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,
#8151
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.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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 .
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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.
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Peter Kandela
#8162
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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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 .
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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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Karl Obermann
1905 - 1987 (82 years)
Karl Obermann was a German historian. He became the first director of the Historical Institute of the German Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Life Karl Obermann was born in Cologne. His father was a factory worker. There was no money for him to progress to a university level education so after leaving secondary school he undertook an apprenticeship in technical drawing. Obermann became unemployed in 1928. He was able to attend lectures at the university in Sociology and Economic History as a "guest attendee". During this time he was supporting himself, at least in part, throug...
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Taharqa
800 BC - 664 BC (136 years)
Taharqa, also spelled Taharka or Taharqo , was a pharaoh of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt and qore of the Kingdom of Kush , from 690 to 664 BC. He was one of the "Black Pharaohs" who ruled over Egypt for nearly a century.
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Gottfried Bernhardy
1800 - 1875 (75 years)
Gottfried Bernhardy , German philologist and literary historian, was born at Landsberg an der Warthe in the Neumark. Life He was the son of Jewish parents in reduced circumstances. Two well-to-do uncles provided the means for his education, and in 1811 he entered the Joachimsthal gymnasium at Berlin. In 1817 he went to Berlin University to study philology, where he had the advantage of hearing F.A. Wolf , August Böckh and Philipp Karl Buttmann. In 1822, he took the degree of doctor of philosophy at Berlin, and in 1825 became an associate professor. In 1829, he succeeded Christian Carl Reisi...
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Nicolae Dobrescu
1874 - 1914 (40 years)
Nicolae Dobrescu was a Romanian church historian and theologian within the Romanian Orthodox Church. Biography He was born into a peasant family in Celeiu, Romanați County, a village later merged into Corabia town and located in the Oltenia region. His father was named Dobre D. Deaconu, and the surname Dobrescu was assigned to him at the village primary school. After finishing there, he attended the central seminary in the national capital Bucharest from 1888 to 1896. After graduating, he enrolled in two faculties at the University of Bucharest, theology and literature, completing both in 1902.
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Georg Witkowski
1863 - 1939 (76 years)
Georg Witkowski was a German literary historian. Literary works Die Handlung des zweiten Teils von Goethes Faust - Akademische Antrittsvorlesung, 1898, Dr. Seele & Co., LeipzigGoethe, 1899Das deutsche Drama des 19. Jahrhunderts, 1903Goethes Faust, 1906Die Entwicklung der deutschen Literatur seit 1830, 1911
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Oskar Loorits
1900 - 1961 (61 years)
Oskar Loorits was an Estonian folklorist. Life Loorits was born in Suure-Kõpu Parish, Viljandi County. He initially studied folklore at the University of Tartu and obtained his doctorate in 1926. Between 1927 and 1941, he was a lecturer in Estonian and Comparative Folklore. Also during that period he was a director of the Estonian Folklore Archives. In 1938 he became a member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. In 1944, he fled the Soviet occupation to Sweden and worked there until 1947 as an archive assistant. From then until shortly before his death he held a position in the folk archives of the University of Uppsala.
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William Parker
1821 - 1891 (70 years)
William Parker was an American former slave who escaped from Maryland to Pennsylvania, where he became an abolitionist and anti-slavery activist in Christiana. He was a farmer and led a black self-defense organization. He was notable as a principal figure in the Christiana incident , 1851, also known as the Christiana Resistance. Edward Gorsuch, a Maryland slaveowner who owned four slaves who had fled over the state border to Parker's farm, was killed and other white men in the party to capture the fugitives were wounded. The events brought national attention to the challenges of enforcing th...
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Johann Theodor Katerkamp
1764 - 1834 (70 years)
Johann Theodor Katerkamp was a German Catholic church historian born in Ochtrup. Life Johann Theodor Katerkamp was the son of a wealthy farmer, Johann Heinrich Eberhard and his wife Maria. Johann Theodor received his early education at the Progymnasium of the Franciscan Order in Rheine. In 1781 he went to the Gymnasium Paulinum in Münster. He studied theology and philosophy at the University of Münster from 1783 to 1787.
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Trudpert Neugart
1742 - 1825 (83 years)
Trudpert Neugart was a Benedictine historian. Of middle-class origin, Neugart studied in the classical schools of the Benedictine Abbeys of St George and St. Blasien, entered the order at the latter monastery in l759, and was ordained priest 1765; in 1767 he was appointed professor of Biblical languages at the University of Freiburg. In 1770, however, he returned to St. Blasien where he professed theology.
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Charles Henry Hull
1864 - 1936 (72 years)
Charles Henry Hull was an American economist and historian. He worked at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York. In 1900, he was appointed professor of American History. In 1899, he published The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty in two volumes. This edition has become the standard source for referring to the economic writings of Sir William Petty .
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Caroline Skeel
1872 - 1951 (79 years)
Caroline Anne James Skeel was a British historian. She was a professor of history at Westfield College, and is remembered for her work in Welsh social and economic history. The library at Westfield was named after her in 1971.
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Alfons Huber
1834 - 1898 (64 years)
Alfons Huber was an Austrian historian. Life After finishing his gymnasium studies in Hall and Innsbruck, he studied history under Julius von Ficker at the University of Innsbruck . While still young he had become interested in history from Joseph Annegarn's Allgemeine Weltgeschichte. In 1859 he was appointed lecturer of history at Innsbruck, where he became professor in 1863, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in 1867, full member in 1872, and in 1887 professor at the University of Vienna, succeeding Ottokar Lorenz.
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Colin Robert Chase
1935 - 1984 (49 years)
Colin Robert Chase was an American academic. An associate professor of English at the University of Toronto, he was known for his contributions to the studies of Old English and Anglo-Latin literature. His best-known work, The Dating of Beowulf, challenged the accepted orthodoxy of the dating of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf—then thought to be from the latter half of the eighth century—and left behind what was described in A Beowulf Handbook as "a cautious and necessary incertitude".
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Erik Peterson
1890 - 1960 (70 years)
Erik Peterson Grandjean was a German Catholic theologian,patrologist and Church historian. Biography Erik Peterson was born in Hamburg. He studied theology from 1910 to 1914 in Strasbourg, Greifswald, Berlin, Basel and Göttingen, where he defended his doctoral dissertation in 1926. He was initially an evangelical Christian influenced by pietism and Søren Kierkegaard. Through the influence of phenomenology in Göttingen, Edmund Husserl, Adolf Reinach, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Hans Lipps, Theodor Haecker, Max Scheler, Carl Schmitt, Jacques Maritain and the Liturgical Movement, he opened up to the Catholic world.
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Jurgis Baltrušaitis
1903 - 1988 (85 years)
Jurgis Baltrušaitis was a Lithuanian art historian, art critic and a founder of comparative art research. He was the son of the poet and diplomat Jurgis Baltrušaitis. Most of his works were written in French, although he always stressed his Lithuanian origin. After Lithuania was occupied by the USSR in 1945, he served as a diplomat in exile.
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H. B. Thom
1905 - 1983 (78 years)
Hendrik Bernardus Thom was a Afrikaner professor and former Rector of the Stellenbosch University. Life and career Thom was born in Jamestown, Cape Colony, and grew up in Burgersdorp, South Africa. Because he was the 5th grandchild of his grandfather and namesake with the first names Hendrik Bernardus, his parents decided to call him by the nickname Quintus to distinguish him from his cousins; he was known as Quintie Thom throughout his life. He matriculated at Burgersdorp High School and studied at Stellenbosch University . He continued his studies in history in Germany at the Friedrich Wil...
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Jørgen Alexander Knudtzon
1854 - 1917 (63 years)
Jørgen Alexander Knudtzon was a Norwegian linguist and historian. He was a professor of Semitic Languages at the University of Oslo from 1907. Knudtzon was born in Trondheim, the son of consul Hans Nicolay Knudtzon and his wife Catharina née Trampe. Having finished his secondary education in 1872, he enrolled at the Royal Frederick University in Christiania. After a short spell at the Cathedral School in Trondheim, he returned to Christiania to study Semitic languages, in particular Akkadian, Arabian and Hebrew, the last of which he also gave lectures on. His first scholarly contribution was Textkritische Bemerkungen zu Lay 17,18, which was published in 1882.
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Johannes Isacius Pontanus
1571 - 1639 (68 years)
Johan Isaaksz Pontanus was a Dutch historiographer. Pontanus was the son of Margaretha van Delen and Isaac Pietersz, the Dutch consul to Denmark stationed in Helsingør. The painter Pieter Isaacsz was his older brother. In 1578 his family returned to the Netherlands and Pontanus grew up in Amsterdam. In 1589 he enrolled as a medical student at the University of Franeker and in 1592 at Leiden University as "Joannes Hellespontius Danus", predating the apparent contraction "Pontanus" . The next year he defended his Dissertatio de rationalis animas facilitate and traveled to Rome, visiting German scholars on his return trip.
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Josef Matoušek
1906 - 1939 (33 years)
Josef Matoušek was a Czechoslovak historian. He was one of nine people executed by the Nazis for participating in the funeral of the student Jan Opletal. Biography Matoušek was born on 13 January 1906 in Hořice. He studied under Josef Šusta. His research focused on two periods: the Reformation and early Counter-Reformation, and modern history. He wrote a book, The Turkish War in European Politics in the Years 1592–94. He also published on Karel Sladkovksý, a 19th-century Czech politician. In 1939, he was a docent in history at Charles University in Prague.
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Charles Hardwick
1821 - 1859 (38 years)
Charles Hardwick was an English historian and a priest of the Church of England who became the Archdeacon of Ely. Life Hardwick was born in Slingsby, North Yorkshire, the son of Charles Hardwick, a joiner. After receiving some instruction at Slingsby, Malton, and Sheffield, he acted for a short time as an usher at schools in Thornton and Malton and as an assistant to the Revd Henry Barlow at Shirland rectory in Derbyshire.
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Ivan Duichev
1907 - 1986 (79 years)
Ivan Simeonov Duichev was a Bulgarian historian and paleographer with a focus on Bulgarian and Byzantine medieval history. Throughout his scientific and research life he has followed the maxim of his teacher Vasil Zlatarski that Bulgarian history is inextricably linked and incomprehensible without Byzantine history. Adopted as the father of Bulgarian archival studies.
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Charles VIII of Sweden
1409 - 1470 (61 years)
Charles VIII , contemporaneously known as Charles II and called Charles I in Norwegian context, was king of Sweden and king of Norway . Regnal name Charles was the second Swedish king by the name of Charles . Charles VIII is a posthumous invention, counting backwards from Charles IX who adopted his numeral according to a fictitious history of Sweden. Six others before Charles VII are unknown to any sources before Johannes Magnus's 16th century book , and are considered his invention. Charles was the first Swedish monarch of the name to actually use a regnal number as Charles II , on his wife...
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Frédéric de Reiffenberg
1795 - 1850 (55 years)
Frédéric Auguste Ferdinand Thomas de Reiffenberg was a baron, Belgian writer, historian-medievalist, and linguist. He was also a member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium, as well as a member of the Academic Senate and professor at the State University of Leuven.
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Charles Wendell David
1885 - 1984 (99 years)
Charles Wendell David was a noted American bibliophile, medievalist and librarian. He worked tirelessly both to reconstruct Europe's war-torn repositories and to establish new libraries in the United States.
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Silas Marcus MacVane
1842 - 1914 (72 years)
Silas Marcus MacVane was a Canadian-American historian, the McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History at Harvard University starting in 1887 after the death of Ephraim Whitman Gurney . He was a professor at Harvard from 1873 until 1911.
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Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Ferland
1805 - 1865 (60 years)
Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Ferland was a French Canadian historian. Life He studied at the college of Nicolet and was ordained 1828. He ministered to country parishes until 1841, when he was made director of studies in the college of Nicolet. He became its superior in 1848. Being named a member of the council of the Bishop of Quebec, he took up his residence in that city, where he was also chaplain to the English garrison. From his college days he had devoted himself to the study of Canadian history; the numerous notes which he collected had made him one of the most learned men of the country. It ...
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Herman Daniel Paul
1827 - 1885 (58 years)
Herman Daniel Paul was a German-born musician and lecturer in German at the University of Helsinki, who translated the Kalevala into German, among other works. Life Paul's father was a government councilor, Johann Paul, and his mother was Dorothea Paul. He attended high school in Berlin, studied music, and then held various positions in music, circling the violin countries of the Baltic Sea region from 1858 to 1862. Paul moved to Helsinki in 1859, founded a music store there in 1862 and worked as a concert reviewer. He was an adjunct professor of German at the University of Helsinki from 1869 to 1885 and taught German and Russian at various educational institutions in Helsinki.
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Adolf Chybiński
1880 - 1952 (72 years)
Adolf Chybiński was a Polish historian, musicologist, and academic. Early life and education Adolf Eustachy Chybiński was the son of the industrialist Adolf and Maria z Górskich. He was educated at a gymnasium in Kraków, and studied German, classical philology and law at Jagiellonian University .
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Friedrich Rühs
1781 - 1820 (39 years)
Friedrich Rühs was a German historian of Scandinavian and Germanic history. At the time of the Liberation War he wrote xenophobic anti-French and anti-Jewish nationalist texts, and is seen as a forerunner of volkish antisemitism.
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