books, articles and poems, he often gave lectures, and also broadcast talks on Celtic mythology. He was the friend of many specialist authorities in his areas of interest.
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Shōei Mishina
1902 - 1971 (69 years)
was a Japanese historian and mythologist specializing in the history of Korea and Japan. In 1928 Mishina graduated from the Faculty of History of Literature at Kyoto University. Before World War II he was a professor at Kyoto University and the Imperial Japanese Navy. In 1945 he retired as a professor from the Imperial Navy and began teaching at Ōtani University, where he was appointed professor in 1946. Later he was a professor at Dōshisha University between 1955 and 1960, and after that, he was director of the Osaka City Museum and professor at Bukkyo University.
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Gottlieb Jakob Planck
1751 - 1833 (82 years)
Gottlieb Jakob Planck was a German theologian and church historian. He was the great-grandfather of physicist Max Planck. Biography Planck was born at Nürtingen in Württemberg, where his father was a notary. Educated for the Protestant ministry at Blaubeuren, Bebenhausen and Tübingen, he became a lecturer at Tübingen in 1774, a preacher at Stuttgart in 1780, and a professor of church history at the University of Göttingen in 1784.
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Otto Cuntz
1865 - 1932 (67 years)
Otto Cuntz was a German-Austrian classical historian, who specialized in ancient geography and topography. He studied at the universities of Zurich, Strasbourg and Bonn, where his instructors were Heinrich Nissen, Franz Bücheler and Hermann Usener. After graduation in 1888, he continued his education in Berlin as a student of Otto Hirschfeld and Reinhard Kekulé von Stradonitz. In 1892 he took an extended study trip to Italy, Greece, Spain and France, then in 1894 obtained his habilitation at the University of Strasbourg. In 1898 he became an associate professor, and six years later was appointed a full professor of Roman history at the University of Graz.
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Harold Henry Fisher
1890 - 1975 (85 years)
Harold Henry Fisher was a US historian specializing in Russian history. Fisher was born in Morristown, Vermont; he received an AB from the University of Vermont in 1911. He served as a field artillery captain during World War I, and was appointed chief of the Historical Department of American Relief Administration during the post-war famine in Eastern Europe and Russia. His collection of Tsarist and Bolshevik documents subsequently became a permanent part of the Hoover Institution's holdings.
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Nils Ahnlund
1889 - 1957 (68 years)
Nils Ahnlund was a Swedish historian. He was professor of history at the then-Stockholm University College 1928–1955, and became a member of the Swedish Academy in 1941. He was the father of physician Hans Olof Ahnlund, literary scientist Knut Ahnlund and the grandfather of journalist and writer Nathan Shachar.
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Narmer
3200 BC - 3125 BC (75 years)
Narmer was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period. He was the successor to the Protodynastic king Ka. Many scholars consider him the unifier of Egypt and founder of the First Dynasty, and in turn the first king of a unified Egypt. He also had a prominently noticeable presence in Canaan, compared to his predecessors and successors. A majority of Egyptologists believe that Narmer was the same person as Menes. Neithhotep is thought to be his queen consort or his daughter.
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Johann Georg Meusel
1743 - 1820 (77 years)
Johann Georg Meusel was a German bibliographer, lexicographer and historian. Meusel was born in Eyrichshof. From 1764 he studied history and philology at the University of Göttingen, where his instructors included Christian Gottlob Heyne, Johann Christoph Gatterer, Gottfried Achenwall, Georg Christoph Hamberger and Christian Adolph Klotz, the latter of which he followed to the University of Halle in 1766. In 1768 he was appointed professor of history at the University of Erfurt, where his colleagues included Karl Friedrich Bahrdt and Christoph Martin Wieland. From 1779 up to the time of his d...
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Hiram Bingham III
1875 - 1956 (81 years)
Hiram Bingham III was an American academic, explorer and politician. In 1911 he publicized the existence of the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, rediscovered with the guidance of local indigenous farmers. Later, Bingham served as the 69th Governor of Connecticut for a single day in 1925—the shortest term in history. He had been elected in 1924 as governor, but was also elected to the Senate and chose that position. He served as a member of the United States Senate until 1933.
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Gruffydd ap Llywelyn
1000 - 1063 (63 years)
Gruffydd ap Llywelyn was King of Gwynedd and Powys from 1039 and, after asserting his control over the entire country, claimed the title King of Wales from 1055 until his death in 1063. He was the son of Llywelyn ap Seisyll king of Gwynedd and Angharad daughter of Maredudd ab Owain, king of Deheubarth, and the great-great-grandson of Hywel Dda. Gruffydd was the first and only Welsh king to unite all of Wales albeit for a brief period. After his death, Wales was again divided into separate kingdoms.
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