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 Philosophy,
#15251
Samuel Martin Thompson
1902 - 1983 (81 years)
Samuel Martin Thompson was an American philosopher, frequent contributor to scholarly journals and author of three bestselling textbooks of philosophy. His textbooks were used by many top universities and seminaries in the United States. An expert on the works of philosopher Immanuel Kant, he published analyses of Kant's work. Thompson was also one of the three authors of the Confession of 1967, one of the major statements of faith of the Presbyterian Church .
Go to Profile#15252
Liu Yuxi
772 - 842 (70 years)
Liu Yuxi was a Chinese essayist, philosopher, and poet active during the Tang dynasty. Biography Family background and education His ancestors were Xiongnu nomadic people. The putative ‘seventh generation’ family head, Liu Liang, was an official of the Northern Wei , who followed the Emperor Xiaowen when he established the capital at Luoyang in 494. Following the government sinification policy, he became Han and register his surname as Liu. From then on the family was based in Luoyang.
Go to Profile#15253
Angelo Pirotta
1894 - 1956 (62 years)
Angelo Pirotta, O.P. was a Maltese philosopher and educator. In philosophy, his areas of specialization were epistemology and metaphysics. Life Early life Pirotta was born in Naxxar, Malta. His parents were John Mary Pirotta and Antonia Née Camilleri . He was the oldest of thirteen children, three of whom died in infancy.
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William Dampier
1651 - 1715 (64 years)
William Dampier was an English explorer, pirate, privateer, navigator, and naturalist who became the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today Australia, and the first person to circumnavigate the world three times. He has also been described as Australia's first natural historian, as well as one of the most important British explorers of the period between Sir Francis Drake and Captain James Cook ; he "bridged those two eras" with a mix of piratical derring-do of the former and scientific inquiry of the latter. His expeditions were among the first to identify and name a number of p...
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Bruce Arroll
#15256
Ferdinand Hartmann
1774 - 1842 (68 years)
Christian Ferdinand Hartmann was a German portrait and Classical history painter. Biography He was the youngest son of the Ducal finance councilor, and his wife Juliane Friederike née Spittler , daughter of the Mayor of Cannstatt. Three of his brothers also became well-known: , a State Councilor, , a paleontologist, and , an industrial entrepreneur. His father's home was also a literary salon, frequented by many notable writers, including Goethe, Schiller and Hölderlin.
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Samuel Maximilian Rieser
1893 - 1981 (88 years)
Samuel Maximilian Rieser was an Austrian-born American lawyer and philosopher. Born in Kraków, where he went to school, he began the study of law in Vienna. His studies were interrupted by World War I, during which he lived in Switzerland. After the war he returned to Vienna, completed his law studies and obtained a position at an insurance company. In 1938 he opened a private law practice. Among his clients was Reinhold Hanisch, a childhood friend of Adolf Hitler. Rieser immigrated to the United States in 1939. Here he earned his living by writing under different pseudonyms for the New Yorker Staatszeitung.
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Clark H. Millikan
#15259
Hans Memling
1435 - 1494 (59 years)
Hans Memling was a painter active in Flanders, who worked in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting. Born in the Middle Rhine region, he probably spent his childhood in Mainz. During his apprenticeship as a painter he moved to the Netherlands and spent time in the Brussels workshop of Rogier van der Weyden. In 1465 he was made a citizen of Bruges, where he became one of the leading artists and the master of a large workshop. A tax document from 1480 lists him among the wealthiest citizens. Memling's religious works often incorporated donor portraits of the clergymen, aristocrats, and burgherss who were his patrons.
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David F. Swenson
1876 - 1940 (64 years)
David Ferdinand Swenson was an authority on the life and writings of the Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard. Work Swenson is best known as the first of the translators of the works of Danish writer Soren Kierkegaard into the English Language. He was born in Kristinehamn, Sweden and moved to Minnesota with his parents in 1882, when he was 6 years old. He was educated in the public schools of Minneapolis and in 1894 entered the University of Minnesota. Upon graduation he was offered a position as assistant professor in the department of philosophy at that same university. By 1917 Swenson had...
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August Friedrich Müller
1684 - 1761 (77 years)
August Friedrich Müller was a German legal scholar and logician. August Friedrich was born in Penig, the son of Johann Adam Müller and his wife Johanne Susanne, daughter of a pharmacist in Rochlitz, Johann Fromhold. Prefigured by his father, he attended school in 1697 and studied at the University of Leipzig from 1703. Here he completed a degree in early philosophical sciences; Andreas Rüdiger was his most important teacher. On the side he studied law under Gottlieb Gerhard Titius .
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Per-olof J. Hasselgren
#15263
Xu Ai
1487 - 1517 (30 years)
Xu Ai was an important Chinese philosopher during the mid-late Ming Dynasty. He was also a magistrate and writer. Biography Xu was born in Maoyan , Yuyao, Shaoxing Fu , Zhejiang Province in 1487. His courtesy name was Yueren , and artist's pseudonym was Hengshan .
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Peter Paul Borg
1843 - 1934 (91 years)
Peter Paul Borg was a Maltese theologian, canonist and minor philosopher. He was mostly interested in the philosophy of law. Life Borg was born in 1843. He became a diocesan priest, and was a Canon of the bishop's Cathedral Chapter. He was a Doctor of Theology and Divinity, and a Doctor of Canon Law. He was a member of the Società Storica e Scientifica di Malta , and for a time also an Apostolic Prefect.
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Francisco Zumel
1540 - 1607 (67 years)
Francisco Zumel was a Spanish philosopher and ecclesiastic. He was superior general of the Mercedarian Order and professor of physics and moral philosophy at the University of Salamanca. He was a Thomist and is most remembered for his polemical writings against the molinistas, the followers of Luis Molina.
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Pierre Cally
1630 - 1709 (79 years)
Pierre Cally was a French Catholic Cartesian philosopher and theologian. Life He was born at Ménil-Hubert-sur-Orne near Falaise, now Orne, France. In 1660 he was appointed professor of philosophy and eloquence in the University of Caen, and in 1675, president of the Collège des Arts in the same city. In 1684 he assumed charge of the parish of Saint-Martin. He was an associate of Pierre Daniel Huet, who converted him to Cartesianism, and Jean Renaud de Segrais. Cally died 31 December 1709.
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Al-Mu'ayyad fi'l-Din al-Shirazi
1000 - 1078 (78 years)
Al-Mu'ayyad fid-din Abu Nasr Hibat Allah b. Abi 'Imran Musa b. Da'ud ash-Shirazi was an 11th-century Isma'ili scholar, philosopher-poet, preacher and theologian of Persian origin. He served the Fatimid Caliph-Imām al-Mustansir Billah as a Da'i in varying capacities, eventually attaining the highest rank of Bab al-Abwab "The Gate of Gates" and Da'i al-du'at "Chief Missionary" in the Fatimid Da‘wah. In his theological and philosophical writings he brought the Isma'ili spiritual heritage to its pinnacle.
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Sir William Bowman, 1st Baronet
1816 - 1892 (76 years)
Sir William Bowman, 1st Baronet was an English surgeon, histologist and anatomist. He is best known for his research using microscopes to study various human organs, though during his lifetime he pursued a successful career as an ophthalmologist.
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Michael Ian Mackness
#15270
Henry Noble Day
1808 - 1890 (82 years)
Henry Noble Day was an American philosopher. Day, the second son of Col. Noble and Elizabeth Day, and nephew of Yale President Jeremiah Day, was born in the village of New Preston, in Washington, Connecticut, August 4, 1808.
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Hermann Askan Demme
1802 - 1867 (65 years)
Hermann Askan Demme was a German-Swiss physician. Demme was the son of Hermann Gottfried, Generalsuperintendent of Sachsen-Altenburg. At first, he studied philosophy and theology in Jena and Berlin. 1822 he entered the Jenaischen Burschenschaft. He finished his studies 1830 and became assistant to Johann Lukas Schönlein. 1831 he was a military doctor in Warschau, 1832 he visited the United States of America.
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Daniel Callus
1888 - 1965 (77 years)
Daniel Callus was a Maltese historian and philosopher. His main interest was in the history of Medieval philosophy. Life Beginnings Callus was born at Żebbuġ, Malta, on January 20, 1888. Formation Callus joined the Dominicans in 1903 at 15 years of age, and studied with them at Rabat, Malta . In 1906, after receiving his Minor Orders, he was sent to Fiesole, Italy, to pursue his studies there. Four years later, in 1910, he obtained the degree of Lector in Theology and Philosophy from the University of Florence. At the same university Callus undertook studies in philosophy, history of art, an...
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Christian Ruben
1805 - 1875 (70 years)
Christoph Christian Ruben was a German painter. Born in Trier, Ruben studied in Düsseldorf under Peter von Cornelius from 1823, and in 1826 settled in Munich, where he worked on the designs for the new stained glass windows for the Regensburg Cathedral and for a church in Auer. In 1836 he worked on designs for the decoration of Hohenschwangau Castle, and produced oil paintings as well. In 1841 he was appointed director at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where he decorated the belvedere with wall paintings. He also painted a hall for the Prince of Salm and three altarpieces for the church in Turnau .
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Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi
1855 - 1902 (47 years)
'Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi was a Syrian author and Pan-Arab solidarity supporter. He was one of the most prominent intellectuals of his time; however, his thoughts and writings continue to be relevant to the issues of Islamic identity and Pan-Arabism. His criticisms of the Ottoman Empire eventually led to Arabs calling for the sovereignty of the Arab Nations, setting the basis for Pan-Arab nationalism. Al-Kawakibi articulated his ideas in two influential books, Tabai al-Istibdad wa-Masari al-Isti’bad and Umm Al-Qura . He died in 1902 of “mysterious” causes. His family alleged that he was po...
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William Shippen Jr.
1736 - 1808 (72 years)
William Shippen Jr. , was the first systematic teacher of anatomy, surgery and obstetrics in Colonial America and founded the first maternity hospital in America. He was the 3rd Director General of Hospitals of the Continental Army.
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Petrus Aureolus
1280 - 1322 (42 years)
#15277
Lorenz Heister
1683 - 1758 (75 years)
Lorenz Heister was a German anatomist, surgeon and botanist born in Frankfurt am Main. Biography From 1702 to 1706 Heister studied at the Universities of Giessen and Wetzlar, afterwards relocating to Amsterdam, where he studied anatomy under Frederik Ruysch . In the summer of 1707, he was an assistant physician in field hospitals at Brussels and Ghent during the War of the Spanish Succession. He then traveled to Leiden, where he studied anatomy under Bernhard Siegfried Albinus and Govert Bidloo , also attending Hermann Boerhaave’s lectures on chemistry and ocular diseases. In 1708 he earned...
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Fritz Köberle
1910 - 1983 (73 years)
Fritz Köberle was an Austrian-Brazilian physician, pathologist and scientist, discoverer of the neurogenic mechanism of the chronic phase of Chagas disease, a human parasitic disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, a protozoan.
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Jacob Clay
1882 - 1955 (73 years)
Jacob Clay was a prominent Dutch physicist who first suggested and provided evidence that cosmic rays are charged particles. Early life Clay was born "Jacob Claij" in Berkhout on 18 January 1882 as the son of Pieter Claij and Neeltje Molenaar. After attending the Erasmiaans Gymnasium, he studied physics at the University of Leiden under Heike Kamerlingh Onnes and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz. After obtaining his Ph.D. degree in 1908 he married Tettje Clay-Jolles with whom he had a son.
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Richard W. Foltin
#15281
Xiahou Yuan
200 - 219 (19 years)
Xiahou Yuan , courtesy name Miaocai, was a Chinese military general and politician serving under the warlord Cao Cao in the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. He is known for his exploits in western China in the 210s, during which he defeated Cao Cao's rivals Ma Chao and Han Sui in Liang Province and the surrounding areas, and forced several Di and Qiang tribal peoples into submission. He was killed in action at the Battle of Mount Dingjun while defending Hanzhong Commandery from attacks by a rival warlord Liu Bei. Xiahou Yuan's death was highly dramatised in the 14th-century historical nove...
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William Macewen
1848 - 1924 (76 years)
Sir William Macewen, was a Scottish surgeon. He was a pioneer in modern brain surgery, considered the father of neurosurgery and contributed to the development of bone graft surgery, the surgical treatment of hernia and of pneumonectomy .
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Frederic G. Kenyon
1863 - 1952 (89 years)
Sir Frederic George Kenyon was an English palaeographer and biblical and classical scholar. He held a series of posts at the British Museum from 1889 to 1931. He was also the president of the British Academy from 1917 to 1921. From 1918 to 1952 he was Gentleman Usher of the Purple Rod.
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Jan Stachniuk
1905 - 1963 (58 years)
Jan Stachniuk was a Polish philosopher, an editor-in-chief of the Polish pre-war nationalist journal Zadruga, the creator of the Zadruga Movement, a theoretician and the founder of culturalism. Jan Stachniuk was born on 13 January 1905 in Kovel. In 1930 he finished his education at the College of Commerce in Poznań. During World War II, he fought in the ranks of the Home Army.
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Saʽid Qomi
1640 - 1692 (52 years)
Said Qomi was an Iranian Shia philosopher of Qom's School. Life When Qazi was young, completed his preliminary education in Qom. Since that he worked as judge in Qom he known as Qazi Said. His father taught him medicine and philosophy. He criticized the substantial motion, a theory by Mulla Sadra.
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Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola
1469 - 1533 (64 years)
Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola was an Italian nobleman and philosopher, the nephew of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. His name is typically truncated as Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola. Biography Gianfrancesco was the son of Galeotto I Pico, lord of Mirandola, and Bianca Maria d'Este, the daughter of Niccolò III d'Este.
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Fernand Deschamps
1868 - 1957 (89 years)
Fernand Deschamps was a Belgian intellectual who participated in the great socio-economic and ethical debates in the first half of the twentieth century. Biography At the age of sixteen Deschamps started working in the metal industry Many years later he obtained the title of Doctor of Laws after he passed the examination by the Central Board of State . He continued his studies at the Higher Institute of Philosophy in Leuven and became editor of the newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle. In 1898, he won the first prize in philosophy and was assigned a scholarship enabling him to spend eighteen months in Germany at the universities of Bonn, Leipzig, Berlin and Hamburg.
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Alexander Borodin
1833 - 1887 (54 years)
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian-Russian extraction. He was one of the prominent 19th-century composers known as "The Five", a group dedicated to producing a "uniquely Russian" kind of classical music. Borodin is known best for his symphonies, his two string quartets, the symphonic poem In the Steppes of Central Asia and his opera Prince Igor.
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Hermann Nothnagel
1841 - 1905 (64 years)
Carl Wilhelm Hermann Nothnagel was a German internist born in Alt-Lietzegöricke , near Bärwalde in der Neumark , Neumark, Brandenburg. Career The son of a pharmacist, from 1858 to 1863 Nothnagel studied under Ludwig Traube and Rudolf Virchow at the University of Berlin. From 1865 to 1868 he was an assistant to Ernst Viktor von Leyden at the University of Königsberg where, in 1866, he was habilitated for internal medicine. From 1868 to 1870 he worked as a military physician and lecturer in Berlin and later served in the same roles at Breslau .
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Carolus Clusius
1525 - 1609 (84 years)
Charles de l'Écluse, L'Escluse, or Carolus Clusius , seigneur de Watènes, was an Artois doctor and pioneering botanist, perhaps the most influential of all 16th-century scientific horticulturists. Life Clusius was born Charles de l' Écluse in 1526, in Arras , then in the County of Artois, Spanish Netherlands, now northern France . At the urging of his father, who wanted him to enter the law, he commenced his studies in Latin and Greek at Louvain, followed by civil law. His father then gave him some money to move to Marburg to further his legal studies, but after eight months when his mentor mo...
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Augustus Quirinus Rivinus
1652 - 1723 (71 years)
Augustus Quirinus Rivinus , also known as August Bachmann or A. Q. Bachmann, was a German physician and botanist who helped to develop better ways of classifying plants. Life and work Rivinus was born in Leipzig, Germany, and studied at the University of Leipzig , continued his studies in the University of Helmstedt . In 1677, he started lecturing in medicine at the University of Leipzig, in 1691 appointed to two chairs, that of physiology and of botany, and made the curator of the University medical garden. In 1701, he became professor of pathology, in 1719, professor of therapeutics and permanent dean of the Faculty of Medicine.
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Simone Simoni
1532 - 1602 (70 years)
Simone Simoni was an Italian philosopher and physician. After graduating in medicine from the University of Padua, Simoni moved to Geneva, where he became professor of philosophy and engaged in controversy with Jakob Schegk. Expelled by the city for his heretical views, he moved to Paris and subsequently to Leipzig and Heidelberg . In 1581, he became court physician to Emperor Rudolf II in Prague; there were unconfirmed rumours that he had converted to Catholicism.
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Max Friedlaender
1852 - 1934 (82 years)
Max Friedlaender was a German bass singer, music editor, and musicologist. He specialized in German Lieder. Life Friedlaender studied voice with well-known teachers Manuel Garcia in London and Julius Stockhausen in Frankfurt, both of the bel-canto school. From 1881 to 1883 the singer lived and worked at Frankfurt, moving to Berlin in 1883. He received a doctorate from the University of Rostock in 1894 with a dissertation on Franz Schubert and joined the music faculty at Berlin University in 1894.
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Achille Ouy
1889 - 1959 (70 years)
Achille Ouy was a French philosopher and sociologist. Ouy taught philosophy at various lycees, and was involved with the Mercure de France. "A follower of René Worms and Gaston Richard, Ouy "performed many day-to-day tasks that held the R.I.S. and IIS together from 1919 to 1940."
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Giorgio Pullicino
1779 - 1851 (72 years)
Giorgio Pullicino was a Maltese painter, architect, and professor of drawing and architecture at the University of Malta. He is known for his harbour views painted in a number of media, and he is also considered to be one of the first neoclassical architects in Malta. He produced designs for a number of buildings, but the only structure which is definitely proven to have been designed by him is a monumental obelisk known as the Spencer Monument. However, several other buildings including the Monument to Sir Alexander Ball are widely attributed to him.
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Niccolò Cabeo
1586 - 1650 (64 years)
Niccolò Cabeo, SJ was an Italian Jesuit philosopher, theologian, engineer and mathematician. Biography He was born in Ferrara in 1586, and was educated at the Jesuit college in Parma beginning in 1602. He passed the next two years in Padua and spent 1606–07 studying in Piacenza before completing three years of study in philosophy at Parma. He spent another four years studying theology in Parma and another year’s apprenticeship at Mantua. He then taught theology and mathematics in Parma, then in 1622 he became a preacher. For a time he received patronage of the Dukes of Mantua and the Este in Ferrara.
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Ingerid Dal
1895 - 1985 (90 years)
Ingerid Dal was a Norwegian linguist known for her work and research of German, English and the Nordic languages. Early life and education Dal was born in Drammen, Norway. She attended Kristiana University after moving to Oslo at age 19. Following World War I, she moved to Germany where she attended Heidelberg University and studied philology and philosophy. She then attended the University of Hamburg where she continued her studies and, in 1925, presented her thesis on Lask's Kategorienlehre in relation to Kant's philosophy. In 1930, she finished her thesis at the University of Oslo on the o...
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Elias
600 - 600 (0 years)
Elias was a Greek scholar and a commentator on Aristotle and Porphyry. Life No information has been handed down about the life of Elias; all assumptions represented in the research are deductions from circumstantial evidence in his works. That he was at least nominally a Christian is inferred from his Christian name, but has not been proven conclusively. His thinking is influenced by Neoplatonism, the dominant philosophical direction in late antiquity.
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August Breisky
1832 - 1889 (57 years)
Professor August Breisky was an Austrian gynecologist and obstetrician. He studied medicine in Prague, obtaining his M.D. degree in 1855. At Prague, he served for several years as an assistant to pathologist Václav Treitz and obstetrician Bernhard Seyfert . In 1865 he received his habilitation with a dissertation about the influence of kyphosis on the pelvic shape.
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