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 Law,
#3751
Niccolò Comneno Papadopoli
1655 - 1740 (85 years)
Niccolò Comneno Papadopoli was an Italian lawyer and historian of Greek origin. Life He was born to Zuanne Papadopoli, a Venetian administrator at Candia, present day Heraklion. Papadopoli studied Canon Law and became a librarian at the University of Padua. In 1726 he published on the history of the university.
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Raul A. Orgaz
1888 - 1948 (60 years)
Raúl Andrés Orgaz was an Argentine lawyer, professor and writer. Orgaz pursued secondary studies at the Colegio Nacional de Monserrat, and graduated in law from the University of Córdoba in 1913. Subsequently, he traveled to France to study comparative civil law. After his stay in France, he returned to Córdoba where he taught sociology as Martinez Paz chair in the Faculty of Law until 1946. Because of his ideas removed from the position in 1946 during the confrontation between university students and the government.
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Francesco Mantica
1534 - 1614 (80 years)
Francesco Mantica was a Roman Catholic cardinal. Biography He was born in Udine, and studied canon law at the University of Padua. He became auditor of the Rota and Capella di Mano of pope Clement VIII, who named Mantica as cardinal in 1596. He died in Rome and is buried in Santa Maria del Popolo. He wrote De conjecturis ultimatum voluntatum , lib XI, published in 1754.
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Christopher Besoldus
1577 - 1638 (61 years)
Christopher Besoldus was a German jurist and publicist whose writing is seen as important for the history of the causes of the Thirty Years' War. Life He was born of Protestant parents in 1577 at Tübingen, Württemberg. He studied jurisprudence, and in the early 1590s was a close friend of Johannes Kepler. Besold asked permission of the classical scholar Vitus Müller to defend theses based on Kepler's dissertation ; he was denied the chance. Later, when Katharina Kepler, Johannes Kepler's mother, was prosecuted on witchcraft charges, Besold was one of the jurists dealing with the case, whic...
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Lyman Beecher Kellogg
1841 - 1918 (77 years)
Lyman Beecher Kellogg was the first president, as well as the first teacher, of Kansas State Normal , now known as Emporia State University, in Emporia, Kansas, United States. After serving as KSN's president, Kellogg went on to become an attorney, state representative and senator, and the Kansas Attorney General.
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Panormitanus
1386 - 1445 (59 years)
Nicolò de' Tudeschi was an Italian Benedictine canonist. Life In 1400 he entered the Order of St. Benedict; he was sent to the University of Bologna to study under Zabarella; in 1411 he became a doctor of canon law, and taught successively at Parma , Siena , and Bologna . Meanwhile, in 1425, he was made abbot of the monastery of Maniace, near Messina, whence his name "Abbas", to which has been added "modernus" or "recentior" ; Panormitanus is also known as "Abbas Siculus" on account of his Sicilian origin.
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Kate Wallach
1905 - 1979 (74 years)
Kate Wallach was a legal scholar and librarian in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, known for her work Research in Louisiana Law. Education Kate Wallach was a Jewish woman born to Ludwig Wallach and Berta Wallach on May 17, 1905, in Krefeld, Germany. Her father was a partner in a silk wholesale firm, but lost his position following the rise of the Nazis.
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Harold Dexter Hazeltine
1871 - 1960 (89 years)
Harold Dexter Hazeltine, FBA was an American legal scholar. Early life and education Born on 18 November 1871 at Warren, Pennsylvania, he was the son of a banker and attended Brown University and Harvard Law School . At Harvard, he grew increasingly interested in legal history. He then studied at the University of Berlin and completed a doctoral dissertation; he was awarded the degree of juris utriusque doctor in 1905.
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Teresa Labriola
1873 - 1941 (68 years)
Teresa Labriola was an Italian writer, jurist, and feminist. The daughter of Antonio Labriola, a renowned Marxist thinker, Labriola served as the first Italian woman lawyer. Life From the time she was a student, Teresa Labriola was passionately involved in the nascent Italian feminist movement. Upon graduating, she held the position of Professor of Law at the University of Rome, making her the first female lawyer in Italy. Since 1906, Labriola was working with organizations who helped all women no matter of their economic or cultural status get the power to vote.
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Juan López de Palacios Rubios
1450 - 1524 (74 years)
Juan López de Palacios Rubios was a Spanish jurist called El Doctor for his expertise in canon law. He was the primary author of the famous Requerimiento, read during the conquest of America to the Indians, instructing them to submit peacefully. The text informed the natives that they were vassals of the Castilian monarch and subjects of the pope and, if they opposed they would be subjugated by force and turned into slaves.
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Allameh Sayyed Abul Hasan Rafiee Qazvini
1890 - 1975 (85 years)
Sayyed Abul Hasan Rafiee Qazvini was an Iranian philosopher and jurist. Early life Sayyed Abul Hasan Rafiee Qazvini was born in 1890 in Qazvin Province, Iran. His family were the relatives of Molla Khalil Qazvini. His father Abul Hasan Ibn Khalil Al Hosseini was also a jurist. The family name Rafiee was given to him from his grandfather, Ayatollah Mirza Rafie.
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John Hancock
1824 - 1899 (75 years)
John Hancock was an American judge and politician. As a member of the Texas Legislature he opposed the secession of Texas during the American Civil War. After the war he represented Texas in the United States House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party.
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Johannes Cuspinian
1473 - 1529 (56 years)
Johannes Cuspinianus , born Johan Spießhaymer , was a German-Austrian humanist, scientist, diplomat, and historian. Born in Spießheim near Schweinfurt in Franconia, of which Cuspinianus is a Latinization, he studied in Leipzig and Würzburg. He went to Vienna in 1492 and became a professor of medicine at the University of Vienna. He became Rector of the university in 1500 and also served as Royal Superintendent until his death.
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Jacob Friedrich Behrend
1833 - 1907 (74 years)
Jacob/Jakob Friedrich Behrend was a German jurist. His father was Friedrich Jakob Behrend, a German physician. He finished his studies in his native city at the university. He became "Gerichtsassessor" in 1859; but, deciding upon a scholastic career, he became privatdozent at the Berlin University in 1864. The first-fruit of his research was the Magdeburger Fragen, edited by him, and published in Berlin, 1865. This 300-page treatise is a critical treatment of the manuscripts which are in existence under this name, and are traced by him to a Prussian origin of about the period from 1386 to 140...
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William Hannibal Thomas
1843 - 1935 (92 years)
William Hannibal Thomas was an American teacher, journalist, judge, writer and legislator. He battled racism throughout his life. In 1861, he was rejected entry from the Union's Army until 1863 when he served, and was wounded by gunshot, leading to the amputation of his right arm. He published "Land and Education," in 1890, promoting avenues for Black people to obtain land and largely criticizing white people for troubles brought onto Black people. He garnered heavy attention from the Black community when he published his most famous work, The American Negro, which took a large conceptual le...
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John Ross
1818 - 1871 (53 years)
John Ross was a Canadian lawyer, politician, and businessman. Born in County Antrim, Ireland, he was brought to Canada as an infant. Ross married twice, first to Margaret Crawford who died in 1847, secondly to Augusta Elizabeth Baldwin February 4, 1851, the daughter of Robert Baldwin. Ross was president of the Grand Trunk Railway from 1853 to 1862 when he was succeeded by Sir Edward William Watkin. In 1867, he was appointed to the Senate representing the senatorial division of Ontario. A Conservative, the Honourable John Ross served until his death in 1871 in Toronto, Ontario.
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Victoria Conkling-Whitney
1859 - Present (167 years)
Victoria Conkling-Whitney was the first woman attorney to practice before the St. Louis Court of Appeals. She said she studied law in self-defense, and urged all women to devote some time to this helpful branch of education. She organized the Woman's State Bar Association, when she was elected president. It was the first organization of its kind in the West, and the object was educational and for mutual improvement in the profession.
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Fazio Cardano
1444 - 1524 (80 years)
Fazio Cardano was an Italian jurist and mathematician. He was a student of perspective. Cardano was also a professor at the University of Pavia, and was devoted to hermetical science and the world of the occult. He was a friend of Leonardo da Vinci.
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Edward Smith
1602 - 1682 (80 years)
Sir Edward Smith or Smythe was an English-born politician, barrister and judge who held the offices of Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas and judge of the Irish Court of Claims. Family He was the second son of Edward Smythe, a barrister of Middle Temple, and his wife Katherine. The family's earlier history is uncertain, although it has been suggested that they were related to the Smythe Baronets of Eshe Hall, Durham, and also to Sir Thomas Smith , who was Secretary of State to Elizabeth I. Edward's sister, Arabella, described as "a lady of surpassing beauty and charm", married against bo...
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Douglas Baird
1877 - 1963 (86 years)
General Sir Harry Beauchamp Douglas Baird was a British officer in the British Indian Army. Early life and education Baird was born in Kensington, London, the son of Scottish Colonel Andrew Wilson Baird and Margaret Elizabeth Davidson. He was educated at Clifton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.
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John Thompson
1908 - 1986 (78 years)
John William McLeod Thompson was a lawyer, politician and judge in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1953 to 1962 as a Progressive Conservative, and held several cabinet posts in the government of Dufferin Roblin.
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Alexander Haddow
1907 - 1976 (69 years)
Sir Alexander Haddow FRS FRSE was a Scottish physician and pathologist at the forefront of cancer research in the 1940s. He served as Director of the Institute of Cancer Research from 1946 to 1969. He was also President of the Universal Union Against Cancer.
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Karel Lamač
1897 - 1952 (55 years)
Karel Lamač was a Czech film director, actor, screenwriter, producer and singer. He directed more than 100 films in Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Life Lamač was born 27 January 1897 in Prague, Austria-Hungary. His parents were Karel Lamač sr. , opera singer and a pharmacist, and Františka Lamačová . In his childhood Lamač was interested in pharmacy, electrical engineering, stage magic and acting. Before WWI he went to apprentice in camera manufacturer company Ernemann in Dresden. During the war he was a combat cameraman. After the war he became a technical director of film laboratory in Excelsiorfilm.
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Alfred Daniell
1853 - 1937 (84 years)
Alfred Daniell FRSE was a Welsh-born British advocate, remembered for his contributions to Physics. His textbooks have been translated into most European languages, and other languages from Afrikaans to Japanese.
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Muhammad al-Baghdadi
1050 - 1141 (91 years)
Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Bāqī al-Baghdadi al-Ansārī al-Kaabī also known as Qadi al-Maristan, was an Arab jurist and mathematician. He was the author of a commentary on the tenth book of Euclid's Elements, which was translated by Gerard of Cremona as Liber judei super decimum Euclidis. The work was popular in Europe with several Latin manuscripts still extant.
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Muiris Ó Gibealláin
Muiris Ó Gibealláin, Irish jurist, singer, philosopher, poet and musician, died 1328. Ó Gibealláin was a member of a family originally from Elphin in what is now County Roscommon, who were notable jurists and churchmen in medieval Ireland.
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Ibn al-Raqqam
1250 - 1315 (65 years)
Ibn Al‐Raqqam Muḥammad Ibn Ibrahim Al‐Mursi Al‐Andalusi Al‐Tunisi Al‐Awsi also known as Ibn Al‐Raqqam was a 13th century Andalusian-Arab astronomer, mathematician and physician; but also a Sunni Muslim theologian and jurist.
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Emil Szántó
1857 - 1904 (47 years)
Emil Szántó was a classical historian and epigrapher from Austria-Hungary. From 1875 he studied philology and history at the University of Vienna, receiving his doctorate in 1880. As a student, his teachers were Otto Hirschfeld, Theodor Gomperz, Otto Benndorf, Alexander Conze and Wilhelm von Hartel. In 1887 he took a study trip to Greece and Asia Minor, and during the same year, obtained his habilitation for ancient history at the university. In 1893 he became an associate professor, and shortly afterwards, conducted epigraphic research in Asia Minor with Eduard Hula. In 1901 he attained a fu...
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Frederick Sherwood Dunn
1893 - 1962 (69 years)
Frederick Sherwood Dunn was an American scholar of international law and international relations. After working as a legal officer at the U.S. Department of State, he went into academia and taught at Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, and Princeton University, publishing several books during his career. He served as a founder and a director of both Yale's Institute of International Studies and the Center of International Studies at Princeton. He founded the journal World Politics and was chairman of its editorial board until 1961.
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Philippe Sarchi
1764 - 1830 (66 years)
François Philippe Sarchi originally Samuel Morpurgo, born in Gradisca d'Isonzo in Italy in 1764 and died in Paris in 1830, was a lawyer, linguist, philologist of Illyrian origin, specializing in Italian and Hebrew.
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Zechariah Chafee
1885 - 1957 (72 years)
Zechariah Chafee Jr. was an American judicial philosopher and civil rights advocate, described as "possibly the most important First Amendment scholar of the first half of the twentieth century" by Richard Primus. Chafee's avid defense of freedom of speech led to Senator Joseph McCarthy calling him "dangerous" to America.
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Henry Angus
1891 - 1991 (100 years)
Henry Forbes Angus was a Canadian lawyer and academic. Born in Victoria, British Columbia, he received a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University in 1911. He received a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Civil Law from Oxford University in 1914. He was awarded the Vinerian Scholarship. He fought in India during World War I. After the war, he received a Master of Arts from Oxford University. Returning to British Columbia, he was called to the Bar.
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Arthur Lehman Goodhart
1891 - 1978 (87 years)
Arthur Lehman Goodhart was an American-born academic jurist and lawyer; he was Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford, 1931–51, when he was also a Fellow of University College, Oxford. He was the first American to be the Master of an Oxford college, and was a significant benefactor to the college.
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Louis Lowenstein
1908 - 1968 (60 years)
Louis Lowenstein was a medical researcher who made significant contributions in hematology and immunology. Lowenstein was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1908. As a child in Nashville, he was accomplished as a violinist and tennis player. He received a bachelor's degree from Vanderbilt University and a medical degree from Vanderbilt's medical school. In 1937, after additional training at Vanderbilt and Ohio State University, he joined the faculty of the McGill University medical school and the staff of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, Quebec. He remained at McGill for the rest of his...
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Anna Goldfeder
1898 - 1993 (95 years)
Dr. Anna Goldfeder was a pioneering researcher in the fields of radiology and cancer treatment. Born in 1898 in Józefów Poland, Goldfeder studied at the University of Prague and worked at the Masaryk University before earning her doctorate in natural sciences in 1922. She was invited to conduct research in the United States, and immigrated in 1931. During her 66-year career as a research scientist, she worked at the University of Vienna, Harvard University, Columbia University, Lenox Hill Hospital, the Rockefeller Institute, the New York City Hospitals Department and the Department of Biolog...
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Esther Greisheimer
1891 - 1982 (91 years)
Esther M. Greisheimer was an American academic and medical researcher. She was born in Chillicothe, Ohio. Greisheimer received a BA in education from Ohio University in 1914, an MA in general physiology from Clark University in 1916, a PhD in human physiology and biochemistry from the University of Chicago in 1919 and an MD from the University of Minnesota in 1923. She became a licensed medical practitioner and surgeon in 1924.
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Anton-Hermann Chroust
1907 - 1982 (75 years)
Anton-Hermann Chroust was a German-American jurist, philosopher and historian, from 1946 to 1972, professor of law, philosophy, and history, at the University of Notre Dame. Chroust was best known for his 1965 book The Rise of the Legal Profession in America.
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Herbert W. Briggs
1900 - 1990 (90 years)
Herbert Whittaker Briggs was an American lawyer and professor at Cornell University. Life Briggs was born in Wilmington, Delaware to Frederic F. Briggs and Eleanore A. Briggs , a grand-niece of manufacturer and philanthropist John Price Crozer. In 1921, Briggs was awarded a Bachelor of Arts from West Virginia University. This was followed by doctoral studies at Johns Hopkins University; he received his Ph.D. in 1925. Briggs then worked as a lecturer at Oberlin College, before he moved to Cornell University in 1929. There he received a call in 1947 for a professorship at Cornell. He is considered one of the founders of the Department of Political Science at Cornell University.
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Wolfgang Friedmann
1907 - 1972 (65 years)
Wolfgang Gaston Friedmann was a German American legal scholar. Specializing in international law, he was a faculty member at Columbia Law School. Biography Born in Berlin, Friedmann finished his studies of law at the Humboldt University of Berlin in 1930. Being Jewish, he immigrated to London in 1934, shortly after the Nazis' seizure of power in Germany. He obtained a University of London LLM, taught at University College London, became a British citizen in 1939 and served in the British Army during the Second World War.
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Charles Heidelberger
1920 - 1983 (63 years)
Charles Heidelberger was a cancer researcher who developed and patented an anticancer drug called 5-Fluorouracil that remains widely used against cancers of the stomach, colon and breast. He was also director of basic research at the University of Southern California's Comprehensive Cancer Center. He received an American Cancer Society National Award in 1974. Heidelberger served on editorial boards of various scientific journals: Cancer Research, Molecular Pharmacology, Biochemical Pharmacology, the International Journal of Cancer, In Vitro, and the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. He served ...
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Oswald Avery
1877 - 1955 (78 years)
Oswald Theodore Avery Jr. was a Canadian-American physician and medical researcher. The major part of his career was spent at the Rockefeller Hospital in New York City. Avery was one of the first molecular biologists and a pioneer in immunochemistry, but he is best known for the experiment that isolated DNA as the material of which genes and chromosomes are made.
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Francis Bowes Sayre Sr.
1885 - 1972 (87 years)
Francis Bowes Sayre Sr. was a professor at Harvard Law School, High Commissioner of the Philippines, and a son-in-law of President Woodrow Wilson. Biography He was born on April 30, 1885. He graduated from Williams College in 1909 and Harvard Law School in 1912. At the start of his career, Sayre worked for Wilfred Grenfell's medical mission in Newfoundland, and as an assistant prosecutor in the office of the New York County District Attorney .On November 25, 1913, Sayre married Jessie Woodrow Wilson , the middle daughter of President Woodrow Wilson, in a ceremony at the White House. In 1914 he began work as an assistant to the president of Williams College.
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L. F. L. Oppenheim
1858 - 1919 (61 years)
Lassa Francis Lawrence Oppenheim was a German jurist. He is regarded by many as the father of the modern discipline of international law, especially the hard legal positivist school of thought. He inspired Joseph Raz and Prosper Weil.
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Michael Barton Akehurst
1940 - 1989 (49 years)
Michael Barton Akehurst was an international lawyer. He was the author of the Modern Introduction to International Law which remains the most widely used student text in the field. Seven editions have been published, it has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese and it was updated after his death by Peter Malanczuk under the title 'Akehurst's Modern Introduction to International Law'.
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Raphael Lemkin
1900 - 1959 (59 years)
Raphael Lemkin was a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent who is known for coining the term genocide and campaigning to establish the Genocide Convention. During the Second World War, he campaigned vigorously to raise international outrage against atrocities in Axis-occupied Europe. It was during this time that Lemkin coined the term "genocide" to describe Nazi Germany's extermination policies against Jews and Poles.
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Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld
1879 - 1918 (39 years)
Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld was an American jurist. He was the author of the seminal Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning and Other Legal Essays . During his brief life, he published only a handful of law review articles. After his death the material forming the basis of Fundamental Legal Conceptions was derived from two articles first published in the Yale Law Journal and that had been partially revised in anticipation of publication in longer form. Editorial work was undertaken to complete the revisions and the book was published with the inclusion of the manuscript n...
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Gertrude Smith
1894 - 1985 (91 years)
Gertrude Elizabeth Smith was the Edwin Olson Professor of Greek at the University of Chicago. She is known for her work on Greek law and her longstanding involvement in and support of the Summer Session of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. She was the first woman to be president of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South and is currently the only woman to have been president of CAMWS and the American Philological Association.
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Friedrich Litten
1873 - 1940 (67 years)
Friedrich Julius Litten was a German jurist and a university college teacher. His father was Joseph Litten, the president of the Jewish community in Königsberg from 1899 to 1906. He married Irmgard Litten from an established Lutheran family in Swabia, the daughter of Albert Wüst, a professor at the University of Halle-Wittenberg.
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Harry Augustus Garfield
1863 - 1942 (79 years)
Harry Augustus "Hal" Garfield was an American lawyer, academic, and public official. He was president of Williams College and supervised the United States Fuel Administration during World War I. He was a son of President James A. Garfield.
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Ottmar Bühler
1884 - 1965 (81 years)
Ottmar Bühler was a German Law professor specialising in tax law. Life Ottmar Bühler was born in Zürich. His father was a professor of Forestry at Tübingen. Despite his being born in Switzerland, Bühler's father had been born in Württemberg, and it was in Tübingen that he grew up and attended school . His subsequent period as a student of Jurisprudence took in Tübingen, Munich and Berlin. He undertook his "Referendariat" between 1908 and 1911, and then received his doctorate in 1911 for work on the nineteenth century evolution of civil law jurisdiction with regard to the administration of the law in Württemberg.
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