The Most Important Figures from 1500-2000 (2024)

Hint

Answer

Italian polymath known for his works like 'Mona Lisa' and 'The Last Supper'

Leonardo da Vinci

Polish astronomer who proposed the heliocentric theory

Nicolaus Copernicus

Italian sculptor, painter, and architect known for his works such as 'The David'

Michelangelo Buonarotti

German theologian who initiated the Protestant Reformation with his '95 Theses'

Martin Luther

English Queen whose reign marked the flourishing of drama and exploration

Elizabeth I of England

Portuguese explorer who led the first circumnavigation of the Earth

Ferdinand Magellan

French theologian during the Protestant Reformation and founder of Calvinism

John Calvin

Italian diplomat and philosopher best known for 'The Prince'

Niccolò Machiavelli

Sultan of the Ottoman Empire who ruled during its peak in power and influence

Suleiman the Magnificent

English philosopher known for his advocation of the scientific method

Francis Bacon

Italian astronomer who observed Jupiter's moons with his telescope

Galileo Galilei

English playwright and poet during the Elizabethan Era known for 'Macbeth'

William Shakespeare

English mathematician who formulated the laws of motion

Isaac Newton

Dutch painter and etcher known for his works like 'The Night Watch'

Rembrandt

French philosopher known for his statement "Cogito, ergo sum"

René Descartes

French mathematician and inventor of the calculator

Blaise Pascal

German astronomer known for his laws of planetary motion

Johannes Kepler

English philosopher known for advocating for natural rights and the social contract

John Locke

French monarch known as the "Sun King" who ruled for over 70 years

Louis XIV of France

French explorer and founder of Quebec

Samuel de Champlain

French Enlightenment philosopher known for advocating for freedom of speech

Voltaire

American founding father and polymath known for inventing bifocals

Benjamin Franklin

French philosopher known for his work on political theory and the social contract

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

First President of the United States

George Washington

Empress of Russia who promoted Westernization

Catherine the Great

Scottish economist and author of 'The Wealth of Nations'

Adam Smith

German philosopher known for 'Critique of Pure Reason'

Immanuel Kant

Austrian composer who is widely considered the greatest of all time

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

French military leader and emperor who was exiled to an island

Napoleon Bonaparte

Queen of France who was executed during the French Revolution

Marie Antoinette

English naturalist who developed the theory of evolution by natural selection

Charles Darwin

16th President of the United States during the Civil War who abolished slavery

Abraham Lincoln

German philosopher who co-authored 'The Communist Manifesto'

Karl Marx

Queen of the U.K. who expanded the British Empire to India

Queen Victoria

French chemist who developed the germ theory of disease

Louis Pasteur

American inventor known for creating the electric lightbulb and phonograph

Thomas Edison

Russian novelist known for his works 'War and Peace' and 'Anna Karenina'

Leo Tolstoy

Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud

English nurse during the Crimean War and founder of modern nursing

Florence Nightingale

Serbian-American inventor known for his work on AC electrical systems

Niokola Tesla

German-born physicist who developed the theory of relativity

Albert Einstein

Indian nationalist who led the non-violent struggle for independence from Britain

Mahatma Gandhi

32nd President of the United States during WWII and the Great Depression

Franklin D. Roosevelt

British Prime Minister during World War II

Winston Churchill

Polish-French physicist who pioneered radioactivity and won the Nobel Prize

Marie Curie

South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and the country's first Black president

Nelson Mandela

American civil rights leader who championed non-violent resistance

Martin Luther King Jr.

Spanish artist who co-founded Cubism

Pablo Picasso

Argentine Marxist revolutionary who played a key role in the Cuban Revolution

Che Guevara

35th President of the United States known for his role in the Cuban Missile Crisis

John F. Kennedy

Spanish conquistador whose expedition caused the fall of the Aztec Empire

Hernán Cortés

First Tsar of Russia

Ivan the Terrible

Mughal Emperor who consolidated the Empire and promoted religious tolerance

Akbar the Great

English scholar who translated the Bible into English

William Tyndale

English mathematician, astronomer, and occult philosopher of the Elizabethan Era

John Dee

Danish astronomer who aided in the formulation of the laws of planetary motion

Tycho Brahe

Spanish novelist and author of 'Don Quixote'

Miguel de Cervantes

First Englishman to circumnavigate the globe

Sir Francis Drake

King of England who established the Church of England after breaking from Rome

Henry VIII of England

French philosopher who popularized the essay as a literary form

Michel de Montaigne

English leader who led the Parliamentarian victory and ruled as Lord Protector

Oliver Cromwell

English poet best known for his work 'Paradise Lost'

John Milton

Russian Tsar who modernized and expanded Russia

Peter the Great

English preacher and author of 'The Pilgrim's Progress'

John Bunyan

German Jesuit scholar who made significant contributions to the study of Egypt

Athanasius Kircher

Dutch philosopher in the Enlightenment known for 'Ethics'

Baruch Spinoza

Dutch astronomer known for discovering Titan, Saturn's Moon

Christiaan Hayes

German composer and musician known for his work 'D Minor Partita'

Johann Sebastian Bach

English philosopher and author of 'Leviathan'

Thomas Hobbes

American Revolutionary War general who spied for the British

Benedict Arnold

Irish philosopher known for his critique of the French Revolution

Edmund Burke

Scottish engineer known for improving the steam engine

James Watt

French philosopher, co-founder and chief editor of the Enclyclopédie

Denis Diderot

English-born American political activist and author of 'Common Sense'

Thomas Paine

English chemist who discovered oxygen

Joseph Priestley

Prussian King who expanded Prussian territory and influence in Europe

Frederick the Great

Italian writer known for his memoirs depicting European high society in the 1700s

Casanova

English poet known for his satirical work and translation of Homer

Alexander Pope

British statesman known for his leadership during the Seven Years' War

William Pitt the Elder

British monarch during the American Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars

George III of the U.K.

English novelist known for his works 'A Christmas Carol' and 'Oliver Twist'

Charles Dickens

German statesman who unified Germany and served as its first Chancellor

Otto van Bismarck

Deaf German composer during the Classical and Romantic eras

Ludwig van Beethoven

Scottish-born inventor credited with inventing the telephone

Alexander Graham Bell

American women's rights activist during the suffrage movement

Susan B. Anthony

American abolitionist and orator known for gaining freedom as a former slave

Frederick Douglass

Italian general and nationalist who played a large role in unifying Italy

Giuseppe Garibaldi

German composer and pianist during the Romantic period known for 'Wiegenlied'

Johannes Brahms

American writer and poet known for her posthumously published works

Emily Dickinson

American novelist known for works like 'The Old Man and the Sea'

Ernest Hemingway

Leader of the Bolshevik Party and founder of the Soviet Union

Vladimir Lenin

Soviet leader who led during the Great Purge and World War II

Joseph Stalin

American architect known for his designs such as Fallingwater

Frank Lloyd Wright

American aviator and first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean

Amelia Earhart

American historian, civil rights activist and co-founder of the NAACP

W.E.B. Du Bois

English writer known for her works 'Mrs. Dalloway' and 'To the Lighthouse'

Virginia Woolf

American film producer and entrepreneur known for pioneering animated films

Walt Disney

Cuban politician who led the Cuban Revolution

Fidel Castro

Chilean poet and diplomat awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature

Pablo Neruda

Leader of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland

John Knox

Spanish conquistador who led the conquest of the Inca Empire

Francisco Pizarro

Italian architect who founded Palladian architecture

Andrea Palladio

Flemish cartographer who created the 1569 world map

Gerardus Mercator

Portuguese explorer and first European to reach India by sea

Vasco da Gama

Greek painter, sculptor, architect, and precursor to modern art and Mannerism

El Greco

German painter known for his impact on the Northern Renaissance

Albrecht Dürer

Spanish priest who founded the Society of Jesus (Jesuits)

Ignatius of Loyola

King of Spain who ruled during the defeat of the Spanish Armada

Philip II of Spain

Spanish philosopher and founder of international law

Francisco de Vitoria

English physician and first person to describe the circulation of blood in humans

William Harvey

Dutch scientist known as the father of microbiology

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

German philosopher and mathematician who co-founded calculus

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

French statesman who served as the Minister of Finances under the "Sun King"

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Swedish Queen who abdicated her throne to convert to Catholicism

Christina of Sweden

Swiss mathematician who contributed to the field of probability

Jacob Bernoulli

English scientist known for his law of elasticity

Robert Hooke

French naturalist and early proponent of evolutionary theory

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Scottish philosopher known for his empirical skepticism

David Hume

English cleric and founder of Methodism

John Wesley

British explorer who made maps of the Pacific and discovered numerous islands

James Cook

British admiral known for his naval victory at the Battle of Trafalgar

Horatio Nelson

French lawyer and politician who led during the Reign of Terror

Maximilien Robespierre

English writer and author of 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman'

Mary Wollstonecraft

Austrian scientist known for his experiments with pea plants

Gregor Mendel

German philosopher known for the concept of the "Übermensch"

Friedrich Nietzsche

French painter and founder of Impressionism known for works like 'Water Lillies'

Claude Monet

French novelist and author of 'Les Misérables'

Victor Hugo

American abolitionist and conductor of the Underground Railroad

Harriet Tubman

Swedish chemist and inventor who established the Nobel Prizes

Alfred Nobel

Scottish-American industrialist known for his work in the steel industry

Andrew Carnegie

German dictator and leader of Nazi Germany

Adolf Hitler

Swiss reformer who played a key role in the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland

Ulrich Zwingli

Italian Renaissance painter and one of the first female artists to gain popularity

Sofonisba Anguissola

Italian philosopher and advocate of the infinite universe theory

Giordano Bruno

English playwright and poet known for 'Volpone' and 'The Alchemist'

Ben Jonson

Catholic missionary who helped spread Christianity to Japan and India

Francis Xavier

Spanish painter known for his masterpiece 'Las Meninas'

Diego Velázquez

French clergyman and key figure during the Thirty Years' War

Cardinal Richelieu

French barber surgeon considered one of the fathers of modern surgery

Ambroise Paré

Italian sculptor and architect known for works such as Ecstasy of Saint Teresa

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

English diarist known for his account of 17th century England and the Great Fire

Samuel Pepys

English Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

William Penn

English naturalist considered the father of English natural history

John Ray

English explorer who explored parts of the Arctic and northeastern North America

Henry Hudson

French political philosopher best known for his theory of the separation of powers

Montesquieu

Russian novelist and author of works such as 'Crime and Punishment'

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Norwegian playwright often called the father of modern drama

Henrik Ibsen

Polish composer and pianist known for his nocturnes and ballades

Frederic Chopin

Portuguese navigator credited with the discovery of Brazil

Pedro Álvares Cabral

Queen of France who had significant influence during the French Wars of Religion

Catherine de' Medici

English composer known for his music such as the '40-oart motet Spem in alium'

Thomas Tallis

Female Regent of the Netherlands who played a key role in 16th century politics

Margaret of Austria

German-Swiss painter known for his portraits of prominent figures like Henry VIII

Hans Holbein the Younger

Spanish mystic known for her contributions to the Carmelite Order

Saint Teresa of Ávila

Italian Jesuit priest known for his exchange efforts between China and the West

Matteo Ricci

Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain who ruled during the 16th century

Charles V

Governor of the Plymouth Colony who helped establish colonies in New England

William Bradford

Irish chemist known as one of the founders of modern chemistry

Robert Boyle

English Puritan lawyer and helped found the Massachusetts Bay Colony

John Winthrop

Playwright and one of the first English women to earn a living by writing

Aphra Behn

Grand Duke of Tuscany who supported Galileo

Ferdinando II de' Medici

French dramatist known for his tragedies such as 'Phèdre'

Jean Racine

English writer who recorded observations during the English Civil War

John Evelyn

Dutch jurist known for his work 'On the Law of War and Peace'

Hugo Grotius

3rd President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence

Thomas Jefferson

English writer known for compiling 'A Dictionary of the English Language' in 1755

Samuel Johnson

Austrian composer known as the "Father of the Symphony"

Joseph Haydn

4th President of the United States known as the "Father of the Constitution"

James Madison

French revolutionary leader during the Revolution known for his radical stance

Jean-Paul Marat

English physician who pioneered the smallpox vaccine

Edward Jenner

English philosopher and author of 'On Liberty and Utilitarianism'

John Stuart Mill

Italian composer known for his operas such as 'Aida' and 'La Traviata'

Giuseppe Verdi

English poet known for his works such as 'Songs of Innocence and of Experience'

William Blake

British geologist and author of 'Principles of Geology'

Charles Lyell

British naturalist who made the theory of evolution by natural selection with Darwin

Alfred Russel Wallace

German philosopher known for his critique of religion and Marxist thought

Ludwig Feuerbach

French painter known for works like 'Olympia'

Édouard Manet

French mathematician known for his work on statistics and celestial mechanics

Pierre-Simon Laplace

German engineer who made the first automobile powered by internal engines

Karl Benz

German geographic who made contributions to biogeography and climatology

Alexander von Humboldt

Swiss-French architect and pioneer of the International Style

Le Corbusier

Her refusal to give up her bus seat greatly impacted the fight against segregation

Rosa Parks

First female British Prime Minister known for her conservative politics

Margaret Thatcher

British computer scientist who developed Enigma during WWII

Alan Turing

African-American Muslim minister and activist during the Civil Rights Movement

Malcolm X

Mexican painter known for her self-portraits exploring identity and gender

Frida Kahlo

First Prime Minister of India

Jawaharlal Nehru

American artist and leading figure in the Pop Art movement

Andy Warhol

English writer and author of '1984' and 'Animal Farm'

George Orwell

Italian author known for 'The Book of the Courtier'

Baldassare Castiglione

Swiss physician who revolutionized medicine by avoiding the use of chemicals

Paracelsus

Flemish Renaissance painter known for 'The Hunters in the Snow'

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Spanish explorer and first European to navigate the length of the Amazon River

Francisco de Orellana

Venetian painter known for his work 'Assumption of the Virgin'

Titian

Dutch Anabaptist religious leader and helped develop the Mennonite church

Menno Simons

French poet and prominent member of the Pléiade group of poets

Pierre de Ronsard

Flemish Baroque painter known for his work for royal courts across Europe

Peter Paul Rubens

Founder of the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan lasting over 250 years

Tokugawa Ieyasu

Japanese poet regarded as the master of haikus

Matsuo Basho

Dutch painter known for his works like 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'

Johannes Vermeer

Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire whose reign ended the Thirty Years' War

Ferdinand III

French playwright and author of 'The Declaration of the Rights of Woman'

Olympe de Gouges

German composer known for his operas such as 'The Ring of Nibelung'

Richard Wagner

English mathematician known as the first computer programmer

Ada Lovelace

Abolitionist and women's rights activist known for her speech 'Ain't I a Woman?'

Sojourner Truth

South American revolutionary who helped many countries gain independence

Simón Bolívar

French philosopher, father of sociology and founder of positivism

Auguste Comte

French poet and author of 'Les Fleurs du Mal'

Charles Baudelaire

English politician and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade in Britain

William Wilberforce

Chinese regent who ruled during the late Qing Dynasty

Empress Dowager Cixi

French civil engineer known for designing the Eiffel Tower

Gustave Eiffel

American theoretical physicist who led the Manhattan Project

J. Robert Oppenheimer

Founder of Pakistan

Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Polish labor leader and founder of Solidarity

Lech Wałęsa

American feminist and author of 'The Feminine Mystique'

Betty Friedan

Soviet cosmonaut and first person to journey into outer space

Yuri Gagarin

Burmese leader of the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar

Aung San Suu Kyi

American activist and key figure in the feminist movement of the late 20th century

Gloria Steinem

Founder of the State of Israel and its first Prime Minister

David Ben-Gurion

German-American political theorist known for work 'The Origins of Totalitarianism'

Hannah Arendt

French astrologer famous for his book of prophecies

Nostradamus

German Lutheran reformer and collaborator of Martin Luther

Philipp Melanchthon

Duke of Parma and commander in the wars against Protestant states of Europe

Alessandro Farnese

Duke of Mantua and builder of the Palazzo Te

Federico II Gonzaga

Huguenot leader in the French Wars of Religion

Gaspard II de Coligny

Scottish scholar and tutor of King James VI of Scotland

George Buchanan

English poet and author of 'Arcadia' and 'Astrophil and Stella'

Philip Sidney

Italian poet best known for his epic 'Orlando Furioso'

Lodovico Ariosto

American poet and first published female poet in the English colonies

Anne Bradstreet

Russian polymath who contributed to literature, chemistry and education

Mikhail Lomonosov

Italian biologist known as the father of microscopical anatomy

Marcello Malpighi

Archbishop of Canterbury known for his efforts to reform the Church of England

William Laud

English physician known as the "English Hippocrates"

Thomas Sydenham

American colonist captured by Native Americans and known for escaping captivity

Hannah Dutton

English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal

John Flamsteed

German-American colonist who led a rebellion against British authorities in NY

Jacob Leisler

British aristocrat born into slavery and raised a free gentlewoman in England

Dido Elizabeth Belle

English inventor who developed the power loom

Edmund Cartwright

First Lady of the United States and advocate for women's rights in the early 1800s

Abigail Adams

Swedish astronomer who invented a temperature scale in his name

Anders Celsius

Leader of the Haitian Revolution

Toussaint Louverture

Italian librettist who worked on famous operas such as 'Don Giovanni'

Lorenzo Da Ponte

English philosopher and founder of modern utilitarianism

Jeremy Bentham

English naturalist who participated in Captain Cook's first voyage to the Pacific

Joseph Banks

Italian Neoclassical sculptor known for his work 'Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss'

Antonio Canova

French painter known for works like 'The Death of Socrates'

Jacques-Louis David

Swedish Botanist who developed the modern system of naming organisms

Carl Linnaeus

Scottish philosopher and one of the founding figures of the Scottish Enlightenment

Francis Hutcheson

British officer who helped establish British control in India

Robert Clive

Italian physicist known for inventing the electric battery and discovering methane

Alessandro Volta

Hint

Answer

English inventor who invented the water frame

Richard Arkwright

English scientist who made discoveries in electromagnetism and electrochemistry

Michael Faraday

Hungarian composer and conductor known for 'La campanella'

Franz Liszt

American abolitions who led the raid on Harpers Ferry to start a slave revolt

John Brown

American philosopher known for 'Walden'

Henry David Thoreau

American suffragist, activist, and a leader of the women's rights movement

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Female German pianist and composer during the Romantic era

Clara Schumann

Emperor of Mexico whose reign ended after the fall of the Second Mexican Empire

Maximilian I of Mexico

English author of 'Frankenstein' and pioneer of Gothic literature

Mary Shelley

German philosopher and co-founder of Marxist Theory

Friedrich Engels

American inventor who developed a code in his name and made the telegraph

Samuel Morse

English novelist best known for her works 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Emma'

Jane Austen

Scottish physicist and developer of the theory of electromagnetic radiation

James Clerk Maxwell

Belgian King responsible for the colonization of the Congo Free State

Leopold II of Belgium

Irish poet and playwright known for his work 'The Importance of Being Earnest'

Oscar Wilde

American writer and poet best known for her novel 'Little Women'

Louisa May Alcott

American author known for 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'

Mark Twain

American abolitionist and author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'

Harriet Beecher Stowe

English novelist and author of 'Wuthering Heights'

Emily Brontë

French novelist and author of 'Madame Bovary'

Gustave Flaubert

English cardinal who converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism

John Henry Newman

French novelist known for his 'Les Rougon-Macquart' series

Émile Zola

Spanish architect who built the Sagrada Família basilica in Barcelona

Antoni Gaudí

American painter known for his illustrations of birds in 'The Birds of America'

John James Audubon

English poet known for her sonnets and epic poem 'Aurora Leigh'

Elizabeth Barret Browning

English poet known for his collection 'Men and Women'

Robert Browning

British poet who served as Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Italian opera composer known for 'La Bohéme' and 'Madame Butterfly'

Giacomo Puccini

American poet known for his macabre stories such as 'The Raven'

Edgar Allen Poe

American-British author of the novel 'The Portrait of a Lady'

Henry James

Irish author best known for his Gothic novel 'Dracula'

Bram Stoker

French composer known for his work 'Clair de Lune'

Claude Debussy

American writer and author of the 'The Last of the Mohicans'

James Fenimore Cooper

English novelist and author of 'Jane Eyre'

Charlotte Brontë

American novelist and author of 'Moby Dick'

Herman Melville

French author of 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea'

Jules Verne

Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary whose reign spanned nearly 68 years

Franz Joseph I

English landscape painter known for his series of the River Stour

John Constable

English novelist known for her works 'Middlemarch' and 'The Mill on the Floss'

George Eliot

American Civil War general known for his "scorched earth" policies

William T Sherman

German playwright, poet, and author of The Threepenny Opera

Bertolt Brecht

Russian composer known for his work 'The Rite of Spring'

Igor Stravinsky

American jazz singer known for her songs like 'Strange Fruit'

Billie Holiday

American playwright best known for his work 'A Streetcar Named Desire'

Tennessee Williams

American jazz singer known as the "First Lady of Song"

Ella Fitzgerald

Irish modernist writer best known for his novel 'Ulysses'

James Joyce

British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement

Emmeline Pankhurst

American baseball player who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball

Jackie Robinson

English actor who pioneered the silent film comedy as 'The Tramp'

Charlie Chaplin

English writer best known for his work 'The Lord of the Rings'

J.R.R. Tolkien

Soviet leader whose reforms led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union

Mikhail Gorbachev

American medical researcher who developed the first effective polio vaccine

Jonas Salk

American ciivl rights activist and author of 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'

Maya Angelou

American singer, actor, and "Rat Pack" member known for his song 'My Way'

Frank Sinatra

American composer and conductor best known for his musical 'West Side Story'

Leonard Bernstein

American poet, social activist, and leader of the Harlem Renaissance

Langston Hughes

U.S. Attorney General under Kennedy who campaigned for the presidency

Robert F. Kennedy

French fashion designer who founded her own fashion label in Paris in the 1920s

Coco Chanel

British winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work on x-ray crystallography

Dorothy Hodgkin

First Lady of the United States during the Great Depression and World War II

Eleanor Roosevelt

British economist and founder of modern macroeconomics

John Maynard Keynes

American activist and co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement

Dorothy Day

First Lady known for her style and efforts to restore and preserve American culture

Jacqueline Kennedy

American mathematician who calculated the first U.S. crewed spaceflight

Katherine Johnson

American nurse and founder of the American Red Cross

Clara Barton

Native American leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux tribe

Sitting Bull

English writer known for his novel 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles'

Thomas Hardy

American landscape architect who designed New York's Central Park

Frederick Law Olmsted

Scottish-American naturalist and key figure of the creation of National Parks

John Muir

British statesman of the 19th century who served as Prime Minister four times

William Gladstone

American political economist known for his work 'Progress and Poverty'

Henry George

Founder and editor of the New-York Tribune

Horace Greeley

British writer and explorer known for finding Dr David Livingstone

Henry Morton Stanley

British surgeon and pioneer of antiseptic surgery

Joseph Lister

French neurologist known as the "father of modern neurology"

Jean-Martin Charcot

Russian Emperor known for emancipating the serfs in 1861

Alexander II of Russia

Russian chemist and inventor of the Periodic Table of Elements

Dmitri Mendeleev

American sharpshooter known for her role in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show

Annie Oakley

King of the United Kingdom who reigned from 1901-1910

Edward VII

Jamaican nurse who played a key role in caring for soldiers in the Crimean War

Mary Seacole

American novelist and author of 'The Age of Innocence'

Edith Wharton

British Methodist preacher and founder of The Salvation Army

William Booth

American inventor known for creating the cotton gin

Eli Whitney

Mexican painter known for his involvement in the Mexican muralism movement

Diego Rivera

American blues singer known as the "Empress of the Blues"

Bessie Smith

American marine biologist, environmentalist, and author of 'Silent Spring'

Rachel Carson

Prussian-American author best known for his novel 'Lolita'

Vladimir Nabokov

American anthropologist who studied Pacific Islands in 'Coming of Age in Samoa'

Margaret Mead

British conductor known for working with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Disney

Leopold Stokowski

Italian inventor known for creating the radio

Guglielmo Marconi

American dancer known as the 'Mother of Modern Dance'

Isadora Duncan

American photographer known for her Depression-era work 'Migrant Mother'

Dorothea Lange

Vietnamese revolutionary and leader of North Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh

American jazz saxophonist and composer known for works like 'A Love Supreme'

John Coltrane

French painter, sculptor and key figure in Fauvism

Henry Matisse

American novelist and social critic known for his work 'Go Tell It on the Mountain'

James Baldwin

American composer known for work Rhapsody in Blue' and opera 'Porgy & Bess'

George Gershwin

Fourth Prime Minister of Israel and first woman to hold the office

Golda Meir

Belgian surrealist artist known for images such as 'The Son of Man'

Rene Magritte

American jazz bandleader known as the 'King of Swing'

Benny Goodman

German industrialist who saved many Jews in the Holocaust by employing them

Oskar Schindler

American poet and first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize

Gwendolyn Brooks

American novelist and author of 'The Grapes of Wrath' and 'Of Mice and Men'

John Steinbeck

Chinese communist revolutionary and founder of the People's Republic of China

Mao Zedong

Female tennis player known for winning the "Battle of the Sexes" match in 1973

Billie Jean King

American actress first African-American to be nominated for an Academy Award

Dorothy Dandridge

American poet and author of 'Leaves of Grass'

Walt Whitman

Tennis player and first African-American to win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open

Arthur Ashe

French artillery officer and central figure in the Dreyfus Affair

Alfred Dreyfus

Cuban poet and key figure in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain

José Martí

South African monarch who transformed the Zulu Kingdom during the early 1800s

Shaka Zulu

British businessman in South Africa and founder of De Beers and Rhodesia

Cecil Rhodes

Spanish painter known for works like 'The Third of May 1808'

Francisco Goya

Chinese politician considered the founding father of the Republic of China

Sun Yat-sen

Scottish writer known for works 'The French Revolution: A History'

Thomas Carlyle

American industrialist and founder of the Central Pacific Railroad

Leland Stanford

Third President of Egypt who played a key role in the Camp David Accords

Anwar Sadat

Chilean politician and first Marxist to be elected president in a democratic country

Salvador Allende

First Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Patrice Lumumba

Israeli Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate for the Oslo Accords

Yitzhak Rabin

Israeli Prime Minister who played a key role in the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty

Menachem Begin

President of Uganda known for his brutal regime

Idi Amin

Jordanian king who modernized Jordan and kept peace in the Middle East

King Hussein of Jordan

Argentine First Lady who worked with the labor movement and women's suffrage

Eva Perón

Kenyan environmentalist and founder of the Green Belt Movement

Wangari Maathai

Yugoslav communist revolutionary who maintained independence from the Soviets

Josip Broz Tito

Pakistani leader and first women to lead government in a Muslim-majority country

Benazir Bhutto

Chancellor of West Germany known for his Ostpolitik policy

Willy Brandt

Leader of the Iranian Revolution and first Supreme Leader of Iran

Ruhollah Khomeini

33rd U.S. President known for ordering the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Harry S. Truman

Iranian Shah and last Iranian monarch before the Revolution

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

Emperor of Ethiopia known for his leadership during the Italian invasion

Haile Selassie

First Prime Minister and President of Ghana

Kwame Nkrumah

First Chancellor of West Germany and key figure in post-war reintegration

Konrad Adenauer

Leader of the Ismaili Muslims and figure inn founding the All-India Muslim League

Aga Khan III

Leader of the Republic of China and the Kuomintang during the Chinese Civil War

Chiang Kai-shek

British Prime Minister who established the National Health Service in the U.K.

Clement Attlee

Egyptian President and key figure in the Non-Aligned Movement

Gamal Abdel Nasser

First President of Senegal and proponent of the concept of Negritude

Leopold Senghor

Chinese politician who led economic reforms and modernized 20th century China

Deng Xiaoping

Yugoslav leader who kept Yugoslavia independent from Soviets in the Cold War

Marshal Josip Tito

36th President of the U.S. who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law

Lyndon B. Johnson

15th Prime Minister of Canada known for fostering Canadian unity

Pierre Trudeau

Founder of the Fascist Party and leader of Italy during World War II

Benito Mussolini

Mexican revolutionary leader who became an icon of peasant resistance

Emiliano Zapata

General who led campaigns against government in the Mexican Revolution

Pancho Villa

Irish revolutionary leader and key figure in the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty

Michael Collins

Jamaican politician and activist who promoted Pan-Africanism

Marcus Garvey

Polish-German Marxist theorist and co-founder of the Spartacist League

Rosa Luxemburg

French political economist, diplomat and a founding father of the European Union

Jean Monnet

French philosopher and founder of deconstruction

Jacques Derrida

Russian Marxist and founder of the Red Army

Leon Trotsky

Spanish military dictator who ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War

Francisco Franco

French Prime Minister during WWII and figure in the Treaty of Versailles

George Clemenceau

French film director and pioneer of the French New Wave Cinema

Jean-Luc Godard

Panamanian leader ousted by a U.S. invasion for his role in drug trafficking

Manuel Noriega

Japanese Emperor who led during World War II and post-war recovery

Emperor Hirohito

Russian military engineer known for designing the AK-47 assault rifle

Mikhail Kalashnikov

Indonesian President & leader of the independence movement against the Dutch

Sukarno

First Jewish person and first socialist to serve as Prime Minister of France

Leon Blum

Military officer, politician and President of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War

Nguyễn Van Thiếu

Chancellor of West Germany who unified Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall

Helmut Kohl

First President of South Vietnam known for his anti-communist stance

Ngo Dinh Diem

President of the Philippines known for his declaration of martial law

Ferdinand Marcos

President of Serbia and Yugoslavia during the Yugoslav Wars

Slobodan Milošević

Leader of the Soviet Union who initiated the de-Stalinization process

Nikita Khrushchev

Prime Minister of Portugal who established the Estado Novo regime

António Salazar

French Supreme Allied Commander during World War I

Ferdinand Foch

First President of South Korea with anti-communist policies during the Korean War

Syngman Rhee

Founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Longest-reigning British monarch throughout the 20th century

Queen Elizabeth II

Dictator of the Dominican Republic during the early 20th century

Rafael Trujillo

Dutch athlete and gold medal Olympian known as the "Flying Housewife"

Fanny Blankers-Koen

Prime Minister of Iran who nationalized the Iranian oil industry

Mohammad Mosaddegh

The first African-American student at the segregated University of Mississippi

James Meredith

American suffragist who campaigned for the 19th and Equal Rights Amendments

Alice Paul

Bosnian Serb nationalist and assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Gavrilo Princip

American First Lady and founder of a substance abuse center in her name

Betty Ford

28th President of the U.S. during WWI and a founder of the League of Nations

Woodrow Wilson

Salvadoran Catholic archbishop and outspoken critic of human rights abuses

Oscar Romero

Czechoslovak politician and leader of the Prague Spring

Alexander Dubček

General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Konstantin Chernenko

Russian writer who exposed the Soviet Union's gulag system

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

German/U.S. engineer who helped develop rocket technology in Nazi Germany

Wernher von Braun

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom known for his role in decolonization post-war

Harold Macmillan

President of Argentina who implemented free-market reforms

Carlos Menem

First Tunisian President who led Tunisia to independence from France

Habib Bourguiba

Soviet cosmonaut and figure in the Soviet Space program and Soyuz 11 mission

Vladislav Volkov

Martinican psychiatrist known for his work 'The Wretched of the Earth'

Frantz Fanon

Russian composer known for works like 'Peter and the Wolf'

Sergei Prokofiev

First President of the Russian Federation after the collapse of the Soviet Union

Boris Yeltsin

Nepali Sherpa mountaineer and one of the first to reach Mount Everest's summit

Tenzing Norgay

New Zealand mountaineer and one of the first to reach Mount Everest's summit

Edmund Hillary

American military leader and architect of the plan to rebuild Europe after WWII

George C. Marshall

Chinese Premier and key figure in the Chinese Communist Party

Zhou Enlai

Burkinabé military captain and leader of Burkina Faso

Thomas Sankara

Austrian Archduke whose assassinated triggered the events leading to WWI

Franz Ferdinand

Last King of Afghanistan who ruled from 1933 until he was overthrown in 1973

Mohammed Zahir Shah

American biologist known for the Kinsey Reports

Alfred Kinsey

Pashtun independence activist known for his nonviolent opposition to British rule

Abdul Ghaffar Khan

British primatologist known for her studies of chimpanzee behavior in Tanzania

Jane Goodall

American professional boxer known for his opposition to the Vietnam War

Muhammad Ali

Russian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for 'Doctor Zhivago'

Boris Pasternak

Nicaraguan President and leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front

Daniel Ortega

Soviet physicist known for developing the Soviet hydrogen bomb

Andrei Sakharov

American economist known for influencing modern conservative economic thought

Milton Friedman

Czech playwright and key figure in the Velvet Revolution

Vaclav Havel

American birth control activist and founder of Planned Parenthood

Margaret Sanger

British writer known for his dystopian novel 'Brave New World'

Aldous Huxley

31st President of the U.S. criticized for his handling of the Great Depression

Herbert Hoover

President of France who oversaw the modernization of the French economy

Georges Pompidou

Haitian dictator nicknamed "Papa Doc" known for his authoritarian regime

Jean-Claude Duvalier

South Korean activist awarded the Nobel Prize for peace efforts with North Korea

Kim Dae-jung

African-American entrepreneur and first female self-made millionaire in the U.S.

Madame C.J. Walker

American architect known for designing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Maya Lin

Founding Prime Minister of Singapore responsible for its financial positioning

Lee Kuan Yew

Polish diplomat and National Security Advisor to U.S. President Jimmy Carter

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who protested in South Vietnam

Thích Quang Đức

Cambodian king who led Cambodia through independence and monarchy

Norodom Sihanouk

General Secretary of the Communist Party of China during its economic growth

Jiang Zemin

Guatemalan indigenous and human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner

Rigoberta Menchú

American actress turned Princess of Monaco

Grace Kelly

German actress and singer known for her support for the Allied forces in WWII

Marlene Dietrich

American comedian known for her television program 'I Love Lucy'

Lucille Ball

South African President of the African National Congress during its years in exile

Oliver Tambo

First African-American woman elected to the United States Congress

Shirley Chisholm

Canadian leader of the UN peacekeeping mission during the Rwandan Genocide

Roméo Dallaire

Israeli politician known for founding the Israeli Defense Force and UN speeches

Abba Ban

First woman to become President of Nicaragua who ended the Sandinista regime

Violeta Chamorro

First Nigerian President regarded as a founding father of Nigeria

Nnamdi Azikiwe

British royal known for charitable work and humanitarian efforts in the 80s and 90s

Diana, Princess of Wales

Taoiseach and President of Ireland who fought for Irish independence

Éamon de Valera

Mexican writer known for works like 'The Death of Artemio Cruz'

Carlos Fuentes

American astronaut and first American to orbit the Earth

John Glenn

First President of Tanzania known for his philosophy of Ujamaa

Julius Nyerere

Nigerian writer best known for his novel "Things Fall Apart"

Chinua Achebe

Soviet film director and pioneer of montage theory known for 'Battleship Potemkin'

Sergei Einstein

First American woman to win three gold medals in track & field in a single Olympic

Wilma Rudolph

Australian Prime Minister who introduced universal healthcare and free college

Gough Whitlam

Argentina Formula One driver who won five World Championships in the 1950s

Juan Manuel Fangio

Brazilian architect known for designing the city of Brasília

Oscar Niemeyer

First African-American Justice of the United States Supreme Court

Thurgood Marshall

Norwegian explorer and first person to reach the South Pole

Roald Amundsen

American philanthropist, billionaire, and co-founder of Microsoft

Bill Gates

French entertainer, 1920s icon and member of the French Resistance

Josephine Baker

French artist known for his paintings and sculptures depicting dancers

Edgar Degas

American awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the Green Revolution

Norman Borlaug

Romanian gymnast and first gymnast to score a perfect 10 at the Olympics

Nadia Comâneci

French Nobel Peace Prize winner for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Rene Cassin

French cabaret singer known for her song 'La Vie en rose'

Edith Piaf

The Most Important Figures from 1500-2000 (2024)
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