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.
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List of the most influential people in Political Science,
#4451
Charles Edward Merriam
1874 - 1953 (79 years)
Charles Edward Merriam Jr. was an American professor of political science at the University of Chicago, founder of the behavioral approach to political science, a trainer of many graduate students, a prominent intellectual in the Progressive Movement, and an advisor to several US Presidents. Upon his death, The New York Times called him "one of the outstanding political scientists in the country".
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William T. R. Fox
1912 - 1988 (76 years)
William Thornton Rickert Fox , generally known as William T. R. Fox , was an American foreign policy professor and international relations theoretician at the Columbia University . He is perhaps mostly known as the coiner of the term "superpower" in 1944. He wrote several books about the foreign policy of the United States of America and the United Kingdom . He was a pioneer in establishing international relations, and the systematic study of statecraft and war, as a major academic discipline. National security policy and an examination of civil-military relations were also focuses of his interests and career.
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M. Carey Thomas
1857 - 1935 (78 years)
Martha Carey Thomas was an American educator, suffragist, and linguist. She was the second president of Bryn Mawr College, a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Early life and education Thomas was born in Baltimore, Maryland on January 2, 1857. She was the daughter of James Carey Thomas and Mary Thomas. She was conceived "in full daylight", because her father, a doctor, thought this would diminish the chance of his wife miscarrying.
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Thomas F. Bayard
1828 - 1898 (70 years)
Thomas Francis Bayard was an American lawyer, politician and diplomat from Wilmington, Delaware. A Democrat, he served three terms as the United States Senator from Delaware and made three unsuccessful bids for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. In 1885, President Grover Cleveland appointed him Secretary of State. After four years in private life, he returned to the diplomatic arena as Ambassador to Great Britain.
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Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington
1618 - 1685 (67 years)
Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington, KG, PC was an English statesman. A supporter of the Royalists during the English Civil War, he joined the royal family in exile before returning to England at the Restoration in 1660. He gained political influence over the following decade and became one of Charles II's key advisors as a member of the Cabal ministry from 1668. He was impeached in 1674. He was a leading figure in the Court faction in the Parliament of England, a grouping which would evolve into the Tories.
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Subramania Bharati
1882 - 1921 (39 years)
C. Subramania Bharathi was a Tamil writer, poet, journalist, Indian independence activist, social reformer and polyglot. He was bestowed the title "Bharathi" for his excellence in poetry. He was a pioneer of modern Tamil poetry and is considered one of the greatest Tamil literary figures of all time. He is popularly known by his mononymous title "Bharathi/ Bharathiyaar," and also by the other title "Mahakavi Bharathi" . His numerous works included fiery songs kindling patriotism during the Indian Independence movement. He fought for the emancipation of women, against child marriage, vehemently opposed the caste system, and stood for reforming society and religion.
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Hirata Atsutane
1776 - 1843 (67 years)
was a Japanese scholar, conventionally ranked as one of the Four Great Men of Kokugaku studies, and one of the most significant theologians of the Shintō religion. His literary name was , and his primary assumed name was . He also used the names , , and . His personal name was .
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Claudia Jones
1915 - 1964 (49 years)
Claudia Vera Jones was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the United States, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and Black nationalist, adopting the name Jones as "self-protective disinformation". Due to the political persecution of Communists in the US, she was deported in 1955 and subsequently lived in the United Kingdom. Upon arriving in the UK, she immediately joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and would remain a member for the rest of her life. She then founded Britain's first major Black newspape...
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Duff Cooper
1890 - 1954 (64 years)
Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich, , known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician and diplomat who was also a military and political historian. First elected to Parliament in 1924, he lost his seat in 1929 but returned to Parliament in the 1931 Westminster St George's by-election, which was seen as a referendum on Stanley Baldwin's leadership of the Conservative Party. He later served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for War and First Lord of the Admiralty. In the intense political debates of the late 1930s over appeasement, he first put his trust in the League of Nations, and later realised that war with Germany was inevitable.
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William Muir
1819 - 1905 (86 years)
Sir William Muir was a Scottish Orientalist, and colonial administrator, Principal of the University of Edinburgh and Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Provinces of British India. Life He was born at Glasgow the son of William Muir , a merchant, and Helen Macfie . His older brother was John Muir, the Indologist and Sanskrit scholar. He was educated at Kilmarnock Academy, the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and Haileybury College. In 1837 he entered the Bengal civil service. Muir served as secretary to the governor of the North-West Provinces, and as a member of the Agra revenue board, and during the Mutiny he was in charge of the intelligence department there.
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Henry Highland Garnet
1815 - 1882 (67 years)
Henry Highland Garnet was an American abolitionist, minister, educator and orator. Having escaped as a child from slavery in Maryland with his family, he grew up in New York City. He was educated at the African Free School and other institutions, and became an advocate of militant abolitionism. He became a minister and based his drive for abolitionism in religion.
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James Wilford Garner
1871 - 1938 (67 years)
James Wilford Garner was an American professor of political science. Biography He graduated from the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1892 and studied at the University of Chicago and at Columbia University , where he was a member of the Dunning School. His dissertation, Reconstruction in Mississippi, though critical of Reconstruction, was regarded by W. E. B. Du Bois as the fairest of the works of the Dunning School.
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Malcolm H. Kerr
1931 - 1984 (53 years)
Malcolm Hooper Kerr was a university professor specializing in the Middle East and the Arab world. An American citizen, he was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon, where he died. He served as president of the American University of Beirut until he was killed by gunmen in 1984.
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Thomas Wolsey
1473 - 1530 (57 years)
Thomas Wolsey was an English statesman and Catholic bishop. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling figure in virtually all matters of state. He also held important ecclesiastical appointments. These included the Archbishop of York—the second most important role in the English church—and that of papal legate. His appointment as a cardinal by Pope Leo X in 1515 gave him precedence over all other English clergy.
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Theodor Heuss
1884 - 1963 (79 years)
Theodor Heuss was a German liberal politician who served as the first president of West Germany from 1949 to 1959. His cordial nature – something of a contrast to the stern character of chancellor Konrad Adenauer – largely contributed to the stabilization of democracy in West Germany during the Wirtschaftswunder years. Before beginning his career as a politician, Heuss had been a political journalist.
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Ziauddin Barani
1285 - 1357 (72 years)
Ziauddin Barani was an Indian Muslim political thinker of the Delhi Sultanate located in present-day Northern India during Muhammad bin Tughlaq and Firuz Shah's reign. He was best known for composing the Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi , a work on medieval India, which covers the period from the reign of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq to the first six years of the reign of Firoz Shah Tughluq; and the Fatwa-i-Jahandari which promoted a hierarchy among Muslim communities in the Indian subcontinent, although according to M. Athar Ali it was not based on race or even like the caste system, but taking as a model of ...
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Richard Bourke
1777 - 1855 (78 years)
General Sir Richard Bourke, KCB , was an Irish soldier, who served in the British Army and was Governor of New South Wales from 1831 to 1837. As a lifelong Whig , he encouraged the emancipation of convicts and helped bring forward the ending of penal transportation to Australia. In this, he faced strong opposition from the landlord establishment and its press. He approved a new settlement on the Yarra River, and named it Melbourne, in honour of the incumbent British prime minister, Lord Melbourne.
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A. J. Muste
1885 - 1967 (82 years)
Abraham Johannes Muste , usually cited as A. J. Muste, was a Dutch-born American clergyman and political activist. He is best remembered for his work in the labor movement, pacifist movement, antiwar movement, and civil rights movement.
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Carlos P. Romulo
1899 - 1985 (86 years)
Carlos Peña Romulo Sr. was a Filipino diplomat, statesman, soldier, journalist and author. He was a reporter at the age of 16, a newspaper editor by 20, and a publisher at 32. He was a co-founder of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines, a general in the US Army and the Philippine Army, university president, and president of the United Nations General Assembly.
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Rasmus B. Anderson
1846 - 1936 (90 years)
Rasmus Bjørn Anderson was an American author, professor, editor, businessman and diplomat. He brought to popular attention the fact that Viking explorers were the first Europeans to arrive in the New World and was the originator of Leif Erikson Day.
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Georgiy Afanasyev
1848 - 1925 (77 years)
Georgiy Afanasyev was a Ukrainian historian, politician, and diplomat. Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian State . Received a master's degree for his thesis: "The main points of the ministerial Turgot" ; and his doctoral dissertation was: "The Conditions of the Grain Trade in France at the End of the 18th Century" . From 1888 he lectured at the Odessa University. He read in Odessa and Kiev.
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Väinö Tanner
1881 - 1948 (67 years)
Väinö Tanner was a Finnish geographer, geologist, professor and diplomat. Tanner is best known for his studies on the Quaternary geology of northern Finland. He was a vocal opponent to the Finnicization of the University of Helsinki.
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Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough
1658 - 1735 (77 years)
Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough and 1st Earl of Monmouth, was an English Army officer, Whig politician and peer. He was the son of John Mordaunt, 1st Viscount Mordaunt, and his wife Elizabeth, the daughter and sole heiress of Thomas Carey, the second son of Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth. Mordaunt's father, John Mordaunt, was created Viscount Mordaunt of Avalon and Baron Mordaunt of Reigate, Surrey, in 1659.
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John Cook
1730 - 1789 (59 years)
John Cook was an American planter and politician from Smyrna, in Kent County, Delaware. He served in the Delaware General Assembly and as Governor of Delaware. Early life and family Cook was born in Duck Creek, now Smyrna, son of Michal and Lois Cook. He was first cousin to Thomas Collins . He supposedly married Elizabeth Collins, the sister of Thomas Collins, and if so, married his first cousin. They had five children: Sarah, Margaret, Elizabeth, Michael, and Robert. He was a prosperous farmer and tanner and gradually acquired a considerable amount of land in the area. Included in the property at one time was Belmont Hall,.
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Alastair Francis Buchan
1918 - 1976 (58 years)
Alastair Francis Buchan, was a leading British writer on defence studies in the 1970s. Career The son of John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, Alastair Buchan was given the same forename as his father's brother, who had been killed in the First World War. He was educated at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford, Buchan joined the Canadian Army and saw active service in the Second World War.
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Jacques Bacot
1877 - 1965 (88 years)
Jacques Bacot was an explorer and pioneering French Tibetologist. He travelled extensively in India, western China, and the Tibetan border regions. He worked at the École pratique des hautes études. Bacot was the first western scholar to study the Tibetan grammatical tradition, and along with F. W. Thomas belonged to the first generation of scholars to study the Old Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts. Bacot made frequent use of Tibetan informants. He acquired aid from Gendün Chöphel in studying Dunhuang manuscripts.
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Carl Bezold
1859 - 1922 (63 years)
Carl Bezold was a German orientalist. Known primarily for his research in Akkadian , he also researched other Semitic languages: Syriac, Ge'ez and Arabic. Biography He was educated at the Universities of Munich and Leipzig, where he studied with Assyrologist Friedrich Delitzsch. In 1883, he obtained his habilitation at Munich with a thesis titled Die Schatzhöhle; aus dem syrischen texte dreier unedirten Handschriften . Later on, he spent several years working at the British Museum in London. In 1894, he became a full professor at the University of Heidelberg.
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Arnolds Spekke
1887 - 1972 (85 years)
Arnolds Spekke received a doctorate in philology from the University of Latvia in 1927. In 1932 he received a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship and went studying in Poland and Italy. From 1933 to 1939 he was the Latvian envoy to Italy, Greece, Bulgaria and Albania with permanent residence in Rome, Italy.
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Ilija Garašanin
1812 - 1874 (62 years)
Ilija Garašanin was a Serbian statesman who served as the prime minister of Serbia between 1852 and 1853 and again from 1861 to 1867. Ilija Garašanin was conservative in internal politics. He believed that bureaucracy was the only way for administration to work. In foreign politics, he was the first pro-Yugoslavia statesman among Serbs. He believed that a great Yugoslav state had to maintain its independence from both Russia and Austria. He was one of the more influential Serbian politicians of the 19th century.
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Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
1809 - 1865 (56 years)
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French socialist, politician, philosopher, and economist who founded mutualist philosophy and is considered by many to be the "father of anarchism". He was the first person to declare himself an anarchist, using that term, and is widely regarded as one of anarchism's most influential theorists. Proudhon became a member of the French Parliament after the Revolution of 1848, whereafter he referred to himself as a federalist. Proudhon described the liberty he pursued as "the synthesis of community and property". Some consider his mutualism to be part of individualist...
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Adolf Grabowsky
1880 - 1969 (89 years)
Adolf Grabowsky was a German political scientist and author of several books about geopolitics and political theory, including "Democracy and Dictatorship" . He was a Jewish convert to Protestantism, and founder and editor of the Zeitschrift für Politik. He was a supporter of the Weimar democracy.
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Elechukwu Njaka
1921 - 1975 (54 years)
Mazi Elechukwu Nnadibuagha Njaka was a Nigerian political scientist, known for the book Igbo Political Culture. Family background E.N. Njaka was born in Okwaejiaku, Umukegwu, Akokwa on 23 June 1921. His father, Mazi George Maduneme Njaka, was one of the earliest Christian converts of the Catholic Denomination in Orlu province. His mother, Mrs. Mary Nwaku Njaka , also from Umukegwu, was one of the earliest seamstresses to come from Mbanasaa clan. Elechukwu was their second child.
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Johann Fück
1894 - 1974 (80 years)
Johann Wilhelm Fück was a German Orientalist. Starting in 1913, Fück studied classical and Semitic philology at Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg and Goethe University Frankfurt. From 1919 to 1921 he was a member of the German National People's Party. His promotion took place in 1921 as part of the Orientalist Seminar at Goethe University Frankfurt, where he had lectureships in Hebrew language from 1921 to 1930, and in Arabic philology and Islamic studies from 1935 to 1938. He attained his habilitation in 1929. In the interim from 1930 to 1935, he was a professor at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
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Karl Friedrich Neumann
1793 - 1870 (77 years)
Karl Friedrich Neumann was a German orientalist. Life Neumann was born, under the name of Bamberger, at Reichsmannsdorf, near Bamberg. He studied philosophy and philology at Heidelberg, Munich and Göttingen, became a convert to Protestantism and took the name of Neumann. From 1821 to 1825 he was a teacher in Würzburg and Speyer; then he learned Armenian in Venice at the San Lazzaro degli Armeni and visited Paris and London.
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William Jones
1809 - 1873 (64 years)
William Jones was a political Radical and Chartist, who was a former actor, working as a watchmaker at Pontypool in Monmouthshire and also kept a beer house. He was prosecuted for his part in the Chartist Newport Rising at Newport, Monmouthshire on 4 November 1839.
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Edward Stevens
1755 - 1834 (79 years)
Dr Edward Stevens FRSE was an American physician and diplomat. He was a close friend of American soldier and statesman Alexander Hamilton. Stevens' date of birth was unclear due to lack of records, with the year 1752 being published by Kristian Caroe, without sources, in his 1905 book Den danske lægestand, 1479-1900 until historian Michael E. Newton published contemporary records establishing Stevens birthplace and date.
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Ian Turner
1922 - 1978 (56 years)
Ian Alexander Hamilton Turner was an Australian political activist, serving important roles in both the Communist Party of Australia and Australian Labour Party. As a leading historian, he wrote the book Industrial Labour and Politics, which examined the Australian labour politics.
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James Allen
1855 - 1942 (87 years)
Sir James Allen was a prominent New Zealand politician and diplomat. He held a number of the most important political offices in the country, including Minister of Finance and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was also New Zealand's Minister of Defence during World War I.
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Ferdinand Wüstenfeld
1808 - 1899 (91 years)
Heinrich Ferdinand Wüstenfeld was a German orientalist, known as a literary historian of Arabic literature, born at Münden, Hanover. He studied theology and oriental languages at Göttingen and Berlin. He taught at Göttingen, becoming a professor there . He published many important Arabic texts and valuable works on Arabic history.
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Albert Socin
1844 - 1899 (55 years)
Albert Socin was a Swiss orientalist, who specialized in the research of Neo-Aramaic, Kurdish and contemporary Arabic dialects. He also made contributions to the geography, archaeology, religion, art and literature of the Middle East.
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Milan Kujundžić Aberdar
1842 - 1893 (51 years)
Milan Kujundžić Aberdar was a Serbian poet, philosopher and politician. Biography He was born in Belgrade and given the name Janićije but later he changed it to Milan. His pseudonym Aberdar came from his collected poems.
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John Wilson
1804 - 1875 (71 years)
John Wilson FRS was a Scottish Christian missionary, orientalist and educator in the Bombay presidency, British India. In 1828, he married Margaret Bayne and together they went as Christian missionaries of the Scottish Missionary Society to Bombay, India, arriving on 13 February 1829. He is the founder of Wilson College, Mumbai and one of the founders of Bombay University, along with the Hon. Jugonnath Sunkersett and Dr. Bhau Daji Lad. He was also the president of the Asiatic Society of Bombay from 1835 to 1842; and was elected Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland in 1870.
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Edward Pococke
1604 - 1691 (87 years)
Edward Pococke was an English Orientalist and biblical scholar. Early life The son of Edward Pococke , vicar of Chieveley in Berkshire, he was brought up at Chieveley and educated from a young age at Lord Williams's School, Thame, Oxfordshire. He matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford in 1619, and later was admitted to Corpus Christi College, Oxford . He was ordained a priest of the Church of England on 20 December 1629.
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Jean Monnet
1888 - 1979 (91 years)
Jean Omer Marie Gabriel Monnet was a French civil servant, entrepreneur, diplomat, financier, administrator, and political visionary. An influential supporter of European unity, he is considered one of the founding fathers of the European Union.
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Thomas Hollis
1720 - 1774 (54 years)
Thomas Hollis FRS FRSA was an English political philosopher and author. Early life Hollis was educated at Adams Grammar School in Newport, Shropshire, until the age 10, and then in St. Albans until 15, before learning French, Dutch and accountancy in Amsterdam. After the death of his father in 1735, his guardian was a John Hollister. He was trained in this time in public service by John Ward of Gresham College, London. He took Chambers with Lincoln's Inn from 1740 to 1748, though without ever reading law. By this time he was a man of considerable wealth having inherited from his father, grand...
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Vasily Struve
1889 - 1965 (76 years)
Vasily Vasilievich Struve was a Soviet orientalist from the Struve family, the founder of the Soviet scientific school of researchers on Ancient Near East history. In 1907 he entered the Department of History at the Faculty of History and Philology of the Petersburg University, where he studied the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and Ancient Egyptian language under the leadership of the famous Russian Egyptologist Boris Turaev. He became proficient in all types of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, including Demotic. He graduated from the Petersburg University in 1911 and continued research w...
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John Williamson
1903 - 1974 (71 years)
John Williamson was a Scottish-born radical best remembered as a top leader of the Communist youth movement in the 1920s in the United States. Biography Early years John Williamson was born on June 23, 1903, in Glasgow, Scotland, the son of a marine engineer who was severely injured in an accident at sea shortly after his child was born. A woodworker and shipbuilder by trade, Williamson only had 8 years of formal education, later attending high school at night. He came to the United States in July 1913, settling in Seattle.
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Rudolf Hoernlé
1841 - 1918 (77 years)
Augustus Frederic Rudolf Hoernlé CIE , also referred to as Rudolf Hoernle or A. F. Rudolf Hoernle, was a German Indologist and philologist. He is famous for his studies on the Bower Manuscript , Weber Manuscript and other discoveries in northwestern China and Central Asia particularly in collaboration with Aurel Stein. Born in India to a Protestant missionary family from Germany, he completed his education in Switzerland, and studied Sanskrit in the United Kingdom. He returned to India, taught at leading universities there, and in the early 1890s published a series of seminal papers on ancient manuscripts, writing scripts and cultural exchange between India, China and Central Asia.
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Vasile Alecsandri
1821 - 1890 (69 years)
Vasile Alecsandri was a Romanian patriot, poet, dramatist, politician and diplomat. He was one of the key figures during the 1848 revolutions in Moldavia and Wallachia. He fought for the unification of the Romanian Principalities, writing "Hora Unirii" in 1856 and giving up his candidacy for the title of prince of Moldavia, in favor of Alexandru Ioan Cuza. He became the first minister of foreign affairs of Romania and was one of the founding members of the Romanian Academy. Alecsandri was a prolific writer, contributing to Romanian literature with poetry, prose, several plays, and collections...
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Joseph Gelders
1891 - 1951 (60 years)
Joseph Sidney Gelders was an American physicist who later became an antiracist, civil rights activist, labor organizer, and communist. In the mid-1930s, he served as the secretary and southern-U.S. representative of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners. In September 1936, Gelders was kidnapped, beaten, and nearly killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan for his civil rights and labor organizing activities. After his recovery, Gelders continued his activism and cofounded the Southern Conference for Human Welfare and the National Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax. He collaborated closely with other activists including Lucy Randolph Mason and Virginia Foster Durr.
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