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,
#8351
Patrick Weston Joyce
1827 - 1914 (87 years)
Patrick Weston "P. W." Joyce was an Irish historian, writer and music collector, known particularly for his research in Irish etymology and local place names of Ireland. Biography He was born in Ballyorgan in the Ballyhoura Mountains, on the borders of counties Limerick and Cork in Ireland, and grew up in nearby Glenosheen. The family claimed descent from one Seán Mór Seoighe , a stonemason from Connemara, County Galway.
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Herbert Grundmann
1902 - 1970 (68 years)
Herbert Grundmann was a German historian, soldier and professor who was the editorial director of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Education Grundmann was born in 1902 in Meerane, Saxony, and grew up in Chemnitz, Saxony. After graduating from high school in 1921, he enrolled in the University of Leipzig. He first majored in political economy, thinking he would take over his father's factory. After several exchange semesters at Heidelberg and Munich, he decided to specialize in medieval history. He wrote his dissertation under Walter Goetz in Leipzig, the topic being Joachim of Fiore. Grun...
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Konstantin Nevolin
1806 - 1855 (49 years)
Konstantin Alekseevich Nevolin was a Russian legal historian. Academic career He started his academic career as a professor of law in Berlin in 1829. In 1834 he returned to Kiev after he was appointed rector of the newly founded University of Kiev. Later he also served as a professor of law at Saint Petersburg State University from 1843.
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Douglas Hyde
1860 - 1949 (89 years)
Douglas Ross Hyde , known as , was an Irish academic, linguist, scholar of the Irish language, politician and diplomat who served as the first President of Ireland from June 1938 to June 1945. He was a leading figure in the Gaelic revival, and the first President of the Gaelic League, one of the most influential cultural organisations in Ireland at the time.
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Wilbur Henry Siebert
1866 - 1961 (95 years)
Wilbur Henry Siebert was an educator and historian from the United States. Biography Wilbur Henry Siebert was born in Columbus, Ohio on August 30, 1866. His father had emigrated from Frankfurt, Germany in 1832. The son graduated from Ohio State University in 1888, from Harvard in 1889 and received his A.M. at Harvard in 1890. He studied in Germany from 1890 to 1891.
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Samuel Daniel
1562 - 1619 (57 years)
Samuel Daniel was an English poet, playwright and historian in the late-Elizabethan and early-Jacobean eras. He was an innovator in a wide range of literary genres. His best-known works are the sonnet cycle Delia, the epic poem The Civil Wars Between the Houses of Lancaster and York, the dialogue in verse Musophilus, and the essay on English poetry A Defense of Rhyme. He was considered one of the preeminent authors of his time and his works had a significant influence on contemporary writers, including William Shakespeare. Daniel's writings continued to influence authors for centuries after his death, especially the Romantic poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.
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James Schouler
1839 - 1920 (81 years)
James Schouler was an American lawyer and historian best known for his historical work History of the United States under the Constitution, 1789–1865. Biography Schouler was born in West Cambridge , Massachusetts. He was the son of William Schouler, who from 1847 to 1853 edited the Boston Atlas, one of the leading Whig journals of New England. The son graduated at Harvard in 1859, studied law in Boston and was admitted to the bar there in 1862. In 1869 he removed to Washington, where for three years he published the United States Jurist.
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Ronald Crane
1886 - 1967 (81 years)
Ronald Salmon Crane was a literary critic, historian, bibliographer, and professor. He is credited with the founding of the Chicago School of Literary Criticism. Early life Ronald Crane was born in Tecumseh, Michigan. He received his B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1908 and his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania in 1911. That same year he became an instructor of English at Northwestern University. He was soon promoted to assistant professor, and then to associate professor in 1920. He continued to teach there until 1924, when he moved to the University of Chicago.
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Higashionna Kanjun
1882 - 1963 (81 years)
Higashionna Kanjun also Higaonna Kanjun was an Okinawan scholar who specialized in the history of Okinawa. Alongside Iha Fuyū and Majikina Ankō, he is considered one of the pioneers of modern Okinawan studies. After reading Japanese history at Tokyo Imperial University, where he wrote his dissertation on the approach of the Shimazu clan towards the Ryūkyū Kingdom, his subsequent career included posts at Hosei University and Takushoku University and travels in Southeast Asia and India. His extensive body of writings, collected as Higashionna Kanjun zenshū in ten volumes, centre around Ryukyuan history and culture, personal and place names, and classics such as the Omoro Sōshi.
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Paul Woolley
1902 - 1984 (82 years)
Paul Woolley was professor of Church history at Westminster Theological Seminary from its inception in 1929 until his retirement in 1977. Woolley studied at Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary. He was a minister of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, but left to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1936.
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Al-Suyuti
1445 - 1505 (60 years)
Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti , or Al-Suyuti, was an Egyptian Sunni polymath. Considered the Mujtahid and Mujaddid of the Islamic 10th century. Foremost leading muhaddith , mufassir , faqīh , usuli , sufi , theologian, grammarian, linguist, rhetorician, philologist, lexicographer and historian, who authored works in virtually every Islamic science. For this reason, he was honoured one of the most prestigious and rarest titles; Shaykh al-Islām.
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Robert Ensor
1877 - 1958 (81 years)
Sir Robert Charles Kirkwood Ensor was a British writer, poet, journalist, liberal intellectual and historian. He is best known for England: 1870-1914 , a volume in the Oxford History of England series edited by George Clark.
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Jean-Jacques Dessalines
1758 - 1806 (48 years)
Jean-Jacques Dessalines was a Haitian revolutionary, the leader of the Haitian Revolution, and the first ruler of an independent Haiti under the 1805 constitution. Initially regarded as governor-general, Dessalines was later named Emperor of Haiti as Jacques I by generals of the Haitian Revolution Army and ruled in that capacity until being assassinated in 1806. He has been referred to as the father of the nation of Haiti.
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Jalmari Jaakkola
1885 - 1964 (79 years)
Kaarle Jalmari Jaakkola was a Finnish historian and a professor of Finnish history at the University of Helsinki between 1932 and 1954. Jaakkola is known as a historian who primarily researched medieval history and sought to put forth that Finland existed as an entity already during that period. Some of Jaakkola's hypotheses are today considered to be overtly nationalist and outdated, but his influence during his lifetime remains undisputed.
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Petrus Johannes Blok
1855 - 1929 (74 years)
Petrus Johannes Blok was a Dutch historian. Biography Born in Den Helder, Blok studied at the Latin School of Alkmaar and read classics at Leiden University, receiving his doctorate for a study of Sextus Pompeius. After this, he got a position at the Leiden Latin School, and published two books on the city's Medieval and Burgundian history.
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Aleksandr Zimin
1920 - 1980 (60 years)
Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Zimin was one of the most prolific and well-known Soviet medievalists. His area of expertise was late medieval Muscovy. Zimin was born in a noble family in Moscow. In the 1950s, Zimin edited the official historical series dedicated to the history of Moscow. However, at least seven of his monographs were not published during his lifetime. His 1964 essay attempted to prove that The Song of Igor's Campaign was fabricated in the 1770s. It met skepticism and hostility from the academic community and was eventually banned from being printed.
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Svend Grundtvig
1824 - 1883 (59 years)
Svend Hersleb Grundtvig was a Danish literary historian and ethnographer. He was one of the first systematic collectors of Danish traditional music, and he was especially interested in Danish folk songs. He began the large project of editing Danish ballads. He also co-edited Icelandic ballads. He was the son of N. F. S. Grundtvig.
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Norman H. Baynes
1877 - 1961 (84 years)
Norman Hepburn Baynes was a 20th-century British historian of the Byzantine Empire. Career Baynes was Professor of Byzantine History at University College London from 1931 until 1942. He was given the title of Emeritus Professor in 1943 and Doctor of Literature honoris causa in 1951. His work included two fully annotated volumes of Hitler's pre-war speeches.
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Wolfgang Lazius
1514 - 1565 (51 years)
Wolfgang Laz, better known by his Latinized name Wolfgang Lazius , was an Austrian humanist who worked as a cartographer, historian, and physician. Lazius was born in Vienna, and first studied medicine, becoming professor in the medical faculty at the University of Vienna in 1541. He later became curator of the imperial collections of the Holy Roman Empire and official historian to Emperor Ferdinand I. In that capacity, he authored a number of historical works, in research for which he traveled widely, amassing documents from numerous monasteries and other libraries. He also produced maps of Austria, Bavaria, Hungary, and Greece, now considered important in the history of cartography.
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Ignace Gelb
1907 - 1985 (78 years)
Ignace Jay Gelb was a Polish-American ancient historian and Assyriologist who pioneered the scientific study of writing systems. Early life Born in Tarnów, Austria-Hungary , he earned his PhD from the University of Rome in 1929, then went to the University of Chicago where he was a professor of Assyriology until his death.
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Harvey Goldberg
1922 - 1987 (65 years)
Harvey Goldberg was an American historian and political activist. Biography Harvey Goldberg was born in Orange, New Jersey. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1943. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1951; the subject of his dissertation Jaurès and French foreign policy, was French Socialist leader Jean Jaurès.
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Ilmari Salomies
1893 - 1973 (80 years)
Ilmari Johannes Salomies, previously Salonen , was the Archbishop of Turku, and the spiritual head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland between 1951 and 1964. Biography Salomies was born on 17 July 1893 in Mikkeli, the son of Edvard Salonen and Hedvig Sofia Salonen.
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Joseph Aschbach
1801 - 1882 (81 years)
Joseph Ritter von Aschbach was a German historian who studied the Visigoths, writing "Geschichte der Westgoten" in 1827. Aschbach was born in Höchst . He initially studied theology and philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, but his focus soon turned to history, being influenced by Friedrich Christoph Schlosser. Since 1823 he was professor at the gymnasium of Frankfurt.
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Auguste Bouché-Leclercq
1842 - 1923 (81 years)
Auguste Bouché-Leclercq was a French historian. Life Auguste Bouché-Leclercq was born in 1842 at Francières, Oise as son of Louis-Thomas Bouché and Marie-Joséphine Leclercq. His parents were farmers. He was educated at seminaries and took his school-leaving exam in 1861 in Paris. Later he travelled as private tutor several months through Italian and German cities. In 1866 he was grammar school teacher at Meaux. In 1872 he received his doctorate in philosophy and was from 1873-1878 professor of ancient literature at the philosophical faculty of Montpellier. In 1876 he married Marie Julie Guillaume and had with her three sons and one daughter.
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N. H. Gibbs
1910 - 1990 (80 years)
Norman Henry Gibbs was Chichele Professor of the History of War at Oxford University for 24 years from 1953 to 1977, the longest tenure of all who have held the chair since its establishment in 1909.
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Robert Fruin
1823 - 1899 (76 years)
Robert Jacobus Fruin was a Dutch historian. A follower of Leopold von Ranke, he introduced the scientific study of history in the Netherlands when he was professor of Dutch national history at Leiden University.
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Veit Valentin
1885 - 1947 (62 years)
Veit Valentin was a German historian who was Professor of History at the University of Freiburg. In comments that caused a storm of controversy in Germany, Valentin attacked Ernst Graf zu Reventlow's Deutschlands Auswärtige Politik in 1916: "It is a classic example of historiographical demagogy and we have no choice but to warn the public against the book and its author". During the First World War, Gustav Stresemann tried to have Valentin sent to court for alleged treasonable utterances.
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Henri Cordier
1849 - 1925 (76 years)
Henri Cordier was a French linguist, historian, ethnographer, author, editor and Orientalist. He was President of the Société de Géographie in Paris. Cordier was a prominent figure in the development of East Asian and Central Asian scholarship in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century. Though he had little actual knowledge of the Chinese language, Cordier had a particularly strong impact on the development of Chinese scholarship, and was a mentor of the noted French sinologist Édouard Chavannes.
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Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann
1761 - 1819 (58 years)
Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann was a German historian of philosophy. Life He was born and educated at Erfurt. In 1788, he became a lecturer on the history of philosophy at the University of Jena. Ten years later, he became a professor at the same university, where he remained till 1804. His great work is an eleven-volume history of philosophy , which he began at Jena and finished at the University of Marburg, where he was professor of philosophy from 1804 till his death. He was one of the numerous German philosophers who accepted the Kantian theory as a revelation.
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John Hawkins
1719 - 1789 (70 years)
Sir John Hawkins was an English author and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson and Horace Walpole. He was part of Johnson's various clubs but later left The Literary Club after a disagreement with some of Johnson's other friends. His friendship with Johnson continued and he was made one of the executors of Johnson's will.
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Spenser Wilkinson
1853 - 1937 (84 years)
Henry Spenser Wilkinson was the first Chichele Professor of Military History at Oxford University. While he was an English writer known primarily for his work on military subjects, he had wide interests. Earlier in his career he was the drama critic for London's Morning Post.
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Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae
1821 - 1885 (64 years)
Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae was a Danish archaeologist, historian and politician, who was the second director of the National Museum of Denmark . He played a key role in the foundation of scientific archaeology. Worsaae was the first to excavate and use stratigraphy to prove C. J. Thomsen's sequence of the Three-age system: Stone, Bronze, Iron. He was also a pioneer in the development of paleobotany through his excavation work in the peat bogs of Jutland. Worsaae served as Kultus Minister of Denmark for Christen Andreas Fonnesbech from 1874 to 1875.
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Mary C. Wright
1917 - 1970 (53 years)
Mary Clabaugh Wright was an American historian and sinologist who specialized in the study of late Qing dynasty and early twentieth century China. She was the first woman to gain tenure in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Yale University, and subsequently the first woman to be appointed a full professor in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Yale.
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Constantine VI
771 - 797 (26 years)
Constantine VI was Byzantine emperor from 780 to 797. The only child of Emperor Leo IV, Constantine was named co-emperor with him at the age of five in 776 and succeeded him as sole Emperor in 780, aged nine. His mother Irene exercised control over him as regent until 790, assisted by her chief minister Staurakios. The regency ended when Constantine reached maturity, but Irene sought to remain an active participant in the government. After a brief interval of sole rule Constantine named his mother empress in 792, making her his official colleague.
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Andrey Shestakov
1877 - 1941 (64 years)
Andrey Vasilievich Shestakov was a Soviet historian, a specialist in the agrarian history of Russia. Professor , Doctor of Historical Sciences , Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union .
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William Macbride Childs
1869 - 1939 (70 years)
William Macbride Childs was an English academic administrator and historian, who was involved in the foundation of the University of Reading and who served briefly as its first vice-chancellor. Biography Childs was born, on 3 January 1869, in the village of Carrington, situated some north of Boston in Lincolnshire. He was the son of the Revd William Linington Childs, vicar of Carrington, and his second wife, Henrietta Fowles Bell. He had no brothers or sisters, but had a half-brother and two half-sisters by his father's first marriage. He attended Portsmouth Grammar School and graduated from...
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Alexander Khakhanov
1864 - 1912 (48 years)
Aleksandr Solomonovich Khakhanov born Aleksandre Khakhanashvili was a Georgian-Russian historian, archaeologist, and one of the most acclaimed scholars of Georgian literature. He was born in Gori, Georgia, then part of Imperial Russia, and studied at Tbilisi . Having graduated from Moscow University in 1888, he delivered lectures on Georgian language and literature at Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages since 1889 and at Moscow University since 1900. He authored numerous works on Georgian history and literature, including the resonant Очерки по истории грузинской словесности , published in Russian from 1895 to 1907.
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Elimar Klebs
1852 - 1918 (66 years)
Elimar Klebs was a German historian of ancient history. He was the brother of botanist Georg Klebs. Biography Klebs was born in Braunsberg , Prussia. He studied in Berlin under Theodor Mommsen and Heinrich von Treitschke, receiving his doctorate in 1876 and his habilitation in 1883. Subsequently, he served as a privatdozent in Berlin.
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George Arnold Wood
1865 - 1928 (63 years)
George Arnold Wood was an English Australian historian notable for writing an early work on Australian history entitled The Discovery of Australia. Wood was born at Salford, England; he was educated at Owens College, Manchester, where he graduated B.A., and afterwards at Balliol College, Oxford, where in 1886 he won the Brackenbury history scholarship and in 1889 the Stanhope history essay prize. In 1891 he became Challis Professor of history at the University of Sydney and held this chair for the remainder of his life. Before coming to Australia his chief study had been in English and Europe...
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Alfonso VI of León and Castile
1040 - 1109 (69 years)
Alfonso VI , nicknamed the Brave or the Valiant, was king of León , Galicia , and Castile . After the conquest of Toledo in 1085, Alfonso proclaimed himself . This conquest, along with El Cid's taking of Valencia would greatly expand the territory and influence of the Leonese/Castilian realm, but also provoked an Almoravid invasion that Alfonso would spend the remainder of his reign resisting. The Leonese and Castilian armies suffered defeats in battles at Sagrajas and Uclés , in the latter of which his only son and heir, Sancho Alfónsez, died, and Valencia was abandoned but Toledo remaine...
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Carl Russell Fish
1876 - 1932 (56 years)
Carl Russell Fish was a University of Wisconsin–Madison historian. Biography Born in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to Fredrick E. and Louisiana N. Fish on October 17, 1876. He claimed later in life that he wanted to be a professor since he was four years old. He graduated from Brown in 1897, and completed his Master's and Doctoral degree at Harvard University, finishing in 1898 and 1900, respectively. He was appointed Professor of History later that year at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He served in a factory during World War I, then visited England in the fall of 1917 to direct the American University Club.
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John Fletcher Hurst
1834 - 1903 (69 years)
John Fletcher Hurst was an American bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church and the first Chancellor of the American University in Washington, D.C. Biography Born on August 17, 1834, in Salem, Dorchester County, Maryland. Hurst graduated from Dickinson College in 1854 and in 1856 went to Germany to study at the University of Halle and the University of Heidelberg.
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Max Cetto
1903 - 1980 (77 years)
Max Ludwig Cetto was a German-Mexican architect, historian of architecture, and professor. Life Born in Koblenz, Germany, Max Cetto studied at the Darmstadt University of Technology, Munich and Berlin. At the latter he studied with Hans Poelzig, graduating as an engineer–architect in 1926 and worked then for the New Frankfurt project. After 1929 he taught also some years at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach.
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C. R. L. Fletcher
1857 - 1934 (77 years)
Charles Robert Leslie Fletcher was an English historian. He was the son of Alexander Pearson Fletcher and Caroline Anna . From 1868 to 1876 he was King's Scholar at Eton College. He gained a first class degree in modern history from Magdalen College, Oxford in 1880. He was elected a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford the year after. He was tutor of Magdalen from 1883 to 1906, becoming a Fellow in 1889. He married Alice Merry in 1885 and they had three sons.
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James G. Randall
1881 - 1953 (72 years)
James Garfield Randall was an American historian specializing in Abraham Lincoln and the era of the American Civil War. He taught at the University of Illinois, , where David Herbert Donald was one of his students and continued his work.
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Friedrich Wolters
1876 - 1930 (54 years)
Friedrich Wilhelm Wolters was a German historian, poet and translator; one of the central figures in the George-Kreis. Life and work He was the son of Friedrich Wolters, a businessman, and received his primary education in Rheydt and graduated from a gymnasium in Munich. In 1891, he began studying history, linguistics and philosophy at the University of Freiburg but, after one semester, returned to Munich. From 1899, he studied history and economics at Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, with and Gustav von Schmoller. In 1900, he spent some time in Paris, attending lectures at the Sorbonne.
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Christian Pfister
1857 - 1933 (76 years)
Christian Pfister, name sometimes given as Chrétien Pfister was a French historian. He was the author of numerous writings associated with Alsace and Lorraine. He received his education at the École Normale Supérieure, and in 1881 obtained his agrégation in history. Afterwards, he worked as a lecturer at the universities of Besançon and Nancy . From 1887 to 1902 he was a professor of history at the University of Nancy. From 1904 he served as a professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, then in 1919 relocated to the University of Strasbourg, where in 1927 he was named academic rector.
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Abraham ibn Daud
1110 - 1180 (70 years)
Abraham ibn Daud was a Spanish-Jewish astronomer, historian and philosopher; born in Córdoba, Spain about 1110; who was said to have died in Toledo, Spain, a martyr about 1180. He is sometimes known by the abbreviation Rabad I or Ravad I. His maternal grandfather was Isaac Albalia . Some scholars believe he was the Arabic-into-Latin translator known as Avendauth.
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Russell Meiggs
1902 - 1989 (87 years)
Russell Meiggs was a British ancient historian. He did extensive research on the Roman port city of Ostia. Early life and education Meiggs was born at Balham, south London, son of William Herrick Meiggs , sometime self-styled "general merchant" declared bankrupt in 1916, and his wife Mary Gertrude . William Meiggs was the son of railroad builder John Gilbert Meiggs , of Chelsea, formerly of New York, USA, younger brother of railroad builder Henry Meiggs; William's sister, Helen, married Sir James Rhoderic Duff McGrigor, 3rd Baronet. The former success of the Meiggs family was diminished by th...
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Richard Carew
1555 - 1620 (65 years)
Richard Carew was a British translator and antiquary. He is best known for his county history, Survey of Cornwall . Life Carew belonged to a prominent gentry family, and was the eldest son of Thomas Carew: he was born on 17 July 1555 at East Antony, Cornwall. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he was a contemporary of Sir Philip Sidney and William Camden, and then at the Middle Temple. He made a translation of the first five cantos of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered , which was more correct than that of Edward Fairfax. He also translated Juan de la Huarte's Examen de Ingenios, basing...
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