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.
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List of the most influential people in Law,
#4451
Herbert Fuchs
1905 - 1988 (83 years)
Herbert Fuchs was a former American Communist and federal government official who became a professor of law at the American University in Washington, D.C. in 1949, after which he became embroiled in anti-communist congressional hearings just after the peak of McCarthyism.
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C. J. Hamson
1905 - 1987 (82 years)
Charles John Joseph "Jack" Hamson, QC was a British jurist. Early life and education Hamson was born in Constantinople, the son of Charles Edward Hamson, a vice-consul in the Levant Consular Service, and of Thérèse Boudon. He was educated at Downside School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a scholar, obtaining Firsts in both parts of the Classical Tripos in 1925 and 1927 respectively. He then turned to the study of law, obtaining taking the LL.B. in 1934 and the LL.M. in 1935. Between 1928 and 1929 he was Davidson Scholar at Harvard and in 1932 he won the Yorke Prize. A fencer,...
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Jean de Coras
1515 - 1572 (57 years)
Jean de Coras, also called Corasius was a French jurist. Life Born in Réalmont as the son of a notary, he studied law in Toulouse, Cahors, Orléans and perhaps also in other cities, under teachers such as Franciscus Curtis junior and Marianus Socinus junior. After his 1535 promotion in Padua by Filippo Decio, he taught law at the University of Toulouse starting in 1536, in Valence and in Ferrara , where he became one of the most popular professors of the time.
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John Brown
1757 - 1837 (80 years)
John Brown was an American lawyer and statesman who participated in the development and formation of the State of Kentucky after the American Revolutionary War. Brown represented Virginia in the Continental Congress and the U.S. Congress . While in Congress, he introduced the bill granting Statehood to Kentucky. Once that was accomplished, he was elected by the new state legislature as a U.S. Senator for Kentucky. From 1803 to 1804, Brown served as President pro tempore of the United States Senate.
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Alexander de Tartagnis
1424 - 1477 (53 years)
Alexander de Tartagnis was an Italian jurist. After completing his studies in Bologna, he became an assessor at the Conservatore della Giustizia and taught law in Bologna, Ferrara and Padua. His work includes commentaries on select parts of the Pandects and on other works, as well as more than 1200 advisory opinions. He reports that, for humanitarian reasons, he did not issue advisory opinions in the disfavour of the accused in criminal cases.
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Muhammad Ibrahim
1894 - 1966 (72 years)
Muhammad Ibrahim was a Pakistani Bengali judge and academic. He served as the 8th Vice-chancellor of the University of Dhaka during 1956–1958. Early life and education Ibrahim was born in September 1894 in Shaildubi village of Sadarpur Upazila in Faridpur District to Ghiyasuddin Ahmed. Ibrahim passed matriculation exam from Barisal Zilla School and intermediate exam from Dhaka College in 1916 and 1918 respectively. He completed his bachelor's in English literature. He then studied Law under the persuasion of Nares Chandra Sen-Gupta. He earned a law degree in 1921.
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Āpirana Ngata
1874 - 1950 (76 years)
Sir Āpirana Turupa Ngata was a prominent New Zealand statesman. He has often been described as the foremost Māori politician to have served in parliament in the mid-20th century, and is also known for his work in promoting and protecting Māori culture and language. His legacy is one of the most prominent of any New Zealand leader in the 20th century, and is commemorated by his depiction on the fifty dollar note.
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Beatrice Rosenberg
1908 - 1989 (81 years)
Beatrice Rosenberg was a prominent attorney at the Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Rosenberg argued over thirty cases before the Supreme Court of the United States and supervised over 2,500 briefs submitted to the Court. The District of Columbia Bar gives an annual award in her honor.
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Julian Pierce
1946 - 1988 (42 years)
Julian Thomas Pierce was an American lawyer and Lumbee activist. Born in Hoke County, North Carolina, he became the first person in his family to go to college and worked for several years as a chemist at shipyards in Virginia before obtaining his law degree. Following two years of work for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, he moved to Robeson County, North Carolina to direct a legal aid organization and in that capacity co-authored a petition to the federal government asking for the extension of federal recognition to the Lumbee tribe. In 1988 he resigned from his job to pursue a candidacy for a new Superior Court judgeship.
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James Johnston Shaw
1845 - 1910 (65 years)
James Johnston Shaw was an Irish county court judge. Early life He was born at Kircubbin, County Down, Ireland on 4 January 1845, the second son among seven children of John Maxwell Shaw , a merchant and farmer at Kircubbin, by his wife Anne, daughter of Adam Johnston. Shaw was first taught in a local national school, and later by James Rowan, Presbyterian minister of Kircubbin. In 1858 he was sent to the Belfast Academy, where he became a favourite pupil of the principal, Rev. Reuben John Bryce, LL.D. . In 1861 he entered Queen's College, Belfast, gaining the highest entrance scholarship in classics, the first of many honours.
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Cary D. Landis
1873 - 1938 (65 years)
Cary Dayton Landis was an American attorney and politician who served as the 25th Florida Attorney General, serving from 1931 until 1938. Early life and education Landis was born in Claypool, Indiana, a small town in rural Kosciusko County, on May 10, 1873. Landis is Pennsylvania Dutch via his father's side of the family, and was raised Presbyterian.
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Austin Tappan Wright
1883 - 1931 (48 years)
Austin Tappan Wright was an American legal scholar and author, best remembered for his major work of Utopian fiction, Islandia. He was the son of classical scholar John Henry Wright and novelist Mary Tappan Wright, the brother of geographer John Kirtland Wright, and the grandfather of editor Tappan Wright King.
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James Murnaghan
1881 - 1973 (92 years)
James Augustine Murnaghan was an Irish judge who served as a Judge of the Supreme Court from 1925 to 1953 and a Judge of the High Court from 1924 to 1925. He attended University College Dublin and held the degrees of BA and LLD from the Royal University of Ireland. He also attended the King's Inns and was admitted to the degree of Barrister–at–Law in 1903.
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Bettisia Gozzadini
1209 - 1261 (52 years)
Bettisia Gozzadini also known as Bitisia Biltisia and Beatrix, was a Bolognese jurist who lectured at the University of Bologna from about 1239. She is thought to be the first woman to have taught at a university.
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Boyd B. Jones
1856 - 1930 (74 years)
Boyd B. Jones was an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts from 1897 to 1901. He later served on the faculty at the Boston University School of Law and was one of the founding members of the Sentinels of the Republic.
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John Sullivan
1740 - 1795 (55 years)
John Sullivan was an American general in the Revolutionary War winning several key battles most notably the Delaware crossing. He was a delegate in the Continental Congress where he signed the Continental Association, the third governor of New Hampshire, and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire.
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Johann Jakob Schmauss
1690 - 1757 (67 years)
Johann Jakob Schmauss was a German jurist, historian, and university professor. Biography Johann Jakob Schmauss was born in Landau. After attending school in Durlach and Stuttgart, he studied at the University of Strasbourg and the University of Halle, where he fell under the influence of Christian Thomasius and Nicolaus Hieronymus Gundling. He obtained his Habilitation in 1712, qualifying him to hold lectures in history. At this time Schmauss began regularly publishing journals. Without limiting his literary activities, in 1721 he joined the service of the Margrave of Baden-Durlach, first as a councilor.
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Timothy Walker
1806 - 1856 (50 years)
Timothy Walker was an American lawyer who founded the Cincinnati Law School and was its first dean. Biography Timothy Walker was born in Wilmington, Massachusetts, US, to Benjamin and Susanna Walker. He graduated from Harvard in 1826. From 1826 to 1829 he taught mathematics at the Round Hill School, and he studied law at Harvard Law School 1829 and 1830.
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George Marion Johnson
1900 - 1989 (89 years)
George Marion Johnson was an American lawyer and professor who was the first vice chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Early life and education Johnson was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico and raised in San Bernardino, California; he earned Bachelor's and LL.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley in 1923 and 1929, and in 1938 earned a J.S.D. there, one of the first African American holders of the degree.
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Giovanni d'Andrea
1270 - 1348 (78 years)
Giovanni d'Andrea or Johannes Andreæ was an Italian expert in canon law, the most renowned and successful canonist of the later Middle Ages. His contemporaries referred to him as iuris canonici fons et tuba . Most important among his works were extensive commentaries on all of the official collections of papal decretals, papal judgments in the form of letters to delegated judges that were at the core of canon law.
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Charles Bastable
1855 - 1945 (90 years)
Charles Francis Bastable, FBA was an Irish economist. He was Whately Professor of Political Economy and Regius Professor of Laws at Trinity College, Dublin. The son of a priest, he studied at Trinity College, Dublin from 1873 to 1878, graduating with a first-class BA in history and political science. After graduating, Bastable considered a legal career and was called to the bar in Ireland in 1881, but the following year he successfully sat the five-yearly examination for the Whatley Professorship and during his tenure the statutes were altered allowing him to be re-elected without examination.
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Francis X. Bushman
1883 - 1966 (83 years)
Francis Xavier Bushman was an American film actor and director. His career as a matinee idol started in 1911 in the silent film His Friend's Wife. He gained a large female following and was one of the biggest stars of the 1910s and early 1920s.
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Paolo Rossi
1900 - 1985 (85 years)
Paolo Rossi was an Italian lawyer and politician. Biography Paolo Rossi was the son of the famous criminal lawyer of Genoa, Francesco Rossi, and of Iride Garrone. He came from an educated and progressive Ligurian family; his cousin was Maria Vittoria Rossi, better known as Irene Brin, the fashion journalist and style icon.
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Fausto Cardoso
1864 - 1906 (42 years)
Fausto de Aguiar Cardoso was a Brazilian lawyer, poet, philosopher, and politician from the state of Sergipe. He was born in a rural part of the state Sergipe, and studied at the Faculty of Law of Recife in Pernambuco. He was elected to political office in 1900, and came into dispute with Olímpio Campos in Rio de Janeiro, the seat of the First Brazilian Republic. Cardoso returned to Sergipe in 1906 and led a revolt against the state government. He was assassinated in 1906 by federal troops summoned to the state by Olímpio Campos. Cardoso's sons, in turn, avenged their father's death and murde...
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Paul-Louis Huvelin
1873 - 1924 (51 years)
Paul-Louis Huvelin , generally known as Paul Huvelin, was a French legal historian. He was a specialist in the study of the earliest forms of Roman law. Biography Huvelin spent almost all his career teaching in the law faculty of the University of Lyon which he joined in 1899. That year he made contact with the anthropologist Marcel Mauss and, as a result, gradually became involved with the group of pioneer French sociologists organised by Mauss' uncle Emile Durkheim. Huvelin, as a respected jurist, was welcomed into the Durkheim group and contributed regularly to Durkheim's famous L'Année Soc...
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Charles James
1906 - 1978 (72 years)
Charles Wilson Brega James was an English-American fashion designer. He is best known for his ballgowns and highly structured aesthetic. James is one of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th century and continues to influence new generations of designers.
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William Adam of Blair Adam
1751 - 1839 (88 years)
The Right Hon. William Adam of Blair Adam was a Scottish advocate, barrister, politician and judge. He served as Solicitor General for Scotland and as Lord Chief Commissioner of the Jury Court . His political career was affected by his father's periodic financial problems, as sometimes the family had substantial wealth and sometimes it was in difficulties, forcing Adam to concentrate his attention on his legal practice. He rose to be Lord Lieutenant of Kinross-shire.
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Friedrich Adler
1857 - 1938 (81 years)
Friedrich Adler was a Czech-Austrian jurist, translator, and writer of Jewish origin, writing in the German language. Biography Friedrich Adler was born in Kosova Hora. He was the son of innkeeper and soaper Joseph Adler, and his wife Marie Fürth. After his parents' death , Adler was only able to attend school in Amschelberg irregularly. Despite this, he was admitted to a gymnasium in Prague, and to the Karl-Ferdinands University in Prague.
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Johann Friedrich Böckelmann
1633 - 1681 (48 years)
Johann Friedrich Böckelmann was a German jurist. Born in Steinfurt, Böckelmann studied law at Heidelberg, where he became a professor in 1661. He was also president of the electoral court of law and a councillor and envoy of the prince elector.
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Claude A. Swanson
1862 - 1939 (77 years)
Claude Augustus Swanson was an American lawyer and Democratic politician from Virginia. He served as U.S. Representative , Governor of Virginia , and U.S. Senator from Virginia , before becoming U.S. Secretary of the Navy under President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 until his death. Swanson and fellow U.S. Senator Thomas Staples Martin led a Democratic political machine in Virginia for decades in the late 19th and early 20th century, which later became known as the Byrd Organization for Swanson's successor as U.S. Senator, Harry Flood Byrd.
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Petrus Johannes Idenburg
1898 - 1989 (91 years)
Petrus Johannes Idenburg was a jurist specialized in constitutional law, lector at Leiden University, and researcher on Africa. He graduated in law in 1920 from the University of Amsterdam and continued his studies at the London School of Economics. Back in the Netherlands he became a secretary of the Mayor of Amsterdam in 1922 and secretary of the University of Amsterdam and later of the University of Leiden.
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Robert G. Ingersoll
1833 - 1899 (66 years)
Robert Green Ingersoll , nicknamed "the Great Agnostic", was an American lawyer, writer, and orator during the Golden Age of Free Thought, who campaigned in defense of agnosticism. Personal life Robert Ingersoll was born in Dresden, New York. His father, John Ingersoll, was an abolitionist-sympathizing Congregationalist preacher, whose radical opinions caused him and his family to relocate frequently. For a time, Rev. John Ingersoll substituted as preacher for American revivalist Charles G. Finney while Finney was on a tour of Europe. Upon Finney's return, Rev. Ingersoll remained for a few months as co-pastor/associate pastor with Finney.
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George W. Kirchwey
1855 - 1942 (87 years)
George Washington Kirchwey was an American lawyer, politician, journalist and legal scholar. He was one of the co-founders of the New York Peace Society in 1906 and the Warden of Sing Sing State Prison from 1915 to 1916. He was president of the American Peace Society in 1917.
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Mario Guiducci
1585 - 1646 (61 years)
Mario Guiducci was an Italian scholar and writer. A friend and colleague of Galileo, he collaborated with him on the Discourse on Comets in 1618. Early life Mario Guiducci was born in the San Frediano quarter of Florence. His father was Alessandro Guiducci, son of a senator, and his mother was Camilla Capponi. He had at least two brothers, Giulio, who died in 1654 and Simone, as well as a sister, Maddalena, who married Orazio Cavalcanti. He was sent to the Jesuit College in Rome as a boy. He never appears to have earned his doctorate in philosophy at Rome, but he did become a Doctor of both laws at the university of Pisa on 27 May 1610.
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Robert Bruce, Lord Kennet
1718 - 1785 (67 years)
Robert Bruce of Kennet, Lord Kennet FRSE was a Scottish advocate, legal scholar and judge. Life Bruce was born in Edinburgh on 28 December 1718, the son of Mary Balfour, daughter of Robert Balfour, 4th Lord Burleigh and Alexander Bruce of Kennet .
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Gustavus Schmidt
1795 - 1877 (82 years)
Gustavus Schmidt was an American lawyer and lecturer on Civil Law at the University of Louisiana. He was the author of a number of law books and also founded the predecessor of the School of Law at Tulane University.
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Roy Cohn
1927 - 1986 (59 years)
Roy Marcus Cohn was an American lawyer and prosecutor who came to prominence for his role as Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel during the Army–McCarthy hearings in 1954, when he assisted McCarthy's investigations of suspected communists. In the late 1970s and during the 1980s, he became a prominent political fixer in New York City. He also represented and mentored New York City real estate developer and future U.S. President Donald Trump during his early business career. His other clients included New York Yankees baseball club owner George Steinbrenner; Aristotle Onassis; and Mafia bos...
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Sir James Roberton
1821 - Present (205 years)
Sir James Roberton FRSE LLD was a 19th-century Scottish lawyer and Professor of Conveyancing at Glasgow University. The university's James Roberton Memorial Prize is named after him. His Glasgow law firm evolved into Mitchells Roberton and continues to operate.
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Adolf Friedrich von Reinhard
1726 - 1783 (57 years)
Friedrich von Reinhard was a German jurist and publicist. He was a Pietist and supporter of Christian August Crusius. Reinhard studied law in Toruń and theology at the University of Halle. In 1744 he founded Kritische Sammlungen zur neusten Geschichte der Gelehrsamkeit. He won first prize from the Prussian Academy of Sciences for La Système de Mr. Pope sur la perfection du monde comparé à celui de Mr. Leibniz , a critique of the philosophy of Alexander Pope, Leibniz and Christian Wolff. He became professor of law at the university of Bützow in 1770.
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Sigurd Østrem
1884 - 1954 (70 years)
Sigurd Østrem was a Norwegian jurist. He took the dr.juris degree in 1926 with the thesis De kollektive arbeidskampe efter norsk ret. During the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany he held more than thirty radio lectures in the Nazi-controlled Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, explaining new Nazi laws and reforms in a Norwegian historical context. He was also appointed as a docent in jurisprudence at the University of Oslo on 27 June 1941, but lost his job shortly after the war, on 15 May 1945. He died on 22 February 1954.
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Pieter Burman the Younger
1713 - 1778 (65 years)
Pieter Burman , also known as Peter or Pieter Burmann and distinguished from his uncle as , was a Dutch philologist. Life Born at Amsterdam, he was brought up by his uncle in Leiden, and afterwards studied law and philology under CA Duker and Arnold von Drakenborch at Utrecht. In 1735 he was appointed professor of eloquence and history at Franeker, with which the chair of poetry was combined in 1741. In the following year he left Franeker for Amsterdam to become professor of history and philology at the Athenaeum Illustre of Amsterdam. He was subsequently professor of poetry , general librarian , and inspector of the gymnasium .
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Neil Kennedy, Lord Kennedy
1854 - 1918 (64 years)
Neil John Downie Kennedy, Lord Kennedy was a Scottish advocate, legal academic and judge. He was a Professor of Law at the University of Aberdeen, and served from 1912 to 1918 as the first chairman of the Scottish Land Court.
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Alessandro Passerin d'Entrèves
1902 - 1985 (83 years)
Alessandro Passerin d'Entrèves was an Italian philosopher and historian of law. He was noted for his scholarship on political thought, particularly in the mediaeval and early modern period, and natural law theory.
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Fang Zong'ao
1884 - 1950 (66 years)
Fang Zong'ao was a late Qing dynasty scholar; a well known economist and jurist in the early Republic of China era, and a professor in economics and law. Fang was born in Puning, Guangdong Province, China, in 1884. In 1903, Fang went to for study. In 1905, Fang returned to his home town Puning after he graduated from the college and established a teachers' college in Puning. In 1908, Fang was granted a scholarship from Qing dynasty government and went to Japan again for his studies. After graduating from Yamaguchi Business School in Yamaguchi Prefecture Fang was admitted to Meiji University.
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Friedrich Heinrich Vering
1833 - 1896 (63 years)
Friedrich Heinrich Vering was a German canon lawyer, a defender of the Catholic Church against the State. Life After completing his course at the gymnasium of Paderborn in 1850, he studied law at the Universities of Bonn and Heidelberg, and graduated at the latter university in 1856. He was admitted there as privatdocent of Roman and canon law in 1857, and became professor extraordinary in 1862. He held this position until 1875 when he accepted the chair of canon law at the newly erected university of Czernowitz in Bukowina, Austria.
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Carl Johan Schlyter
1795 - 1888 (93 years)
Carl Johan Schlyter was a Swedish jurist and law publisher. He is known for publishing scholarly editions of the medieval Swedish laws in 13 volumes, a process which took over 50 years. Biography Background and education Schlyter was born in Karlskrona, Blekinge, Sweden. Schlyter belonged to an originally Northern German family that immigrated to Denmark, while Scania belonged to this kingdom. His father was Admiralty Chamberlain and later General War Commissary Carl Johan Schlyter and his mother was Lovisa Maria Hjelm. He received a private education and after graduating in 1807, Schlyter continued his studies at Lund University under the supervision of his brother-in-law, adjunct .
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Andrew Young
1891 - 1968 (77 years)
Andrew White Young was a Scottish mathematician, natural scientist, and lawyer. He conducted research on Temperature Seiches in Loch Earn and presented papers on Mathieu function and Lagrange polynomials. He was elected a Fellow of Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1937.
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William Paget, 1st Baron Paget
1506 - 1563 (57 years)
William Paget, 1st Baron Paget of Beaudesert , was an English statesman and accountant who held prominent positions in the service of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I. Early life He was the son of John Pachett or Paget, one of the serjeants-at-mace of the city of London. He was born in Staffordshire in 1506, and was educated at St Paul's School when William Lily was its headmaster, and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, proceeding afterwards to the University of Paris. At St Paul's, he befriended the future antiquary John Leland and later acted as one of his benefactors.
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Kaoru Osanai
1881 - 1928 (47 years)
Kaoru Osanai was a Japanese theater director, playwright, and actor central in the development of modern Japanese theater. Biography Kaoru Osanai was born on July 26, 1881, in Hiroshima, the second son of Director of Hiroshima Army Garrison Hospital, Takeshi Osanai. His father was a former samurai from Hirosaki Domain. When he was five, Takeshi died abruptly at the age of 38, leaving his three children Reiko, Kaoru and Yachiyo to his wife Taka. Osanai subsequently moved to Tokyo where he received his education. The family lived comfortably at Takeshi's mansion where Taka and her female friends practiced music.
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Philipp Knipschildt
1595 - 1657 (62 years)
Philipp Knipschildt was a jurist and legal historian. Life Philipp Knipschildt was born in Treisbach , the son of Melchior Knipschildt and Catharina née Lefart. From c. 1604 he attended school at Medebach in the Duchy of Westphalia; as a Protestant, he moved to Sachsenhausen in the Duchy of Waldeck in 1606. He spent several years in Wildungen and Korbach before enrolling at the Soest Archigymnasium. He attended the University of Giessen from 1615 to 1620 before serving as tutor to Prince Charles Ludwig of Pfalz-Veldenz until 1623. Subsequently, he studied at Strasbourg, obtaining his doctoral degree on November 4, 1626, with a study of fideicommissa.
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