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).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in History,
#7951
Karl Johannes Neumann
1857 - 1917 (60 years)
Karl Johannes Neumann was a German classical historian. He studied classical philology, ancient history and church history at the University of Leipzig, later continuing his education at the University of Tübingen. In 1880 he received his doctorate at Leipzig with a dissertation on the anti-Christianity writings of Emperor Julian . Following graduation, he worked as an assistant in the university library at Halle. In 1880 he became an associate professor at the University of Strasbourg, where he gained a full professorship in 1890. In 1909/10 he served as university rector.
Go to Profile#7952
Abu Mohammed Habibullah
1911 - 1984 (73 years)
Abu Mohammed Habibullah, also known as ABM Habibullah, was a Bangladeshi historian and writer. Early life Habibullah was born on 1911 in Burdwan District, West Bengal, British India. He graduated from Hughli Madrasa in 1926 and Islamic Intermediate College, Dhaka in 1928. He graduated with a B.A. in history from Hooghly Mohsin College in 1931 and a M.A. in history from the University of Calcutta in 1933. He earned his PhD from the School of Oriental Studies of the University of London. He also received a diploma in library science.
Go to Profile#7953
Mikhaïl Suzumov
1893 - 1982 (89 years)
Mikhaïl Suzumov was a Soviet Russian historian, Doctor of Sciences in Historical Sciences . He was a professor at the Ural State University. His father was a veterinarian by profession. In 1911 he became a student at University of Tartu, where he studied under prof. Alexander Vasiliev, and in 1916, he graduated. He is a Byzantine scholar. From 1918 he served in the Red Army in the 27th Rifle Division. From 1920 he lived in the city of Zlatoust. In 1938 he worked for Ural State Pedagogical University and in 1943, Suzumov defended his Candidate's Dissertation. His opponent was A. I. Neusykhin. In 1954, he defended his doctoral dissertation.
Go to Profile#7954
Traian Herseni
1907 - 1980 (73 years)
Traian Herseni was a Romanian social scientist, journalist, and political figure. First noted as a favorite disciple of Dimitrie Gusti, he helped establish the Romanian school of rural sociology in the 1920s and early '30s, and took part in interdisciplinary study groups and field trips. A prolific essayist and researcher, he studied isolated human groups across the country, trying to define relations between sociology, ethnography, and cultural anthropology, with an underlying interest in sociological epistemology. He was particularly interested in the peasant cultures and pastoral society of the Făgăraș Mountains.
Go to Profile#7955
Ian Turner
1922 - 1978 (56 years)
Ian Alexander Hamilton Turner was an Australian political activist, serving important roles in both the Communist Party of Australia and Australian Labour Party. As a leading historian, he wrote the book Industrial Labour and Politics, which examined the Australian labour politics.
Go to Profile#7956
Daniel Rapant
1897 - 1988 (91 years)
Daniel Rapant was a Slovak historian, archivist and university teacher. Life He graduated in Skalica in 1917 then he had studied history and Slavic studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague . At the same time he had studied also at the State Archivist School in Prague . After completing his studies in Czechoslovakia, he studied at Paris-Sorbonne University. In 1924 he became the main county archivist in Bratislava.
Go to Profile#7957
Friedrich Philippi
1853 - 1930 (77 years)
Gustav Friedrich Dettmar Philippi was a German archivist and historian. He studied philology at the University of Bonn, receiving his doctorate in 1876 with a dissertation on the Tabula Peutingeriana. Following graduation, he worked as an archivist at the state archives in Münster. In 1888, he was appointed head of the state archives in Osnabrück and, in 1897, returned to Münster as director of the archives.
Go to Profile#7958
Edward Nares
1762 - 1841 (79 years)
Edward Nares was an English historian and theologian, and general writer. Life He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He was Fellow of Merton College, Oxford and in 1813, he became Regius Professor of Modern History. He was curate of St Peter-in-the-East, Oxford, and then rector of Biddenden from 1798, of New Church, Romney from 1827.
Go to Profile#7959
Ban Zhao
45 - 116 (71 years)
Ban Zhao , courtesy name Huiban , was a Chinese historian, philosopher, and politician. She was the first known female Chinese historian and, along with Pamphile of Epidaurus, one of the first known female historians. She completed her brother Ban Gu's work on the history of the Western Han, the Book of Han. She also wrote Lessons for Women, an influential work on women's conduct. She also had great interest in astronomy and mathematics and wrote poems, commemorative writings, argumentations, commentaries, essays and several longer works, not all of which survive. She became China's most famous female scholar and an instructor of Taoist sexual practices for the imperial family.
Go to Profile#7960
A. Hamilton Thompson
1873 - 1952 (79 years)
Alexander Hamilton Thompson, was a historian. He was Professor of Medieval History at the University of Leeds from 1924 to 1939. Early life and education Thompson was born on 7 November 1873 at Clifton, Bristol, the son of The Reverend John Thompson, Vicar of St Gabriel's, Bristol, and his wife Annie Hastings . He attended Clifton College from 1883 to 1890 and Totnes School for a year. He gained a minor scholarship to read Classics at St John's College, Cambridge from 1892 to 1895. He received his BA in 1895, later promoted to MA in 1903.
Go to Profile#7961
Christian Martin Frähn
1782 - 1851 (69 years)
Christian Martin Joachim Frähn , German and Russian numismatist and historian, was born at Rostock, Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Frähn began his Oriental studies under Tychsen at the university of Rostock, and afterwards continued them at Göttingen and Tübingen. He became a Latin master in Pestalozzi's famous institute in 1804, taught at Rostock as a Privatdozent in 1806, and in the following year was chosen to fill the chair of Oriental languages in the Russian university of Kazan. Though in 1815 he was invited to succeed Tychsen at Rostock, he preferred to go to St Petersburg, where he became director of the Asiatic museum and councillor of state.
Go to Profile#7962
Martin Schoock
1614 - 1669 (55 years)
Martin Schoock was a Dutch academic and polymath. Life He was born in Utrecht. His grandfather Anton van Voorst taught him Latin. His parents were Remonstrants and intended him for the law; he studied theology and philosophy from 1632 in Leiden under Antonius Walaeus. As a student of Gisbertus Voetius he acquired a doctorate in philosophy around 1636.
Go to Profile#7963
George Cockburn Henderson
1870 - 1944 (74 years)
George Cockburn Henderson was an Australian academic with a considerable career in Adelaide. History Cockburn was born in Hamilton, New South Wales, the eighth of nine children of Richard T. Henderson and was educated at Hamilton and Lawrence public schools. He passed the public instruction examination at age 13 and was admitted to Macquarie Superior Public School as a pupil teacher under his brother Richard Henderson. In December 1889 he won a £72 per annum scholarship to the Fort Street Training College. He matriculated the following March and in so doing won two-years' free tuition at Syd...
Go to Profile#7964
Franz Seraph Streber
1806 - 1864 (58 years)
Franz Seraph Streber was a German numismatist. Streber was born in Deutenkofen, Lower Bavaria. The nephew of Franz Ignaz von Streber, he first studied theology and philosophy, then archæology and numismatics, and in 1830 wrote as his dissertation for obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Erlangen a paper on the genealogy of the Burgraves of Nuremberg. In 1854 he became a member of the Academy of Munich. In 1835 he was made professor of archæology at the University of Munich, of which he was twice rector. In 1827 he was made clerk, in 1830 assistant, and in 1841 curator of the royal cabinet of coins.
Go to Profile#7965
Herman Vandenburg Ames
1865 - 1935 (70 years)
Herman Vandenburg Ames was an American legal historian, archivist, and professor of United States constitutional history at the University of Pennsylvania and, from 1907 to 1928, dean of its graduate school. His 1897 monograph, The Proposed Amendments to the Constitution of the United States During the First Century of Its History, was a landmark work in American constitutional history. Other works by Ames included John C. Calhoun and the Secession Movement of 1850, Slavery and the Union 1845–1861, and The X.Y.Z. Letters, the latter of which he authored with John Bach McMaster. Among his nota...
Go to Profile#7966
Robert Preston Brooks
1881 - 1961 (80 years)
Robert Preston Brooks was one of the first recipients of the Rhodes Scholarship, and later served as the first dean of the School of Commerce at the University of Georgia from 1920 to 1945. Brooks authored numerous books and papers about Georgia, with emphasis on history and commerce.
Go to Profile#7967
Mabel Haynes Bode
1864 - 1922 (58 years)
Mabel Haynes Bode was one of the first women to enter the academic fields of Pali, Sanskrit and Buddhist studies. She lectured in Pali and Sanskrit, made an edition of the Pali text Sāsanavaṃsa, and helped with translating into English of the German translation of the Mahāvaṃsa. She was specializing in the Pali literature of Burma, about which she wrote a book published in 1909. She was the first woman to have an article published in the prestigious Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
Go to Profile#7968
Emil von Ottenthal
1855 - 1931 (76 years)
Emil von Ottenthal was an Austrian historian and archivist. He studied history under Alfons Huber at the University of Innsbruck and with Theodor von Sickel at the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung in Vienna. In 1880 he obtained his habilitation for history at Innsbruck, and from 1882 was associated with the Austrian Historical Institute in Rome. From 1888 to 1912, with Oswald Redlich, he published the Archiv-Berichte aus Tirol .
Go to Profile#7969
Frances Sergeant Childs
1901 - 1988 (87 years)
Frances Sergeant Childs was an American historian who was a founding faculty member of Brooklyn College. Her area of specialization was Franco-American relations in the 18th and 19th centuries. Biography Childs was born in New York City to Frances Aimee Childs and Edward Herrick Childs. Her maternal grandfather was the painter John La Farge. She attended Chapin School and then got her undergraduate degree from Bryn Mawr College and her master's and doctoral degrees from Columbia University.
Go to Profile#7970
Peter Kandela
#7971
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#7972
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#7973
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#7974
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.
Go to Profile#7975
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.
Go to Profile#7976
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.
Go to Profile#7977
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.
Go to Profile#7978
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#7979
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#7980
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.
Go to Profile#7981
Jean van der Poel
1904 - 1986 (82 years)
Jean van der Poel was a South African historian. Education Van der Poel was born in Cape Town, Cape Colony. She studied at the University of Cape Town , completing her doctorate, on railways and customs policies, at the London School of Economics, for which she was awarded magnum cum laude and which won her the Royal Empire Society prize. Her doctorate studies were financed by the Donald Currie Memorial scholarship.
Go to Profile#7982
Emory Holloway
1885 - 1977 (92 years)
Rufus Emory Holloway was an American literary scholar-educator most known for his books and studies of Walt Whitman. His Whitman: An Interpretation in Narrative was the first biography of a literary figure to win the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1927.
Go to Profile#7983
Hsu Dau-lin
1907 - 1973 (66 years)
Hsu Dau-lin was a distinguished legal scholar who made substantial contributions to the study of Tang and Song Law and, especially for new republican states, of Constitutional Law. He devoted his prime years to the service of China as government official and as diplomat, and spent his later years teaching Chinese legal history in Taiwan, and Chinese literature and philosophy in America.
Go to Profile#7984
Ernst Hermann Joseph Münch
1798 - 1841 (43 years)
Ernst Hermann Joseph Münch was a distinguished Roman Catholic historian of Germany. He was born in Rheinfelden on 25 October 1798. He studied at Freiburg, was in 1819 teacher at Aarau, in 1824 professor at Freiburg, in 1828 professor of Church history and canon law at Liege. In 1831 he accepted a call to Stuttgart as librarian to the king, and died on 9 June 1841.
Go to Profile#7985
Michael Doeberl
1861 - 1928 (67 years)
Michael Doeberl was a German historian who specialized in Bavarian history. He studied philology and history at the University of Munich, obtaining his doctorate from the University of Erlangen in 1887. In 1894, he received his habilitation and in 1905 became an honorary professor. From 1917 to 1928, he held the chair of Bavarian history at the University of Munich.
Go to Profile#7986
Horst Bartel
1928 - 1984 (56 years)
Horst Bartel was a German historian and university professor. He was involved in most of the core historiography projects undertaken in the German Democratic Republic . His work on the nineteenth-century German Labour movement places him firmly in the mainstream tradition of Marxist–Leninist historical interpretation.
Go to Profile#7987
Christian Wilhelm Niedner
1797 - 1865 (68 years)
Christian Wilhelm Niedner was a German church historian and theologian born in Oberwinkel, which today is part of the town of Waldenburg, Saxony. He studied theology at the University of Leipzig, where in 1826 he received his habilitation. In 1829 he was appointed associate professor, and in 1838 became a full professor of theology at Leipzig. From 1845 onward, he was head of the Leipzig Historical and Theological Society. In 1850 he resigned his professorship and moved to Wittenberg, where he focused on private studies. In 1859 Niedner was appointed professor of historical theology at Berlin...
Go to Profile#7988
Frank Maloy Anderson
1871 - 1961 (90 years)
Frank Maloy Anderson was an author, historian and professor of history. He was born in Omaha, Nebraska and spent most of his adult life teaching and writing about American and Western European history. He was a prolific writer for The American Historical Review and is noted among American Civil War historians for his book The Diary of a Public Man.
Go to Profile#7989
Ellen H. Johnson
1910 - 1982 (72 years)
Ellen Hulda Johnson was a distinguished art historian and professor of modern art at Oberlin College from 1945 to 1977, an organizer of important exhibitions, and an influential critic of contemporary American art.
Go to Profile#7990
Sergei Bershadski
1850 - 1896 (46 years)
Sergei Aleksandrovich Bershadski was a Russian Empire historian and jurist. Life He graduated from the Gymnasium of Kerch in 1868, and from the University of Odessa in 1872; he lectured at the University of St. Petersburg on the history of the philosophy of jurisprudence, from 1878 to 1883; and was appointed in 1885 assistant professor. At the Lyceum he delivered lectures also on the history of Russian jurisprudence; and at the Military Law School of St. Petersburg, on general jurisprudence. His famous work on the Lithuanian Jews, Litovskie Yevrei, published in 1883, is the first attempt in t...
Go to Profile#7991
James Orr
1844 - 1913 (69 years)
James Orr was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and professor of church history and then theology. He was an influential defender of evangelical doctrine and a contributor to The Fundamentals. Biography Orr was born in Glasgow and spent his childhood in Manchester and Leeds. He was orphaned and became an apprentice bookbinder, but went on to enter Glasgow University in 1865. In 1870, he obtained an M.A. in Philosophy of Mind, and after graduating from the theological college of the United Presbyterian Church, he was ordained a minister in Hawick. In 1885 he received a D.D. from Glasgow Univers...
Go to Profile#7992
Johann Gottfried Hoche
1762 - 1836 (74 years)
Johann Gottfried Hoche was a German Protestant theologian and historian. He was the father of writer Louise Aston . He studied history and theology at the University of Halle, where his instructors included Johann Salomo Semler and Johann August Nösselt. In 1800 he was named second clergyman in the town of Gröningen, near Halberstadt. In 1805 he attained the positions of senior minister and superintendent, and soon afterwards, was appointed to the consistory in Halberstadt. Following the dissolution of Halberstadt consistory in 1816, he was offered a position in Magdeburg, but chose to remain...
Go to Profile#7993
Lazar of Serbia
1329 - 1389 (60 years)
Lazar Hrebeljanović was a medieval Serbian ruler who created the largest and most powerful state on the territory of the disintegrated Serbian Empire. Lazar's state, referred to by historians as Moravian Serbia, comprised the basins of the Great Morava, West Morava, and South Morava rivers. Lazar ruled Moravian Serbia from 1373 until his death in 1389. He sought to resurrect the Serbian Empire and place himself at its helm, claiming to be the direct successor of the Nemanjić dynasty, which went extinct in 1371 after ruling over Serbia for two centuries. Lazar's programme had the full support ...
Go to Profile#7994
António Cordeiro
1641 - 1722 (81 years)
António Cordeiro was a Portuguese Catholic priest in the Society of Jesus, Azorean historian, author of the classical chronicle Historia Insulana, and first to publish a public opinion on the form of governance for the archipelago of the Azores.
Go to Profile#7995
Ludovic Lalanne
1815 - 1898 (83 years)
Ludovic Lalanne was a French historian and librarian. The engineer and politician Léon Lalanne was his brother. Biography Lalanne was a student at the lycée Louis-le-Grand and later at the École des Chartes, where he was graduated archivist paleographer in 1841. He was librarian of the Institut.
Go to Profile#7996
John Capgrave
1393 - 1464 (71 years)
John Capgrave was an English historian, hagiographer and scholastic theologian, remembered chiefly for Nova Legenda Angliae . This was the first comprehensive collection of lives of the English saints.
Go to Profile#7997
Ludwig Schmitz-Kallenberg
1867 - 1937 (70 years)
Ludwig Schmitz-Kallenberg was a German archivist and historian of Westphalia. He studied history at the University of Freiburg, Münster Academy and Leipzig University, receiving his doctorate in 1891. In 1893 he took a study trip to Rome via a scholarship from the Görres Society, and from 1896 worked as an archivist for the Historical Commission for Westphalia. In 1899 he became a lecturer at Münster, where in 1918 he was named an honorary full professor. From 1921 to 1932 he served as director of the state archives in Münster.
Go to Profile#7998
Claude Jenkins
1877 - 1959 (82 years)
Claude Jenkins was an Anglican clergyman, theologian and historian. Biography He became Canon of Christ Church and Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical Historyat Oxford University in 1934. He was Lambeth Librarian from 1910 until 1952.
Go to Profile#7999
Sima Guang
1019 - 1086 (67 years)
Sima Guang , courtesy name Junshi, was a Chinese historian, politician, and writer. He was a high-ranking Song dynasty scholar-official who authored the Zizhi Tongjian, a monumental work of history. Sima was a political conservative, who opposed the reforms of Wang Anshi.
Go to Profile#8000
Christen Collin
1857 - 1926 (69 years)
Christen Christian Dreyer Collin was a Norwegian literary historian. He was born in Trondhjem as a son of Georg Fredrik Collin and Marie Fredrikke Dreyer . When his father died at the age of ten, Christen Collin was raised by his maternal grandfather in Tromsøe. He took the cand.philol. degree at the Royal Frederick University in 1887, and studied abroad while writing for Verdens Gang before returning home and founding the periodical Nyt Tidsskrift.
Go to Profile