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 Literature,
#9701
John Hennig
1911 - 1986 (75 years)
John Hennig was a German theologian, businessman and scholar of Irish and German Literature. Origins Hennig was born in Leipzig on 3 March 1911, the son of a teacher, Max Hennig, and his wife Johanna Clemen. Like his brother Karl , later to be a theologian and pastor, Hans, as he was known, frequented the Thomasschule in Leipzig. The family was Lutheran. Hennig's mother was a deaconess at her marriage and his father had a doctorate in the psychology of religious perception and was an ordained minister, though he had chosen to become a high-school religion teacher rather than a pastor. A brot...
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Einar Löfstedt
1880 - 1955 (75 years)
Haimon Einar Harald Löfstedt was a Swedish Latinist and classical philologist. His father, also named Einar Löfstedt, was a scholar of Greek. He was Professor of Roman Oratory and Poetry at Lund University from 1913. Löfstedt was a member of the Swedish Academy, of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
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John Henry Whyte
1928 - 1990 (62 years)
John Henry Whyte was an Irish historian, political scientist and author of books on Northern Ireland, divided societies and church-state affairs in Ireland. Early life Whyte was born in 1928 in Penang, Malaya. His father was manager of a rubber plantation on the mainland. Whyte's family left Malaya, and returned to Europe when he was three, eventually settling in Rostrevor, County Down, Northern Ireland. The Whytes are a well known County Down family recorded in the area since at least 1713. The Whyte family is said to have come to Ireland from South Wales with Strongbow in 1170 and settled in Leinster.
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Antranig Dzarugian
1913 - 1989 (76 years)
Antranig Dzarugian was an influential diasporan Armenian writer, poet, educator, and journalist in the 20th century. Antranig Dzarugian was born in Gürün, Sivas Vilayet, Ottoman Empire in 1913. He was related to Chello Toros , one of the fighters of the Armenian irregular units against the Ottoman Empire. During the years of the Armenian genocide, Dzarugian separated from his mother as a result of the death marches in the Syrian desert and spent his childhood in the Armenian Orphanage of Aleppo. In 1921, he met his own mother in Aleppo and moved to the local Haygazian Armenian School to receive his elementary education.
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David Bell
1915 - 1959 (44 years)
Ernest David Bell was an English-born writer and curator, who was a controversial figure in Welsh arts by challenging the country's artistic heritage, but was also a supporter of young Welsh talent in the field of contemporary arts in the 20th century.
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Charles Rann Kennedy
1808 - 1867 (59 years)
Charles Rann Kennedy was an English lawyer and classicist, best remembered for his involvement in the Swinfen will case and the issues of contingency fee agreements and legal ethics that it involved.
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Lewis Packard
1836 - 1884 (48 years)
Lewis Richard Packard was an American scholar best known for his work, ‘’Morality and Religion of the Greeks’’. Early life He was born on August 22, 1836 in Philadelphia. His father was Friedrich Adolphus Packard. He graduated from Yale in 1856 with the intention of entering the ministry, but following a year of study at Berlin in 1857-8, a tour of Greece confirmed him as a Hellenist.
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William Wadden Turner
1810 - 1859 (49 years)
William Wadden Turner was an English-born American philologist and librarian. Turner was born in London, England, October 23, 1810; died in Washington, D.C., 29 November 29, 1859. He came to New York in 1818, and, after a public-school education, was apprenticed to the carpenter's trade, but subsequently became a printer. At the age of twenty-six he was master of French, Latin, German, and Hebrew. Afterward he studied Arabic with Professor Isaac Nordheimer, and they proposed to write together an Arabic grammar, but, receiving no encouragement, they prepared instead A Critical Grammar of the H...
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Zachary Boyd
1585 - 1653 (68 years)
Zachary Boyd was a Scottish minister and university administrator who wrote many sermons, scriptural versifications and other devotional works. He served as Dean of Faculties, Rector and Vice-Chancellor at the University of Glasgow during the 1630s and 1640s, and bequeathed a generous legacy to the university including his library and large manuscript collection of unpublished sermons and verse.
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Dewi Havhesp
1831 - 1884 (53 years)
David Roberts was a British poet known as ‘Dewi Havhesp’. Profession David Roberts was a successful tailor with a comfortable income. His family were wealthy landowners and obtained revenue from numerous farms and land. Roberts eventually died in penury at the workhouse at Bala.
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Bjarne Berulfsen
1906 - 1970 (64 years)
Bjarne Berulfsen was a Norwegian philologist and professor, best known for establishing the Friends of Folk Song Club in 1946 and for writing many books translated into several languages. Berulfsen was born in Solum, Norway . He passed his university admission exam in 1925 and then received a candidatus philologiæ degree in historical linguistics in 1932. He taught at Christian High School in Oslo, and then became the principal of the Oslo Commerce School in 1936. He received his PhD in 1949 with the dissertation Kulturtradisjon fra en storhetstid , which was based on private correspondence from the 15th century, and he was also hosted at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1958.
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Oscar Levant
1906 - 1972 (66 years)
Oscar Levant was an American concert pianist, composer, conductor, author, radio game show panelist, television talk show host, comedian, and actor. He was known for his performances in the films Rhapsody in Blue , The Barkleys of Broadway , An American in Paris , and The Band Wagon . He was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 for recordings featuring his piano performances. He was as equally famous for his mordant character and witticisms, on radio and later in movies and television, as for his music. He was portrayed by Sean Hayes in the Broadway play Good Night, Oscar, written by Doug Wright.
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Harvey Oxenhorn
1952 - 1990 (38 years)
Harvey Oxenhorn was an American academic and author most famous for writing the book, Tuning the Rig. He was the Director of the Public Policy Communications Program at Harvard University. Oxenhorn was born in New York City. He got a Bachelor of Arts degree at Swarthmore College and a Doctorate in English from Stanford University. His thesis was entitled "Elemental Things: The Poetry of Hugh MacDiarmid". He taught at both Stanford and Tufts University before accepting a position at Harvard, first as an instructor, and then as Director in 1983. In addition to nonfiction, he also wrote poetry. ...
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Bengt Hesselman
1875 - 1952 (77 years)
Bengt Ivar Hesselman was a Swedish linguist and philologist, specialising in Scandinavian languages. Early life Hesselman was born either in Stockholm or in Å, Östergötland, on 21 December 1875. His parents were the factory owner Bror August Hesselman and Marie Louise Hesselman, née Åberg. He had several brothers, including the botanist Henrik Hesselman and the civil engineer Jonas Hesselman.
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Dallas Lore Sharp
1870 - 1929 (59 years)
Dallas Lore Sharp was an American author and university professor, born in the Haleyville section of Commercial Township, in Cumberland County, New Jersey. He graduated at Brown University in 1895, served as a Methodist Episcopal minister for four years, and graduated at the Boston University School of Theology in 1899. He married Grace Hastings and the couple had four sons, including Waitstill Sharp.
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Isaac ben Joseph ibn Pulgar
1201 - 1500 (299 years)
Isaac ben Joseph ibn Pulgar or Isaac ben Joseph ibn Polkar or Isaac Polqar was a Spanish Jewish philosopher, poet, and controversialist, who flourished in the first half of the fourteenth century. Life Where he lived is not known, for though "Avilla" is given at the end of his translation of Al-Ghazali's Maqasid, the town-name as well as the date is probably the copyist's. He was a warm defender of Isaac Albalag, and continued his translation of Al-Ghazali's-work. It seems from his Ezer ha-Dat that he had been a friend of Abner of Burgos; but when the latter, after conversion, sent him one of ...
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David Robertson
1806 - 1896 (90 years)
David Robertson FLS, FGS was a Scottish naturalist and geologist who founded the University Marine Biological Station, Millport. Robertson was born in Glasgow. From age 8 he worked as a herd boy in Ayrshire, but eventually went on to gain a medical degree. His interests turned to the study of Natural History in the town he regularly visited, Millport, in the Firth of Clyde. He studied the local flora and fauna and established Millport as a significant area for marine biological research. In 1885 he had the 'Ark', an old floating laboratory, drawn up on shore, at Port Loy, Cumbrae. He persuade...
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Gracie Fields
1898 - 1979 (81 years)
Dame Gracie Fields was an English actress, singer, comedian and star of cinema and music hall who was one of the top ten film stars in Britain during the 1930s and was considered the highest paid film star in the world in 1937. She was known affectionately as Our Gracie and the Lancashire Lass and for never losing her strong, native Lancashire accent. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and an Officer of the Venerable Order of St John in 1938, and a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1979.
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A. M. Dale
1901 - 1967 (66 years)
Amy Marjorie Dale, , published as A. M. Dale, was a British classicist and academic. Life Dale was born in 1901. She studied Classics as an undergraduate at Somerville College, Oxford. She subsequently studied under Ludwig Radermacher at the University of Vienna, and at the University of Lund under Albert Wifstrand. Her first academic post, from 1927 to 1929, was at Westfield College in the University of London, followed by a further post at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
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Hilarius
1075 - 1150 (75 years)
Hilarius, also known as Hilary the Englishman , was a Latin poet who is supposed to have been an Englishman. Life He was one of the pupils of Pierre Abélard at his oratory of the Paraclete, and addressed to him a copy of verses with its refrain in the vulgar tongue, "Tort avers vos li mestre", Abelard having threatened to discontinue his teaching because of certain reports made by his servant about the conduct of the scholars.
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Gene Gauntier
1885 - 1966 (81 years)
Gene Gauntier was an American screenwriter and actress who was one of the pioneers of the motion picture industry. A writer, director, and actress in films from mid 1906 to 1920, she wrote screenplays for 42 films. She performed in 87 films and is credited as the director of The Grandmother .
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Ingemar Düring
1903 - 1984 (81 years)
Ingemar Düring was a Swedish Classical Philologist. From 1945 to 1970 he was a professor at Gothenburg University. His most notable work is Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition.
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Hugo Paul Thieme
1870 - 1940 (70 years)
Hugo Paul Thieme was an American literary critic, bibliographer, and university professor. Works La littérature française du dix-neuvième siècle. Bibliographie des principaux prosateurs, poètes, auteurs dramatiques et critiques, Paris 1897 Guide bibliographique de la littérature française de 1800 à 1906. Prosateurs, poètes, auteurs dramatiques et critiques, Paris 1907, Grenoble 2010 Women of modern France, Philadelphia 1907, Project Gutenberg 2005 A French grammar, New York 1908, 1912Essai sur l'histoire du vers français, Paris 1916, New York 1971La civilisation française jugée par un Améri...
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James Southall Wilson
1880 - 1963 (83 years)
James Southall Wilson was an author, University of Virginia professor, and founder of the Virginia Quarterly Review. He organized the 1931 Southern Writers Conference. His wife, Julia Tyler, was the granddaughter of President John Tyler and a founder of Kappa Delta sorority. Wilson wrote the College of William & Mary's spirit song, "Our Alma Mater."
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Renata von Scheliha
1901 - 1967 (66 years)
Renata Johanna von Scheliha was a German classical philologist. She authored a number of books, treatises and monographs and carried out several translations. Life Scheliha was born in Zessel, Oels, Silesia , as the daughter of Prussian aristocrat and officer Rudolph von Scheliha. Her mother was a daughter of the Prussian Minister of Finance Johann von Miquel. Her older brother by four years was the diplomat and resistance fighter Rudolf von Scheliha who was executed in December 1942 by the Nazis on a charge of being a member of the Red Orchestra
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Maurice F. Egan
1852 - 1924 (72 years)
Maurice Francis Egan was an American writer and diplomat. He was a prolific writer and had a long and successful career as a Catholic journalist, literary critic, and novelist. He was a professor of English at two universities, and served as United States Minister in Copenhagen.
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William Stewart
1476 - 1548 (72 years)
William Stewart was a Scottish poet working in the first half of the 16th century. Life William Stewart was great-grandson of one of the illegitimate sons of Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan. He was educated like his namesake William Stewart , the future bishop of Aberdeen, at the University of St Andrews. Destined for the church, he later became a courtier. In 1527 he held a pension from James V of Scotland, and the last payment was recorded in the accounts of 1541. He died before 1560.
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Elizabeth Bentley
1767 - 1839 (72 years)
Elizabeth Bentley was an English poet, one of a small wave of British and Irish writers from the labouring classes in the eighteenth century. She was a local poet who was nonetheless engaged with larger political and social issues.
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Clement Clarke Moore
1779 - 1863 (84 years)
Clement Clarke Moore was an American writer, scholar and real estate developer. He is best known as author of the Christmas poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas." Moore was Professor of Oriental and Greek Literature, as well as Divinity and Biblical Learning, at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in New York City. The seminary was developed on land donated by Moore and it continues on this site at Ninth Avenue between 20th and 21st streets, in an area known as Chelsea Square. Moore gained considerable wealth by subdividing and developing other parts of his large inherited estate in what became known as the residential neighborhood of Chelsea.
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Robert Maxwell
1908 - 1971 (63 years)
Robert Maxwell Joffe was an American radio and television producer, screenwriter, and entertainment executive. He was one of the producers of The Adventures of Superman radio show and a producer of several TV series, including the early episodes of both Adventures of Superman and Lassie . Maxwell acquired the rights to Lassie in 1953 for $2,000 and sold the popular television program starring the collie to Jack Wrather in 1956 for a reported $3.5 million.
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Henri Patin
1793 - 1876 (83 years)
Henri Joseph Guillaume Patin was a French writer and translator of Ancient Greek and Latin. Works Mélanges de littérature ancienne et moderne Études sur les tragiques grecs, ou Examen critique d'Eschyle, de Sophocle et d'Euripide, précédé d'une histoire générale de la tragédie grecque Œuvres d'Horace . Text onlineÉtudes sur la poésie latine Discours et mélanges littéraires Odes d'Horace . Text onlinePoètes moralistes de la Grèce : Hésiode, Théognis de Mégare, Callinos, Tyrtée, Mimnerme, Solon, Sémonide d'Amorgos, Phocylide, Pythagore, Aristote Lucretius. De la Nature
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Henry Fitzsimon
1566 - 1643 (77 years)
Henry Fitzsimon was an Irish Jesuit controversialist. Life Raised a Protestant, he was educated at Oxford , 1583-1587. Going to the University of Paris, he became a zealous supporter of Protestantism, "with the firm intention to have died for it, if need had been". But having engaged in controversy with "an owld English Jesuit, Father Thomas Darbishire, to my happiness I was overcome."
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Arne Novák
1880 - 1939 (59 years)
Arne Novák, born as Arnošt Novák, was a Czech literary historian and critic, specialist in German and Czech studies. Life He was born as a son of the high school teacher Josef Novák and the novelist Teréza Nováková.
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William Kirby
1817 - 1906 (89 years)
William Kirby, was a Canadian author, best known for his classic historical novel, The Golden Dog. Life Born in Yorkshire, England, Kirby immigrated with his parents to the United States in 1832, and then to Canada in 1839. After visiting Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City, he settled in Niagara, Ontario, where his house still stands.
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John Walker
1732 - 1807 (75 years)
John Walker was an English stage actor, philologist and lexicographer. Life Early in life Walker became an actor, his theatrical engagements including one with David Garrick at Drury Lane, and a long season in Dublin, Ireland. In 1768 he left the stage.
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Jordi Rubió
1887 - 1982 (95 years)
Jordi Rubió i Balaguer was a Catalan philologist and librarian. Some works La lògica en rims del Gazzali glosada en rims per Ramon Llull De l'Edat mitjana al Renaixement: Figures literàries de Catalunya i València Obres essencials de Ramon Llull La cultura catalana del Renaixement a la Decadència , recull d'articlesDocumentos para la Historia de la Universidad de Barcelona. I. Preliminares Il·lustració i Renaixença Llibreters i impressors a la Corona d'Aragó
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Karl Zuchardt
1887 - 1968 (81 years)
Karl Zuchardt was a German writer of historical novels. Zuchardt was born in Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony. In 1961 he received the Martin Andersen Nexø-Arts-Award from the city of Dresden, where he later died.
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Walter Bauer
1904 - 1976 (72 years)
Walter Bauer was a German-Canadian biographer, novelist and poet. Walter Bauer showed himself a promising poet in pre-Hitler Germany, but with the rise of the Nazis he found his poetry being banned. He became an elementary school teacher and after the war had high hopes for a literary life. However, in 1953, feeling the cynicism of the German Economic Miracle, he emigrated to Canada where, after a stint as a dishwasher, he became a professor in the German Department of the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario in 1954.
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Robert Angus Brooks
1920 - 1976 (56 years)
Robert Angus Brooks was an American philologist and under secretary at the Smithsonian Institution. He also served as Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations and Logistics under the Johnson Administration.
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Oliver W. F. Lodge
1878 - 1955 (77 years)
Oliver William Foster Lodge , was a poet and author; he was the eldest son of Sir Oliver Lodge , the physicist, and his wife Mary , who had studied painting at the Slade. His five brothers all qualified as engineers, so that he was the only one of the boys with literary leanings, although their uncle Sir Richard Lodge and their aunt Eleanor Constance Lodge both became distinguished academic historians. They grew up in Liverpool, close to Sefton Park, and frequented the Rathbone family of Greenbank House.
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Margarita de Mayo Izarra
1889 - 1969 (80 years)
Margarita de Mayo Izarra was a Spanish writer, teacher, and journalist. Professional career Margarita de Mayo, after obtaining the title of teacher of Primary Higher Education, taught at a graduate school for girls in Valdepeñas from 1914 to 1918.
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Mihailo Valtrović
1839 - 1915 (76 years)
Mihailo Valtrović was a Serbian architect, professor of archeology, one of the first pioneers of art history in Serbia, and key representative of the Historismus along with architect Dragutin Dragiša Milutinović. Valtrović was the first professor of archeology in Serbia, the initiator and founder of Serbian Archeology and founder and first president of the Serbian Archaeological Society. He designed a number of state orders and decorations.
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Martin Crusius
1526 - 1607 (81 years)
Martin Kraus , commonly Latinized as Crusius, was a German classicist and historian, and long-time professor at the University of Tübingen. He was a follower of Philip Melanchthon and wrote an epitome of Melanchthon's Elementorum rhetorices libro duo. Kraus also wrote a commentary on the Iliad.
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Carolina Marcial Dorado
1889 - 1941 (52 years)
Carolina Marcial Dorado was a Spanish educator, writer, and lecturer based in the United States. She was head of the Spanish department at Barnard College from 1920 until her death in 1941. Early life Carolina Marcial Dorado was born in Camuñas, Toledo, the daughter of José Marcial Palacios, a Protestant clergyman, and María de la Luz Marcial-Dorado; her parents were originally from Andalusia. Her older brother, José Marcial Dorado, was a journalist and briefly a member of the Spanish parliament; he was also secretary of the American Bible Society for the Caribbean, based in Cuba.
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Robert Gilbert
1899 - 1978 (79 years)
Robert Gilbert was a German composer of light music, lyricist, singer, and actor. His father was Max Winterfeld, a composer and conductor who went by the pen name of Jean Gilbert. His brother was Henry Winterfeld, an author of children's books. Sometimes described as a "divided author", his early depression-era poem "Stempellied" about living on the dole was set to music by Hanns Eisler. But "Am Sonntag will mein Süsser mit mir segeln gehen" and "Das gibt's nur einmal" , became his better known work.
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James Hurdis
1763 - 1801 (38 years)
James Hurdis was an English clergyman and poet. Life Born in Bishopstone, East Sussex, Hurdis attended the The Prebendal School and studied at St Mary Hall, Oxford, and Magdalen College, Oxford, later becoming a Fellow of Magdalen College.
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Harold Arthur Harris
1902 - 1974 (72 years)
Professor Harold Arthur Harris was an academic associated with the University of Oxford. He was born in Oxford, where his father was a college servant. He was educated at Oxford High School, and went on to study at Jesus College, Oxford. Here, he gained a first in Classical Moderations, becoming a senior scholar, and graduating with first class honours in English.
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John Swinnerton Phillimore
1873 - 1926 (53 years)
John Swinnerton Phillimore was a British classical scholar, translator, and poet. Born at Boconnoc in Cornwall, Phillimore was, like his father, Augustus Phillimore before him, and four brothers, educated at Westminster School , where he was a Queen's Scholar, before going on to read Literae Humaniores at Christ Church, Oxford, where he was also President of the Oxford Union. After taking his degree, he remained at Christ Church as a Student until 1899, when he was made Professor of Greek at the University of Glasgow; in 1906 he became Professor of Humanity there, a position he held until his death.
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Max Förster
1869 - 1954 (85 years)
Max Theodor Wilhelm Förster was a German scholar of Old English. In 1934, Förster was forced to retire from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich: he was an opponent of the Nazi regime and was married to a Jewish woman. He was a visiting professor at Yale University from 1934 to 1936. Wrongly thought to live in the United Kingdom, he was included in The Black Book, a SS list of prominent British residents to be arrested after the invasion of Britain.
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D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson
1829 - 1902 (73 years)
D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson was an English scholar, from 1863 Professor of Greek at Queen's College, Galway. Life D'Arcy was the elder son of John Skelton Thompson, shipmaster, and his wife Mary Mitchell, both of Maryport, Cumberland; it was a seafaring family, and he was born at sea on board his father's barque Georgiana, off Van Diemen's Land, on 18 April 1829. After twelve years at Christ's Hospital, London, he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, Michaelmas 1848, later migrating to Pembroke College. At Cambridge his main tutors were Augustus Arthur Vansittart and with Joseph Barber Lightfoot, both of Trinity; his closest friends were James Lempriere Hammond and Peter Guthrie Tait.
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