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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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 Philosophy,
#15251
Richard Heuberger
1850 - 1914 (64 years)
Richard Franz Joseph Heuberger was an Austrian composer of operas and operettas, a music critic, and teacher. Heuberger was born in Graz, the son of a bandage manufacturer. He initially studied engineering, but gave it up in 1876, and turned to music. He studied at the Graz Conservatory , and later transferred to Vienna, where he eventually became the chorus master of the Wiener Akademischer Gesangverein, conductor of the Wiener Singakademie, director of the Wiener Männergesang-Verein , and a teacher at the Konservatorium der Stadt Wien.
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Uddharan Dutta Thakura
1481 - 1541 (60 years)
Uddharan Dutta Takur was an Indian philosopher and saint from the Gaudiya Vaishnava school of Vedanta tradition, producing a great number of philosophical works on the theology and practice of Bhakti yoga, Vaishnava Vedanta and associated disciplines. He is known as one of the Dwadasha gopas, .
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Enrique Suñer Ordóñez
1878 - 1941 (63 years)
Enrique Suñer Ordóñez was a Spanish professor of pediatric medicine at the University of Madrid and administrator in the Franco government. He was vice president of the Education and culture committee of Franco's first government. He was subsequently appointed president of the Comisión Liquidadora de Responsabilidades Políticas where he oversaw an anti-intellectual purging of schoolteachers and denouncing of leading intellectuals such as Ramón Menéndez Pidal, María Goyri, and many others. The enormous backlog of cases he sent to the Commission led to dysfunction, and his eventual replacement...
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Lucien-Marie Pautrier
1876 - 1959 (83 years)
Lucien-Marie Pautrier was a French dermatologist. Biography He studied medicine in Marseille and Paris, where he was steered towards dermatology by Émile Leredde, and subsequently worked with dermatologist Louis-Anne-Jean Brocq at the Hôpital Saint-Louis. He served as a medical officer to a field artillery regiment in World War I, during which, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre for bravery and became a chevalier in the Légion d’Honneur .
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Rudolf Leubuscher
1822 - 1861 (39 years)
Rudolf Leubuscher was a German physician and psychiatrist who was a native of Breslau. He obtained his medical doctorate in 1844 with the dissertation, De indole hallucinationum in mania religiosa, afterwards serving as an assistant to Heinrich Philipp August Damerow at the newly constructed provincial mental institution in Halle. In 1848 he became habilitated at Humboldt University of Berlin, and in 1855 was a director at the medical clinic in Jena. He later returned to Berlin as a physician and associate professor at the university. He died in Berlin in 1861 at the age of 39.
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Hermann Senator
1834 - 1911 (77 years)
Hermann Senator was a German internist who was a native of Gnesen in the Prussian Province of Posen . Of Jewish descent, he studied medicine in Berlin, where he received his medical doctorate in 1857. Among his instructors in Berlin were Johannes Peter Müller , Johann Lukas Schönlein and Ludwig Traube . In 1875, he became chief physician in the internal medicine department at the Augusta-Hospital, and in 1881 became head physician at the Berlin Charité.
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Jacqueline Cochran
1906 - 1980 (74 years)
Jacqueline Cochran was an American pilot and business executive. She pioneered women's aviation as one of the most prominent racing pilots of her generation. She set numerous records and was the first woman to break the sound barrier on 18 May 1953. Cochran was the wartime head of the Women Airforce Service Pilots , which employed about 1000 civilian American women in a non-combat role to ferry planes from factories to port cities. Cochran was later a sponsor of the Mercury 13 women astronaut program.
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Ida Mann
1893 - 1983 (90 years)
Professor Dame Ida Caroline Mann, Mrs Gye, DBE, FRCS was "a distinguished ophthalmologist ... equally well known for her pioneering research work on embryology and development of the eye, and on the influences of genetic and social factors on the incidence and severity of eye disease throughout the world". Only six other women were Fellows at this time.
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John Henderson
1747 - 1785 (38 years)
John Henderson was an English actor who played many Shakespearean and other roles. He first acted in Bath, where he was known as "The Bath Roscius", and then in London. Had he not died young he would have been remembered as a worthy successor to David Garrick.
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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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Fritz Lange
1864 - 1952 (88 years)
Fritz Lange was a German orthopedic surgeon. He studied medicine at the universities of Jena, Leipzig and Munich, receiving his doctorate in 1892. He furthered his education in Rostock and Strasbourg, where he was pupil of Otto Wilhelm Madelung. In 1895 he studied orthopedics under Adolf Lorenz in Vienna, and during the following year, obtained his habilitation for orthopedic surgery. In 1908 he became a full professor of orthopedics at the University of Munich.
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Henning Rønne
1878 - 1947 (69 years)
Henning Rønne was a Danish ophthalmologist. He studied medicine at the University of Copenhagen, where he graduated with an M.B. in 1903. Later he became an assistant to Jannik Petersen Bjerrum , with whom he performed important studies in campimetry. In 1910 he earned his medical doctorate, and in 1931 became a professor of ophthalmology at the university.
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Georges Hayem
1841 - 1933 (92 years)
Georges Hayem was a physician and hematologist born in Paris. He studied medicine in Paris, and later became a professor of therapy and materia medica. Beginning in 1878 he practiced medicine at the Hôpital Tenon; later on, he was associated with the Hôpital St. Antoine. From 1893 until 1911 he held the chair of clinical medicine.
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Richard Paltauf
1858 - 1924 (66 years)
Richard Paltauf was an Austrian pathologist and bacteriologist. Biography Paltauf was born on 9 February 1858, in Judenburg, Styria. In 1880 he received his medical doctorate at the University of Graz, and from 1881 to 1883 was an assistant to pathologist Hans Kundrat in Graz. Afterwards, he remained as Kundrat's assistant at the University of Vienna, where in 1888 he obtained his habilitation in pathological anatomy. In 1892 he became an associate professor of general pathology and pathological histology, and during the following year became head of the institute for pathological histology and bacteriology.
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Adolf Vossius
1855 - 1925 (70 years)
Adolf Vossius was a German ophthalmologist. He studied medicine at the universities of Königsberg and Giessen, receiving his doctorate in 1879. Following graduation, he remained at Giessen as an assistant to Arthur von Hippel at the university eye clinic. In 1882 he obtained his habilitation at Königsberg, where five years later, he was named an associate professor. In 1890 he returned to the University of Giessen as a full professor of ophthalmology. At Giessen he opened a new eye clinic on Friedrichstrasse.
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Paul Loye
1861 - 1890 (29 years)
Paul Loye was a French physician and "préparateur" for various physiological courses at the Sorbonne in the 1880s. His greatest contribution lay in his observations on the functions and organization of the brain and nervous system.
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Rudolph August Witthaus
1846 - 1915 (69 years)
Rudolph August Witthaus Jr. was an American physician, chemist, and toxicologist. He was the top authority on poisons in the United States and was a forensic toxicologist in many important capital murder cases of the late19th and early 20th centuries. He was also a survivor of the sinking of the SS Ville du Havre.
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Roscoe Ates
1895 - 1962 (67 years)
Roscoe Blevel Ates was an American vaudeville performer, actor of stage and screen, comedian and musician who primarily featured in western films and television. He was best known as western character Soapy Jones. He was also billed as Rosco Ates.
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Marriott Fawckner Nicholls
1898 - 1969 (71 years)
Sir Marriott Fawckner Nicholls CBE, FRCS, was an English surgeon who specialised in the genitourinary tract. He served in the British Army in both the First and Second World Wars and was dean of the medical school at St George's Hospital for 20 years. At the age of 64 he became professor of surgery at the University of Khartoum in Sudan, where he maintained the position until his death five years later.
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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.
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Philip Levine
1900 - 1987 (87 years)
Philip Levine was an immuno-hematologist whose clinical research advanced knowledge on the Rhesus factor, Hemolytic disease of the newborn and blood transfusion. Life and career Levine was born in Kletsk, near Minsk , then in the Russian Empire. He moved with his family to New York when he was 8 years old where his family took on a more English sounding surname. The family settled in Brooklyn where Levine graduated from Boys' High School. He received a bachelor's degree at City College and a master's degree and, in 1923, an M.D. degree at Cornell University Medical School. About 1925, Levine became assistant to Karl Landsteiner at the Rockefeller Institute, New York City.
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Francesco Pucci
1543 - 1597 (54 years)
Francesco Pucci was an Italian philosopher and humanist. Life Pucci was born in Figline Valdarno. He was of the same family as the Cardinals Lorenzo Pucci, Roberto Pucci, and Antonio Pucci. He worked began in a mercantile house at Lyon and came into contact with the Protestant Reformation. He made his way to London, where he became acquainted with Antonio de Corro.
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Alfred Szendrei
1884 - 1976 (92 years)
Alfred Szendrei, also Alfred Sendrey and Aladár Szendrei was an American musicologist, organist, conductor, composer of Hungarian origin. He was one of the leading conductors and pioneers of German radio. In exile he changed his Hungarian surname "Szendrei" to the Americanized spelling "Sendrey".
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Rudolf Schirmer
1831 - 1896 (65 years)
Rudolf Schirmer was a German ophthalmologist from Greifswald. He initially studied medicine at the University of Greifswald, then furthered his studies at Göttingen, Berlin, Paris and Vienna. Later he returned to Greifswald, where he was habilitated for ophthalmology in 1860. In 1873 he attained the chair of ophthalmology, a position he held until his retirement in 1893. In 1885, he succeeded philosopher Wilhelm Schuppe as university rector at Greifswald.
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Henning Jakob Henrik Lund
1875 - 1948 (73 years)
Henning Jakob Henrik Lund or Intel'eraq was a Greenlandic lyricist, painter, and pastor. He wrote the lyrics to "Nunarput utoqqarsuanngoravit," in the indigenous Greenlandic language, an Eskimo–Aleut language. The song was adopted as the national anthem of Greenland.
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Cornelius Rea Agnew
1830 - 1888 (58 years)
Cornelius Rea Agnew was an American surgeon. Early years Agnew was born in New York City, the son of William Agnew and Elizabeth Thompson Agnew; his ancestors, Huguenot, Irish and Scotch, came to America from time to time during the 18th century. He entered the Columbia College in 1845 and graduated from there in 1849 with the degree of A.B. He then received the degree of M.D. from the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1852. In 1856, he married Mary Nash, daughter of Lora Nash, a New York merchant.
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Friedrich Martius
1850 - 1923 (73 years)
Friedrich Martius was a German internist who was one of the pioneers of constitutional thought in medicine. He was the father of philosopher Hedwig Conrad-Martius . He studied medicine at the Pépinière in Berlin, obtaining his doctorate in 1874. Following graduation, he served as a military doctor, and afterwards worked as an assistant in the clinic of Carl Gerhardt in Berlin. In 1887 he received his habilitation, and later was appointed personal physician to Frederick Francis III, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. In 1891 he relocated to the University of Rostock as an associate professor and director of the medical clinic.
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Robert Spittal
Robert Spittal MD FRSE was a 19th-century Scottish physician and amateur botanist. Life Spittal was born to Marion Brown and James Spittal. The family moved to 59 South Bridge in Edinburgh's Old Town in 1810.
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William of Falgar
William of Falgar was a Franciscan theologian from south-west France, a follower of Bonaventure. He entered the Franciscan Order at Toulouse. He became bishop of Viviers in 1296. Notes External links Franaut pageList of works
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Paul Silex
1858 - 1929 (71 years)
Paul Silex was a German ophthalmologist. He is known for contributions made involving war-related blindness. He studied medicine at the Universities of Halle, Berlin and Breslau, obtaining his doctorate in 1883. Afterwards he served as an assistant to ophthalmologist Ludwig Laqueur in Strasbourg, followed by several years as an assistant to Karl Ernst Theodor Schweigger in Berlin.
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Peter Butterworth
1919 - 1979 (60 years)
Peter William Shorrocks Butterworth was an English actor and comedian best known for his appearances in the Carry On film series. He was also a regular on children's television and radio. Butterworth was married to actress and impressionist Janet Brown.
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Jay Webber Seaver
1855 - 1915 (60 years)
Jay Webber Seaver was an American physician and a pioneer of anthropometry. Life Seaver was born in Craftsbury, Vermont as son of William Seaver and Betsy Urie, and had four siblings. He studied at the Yale School of Medicine, where he became professor in his later life. Seaver measured the bodies of thousands of people attending the summer school resort at Chautauqua, New York., and published the results of his studies in his work Anthropometry and physical examination. A book for practical use in connection with gymnastic work and physical education.. On July 1, 1886, he married Leona Nancy...
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Alfred Charles Post
1806 - 1886 (80 years)
Alfred Charles Post was an American surgeon. Post was born in New York City. He graduated from Columbia College in 1822 and from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1827, studied in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and London .
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Wilhelm Prausnitz
1861 - 1933 (72 years)
Wilhelm Prausnitz was a hygiene specialist. In 1879 he completed his university entrance examination together with Siegfried Czapski, Richard Reitzenstein and Felix Skutsch. A full professor since 1899 of hygiene and was head of the hygiene institute; the dean of the medical school at Graz, Austria, as well as a Privy Counsellor.
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Públia Hortênsia de Castro
1548 - 1595 (47 years)
Públia Hortênsia de Castro was a scholar and humanist in the court of Catherine of Austria, Queen of Portugal. Born in 1548 in Vila Viçosa, Portugal, she was named for Hortensia, the famous Roman orator and daughter of Quintus Hortensius, suggesting that her parents intended for her to become a well-educated woman. She evidently studied Greek and Latin, and by the time she was seventeen she was engaged in public debates on Aristotle. There are stories that, dressed as a boy and chaperoned by her brother, she attended the University of Coimbra, in Lisbon, but historians consider this unlikely....
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Laura Alberta Linton
1853 - 1915 (62 years)
Laura Alberta Linton was an American chemist and physician. Early life and education Linton was born in Mahoning County, Ohio, on April 8, 1853, the oldest child of Joseph and Christina Linton. The family were Quakers. The family farmed in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey before settling in Wabasha County, Minnesota. Linton graduated from the Winona Normal School in 1872, and went on to the University of Minnesota, from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry.
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Rudolf Pöch
1870 - 1921 (51 years)
Rudolf Pöch was an Austrian medical doctor, anthropologist, and ethnologist. Pöch is also known as a pioneer in photography, cinematography, and audio engineering. He can be regarded as a founding father of the Institute for Anthropology and Ethnography at the University of Vienna.
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Henry Hayes Vowles
1843 - 1905 (62 years)
Henry Hayes Vowles was an English author, theologian and a Wesleyan Minister. He also published religious poetry. Parents He was the son of Henry Vowles of Bath and Mary Yeoman Harding of "The Chancellor" Wanstrow, Somerset. The parents of Henry Vowles were James Vowles of 2 Quiet Street Bath, and Martha Edney . James Vowles was the son of William Vowles of Walcot and Hannah Hancock. William Vowles was the son of James Vowles and Martha Jane married at Bath Abbey on 6 August 1728.
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Heinrich von Rustige
1810 - 1900 (90 years)
Heinrich Franz Gaudenz von Rustige was a German painter specializing in historical subjects and genres. Life and work From 1828, he was a student of Wilhelm von Schadow at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. After 1832, he began participating in exhibitions there.
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Edward Mott Moore
1814 - 1902 (88 years)
Edward Mott Moore was an American surgeon. He served as president of the American Medical Association and as president of the Board of Trustees of the University of Rochester. One type of radial fracture is named for him.
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Ferdinand Gumprecht
1864 - 1947 (83 years)
Ferdinand Adolph Gumprecht was a German internist born in Berlin. He studied medicine at the Universities of Heidelberg, Berlin, Göttingen and Jena, earning his doctorate at the latter institution in 1889. In 1890 he became an assistant at the Krankenhaus Friedrichshain in Berlin, followed by work at the pathological institute and at the medical clinic at the University of Jena, where he served as an assistant to Paul Fürbringer and Roderich Stintzing .
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Tommaso del Garbo
1305 - 1370 (65 years)
Tommaso del Garbo or Thomas de Garbo was a professor of medicine in Perugia and Bologna. He was the son of the physician Dino del Garbo and a friend of the poet Petrarch. It is said that the physician Pietro da Tossignano studied under Garbo at the University of Bologna.
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Pierre Bardin
1590 - 1635 (45 years)
Pierre Bardin , born in Rouen, was a French philosopher and mathematician and Doctor of Letters. He was one of the first members of the Académie française and the first occupant of Seat 29.
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Amico Bignami
1862 - 1929 (67 years)
Amico Bignami was an Italian physician, pathologist, malariologist and sceptic. He was professor of pathology at Sapienza University of Rome. His most important scientific contribution was in the discovery of transmission of human malarial parasite in the mosquito.
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Peter F. Rothermel
1812 - 1895 (83 years)
Peter Frederick Rothermel was an American painter. Biography Rothermel was born in Nescopeck, Pennsylvania on July 8, 1812, although various sources give his birth year as 1813, 1814, and 1817. The artist's gravestone in Philadelphia gives the date as 1812. He had a common-school education, and studied land surveying. At age 20, he moved to Philadelphia and became a sign painter. Then at age 22, he took up the study of art. He was instructed in drawing by John Rubens Smith, and subsequently became a pupil of Bass Otis in Philadelphia.
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William S. Dix
1910 - 1978 (68 years)
William Shepherd Dix was a scholar and librarian who had a 22-year career as Librarian at Princeton University in New Jersey, without a degree in library science. His contributions to the field of librarianship, however, are varied and notable, making him worthy of recognition in the American Libraries' 100 most important figures.
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Josef Matyáš Trenkwald
1824 - 1897 (73 years)
Josef Matyáš Trenkwald was a Czech-Austrian painter. He was best known for his religious and historical paintings. Biography Josef Matyáš Trenkwald was born on 13 March 1824 in Prague. His father was a tax commissioner. He studied art with Christian Ruben at the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague from 1841 to 1851, where he began painting scenes from Czech history, especially the era of the Hussite wars. In 1852, he moved to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and illustrated the Book of Songs by Heinrich Heine.
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Douglas Argyll Robertson
1837 - 1909 (72 years)
Douglas Moray Cooper Lamb Argyll Robertson FRSE, FRCSEd LLD was a Scottish ophthalmologist and surgeon. He introduced physostigmine into ophthalmic practice and the Argyll Robertson pupil is named after him. He was president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
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Bertha Van Hoosen
1863 - 1952 (89 years)
Bertha Van Hoosen was an American surgeon devoted to women's health issues and the advancement of fellow women surgeons. Among other notable achievements, Van Hoosen was the first president and a founder of the American Medical Women's Association in 1915 and the first woman to be head of a medical division at a coeducational university. She published an autobiography detailing her personal experiences in medicine, Petticoat Surgeon.
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Tang Zhen
1630 - 1704 (74 years)
Tang Zhen , born Tang Dadao , courtesy name Zhuwan , was a Chinese philosopher and educator born in Dazhou during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. His given name was Dahao, but later he changed his given name to Zhen and his courtesy name to Puyuan .
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