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 History,
#7601
Otto Sutermeister
1832 - 1901 (69 years)
Friedrich Gottlieb Otto Sutermeister was a Swiss folklorist and professor at the University of Berne who collected and revised numerous folk taless, legends, fables, and proverbs. Strongly influenced by the Brothers Grimm, Sutermeister emphasized the didactic aspect of Swiss folklore and rewrote many of the tales to suit young readers. He also was editor of the works of Jeremias Gotthelf and of the "Swiss Idioticon".
Go to Profile#7602
Ding Dyason
1919 - 1989 (70 years)
Diana Joan "Ding" Dyason was a highly respected Australian lecturer and historian of medicine with major teaching and life-long research interests in public health and germ theory. She is most notable in the significant impact she had in her scholarly discipline. As a woman who firstly worked in the traditional roles of research assistant and demonstrator in the non-traditional discipline of science, Dyason progressed to become a leader at a major Australian university, overcoming barriers of gender and culture at a national and international level, receiving awards and honors in the process....
Go to Profile#7603
Johann Wilhelm Ridler
1772 - 1834 (62 years)
Johann Wilhelm Ridler was an author, historian and university professor. For the final twenty years of his life he was head librarian at the Vienna University Library. Biography Johann Wilhelm Ridler was born at Leitmeritz 1945
Go to Profile#7604
Édouard Ardaillon
1867 - 1926 (59 years)
Édouard Muller Ardaillon was a French historian, archaeologist and geographer. Career After graduating from the Boys' Catholic College of Sainte-Marie in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, he undertook a Bachelor of Arts. He was a scholar of the lycée Louis-le-Grand from 1884 to 1887. In 1887, he enrolled in the École Normale Supérieure where he achieved the Agrégation in 1890; he then joined the École française d'Athènes .
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Robert Johnson
1583 - 1633 (50 years)
Robert Johnson was an English composer and lutenist of the late Tudor and early Jacobean eras. He is sometimes called "Robert Johnson II" to distinguish him from an earlier Scottish composer. Johnson worked with William Shakespeare providing music for some of his later plays.
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Theodor Schott
1835 - 1899 (64 years)
Theodor Schott was a German Protestant theologian, historian and librarian, known for his studies involving the history of French Protestantism. From 1853 he studied theology and philosophy at Tübinger Stift in Tübingen, and after finishing his studies, spent two years as a curate at parishes in Württemberg. From 1859 he taught classes at Hofwyl near Bern, and later on, worked as a religious instructor at the gymnasium in Stuttgart. In 1867 he became a pastor of a parish in Berg, a suburb of Stuttgart. From 1873 up until his death, he served as a librarian at the royal public library in Stutt...
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Johannes Nauclerus
1425 - 1510 (85 years)
Johannes Nauclerus was a 16th-century Swabian historian and humanist. He was born Johann Vergenhans to a noble man of the same name. As was the fashion of the time, the family's name had been Latinized, with nauclerus, meaning "skipper," being a close translation of Vergenhans, meaning "ferryman." The family's coat of arms depicted a man on a sailing ship.
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William Roy Smith
1876 - 1938 (62 years)
William Roy Smith was an American academic historian. Career Smith studied first at the University of Texas , and went on to complete a Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1902, as a student of William Archibald Dunning. He joined the faculty at Bryn Mawr College in 1902, and became professor of history in 1914. He married Marion Parris on 11 June 1912 in Manhattan, New York. He died in Bryn Mawr Hospital in February 1938.
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Griffith Hartwell Jones
1859 - 1944 (85 years)
Rev. Griffith Hartwell Jones was a Welsh academic and Anglican clergyman. He was born in Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, Denbighshire. He was educated at Jesus College, Oxford, where he was a scholar, and became professor of Latin at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Cardiff, lecturing on historical and philological topics and writing extensively. He was also chairman of the National Eisteddfod Association, chairman of the council of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion and a member of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. He died in hospit...
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Charles-François-Maximilien Marie
1819 - 1891 (72 years)
Charles-François-Maximilien Marie was a French mathematician, historian of mathematics. He was the author of History of the Mathematics and Theory of the variable imaginary functions , relating to the imaginary unit.
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John Russell
Sir John Russell of Kingston Russell in Dorset, England, was a household knight of King John , and of the young King Henry III , to whom he also acted as steward. He served in this capacity as custodian of the royal castles of Corfe and Sherborne in Dorset and of the castles of Peveril and Bolsover in Derbyshire. He served as Sheriff of Somerset in 1223-1224. He was granted the royal manor of Kingston Russell in Dorset under a feudal land tenure of grand serjeanty. Between 1212 and about 1215 he acquired a moiety of the feudal barony of Newmarch, the caput of which was at North Cadbury, So...
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Peter Bogaevsky
1866 - 1929 (63 years)
Peter Mikhailovich Bogaevsky See also List of Russian legal historiansScholars in Russian law
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Emily Coddington Williams
1873 - 1952 (79 years)
Emily Coddington Williams was an American historian of mathematics, translator, novelist, playwright, and biographer. Early life and education Coddington was born on October 21, 1873, in New York City; her parents were of well-off colonial stock. Her father, a lawyer, died in 1876, and she came to live in Midtown Manhattan with her mother and grandmother. She passed the entrance examination for Harvard University in 1891, allowing her to study at the Harvard Annex, a precursor to Radcliffe College. Instead, she went to the University of London from 1894 to 1896, and earned a bachelor's degree there.
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Wayne Andrews
1913 - 1987 (74 years)
Wayne Andrews was an American historian and architectural photographer. He was the author of numerous books, including Battle for Chicago, and Siegfried`s Curse: The German Journey from Nietzsche to Hesse.
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James McKinnon
1900 - 1945 (45 years)
James McKinnon FRSE was a writer on history and church history. He was Professor of Church History at the University of Edinburgh from 1908 to 1930. Life He was born on 15 July 1860 on the Ardmiddle estate near Turriff in northern Aberdeenshire, the son of Barbara Hay Black and her husband Alexander MacKinnon, the land steward of the estate.
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Patrick Power
1862 - 1951 (89 years)
Canon Patrick Power , was a noted historian of the Catholic Church in Ireland. He was born on 8 March 1862, in Callaghane, Co. Waterford and educated at the Catholic University School and St. John's College, Waterford.
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John Cook
1608 - 1660 (52 years)
John Cook or Cooke was the first Solicitor General of the English Commonwealth and led the prosecution of Charles I. Following The Restoration, Cook was convicted of regicide and hanged, drawn and quartered on 16 October 1660. He is considered an international legal icon and progenitor of international criminal law for being the first lawyer to prosecute a head of state for crimes against his people.
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Juliusz Kleiner
1886 - 1957 (71 years)
Juliusz Kleiner was a Polish historian and literary theorist. Education and early life Kleiner graduated from high school in Lwów and then studied Polish and German literature as well as philosophy at the University of Lwów. In 1908, Kleiner was awarded a doctorate in philosophy. In 1910 and 1911 he studied abroad in Germany and France.
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Daniël Heinsius
1580 - 1655 (75 years)
Daniel Heinsius was one of the most famous scholars of the Dutch Renaissance. His youth and student years Heinsius was born in Ghent. The troubles of the Spanish war drove his parents to settle first at Veere in Zeeland, then to England, next at Rijwijk and lastly at Vlissingen. In 1596, being already remarkable for his attainments, he was sent to the University of Franeker to study law under Henricus Schotanus. In 1598, he settled at Leiden for the nearly sixty remaining years of his life. There he studied under Joseph Scaliger, and there he met Marnix de St Aldegonde, Janus Dousa, Paulus ...
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Lucio Marineo Siculo
1444 - 1533 (89 years)
Lucio Marineo Siculo was a Sicilian humanist, historian and poet, known as a prominent figure of the Spanish Renaissance. He first taught Greek and Latin literature in Palermo. He moved to Spain and taught for twelve years at the University of Salamanca. His teaching and books influenced the development of the Spanish Renaissance, and his disciples included Alfono de Segura. King Ferdinand brought him to the royal court to serve as chaplain and chronicler. He was also charged with the education of the children of the nobility.
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Petro Yefymenko
1835 - 1908 (73 years)
Petro Yefymenko , was a Ukrainian ethnographer and historian, statistician by profession. Life and work Petro Yefymenko studied at Kharkiv University until his expulsion and Moscow University . As a student, he belonged to secret student societies, including Kharkiv-Kyiv Secret Society .
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Andrija Balović
1721 - 1784 (63 years)
Andrija Balović was a Roman Catholic priest, historian, writer, translator and theologian, native of Montenegro. Biography Born in Perast to a well-known patrician household Balovići, a family with six children. Andrija was the son of Marko Balović, and brother of Josip Balović, also the nephew of Julije Balović.
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Floris Van der Haer
1547 - 1634 (87 years)
Floris Van der Haer, also known as Florentius Haracus, was a clergyman from the Habsburg Netherlands and an author of historical works. He was born in Leuven in 1547 to a family from Utrecht. As a clergyman he was attached first to St. Gertrude's Abbey, Leuven, and later to a canonry in Lille, where he died on 6 February 1634.
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Gottfried Gabriel Bredow
1773 - 1814 (41 years)
Gottfried Gabriel Bredow was a German historian. He was born at Berlin, and became successively professor at the universities of Helmstedt , Frankfurt an der Oder and Breslau. He died at Breslau. Bredow's principal works are Handbuch der alten Geschichte, Geographie und Chronologie ; Chronik des 17. Jahrhunderts ; Entwurf der Weltkunde der Alten ; Weltgeschichte in Tabellen .
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Sutemi Horiguchi
1895 - 1984 (89 years)
was an architect and a historian of Japanese architecture, and an expert of sukiya-zukuri architecture. In addition to designing modern buildings, he designed buildings in sukiya-zukuri, and buildings that fused both modern architectural and traditional Japanese architectural motifs.
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Johann Heinrich Acker
1647 - 1719 (72 years)
Johann Heinrich Acker was a German writer. He sometimes wrote under the name of Melissander. He was taught in his native city of Naumburg and at the regional school of Pforta . Beginning in 1669, he studied in Jena where he became magister and adjunct of the philosophical faculty. In 1673 he became adjunct and pastor in near Gotha, and in 1689 he became superintendent and court chaplain in Blankenhain. He resigned in 1717 due to an illness and moved to Gotha, where he died in 1719.
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Paul ver Eecke
1867 - 1959 (92 years)
Paul-Louis ver Eecke was a Belgian mining engineer and historian of Greek mathematics. He produced influential French translations of the mathematical works of ancient Greece, including those of Archimedes, Pappus, and Theodosius.
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Edward I. Devitt
1840 - 1920 (80 years)
Edward Ignatius Devitt was a Canadian American priest, Jesuit, and historian of the American Catholic Church. Born in Saint John, New Brunswick, he moved with his family to Boston, Massachusetts, at a young age. He studied in public schools in the city before enrolling at the College of the Holy Cross. Devitt spent two years there, and then entered the Society of Jesus in 1859. He studied at the novitiate in Frederick, Maryland, and at the newly opened Woodstock College. He briefly taught at the Washington Seminary during his studies, and after graduating, was a professor for the next thirty...
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Walter Johnson
1915 - 1985 (70 years)
Walter Johnson was a noted historian of the United States and a political scientist, who believed that given political developments in post-Second World War America, there should be no strict separation between academics and politics. He was a political progressive who believed his generation had a special responsibility to democracy.
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Mihailo Dinić
1899 - 1970 (71 years)
Mihailo Dinić was a Serbian historian and member of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts. He was among the key figures of the Serbian historiography of the 20th century. He was among many notable scholars in Serbia who bequeathed their personal libraries to the National Library of Serbia.
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John Agar-Hamilton
1895 - 1984 (89 years)
John August Ion Agar-Hamilton was a South African historian and Anglican priest. He was born in Cairo to Scottish parents who migrated to Transvaal Colony in 1906. He studied at Pretoria Boys High School and Transvaal University College, whence he obtained a BA in 1914. He may also have studied at the University of the Cape of Good Hope and Keble College, Oxford.
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Friedrich Dieterici
1821 - 1903 (82 years)
Friedrich Heinrich Dieterici was a German orientalist and historian. Biography He studied at the universities of Halle and Berlin, traveled extensively in the East, and in 1850 was appointed associate professor of Arabic literature at the University of Berlin.
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Francis W. Kirkham
1877 - 1972 (95 years)
Francis Washington Kirkham was a prominent educator and the author of New Witness For Christ in America: Evidence of Divine Power in the "Coming Forth" of the Book of Mormon, one of the earliest book-length defenses of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.
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Walter Blair
1900 - 1992 (92 years)
Walter Blair was a professor in the University of Chicago English department who was known for his study of American folklore, humor and tall tales. Born in Spokane, Washington, he graduated from Yale University undergrad in 1923 and got his Ph.D. in English from U of C in 1931. He taught at Chicago from 1929 to 1968, and served as the chairman of his department for nine of those years .
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Dominik Szulc
1797 - 1860 (63 years)
Dominik Szulc was a Polish philosopher, historian, and a significant precursor to Polish positivism. In 1814 he began studies at the University of Vilnius. In 1818 became a teacher of Polish language in high school in Vilnius, and from 1823 a teacher of eloquence and logic in the gymnasium of Bialystok . From 1835 he taught at the gymnasium of Lublin, since 1840 in schools in Warsaw. In 1853 he retired. A member of the Kraków Scientific Society correspondence, and the Russian Geographical Society. In his works he defended the thesis of the Polish character of Copernicus. He believed that the ...
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Harold Whetstone Johnston
1859 - 1912 (53 years)
Harold Whetstone Johnston was a classical historian and Professor of Latin at Indiana University, best known for writing The Private Life of the Romans. Personal life Johnston was the son of DeWitt Clinton Johnston and Margretta Hay . In 1882, he married Eugenia Hinrichsen.
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Martin Crusius
1526 - 1607 (81 years)
Martin Kraus , commonly Latinized as Crusius, was a German classicist and historian, and long-time professor at the University of Tübingen. He was a follower of Philip Melanchthon and wrote an epitome of Melanchthon's Elementorum rhetorices libro duo. Kraus also wrote a commentary on the Iliad.
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Natalya Osadcha-Yanata
1891 - 1982 (91 years)
Natalya Tikhonovna Osadcha-Yanata was a Ukrainian botanist and folklorist noted for studying the medicinal plants of Ukraine and publishing some of her works in English. She was married to Ukrainian botanist Alexander Yanata.
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Charles Kittredge True
1809 - 1878 (69 years)
Charles Kittredge True was a United States Methodist Episcopal clergyman, educator, and author. Biography He was born in Portland, Maine. He graduated at Harvard in 1832, and was subsequently pastor of several Methodist churches. He entered the New England Conference, 1833; was agent of the New England Education Society, 1834; principal of Amenia Seminary, 1835; entered the New York Conference, 1836; was transferred to the New England Conference, 1838. In 1849 he received the degree of D.D. from Harvard. He served as professor of intellectual and moral science in Wesleyan University , and financial agent of Wesleyan .
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Matthäus Dresser
1536 - 1607 (71 years)
Matthäus Dresser, was a Lutheran German humanist, pedagogue, philosopher, and historian. Education and career Dresser attended school in Erfurt and Eisleben, and later studied at the University or Erfurt, where he attended lectures by Martin Seidemann. In Erfurt, records of Dresser go back to 1559, where he earned a Masters of Philosophy. In 1560, he learned Biblical Hebrew during his university studies. When the began construction in 1561, Dresser participated in the founding of the University, where he became a professor of Greek Literature. Dressner aspired to attend the University of Wi...
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Hans von Zwiedineck-Südenhorst
1845 - 1906 (61 years)
Hans von Zwiedineck-Südenhorst was a German historian. He was born in Frankfurt am Main and studied at the University of Graz, where he became a professor in 1885. He died in Graz. Südenhorst's principal writings are:Dorfleben im 18. Jahrhundert [Village Life in the eighteenth century] ;Hans Ulrich, Fürst van Eggenberg [Hans Ulrich, Prince of Eggenberg];Die Politik der Republic Venedig während des dreissigjährigen Krieges [The policy of the Venetian Republic during the Thirty Years' War];Venedig als Weltmacht und Weltstadt ;Kriegsbilder aus der Zeit der Landsknechte ;Die öffentliche Meinung in Deutschland im Zeitalter Ludwigs XIV.
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Andrew Forest Muir
1916 - 1969 (53 years)
Andrew Forest Muir was an American historian and university professor. Early life Andrew Forest Muir was born on January 8, 1916, in Houston to J.B. and Annie Jane Muir. He grew up in Houston and attended public schools. He enrolled at the Rice University and earned a baccalaureate degree in 1838.
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Ulrich Hugwald
1496 - 1571 (75 years)
Ulrich Hugwald was a Swiss humanist scholar and Reformer. Born in Wilen near Bischofszell, county of Thurgau, he was enrolled in the theological faculty in Basel University from 1519. He published critical pamphlets with Basel printer Adam Petri from 1520. He was in correspondence with a number of reformers, such as Vadianus, Michael Stifel, Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples and Guillaume Farel. He also opened a private school of rhetorics in Basel. In 1524, he debated with Oecolampadius and Thomas Müntzer on the topic of believer's baptism. He joined the Basel Anabaptists in 1525, and was consequently imprisoned.
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Erasmus Oswald Schreckenfuchs
1511 - 1579 (68 years)
Erasmus Oswald Schreckenfuchs was an Austrian humanist, astronomer and Hebraist. Life He was born in Merckenstein, near Bad Vöslau in Lower Austria, and studied in Vienna, Ingolstadt and Tübingen. He became a student and friend of Sebastian Münster. Together they translated the Form of the Earth of Abraham bar Hiyya, with work of Elijah ben Abraham Mizrahi.
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Hristo Gandev
1907 - 1987 (80 years)
Hristo Gandev was a Bulgarian professor and historian.
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Ignacio de Arbieto
1585 - 1670 (85 years)
Ignacio de Arbieto was a Jesuit philosopher and historian of Peru. Biography Arbieto was born in Madrid. He joined the Jesuit Order in 1603 and was ordained as a priest in Lima, Peru, in 1612. He was appointed chair of philosophy in Quito, Ecuador, then he went to Arequipa and finally back to Lima.
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Oscar Osburn Winther
1903 - 1970 (67 years)
Oscar Osburn Winther was a history professor, specializing in the history of the western United States. He was the president of the Western History Association from 1963 to 1964 and the president of the Oral History Association from 1969 to 1970.
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Johann Georg Neumann
1661 - 1709 (48 years)
Johann Georg Neumann was a German Lutheran theologian and church historian. Born in Mörz and educated in Zittau, Neuman enrolled in Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg in 15 May 1680, receiving the rank of magister in less than a year, on 25 April 1681 and he became a member of the philosophical faculty in 1684, and full professor for poetics in 1690. Neumann then decided to study theology and began to hold sermons. He received his doctorate in theology in 1692 and became ordinary professor of theology in Wittenberg. Neumann was a pronounced opponent of Pietism and outspoken critic...
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Reidar Omang
1897 - 1964 (67 years)
Reidar Omang was a Norwegian historian, librarian and archivist. Reidar Omang was born in Kristiania , Norway. His father, Simen Oscar Fredrik Omang , was a noted botanist. Omang took matriculation from the Skien public school in 1916. He took his Cand.mag. degree at the University of Oslo in 1924 and Cand. philol. in 1930.
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Anders Leonard Bygdén
1844 - 1929 (85 years)
Anders Leonard Bygdén was a Swedish historian and author. He founded the in 1880. Biography He was born on 3 March 1844 in Spånga, Sweden to Olof Bygdén. Bygdén enrolled at Uppsala University in 1863 and graduated with a B.A. in 1870 and Ph.D. in 1872. The university then hired him as an associate professor of philosophy. He founded the with Henrik Schück in 1880. He was made a member of the in 1890 and the in 1899. He published from 1923 to 1928. He died on 22 November 1929 in Uppsala, Sweden.
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