The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
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List of the most influential people in Law,
#4551
Vladimir Grabar
1865 - 1956 (91 years)
Vladimir Emmanuilovich Grabar — was a Russian and Soviet jurist. The brother of painter Igor Grabar, and the husband of philologue and translator Maria Grabar-Passek. He is one of the leading specialists in international law of the pre-revolutionary and post-Revolutionary Soviet period. Grabar was held a number of leading posts during his impressive and broad career, including: professor of international law, academician, dean, legal advisor to the Imperial Russian government and the Soviet state, internationally recognized jurist and historian. His academic and professional career encompassed the last decades of the Russian empire and the first four decades of the Soviet period.
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Charles Lyon-Caen
1843 - 1935 (92 years)
Charles-Léon Lyon-Caen was a French jurist. Biography Doctor of law in 1866, then agrégé in 1867, he became professor of law the same year at the Faculty of Law of Nancy, then of Paris in 1872. He also teaches at the École libre des sciences politiques and at the École des hautes études commerciales in Paris. He became "assesseur du doyen" in 1901, then dean of the Faculty of Law of Paris in 1906.
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E. J. P. Jorissen
1829 - 1912 (83 years)
Eduard Johan Pieter Jorissen was a Dutch lawyer and politician. He graduated in theology and served as State Attorney of the South African Republic from 1876 to 1877 under Thomas François Burgers.
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Salvatore Satta
1902 - 1975 (73 years)
Salvatore Satta was an Italian jurist and writer. He is famous for the novel The Day of Judgment , and for several important studies on civil law. Biography He was the youngest son of notary Salvatore Satta and Antonietta Galfrè, and relative of Sebastiano Satta. After attending the Liceo classico in Nuoro and Sassari, he graduated in law in 1924 at the University of Sassari. He is considered one of Italy's foremost jurists, in particular for his works on the Italian civil code after the second world war, and one of the greatest Sardinian authors.
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Charlie Wilson
1932 - 1990 (58 years)
Charles Frederick Wilson was an English career criminal. A member of the Great Train Robbery gang, of which he was treasurer, he was shot dead on the doorstep of his Marbella home in 1990. Early life Wilson was born on 30 June 1932 to Bill and Mabel Wilson in Battersea, London. Of heavy build and handsome appearance, with piercing blue eyes, Wilson was, from an early age, an intimidating presence. His friends from childhood included Jimmy Hussey, Tommy Wisbey, Bruce Reynolds and Gordon Goody. Later on, he met Buster Edwards and two car thieves, Mickey Ball and Roy James.
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Louis-Joseph Papineau
1786 - 1871 (85 years)
Louis-Joseph Papineau , born in Montreal, Quebec, was a politician, lawyer, and the landlord of the seigneurie de la Petite-Nation. He was the leader of the reformist Patriote movement before the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837–1838. His father was Joseph Papineau, also a politician in Quebec. Papineau was the eldest of eight children and was the grandfather of the journalist Henri Bourassa, founder of the newspaper Le Devoir.
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Roland Michener
1900 - 1991 (91 years)
Daniel Roland Michener was a Canadian lawyer, politician, and diplomat who served as Governor General of Canada, the 20th since Canadian Confederation. Michener was born and educated in Alberta. In 1917 he served briefly in the Royal Air Force. He acquired a university degree, then attended the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Michener then returned to Canada and practised law before entering politics. He was elected to the House of Commons in 1957, where he served as speaker until 1962, and then served in diplomatic postings between 1964 and 1967. After that he was appointed Governor General by Queen Elizabeth II on the recommendation of Prime Minister of Canada Lester B.
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Petru Th. Missir
1856 - 1929 (73 years)
Petru Th. Missir was a Romanian literary critic, journalist and jurist. Born in Roman, Principality of Moldavia, into a family of ethnic Armenian merchants, he graduated from Iași's National College in 1873. While a student at the University of Vienna's law faculty, he entered and became secretary of the România jună society. He later studied law at Berlin University, where he earned a doctorate in 1879. A member of Junimea, he also served as the organization's attorney; he was both a lifelong friend to Ion Luca Caragiale and close to Titu Maiorescu and Petre P. Carp. After working as a magis...
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Johann Georg Estor
1699 - 1773 (74 years)
Johann Georg Estor , was a German theorist of public law, historian and book collector. Life Estor was born in Schweinsberg and educated at the universities of Gießen, Halle, and Jena. He became professor of history and law first in Giessen, then in Jena. He moved to the University of Marburg in 1742. As professor in Giessen he learned natural history from his colleague Joahnn Melchior Verdrieß and became national geographer of the county of Hessen-Darmstadt. In this time he came in contact with the famous geographer and physicist Johann Jakob Scheuchzer.
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Caesar Wright
1904 - 1967 (63 years)
Cecil Augustus Wright , often called Caesar Wright, was a Canadian jurist and law professor. He was among the first law professors to import the Harvard case method into Canadian legal education. He was also known for his confrontational and aggressive personality.
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Oliver Wendell Holmes
#4562
Monty Banks
1897 - 1950 (53 years)
Montague Banks was a 20th century Italian-born American comedian, film actor, director and producer who achieved success in the United States and Britain. Career Banks was born Mario Bianchi in Cesena, Italy. In 1914, Bianchi emigrated to the United States, first trying his luck on the New York stage. By 1918, he was an actor in Hollywood with the Arbuckle Company, performing in over 35 silent short comedies by the early 1920s, and then, starring in feature-length action comedy-thrillers as Play Safe . .
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Nicolaus Hieronymus Gundling
1671 - 1729 (58 years)
Nicolaus Hieronymus Gundling , was a German jurist and eclectic philosopher. He was born in Kirchensittenbach, and died in Magdeburg. He was the brother of Jacob Paul von Gundling, Court Historiographer to King Frederick I of Prussia, who became a figure of ridicule in the "Tobacco Cabinet" of Frederick William I.
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Ignacio Jordán Claudio de Asso y del Río
1742 - 1814 (72 years)
Ignacio Jordán Claudio de Asso y del Río was a Spanish diplomat, naturalist, lawyer and historian. He sometimes used the pseudonym of Melchor de Azagra. Biography Of noble birth, he received an excellent education, studying Classical Greek and Latin in the college known as the Escuelas Pías of Zaragoza and philosophy under the Jesuits at the Real e Imperial Colegio de Nobles de Nuestra Señora y Santiago de Cordellas, located in Barcelona . He studied at the University of Cervera, where he graduated with a bachelor of arts in 1760, and at the University of Zaragoza, where he studied jurispru...
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