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).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Literature,
#9201
George Gibb Nicholson
1875 - 1948 (73 years)
George Gibb Nicholson , often referred to as G. G. Nicholson, was an English-born Australian philologist and professor of French. He was the inaugural McCaughey Professor of French at University of Sydney.
Go to Profile#9202
Sigurd Høst
1866 - 1939 (73 years)
Sigurd Høst was a Norwegian educationalist and textbook writer. Biography Høst was born in Flora to physician Ude Jacob Høst and Lorentze Schulrud . He graduated as philologist in 1891, and worked as teacher and lecture at several private schools in Kristiania . He served as headmaster of the Bergen Cathedral School from 1907, and of the Christiania Cathedral School from 1915. From 1921 to 1922 he lectured at the University of Sorbonne in Paris, and from 1923 to 1926 he lectured at the University of Oslo.
Go to Profile#9203
David Thomas
1828 - 1909 (81 years)
David Thomas was a Welsh poet and teacher. Life Thomas was born in Llanwenog, Cardiganshire, south Wales. He went to school in Cribyn and later ran schools in various places in Cardiganshire until his retirement in 1883. His pupils in Cribyn included John Islan Jones, who went on to become a distinguished Unitarian minister and writer. His poems were published in four volumes: in 1854, in 1859, in 1866, and in 1883.
Go to Profile#9204
Richard Carle
1871 - 1941 (70 years)
Richard Carle was an American stage and film actor as well as a playwright and stage director. He appeared in more than 130 films between 1915 and 1941. Carle was born in Somerville, Massachusetts. He was on the stage for many years, appearing in important roles in London, New York and Chicago including as J. Offenbach Gaggs in The Casino Girl and Algy Cuffs in The Belle of Bohemia in London in 1901 before making his screen debut. In 1941 he died in North Hollywood, California from a heart attack.
Go to Profile#9205
Johannes Munnicks
1652 - 1711 (59 years)
Johannes Munnicks or Jean Munniks, Munnix, Munnicx, Munnigk, Munick, Jan Munnickius was a Dutch Golden Age medical doctor and writer from the Northern Netherlands. Biography Munnicks was born in Utrecht. He was the son of a pharmacist who attended the University of Utrecht and who later became a rector there. On 13 December 1670 he graduated with the thesis de Fluore muliebri under Isbrand van Diemerbroeck and became Doctor of Medicine. He wrote Tractatus de urinus, earumque inspectione . In 1677 he wrote De utilitate anatomiae and became Lector of Anatomy in Utrecht. In 1678 he became profe...
Go to Profile#9206
Girolamo Zoppio
1516 - 1591 (75 years)
Girolamo Zoppio was a 16th-century Bolognese writer. A street in Bologna and a lecture hall in the University of Bologna both bear his name. Life He was born in Bologna, and began his career as a doctor and joined the medical faculty, where he assisted Vesalius in his dissections. His son, Melchiorre Zoppio, would follow him into a dual academic and medical career. In his spare time, Girolamo cultivated scholarship and philosophy, becoming a professor of both. He taught logic and morality for some years in Macerata, where he set up the Accademia di Catenati, which taught in Italian not Latin....
Go to Profile#9207
George J. Adler
1821 - 1868 (47 years)
George J. Adler was a noted philologist and linguist. Early years Adler was born to John J. Adler and an unnamed mother in Germany in 1821. He arrived in the United States in 1833, with his parents, who settled in New York city, where the boy attended the public schools and entered the university of the city of New York, from which he was graduated valedictorian in 1844. Two years later he became a professor of German language at New York University, which position he filled for eight years.
Go to Profile#9208
John Savage
1828 - 1888 (60 years)
John Savage was a poet, journalist and author. He was a member of both the Young Irelanders and the Fenians. Early life John Savage, who was born in Dublin on 13 December 1828. As a young art student in Dublin he was drawn into the insurrectionary movement in '48. On 11 March 1848 he wrote a letter which appeared in The Nation newspaper stating: "A the period, I trust, is rapidly approaching when the skill and valour of our citizen soldiers will be put to the test, I am induced, on the part of a large number of students of the different professions, to suggest the immediate organisation in D...
Go to Profile#9209
Nancy Barr Mavity
1890 - 1959 (69 years)
Nann "Nancy" Barr Mavity was an American crime mystery author. Early life Nann "Nancy" Clark Barr was born on October 22, 1890, in Lawrenceville, Illinois, the daughter of Dr. Granville Walter Barr and Annabelle Applegate.
Go to Profile#9210
Peter Paul Dobrée
1782 - 1825 (43 years)
Peter Paul Dobrée was a British classical scholar and critic. Early life and education He was born in 1782 in Guernsey, the Channel Islands to the Reverend William Dobrée. He was educated at Reading School under Richard Valpy and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was elected fellow.
Go to Profile#9211
William Gillan Waddell
1884 - 1945 (61 years)
William Gillan Waddell was a Scottish Professor of Classics at what is now Cairo University. Life Waddell was born in Neilston, Scotland. In 1906 he obtained his M.A. from the University of Glasgow. He was Professor of Classics at Fuad el Awal University in Cairo, Egypt . Waddell was a translator of ancient Greek and Latin into English.
Go to Profile#9212
George Smith Gibbes
1771 - 1851 (80 years)
Sir George Smith Gibbes M.D. was an English physician and writer. Life He was the son of George Gibbes, D.D., rector of Woodborough, Wiltshire. From the King Edward VI School, Southampton under Richard Mant, he went to Exeter College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. in 1792. He was elected a fellow of Magdalen College, and graduated M.B. in 1796 and M.D. in 1799.
Go to Profile#9213
Harold North Fowler
1859 - 1955 (96 years)
Harold North Fowler was an American classicist. He was married to Mary Blackford Fowler. He was the original translator of a number of Plato's works for the Loeb Classical Library collection. External links
Go to Profile#9214
Bellamkonda Ramaraya Kavindrulu
1875 - 1914 (39 years)
Bellamkonda Ramaraya Kavindrulu was an Indian poet, author, yogi, Sanskrit scholar and a philosopher. Ramaraya Kavi wrote nearly 148 classic works in Sanskrit . All but 45 are missing. While some are available in part, the remaining are available full length.
Go to Profile#9215
Bettina Linn
1905 - 1962 (57 years)
Mary Bettina Linn was an American writer and college professor. She wrote three published novels, and was on the faculty at Bryn Mawr College. She worked with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II.
Go to Profile#9216
Jerónimo Bermúdez
1530 - 1599 (69 years)
Jerónimo Bermúdez de Castro was a playwright of the Spanish Golden Age. Biography He belonged to the order of St. Dominic, and was professor of theology at Salamanca. Works He published at Madrid in 1577, under the name of Antonio de Silva, two tragedies upon the subject of Inez de Castro, Nise Lastimosa and Nise Laureada. He also published a poem originally written in Latin, and translated by himself into Spanish, entitled La Hesperoida, of which the duke of Alva was the hero.
Go to Profile#9217
Ion G. Sbiera
1836 - 1916 (80 years)
Ion G. Sbiera was a Romanian folklorist. He was one of the founding members of the Romanian Academy.
Go to Profile#9218
Sir Gilbert Elliot, 3rd Baronet, of Minto
1722 - 1777 (55 years)
Sir Gilbert Elliot, 3rd Baronet, was born at Minto, Roxburghshire, and was a Scottish statesman, philosopher and poet. Early life Elliot was born in September 1722 in Minto, Roxburghshire. He was one of nine children born to Helen Steuart and Sir Gilbert Elliot, 2nd Baronet, of Minto.
Go to Profile#9219
Kaoru Maruyama
1899 - 1974 (75 years)
Kaoru Maruyama was a Japanese poet. His collected works were translated by Robert Epp. He was the professor first in Tokyo and later at Aichi University. He was the editor of Four Seasons Literary Magazine. Ten Years, Fairy Country, and Heart of flowers are his best-known books. He is sometimes called "the poet of the sea".
Go to Profile#9220
Vasily Anisimoff
1878 - 1938 (60 years)
Vasily Onisimovich Afanasiev was a revolutionary and a propagandist of Marxism as well as a prominent activist and supporter of the Russian and international Socialist movement. He was among the active members of the RSDLP and was a Menshevik. In 1925, Anisimoff became the deputy head of the economic department of the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy of the RSFSR, managing the "Exportles" trust.
Go to Profile#9221
John Russell
1885 - 1956 (71 years)
John Russell was an American writer and screenwriter. Biography Born in Davenport, Iowa, in 1885, Russell wrote for the New York City News Association news agency, and then for the New York Tribune. The Pagan was based on one of his stories, and he wrote the screenplay for Beau Geste.
Go to Profile#9222
Antoine-Léonard Thomas
1732 - 1785 (53 years)
Antoine Léonard Thomas was a French poet and literary critic, best known in his time for his great eloquence, especially for éloges in praise of past luminaries. It was in recognition of this that he was elected to Académie Française.
Go to Profile#9223
Clyde R. Miller
1888 - 1958 (70 years)
Clyde Raymond Miller was an associate professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University who co-founded the Institute for Propaganda Analysis with Edward A. Filene and Kirtley F. Mather in 1937.
Go to Profile#9224
John Wilson
1626 - 1696 (70 years)
John Wilson was an English playwright and lawyer. Life and work He was son of Aaron Wilson, a royalist divine, and was born in London in 1626. He matriculated from Exeter College, Oxford, in 1644, and entered Lincoln's Inn two years later, being called to the bar in 1649. His unswerving support of the royal pretensions recommended him to James, duke of York, through whose influence he became Recorder of Derry about 1681. His Discourse of Monarchy , a tract in favour of the succession of the duke of York, was followed by a "Pindarique" on his coronation. In 1688 he wrote Jus regium Coronae, a learned defence of James's action in dispensing with the penal statutes.
Go to Profile#9225
C. Violet Butler
1884 - 1982 (98 years)
Christina Violet Butler was a social researcher and educator active in Oxford. She was known for her 1912 study Social Conditions in Oxford which recorded the lives of working class citizens in the Edwardian city. She also taught economics, women's studies, and trained social workers in Oxford.
Go to Profile#9226
Arkadi Kuleshov
1914 - 1978 (64 years)
Arkadź Aljaksandravič Kulašoǔ was a Soviet and Belarusian poet, translator and screenwriter. He was best known for his poems, Brigade Flag and Cymbalon, as well as his translations of poetry into Belarusian.
Go to Profile#9227
Clarice Short
1910 - 1977 (67 years)
Clarice Short was an American poet and academic. Early life and education Clarice Short was born in Ellinwood, Kansas, and grew up in the Arkansas Ozarks, and later near Taos, New Mexico. She attended the University of Kansas, where she earned her B. A. and M. A., She received her PhD from Cornell University in 1941.
Go to Profile#9228
William Moir Calder
1881 - 1960 (79 years)
Sir William Moir Calder, FBA was a Scottish archaeologist, epigraphist, classicist, and academic. He was Hulme Professor of Greek at the University of Manchester from 1913 to 1930, and Professor of Greek at the University of Edinburgh from 1930 to 1951.
Go to Profile#9229
James Lindsay
1852 - 1923 (71 years)
James Lindsay FRSE FGS was a Scottish minister, theologian and writer. Life He was born in Ayrshire in 1852, where his father, John Cowan Lindsay, was headmaster of Kilmarnock Grammar School, where he was later educated. He studied divinity at Glasgow University, graduating MA in 1878. In 1889 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, John Gray McKendrick, James Thomson Bottomley, and Sir James David Marwick. He gained a doctorate in 1899.
Go to Profile#9230
Joseph Waltl
1805 - 1888 (83 years)
Dr. Joseph Waltl was a German physician and naturalist. Waltl was born in Wasserburg am Bodensee and studied at Landshut and Munich, graduating in medicine in 1819. He then travelled in Austria, France and Spain. In 1833 he became a teacher in Passau, and in 1835 a professor of natural history at the university.
Go to Profile#9231
Hazel Hutchins Wilson
1898 - 1992 (94 years)
Hazel Hutchins Wilson was an American writer of children's books who turned to writing after a career as a school and university librarian. Biography Born in Portland, Maine, she attended Bates College in Lewiston, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1919. In 1920 she received a Bachelor of Science degree in library science from Simmons College in Boston.
Go to Profile#9232
Albin Lesky
1896 - 1981 (85 years)
Albin Lesky was an Austrian classical philologist. He was married to Austrian historian of medicine Erna Lesky. List of works Strom ohne Brücke. Leykam, Graz 1918.Alkestis, der Mythus und das Drama. Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, Wien 1925.Die griechische Tragödie. Kröner, Stuttgart 1938.Der Kosmos der Choephoren. Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, Wien 1943.Humanismus als Erbe und Aufgabe. Rauch, Innsbruck 1946.Erziehung. Tyrolia, Innsbruck 1946.Thalatta. Rohrer, Wien 1947.Die Maske des Thamyris. Rohrer, Wien 1951.Sophokles und das Humane. Rohrer, Wien 1952.Die Homerforschung in der Gegenwart. Sexl, Wien 1952.Die Entzifferung von Linear B.
Go to Profile#9233
Jessie Raven Crosland
1879 - 1973 (94 years)
Jessie Crosland was a scholar of medieval French literature, Lecturer in French at Westfield College. Life Jessie Raven was the youngest daughter of the Plymouth Brethren preacher Frederick Edward Raven . She married Joseph Beardsall Crosland, a civil servant whom she met through the Brethren, in 1904. In 1921, she accompanied her husband to the Cairo Conference on the Middle East, later relating her recollections of Winston Churchill's behaviour at the conference: She retired in 194647. Her son was the politician Anthony Crosland . She died on 16 June 1973, in Merton, London.
Go to Profile#9234
Clifford Grey
1887 - 1941 (54 years)
Clifford Grey was an English songwriter, librettist, actor and screenwriter. His birth name was Percival Davis, and he was also known as Clifford Gray. Grey contributed prolifically to West End and Broadway shows, as librettist and lyricist for composers including Ivor Novello, Jerome Kern, Howard Talbot, Ivan Caryll and George Gershwin. Among his best-remembered songs are two from early in his career, in 1916: "If You Were the Only Girl " and "Another Little Drink Wouldn't Do Us Any Harm". His later hits include "Got a Date with an Angel" and "Spread a Little Happiness".
Go to Profile#9235
Richard Bristow
1538 - 1581 (43 years)
Richard Bristow was an English Catholic controversialist and Biblical scholar. Life Richard Bristow was born in 1538 in Worcester, England. At the Age of 17, he studied at the University of Oxford, possibly at Exeter College. In 1559, he gained his bachelor's degree. He continued his studies at Christ Church, Oxford, and gained his MA in 1562.
Go to Profile#9236
Philip Hunton
1604 - 1682 (78 years)
Philip Hunton was an English clergyman and political writer, known for his May 1643 anti-absolutist work A Treatise of Monarchy. It became a banned book under the Restoration. A Treatise of Monarchie At the time of publication, it provoked a much better-known rebuttal, the 1648 Anarchy of a Limited and Mixed Monarchy by Robert Filmer. It was part of a pamphleteering exchange initiated by the royal chaplain Henry Ferne.
Go to Profile#9237
Eliza Hall Kendrick
1863 - 1940 (77 years)
Eliza Hall Kendrick was an American college professor. She taught Biblical history at Wellesley College from 1899 to 1931. She was active in ecumenical efforts both internationally and in New England.
Go to Profile#9238
Emrys Evans
1891 - 1965 (74 years)
Sir David Emrys Evans was a Welsh classicist and university principal. Life Evans, from Clydach, Glamorgan, was educated at Ystalyfera County School, before going on to University College, Bangor, and then Jesus College, Oxford, where he obtained a B. Litt. degree. He taught at the secondary school in Pentre from 1918, before becoming assistant lecturer in classics at Bangor.
Go to Profile#9239
Cornelius Grapheus
1482 - 1558 (76 years)
Cornelius Grapheus , Latinized from Cornelis De Schrijver, was a secretary to the city of Antwerp and writer. Life Grapheus was born in Aalst, County of Flanders, in 1482. His brother was Joannes Grapheus, the printer who also settled in Antwerp. As a young man Cornelius travelled in Italy. When Thomas More's Utopia was first printed in 1516, Grapheus provided some liminary verses.
Go to Profile#9240
C. Delisle Burns
1879 - 1954 (75 years)
Cecil Delisle Burns was a leading English atheist and secularist writer and lecturer. Early life Burns was born in Saint Kitts and Nevis, West Indies where his father was treasurer of St. Christopher-Nevis in the Leeward Islands. After leaving Christ's College, Cambridge, he was trained in Rome for the priesthood, but left the Church in 1908 and devoted time to the study of social problems in a wider sense. In 1912, he married the painter Margaret Hannay: the sister of Alexander Howard Hannay, art critic of the famous "London Mercury".
Go to Profile#9241
William Wantling
1933 - 1974 (41 years)
William Wantling was an American poet, novelist, ex-Marine, ex-convict, and college instructor born in East Peoria, Illinois. After graduating high school he joined the Marine Corps until 1955. He served in Korea during 1953. After leaving the Marines he moved to California and eventually had a son with his then-wife Luana. Wantling went to San Quentin State Prison in 1958 convicted of forgery and possession of narcotics. During his imprisonment Luana divorced him and took custody of the child. He was released in 1963, and returned to Peoria. There he married Ruth Ann Bunton, a fellow divorcee, in 1964.
Go to Profile#9242
John Longmuir
1803 - 1883 (80 years)
John Longmuir MA LLD was a Scottish minister of first the Church of Scotland then the Free Church of Scotland. He is mainly remembered as a poet and antiquary. Life He was born on 13 November 1803 at Fetteresso near Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, the son of John Longmuir, a sailor, and his wife, Christian Paterson. He was christened on 17 November 1803.
Go to Profile#9243
William Stevenson
1530 - 1575 (45 years)
William Stevenson was an English clergyman and presumed playwright of the early English language comedy Gammer Gurton's Needle. Born in Durham, England, he studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1553, his Master of Arts degree in 1560 and his Bachelor of Divinity degree, also in 1560. Account books at Christ's College list him in 1550–1553 and again in 1559–1560 as involved in putting on plays, though they do not mention Gammer Gurton's Needle explicitly. He became a prebend at Durham Cathedral in 1561.
Go to Profile#9244
Reginald Walter Macan
1848 - 1941 (93 years)
Reginald Walter Macan was an Irish classical scholar. He was educated at University College, Oxford, where he gained a First in Classical Moderations in 1869 and a First in Literae Humaniores in 1871. He held a Fellowship at the college and was appointed Master in March 1906. He was only the second layman Master of the college after Anthony Gate, Master from 1584 to 1597.
Go to Profile#9245
Martin Kellogg
1828 - 1903 (75 years)
Martin Kellogg was born in Vernon, Connecticut, to Allyn Kellogg and Eliza Kellogg née White. He graduated from Yale as valedictorian of the Class of 1850. He was ordained as a missionary in the Congregational Church and served as a pastor in Shasta, California, in 1855, then in Grass Valley, California, from 1857 to 1860, and then in Oakland, California, starting in 1861.
Go to Profile#9246
Gessner Harrison
1807 - 1862 (55 years)
Gessner Harrison was an American educator, author, and college administrator during the antebellum era. He was appointed by James Madison as an associate professor of ancient languages at the University of Virginia . Harrison was recognized for teaching the fundamentals of the classics as well as linguistics, and for advancing these in his publications. He often served as chairman of the faculty and was required to address years of riotous student behavior.
Go to Profile#9247
Johann Zahn
1641 - 1707 (66 years)
Johann Zahn was the author of Oculus Artificialis Teledioptricus Sive Telescopium, a book that depicts Zahn’s interests in production of the camera obscura and other inventions relating to his study of light. Zahn was born in Germany and became a priest of the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré, Unlike most orders, Zahn and his fellow canons preached and served nearby parishes. Zahn was born on March 29, 1641 and died on June 27, 1707. During his life he produced many writings and illustrations of the camera obscura before eventually designing a prototype that was 23 inches long and capable of enlarging and focusing images with the assistance of mirrors.
Go to Profile#9248
Philip Henry Savage
1868 - 1899 (31 years)
Philip Henry Savage was an American poet. Biography Born in North Brookfield, Massachusetts on February 11, 1868, he was the son of Minot Judson Savage, a well-known Unitarian minister, and Ella A. Dodge. The family moved several times during his early life: to Framingham, then to Chicago and finally to Boston in 1874. He graduated from the English High School of Boston in 1885. He worked at the leather and shoe company Bachfelder and Lincoln, spending "a number of years drumming boots and shoes in the northeastern states" before he began attending Harvard in 1889 at age 21. He graduated there in 1893, and was conferred the degree of A.M.
Go to Profile#9249
John Abercrombie
1780 - 1844 (64 years)
John Abercrombie was a Scottish physician, author, philosopher and philanthropist. His Edinburgh practice became one of the most successful medical practices in Scotland. The Chambers Biographical Dictionary says of him that after James Gregory's death, he was "recognized as the first consulting physician in Scotland". As surgeon to The Royal Public Dispensary and the New Town Dispensary he provided free medical care for the poor of the town and taught medical students and apprentices. He published extensively on medical topics and latterly on metaphysics morality and religion. A devout Christian, he gave financial support to missionary work.
Go to Profile#9250
Johann Karl Zeune
1736 - 1788 (52 years)
Johann Karl Zeune was a German academic and philologist. External links
Go to Profile