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 Political Science,
#4101
Hermann von der Hardt
1660 - 1746 (86 years)
Hermann von der Hardt was a German historian and orientalist. He was born at Melle, in Westphalia . He studied oriental languages at the universities of Jena and Leipzig, and in 1690 he was called to the chair of oriental languages at Helmstedt. He resigned his position in 1727, but lived at Helmstedt until his death.
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William C. F. Robinson
1834 - 1897 (63 years)
Sir William Cleaver Francis Robinson was an Irish colonial administrator and musical composer, who wrote several well-known songs. He was born in County Westmeath, Ireland, and was educated at home and at the Royal Naval School. He joined the Colonial Office service in 1858 and became the president of Montserrat in 1862.
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Ambrose Burnside
1824 - 1881 (57 years)
Ambrose Everett Burnside was an American army officer and politician who became a senior Union general in the Civil War and three-time Governor of Rhode Island, as well as being a successful inventor and industrialist.
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Gustav Haloun
1898 - 1951 (53 years)
Gustav Haloun was a Czech sinologist. He studied in Vienna under Arthur von Rosthorn and in Leipzig under August Conrady from where he received his Dr. phil. in 1923. He obtained habilitation at Charles University in Prague where he lectured in 1926-1927. Afterwards he taught at Halle University , and Göttingen University , before becoming Chair of Chinese Language and History at Cambridge University, succeeding Arthur Christopher Moule and preceding Edwin G. Pulleyblank in that position.
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William O. Hall
1914 - 1977 (63 years)
William Oscar Hall was the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia from 1967 to 1971, during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie I. Biography William O. Hall was born May 22, 1914, in Roswell, New Mexico. He moved with his family to Prineville, Oregon, when he was seven years old. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Oregon in 1936, pursued graduate studies at the University of Minnesota, served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and served in the U.S. Foreign Service thereafter. He worked in the consular service, the United Nations, and the Agency for International Development.
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Pierre Beaumarchais
1732 - 1799 (67 years)
Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was a French polymath. At various times in his life, he was a watchmaker, inventor, playwright, musician, diplomat, spy, publisher, horticulturist, arms dealer, satirist, financier and revolutionary .
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Spenser Wilkinson
1853 - 1937 (84 years)
Henry Spenser Wilkinson was the first Chichele Professor of Military History at Oxford University. While he was an English writer known primarily for his work on military subjects, he had wide interests. Earlier in his career he was the drama critic for London's Morning Post.
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Harold W. Chase
1922 - 1982 (60 years)
Harold William Chase was an American professor of political science. He was also a major general in the United States Marine Corps Reserve who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs in the administration of President Jimmy Carter.
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William Miller Collier
1867 - 1956 (89 years)
William Miller Collier was United States Ambassador to Spain from 1905 to 1909, the president of George Washington University from 1918 to 1921, and United States Ambassador to Chile from 1921 to 1928.
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Pier Paolo Vergerio
1498 - 1565 (67 years)
Pier Paolo Vergerio , the Younger, was an Italian papal nuncio and later Protestant reformer. Life He was born at Capodistria , Istria, then part of the Venetian Republic and studied jurisprudence in Padua, where he delivered lectures in 1522. He also practiced law in Verona, Padua, and Venice. In 1526, he married Diana Contarini, whose early death was at least a partial cause of his entering upon an ecclesiastical career.
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Patrick Doyle
1892 - 1921 (29 years)
Patrick Doyle was one of six men hanged in Mountjoy Prison on the morning of 14 March 1921. He was aged 31 and lived at St. Mary's Place, Dublin. He was one of The Forgotten Ten. Background Doyle was involved in an arms raid on Collinstown Aerodrome in 1919. Together with Frank Flood, he was involved in planning several attempts to free Kevin Barry from Mountjoy in the days before Barry's own execution in November 1920. Flood would later be hanged on the same morning as Doyle.
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W. Averell Harriman
1891 - 1986 (95 years)
William Averell Harriman , better known as Averell Harriman, was an American Democratic politician, businessman, and diplomat. The son of railroad baron E. H. Harriman, he served as Secretary of Commerce under President Harry S. Truman, and later as the 48th governor of New York. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952 and 1956, as well as a core member of the group of foreign policy elders known as "The Wise Men".
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Albert Terrien de Lacouperie
1844 - 1894 (50 years)
Albert Étienne Jean-Baptiste Terrien de Lacouperie was a French orientalist, specialising in comparative philology. He published a number of books on early Asian and Middle-Eastern languages, initially in French and then in English. Lacouperie is best known for his studies of the Yi Ching and his argument, known as Sino-Babylonianism, that the important elements of ancient civilization in ancient China came from Mesopotamia and that there were resemblances between Chinese characters and Akkadian hieroglyphics.
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Johann Gottfried Ludwig Kosegarten
1792 - 1860 (68 years)
Johann Gottfried Ludwig Kosegarten was a German orientalist born in Altenkirchen on the island of Rügen. He was the son of ecclesiastic Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten . He studied theology and philosophy at the University of Greifswald, and from 1812 studied Oriental languages in Paris. In 1815 he became an adjunct to the theological and philosophical faculty in Greifswald. From 1817 to 1824 he was a professor of Oriental languages at the University of Jena, and afterwards a professor at Greifswald.
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Allan Pinkerton
1819 - 1884 (65 years)
Allan J. Pinkerton was a Scottish-American cooper, abolitionist, detective, and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in the United States and his claim to have foiled a plot in 1861 to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, he provided the Union Army – specifically General George B. McClellan of the Army of the Potomac – with military intelligence, including extremely inaccurate enemy troop strength numbers. After the war, his agents played a significant role as strikebreakers – in particular during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 ...
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Salomon Schweigger
1551 - 1622 (71 years)
Salomon Schweigger was a German Lutheran theologian, minister, anthropologist and orientalist of the 16th century. He provided a valuable insight during his travels in the Balkans, Constantinople and the Middle East, and published a famous travel book of his exploits. He also published the first German language translation of the Qur'an.
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Emily Newell Blair
1877 - 1951 (74 years)
Emily Newell Blair was an American writer, suffragist, feminist, national Democratic Party political leader, and a founder of the League of Women Voters. Biography Early life and ancestors Emily Jane Newell Blair was born in Joplin, Jasper County, Missouri, on January 9, 1877, and died August 3, 1951, in Alexandra, Arlington County, Virginia. She was a daughter of James Patton Newell and Anna Cynthia Gray.
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Max Wexler
1870 - 1917 (47 years)
Max Wexler was a Romanian socialist activist and journalist, regarded as one of the main Marxist theorist of the early Romanian workers' movement. Active in the first Romanian socialist party, the Romanian Social Democratic Workers' Party, he became dissatisfied with the party's passivity and its failure to openly support political rights for the Romanian Jews, initiating a separate Jewish socialist group. Following the party's demise, he was one of the main activists for the revival of the socialist movement in Iaşi, introducing to Marxism many future leaders of the Romanian socialist parties.
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John Dowson
1820 - 1881 (61 years)
John Dowson M.R.A.S. was a British indologist. A noted scholar of Hinduism, he taught in India for much of his life. His book Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology remains one of the most comprehensive and authoritative works on the topic.
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William Rosecrans
1819 - 1898 (79 years)
William Starke Rosecrans was an American inventor, coal-oil company executive, diplomat, politician, and U.S. Army officer. He gained fame for his role as a Union general during the American Civil War. He was the victor at prominent Western Theater battles, but his military career was effectively ended following his disastrous defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863.
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Pausanias the Regent
Pausanias was a Spartan regent and a general. In 479 BC, as a leader of the Hellenic League's combined land forces, he won a pivotal victory against the Achaemenid Empire in the Battle of Plataea. Despite his role in ending the Second Persian invasion of Greece, Pausanias subsequently fell under suspicion of conspiring with the Persian king Xerxes I. After an interval of repeated arrests and debates about his guilt, he was starved to death by his fellow Spartans in 477 BC. What is known of his life is largely according to Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, Diodorus' Bibliotheca hi...
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John Gagnier
1670 - 1740 (70 years)
John Gagnier was a French orientalist, resident for much of his life in England. Biography Gagnier was born in Paris about 1670, and educated at the College of Navarre. His tutor, Le Bossu, showed him a copy of Brian Walton's 'Polyglott Bible'. This led him to master Hebrew and Arabic. After taking orders he was made a canon regular of the Abbey of St. Genevieve. Finding the life irksome, he retired to England, and ultimately became an Anglican clergyman.
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François Nau
1864 - 1931 (67 years)
François Nau was a French Catholic priest, mathematician, Syriacist, and specialist in oriental languages. He published a great number of eastern Christian texts and translations for the first and often only time.
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Leo Stern
1901 - 1982 (81 years)
Leo Stern was an Austrian-German left-wing political activist. In 1933 he switched his party membership from the Social Democratic Party to the Communist Party. During the fascist ascendancy he participated in the Spanish Civil War as an anti-Franco Interbrigadist and later, in the Great Patriotic War, served as an officer in the Soviet Red Army. Between the two he studied successfully for a higher degree at the University of Moscow, receiving his Habilitation degree in 1940 in return for a dissertation of Contemporary Catholicism. Emerging from the war in 1945, almost certainly by now closel...
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Joachim Menant
1820 - 1899 (79 years)
Joachim Menant was a French magistrate and orientalist. He was born in Cherbourg. He studied law and became vice-president of the tribunal civil of Rouen in 1878, and a member of the court of appeal three years later. But he became best known for his studies on cuneiform inscriptions.
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William Wright
1830 - 1889 (59 years)
William Wright was a famous English Orientalist, and Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge. Many of his works on Syriac literature are still in print and of considerable scholarly value, especially the catalogues of the holdings of the British Library and Cambridge University Library. A Grammar of The Arabic Language, often simply known as Wright's Grammar, continues to be a popular book with students of Arabic. Wright is also remembered for the Short history of Syriac literature.
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Frederick Dickins
1838 - 1915 (77 years)
Frederick Victor Dickins was a British naval surgeon, barrister, orientalist and university administrator. He is now remembered as a translator of Japanese literature. Life Dickins was born at 44 Connaught Terrace in Paddington, London to Thomas Dickins and Jane Dickins. He first visited Japan as a medical officer on HMS Coromandel in 1863. For three years he was at Yokohama in charge of medical facilities there. During this time he was in contact with Japanese doctors and culture, and also Ernest Satow who became a lifelong correspondent and friend. He began publishing English translations of Japanese classical works at this time.
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Guillaume Postel
1510 - 1581 (71 years)
Guillaume Postel was a French linguist, Orientalist, astronomer, Christian Kabbalist, diplomat, polyglot, professor, religious universalist, and writer. Born in the village of Barenton in Normandy, Postel made his way to Paris to further his education. While studying at the Collège Sainte-Barbe, he became acquainted with Ignatius of Loyola and many of the men who would become the founders of the Society of Jesus, retaining a lifelong affiliation with them. He entered Rome in the novitiate of the Jesuits in March 1544, but left on December 9, 1545 before making religious vows.
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Willy Bang Kaup
1869 - 1934 (65 years)
Johann Wilhelm Max Julius Bang Kaup, was a German turkologist, linguist and orientalist. Biography Willy Bang Kaup was born to Heinrich Bang and Auguste Bang. Heinrich was a lawyer by profession and was the Mayor. Willy Kaup was inducted to orientalism during his early days. This facts have become evident by H. L. Fleischer during their communications via letters at a later point of time. Bang Kaup did study Manchu, Old Persian, Avestan, and Mongol with Charles de Harlez. In 1893 and 1909 he brought out a new edition of ancient Persian inscriptions together with Friedrich H. Weissbach and wrote several articles on the subject.
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May Gorslin Preston Slosson
1858 - 1943 (85 years)
May Gorslin Preston Slosson was an American educator and suffragist. She was the first woman to obtain a doctoral degree in Philosophy in the United States. Life May Gorslin Preston was the daughter of Reverend Levi Campbell Preston and the former Mary Gorslin. Her family moved to Kansas from New York State. She earned Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from Hillsdale College in Michigan. In 1880 she became the first woman to earn a Ph.D. from Cornell University, and the first woman to obtain a doctoral degree in Philosophy in the United States. Her thesis was entitled Different Theories of Beauty.
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Georgiy Shevel
1919 - 1989 (70 years)
Georgiy Georgiyevich Shevel was a Soviet politician and diplomat. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR . Education Georgiy Shevel graduated from the Faculty of philology of the University of Kharkiv .
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Johann Martin Augustin Scholz
1794 - 1852 (58 years)
Johann Martin Augustin Scholz was a German Roman Catholic orientalist, biblical scholar and academic theologian. He was a professor at the University of Bonn and travelled extensively throughout Europe and the Near East in order to locate manuscripts of the New Testament.
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Eusèbe Renaudot
1646 - 1720 (74 years)
Eusèbe Renaudot was a French theologian and Orientalist. Biography Renaudot was born in Paris, and brought up and educated for a career in the church. After being educated by the Jesuits, and joining the Oratorians in 1666, he was in poor health, left his order, and never took more than minor orders. Despite his interest in theology and his title of abbé, much of his life was spent at the French court, where he attracted the notice of Colbert and was often employed in confidential affairs.
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Hans Heinrich Schaeder
1896 - 1957 (61 years)
Heinz Heinrich Schaeder was a German Orientalist and Iranologist. Life Heinz Heinrich Schaeder was born in Göttingen, Germany on 31 January 1896. He was the son of theologist Erich Schaeder, brother of historian Hildegard Schaeder and cousin of theologian Günter Lüling. Raised in a strict fashion by his father, Schaeder studied classical philology at the University of Kiel since 1914. During World War, he served in the German Army. He continued his studies in classical philology at Kiel under Werner Jaeger. Under the influence of historian Fritz Kern, Lommel developed an interest in the Middle east.
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Carl Schmitt
1889 - 1989 (100 years)
Carl Schmitt was an American painter, etcher, pastelist, and writer. Life Education and early career Schmitt was born in Warren, Ohio, the son of Jacob A. Schmitt , a music professor and organist, and Grace Tod Wood Schmitt . He left Warren High School before graduating to study art in New York City under the patronage of Zell Hart Deming, editor of the local Warren Tribune newspaper and a prominent local patron of the arts. After a year at the Chase School, Schmitt enrolled at the National Academy of Design studying with Emil Carlsen. He graduated from the NAD in 1909, winning top honors for his work in still life.
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Oskars Voits
1866 - 1959 (93 years)
Oskars Augusts Voits was a Latvian medical doctor and diplomat. In addition to a long medical career, Voits played a role in establishing Latvia's diplomatic relations abroad after the Latvian War of Independence.
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Franz Woepcke
1826 - 1864 (38 years)
Franz Woepcke was a German historian, Orientalist and mathematician. He is remembered for publishing editions and translations of medieval Arabic mathematical manuscripts and for his research on the propagation of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system in the medieval era.
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Paul Brown
1880 - 1961 (81 years)
Paul Brown was an American politician and lawyer, who served in the United States House of Representatives. Brown was born in Hartwell, Georgia, and graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law in Athens with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1901. He was admitted to the state bar in that year and began practicing law in Lexington, Georgia. He farmed and also served as the Mayor of Lexington from 1908 to 1914. Brown served in the Georgia House of Representatives in 1907 and 1908.
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Hugh Stewart
1884 - 1934 (50 years)
Hugh Stewart, was an academic, soldier and historian whose work had a major impact in both England and New Zealand. Born in Scotland, Stewart worked in Russia teaching English after completing his education. He then taught classical studies at the University of Liverpool in England and then at Canterbury College in Christchurch, New Zealand. During the First World War, he volunteered for service abroad with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. He participated in several engagements at Gallipoli and on the Western Front, and was decorated for bravery and leadership. He ended the war as a lieu...
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Samuel Z. Westerfield Jr.
1919 - 1972 (53 years)
Samuel Zazu Westerfield Jr. was a career foreign services officer who was appointed American ambassador to Liberia on July 8, 1969. Early life Westerfield's parents were Dr. Samuel Z.C. Westerfield and Rachael Weddleton Colquitt. His father was the first black student to graduate with a Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Nebraska.
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Stephen Miller
1816 - 1881 (65 years)
Stephen Miller was an American Republican politician. He was the first Civil War veteran to serve as Minnesota Governor. He was the fourth Governor of Minnesota. Early years and business entrepreneur Born in Carroll Township, Pennsylvania, Stephen Miller established a series of successful businesses. Frail health prompted the entrepreneur, of Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, to leave home at age 42 and follow his friend Alexander Ramsey to Minnesota, where the climate reportedly was more congenial. Miller established a mercantile business in St. Cloud and, within two years, had risen to prominenc...
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Hans Wilhelmsson Ahlmann
1889 - 1974 (85 years)
Hans Jakob Konrad Wilhelmsson Ahlmann was a Swedish geographer, glaciologist, and diplomat. Born in Karlsborg, Sweden, Ahlmann grew up in Stockholm. He studied with Professor Gerard De Geer at Stockholm University, and gained his doctorate in 1915 on a doctoral thesis on Sweden's Lake Ragundasjön. The same year, he became an associate professor of geography at the University of Stockholm. He was appointed Associate Professor of Geography at Uppsala University in 1920 and professor at the Stockholm University from 1929 until 1950.
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Lionel Barnett
1871 - 1960 (89 years)
Lionel David Barnett CB FBA was an English orientalist. The son of a Liverpool banker, Barnett was educated at Liverpool High School, Liverpool Institute, University College, Liverpool and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took a first class degree in classics and was three times a winner of a Browne medal.
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David Heinrich Müller
1846 - 1912 (66 years)
David Heinrich Müller was a Jewish Austrian orientalist. Biography He was educated in Vienna, Leipzig, Strassburg, and Berlin; became professor of Semitic philology at Vienna in 1881. Works Himjaritische Inschriften Südarabische Studien Die Burgen und Schlösser Südarabiens Sabäische Denkmäler Epigraphische Denkmäler aus Arabien Die altsemitischen Inschriften von Sendschirli Epigraphische Denkmäler aus Abessinien Ezechielstudien Die Propheten in ihrer ursprünglichen Form Südarabische Alterthümer Die Mehri- und Soqotri-Sprache, Vol. I, II, III He published editions of:Kitab al Farq Hāmdāni, Geo...
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Marion Murdoch
1849 - 1943 (94 years)
Marion Murdoch was an American minister in Iowa. Murdoch was said to be the first woman in America to receive the degree of Bachelor of Divinity. Early years and education Murdoch was born in Garnavillo, Iowa, October 9, 1849. Her father, Judge Samuel Murdoch, was the last living member of the Territorial legislature of Iowa. He had been a member of the state legislature and judge of the district court. Her mother had come from New York in 1837. Murdoch's early life was spent in outdoor pursuits, developing in her that love of nature and desire for a life of freedom for women. Of the family o...
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Niels Ludvig Westergaard
1815 - 1878 (63 years)
Niels Ludvig Westergaard was a Danish Orientalist and professor. Biography Westergaard was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 1833, he became a student at Borgerdivskolen in Copenhagen. Westergaard studied Old Norse as well as Sanskrit and continuing his studies at the University of Bonn , and also in London, Paris and Oxford. After returning to Denmark, he published "Radices linguae sanscritae". From 1841 to 1844 he journeyed throughout India and Persia, where he conducted important investigations in Bombay and at Persepolis. In 1844 he began deciphering ancient Elamite cuneiform using the 3-way parallel text of the 6th cent.
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Tadeusz Jan Kowalski
1889 - 1948 (59 years)
Tadeusz Jan Kowalski was a Polish orientalist, expert on Middle East Muslim culture and languages. He was a professor at Jagiellonian University, and a member of the Polish Academy of Learning. Published works
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Ernst Kühnel
1882 - 1964 (82 years)
Ernst Kühnel was a German art historian who specialized in Islamic art. He was notable for his research on the connection between Islamic and Coptic art, particularly in textiles. Kühnel served as director of the Museum of Islamic Art from 1931 to 1951, and was a professor at the University of Berlin from 1935 to 1954. He was also a consultant for the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., and president of Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft .
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Étienne Balazs
1905 - 1963 (58 years)
Étienne Balazs was a Hungarian-born French sinologist. Major works Le traité économique du "Soueichou", . Google Books.Le traité juridique du "Soueichou", 1954.Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy; Variations on a Theme. . Translated by H. M. Wright. Edited by Arthur F. Wright. Google Books. Reprints a selection from Balazs' major articles:Pt I INSTITUTIONS: • Significant Aspects of Chinese Society • China as a Permanently Bureaucratic Society • Chinese Feudalism • The birth of capitalism in China • Fairs in China • Chinese Towns • Marco Polo in the Capital of China • ...
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Walter Ernest Clark
1873 - 1955 (82 years)
Walter Ernest Clark was president of the University of Nevada 1918–1938. Clark was born in Defiance, Ohio to Lemen Talor and Marth Clark, and graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1896. From 1893 to 1897 he was a sergeant in the signal corps of Company K, Fourth Ohio National Guard. And from 1896 to 1899 Clark was instructor in mathematics at Ohio Wesleyan. In 1903 Clark was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Columbia University. From 1901 to 1907 he was instructor in economics and politics at the College of the City of New York. Between 1903 and 1908 he was a resident and settl...
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