Historical Figures

Essayist · 1533 – 1592

Michel de Montaigne was a French Renaissance thinker and nobleman who invented the essay as a literary form, using candid self-examination to explore the human condition with unmatched honesty and wit.

• The Essais
• Inventing the essay

Artist · 1475 – 1564

Michelangelo was an Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter and architect, one of the greatest artists in history, creator of the David, the Pietà and the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

• The David
• The Sistine Chapel ceiling

Novelist · 1547 – 1616

Miguel de Cervantes was a Spanish writer whose novel Don Quixote is widely regarded as the first modern novel and one of the greatest works in world literature.

• Don Quixote
• The first modern novel

Playwright · 1622 – 1673

Molière was a French playwright and actor of the 17th century, the supreme master of comedy in the French language, whose satires of hypocrisy and vanity remain among the most performed plays in the world.

• Tartuffe
• The Misanthrope

Emperor · 1466 – 1520

Montezuma II was the ninth ruler of the Aztec Empire, who presided over its greatest extent and splendor before the arrival of the Spanish under Hernán Cortés led to his death and the empire's fall.

• Ruler of the Aztec Empire at its height
• Encounter with Cortés

Novelist · 973 – 1014

Murasaki Shikibu was a Japanese noblewoman and writer of the Heian court whose Tale of Genji, written around 1010, is often called the world's first novel and a masterpiece of world literature.

• The Tale of Genji
• World's first novel

Military Leader · 1769 – 1821

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose during the French Revolution, crowned himself Emperor, and dominated European affairs for over a decade.

• Napoleonic Wars
• The Napoleonic Code

Emperor · 1808 – 1873

Napoleon III was the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte who became the first elected president of France and then its last emperor, modernizing Paris and French industry before his empire collapsed with defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

• Second French Empire
• Modernization of Paris

Novelist · 1804 – 1864

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short-story writer whose dark, morally probing fiction — above all The Scarlet Letter — explored sin, guilt and hypocrisy in Puritan New England and helped found the American novel.

• The Scarlet Letter
• The House of the Seven Gables

Queen · 1370 BC – 1330 BC

Nefertiti was an Egyptian queen, principal wife of the pharaoh Akhenaten, who wielded unusual power during his religious revolution and whose painted limestone bust is one of the most admired images of the ancient world.

• Berlin bust
• Amarna religious revolution

Statesman · 1918 – 2013

Nelson Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and statesman who, after 27 years in prison, became the country's first democratically elected president and a global symbol of reconciliation.

• Ending apartheid
• 27 years in prison

Emperor · 37 – 68

Nero was the fifth Roman emperor, remembered as a byword for tyranny and excess, whose reign saw the Great Fire of Rome, the persecution of Christians, and a descent into cruelty that ended in his suicide and the fall of his dynasty.

• The Great Fire of Rome
• Persecution of Christians

Philosopher · 1469 – 1527

Niccolò Machiavelli was a Renaissance Italian diplomat, political philosopher and writer whose treatise The Prince founded modern political science and gave his name to ruthless statecraft.

• The Prince
• Founding modern political science

Astronomer · 1473 – 1543

Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer who formulated the heliocentric model placing the Sun, not the Earth, at the center of the universe — a revolution in human thought.

• The heliocentric model
• The Copernican Revolution

Physicist · 1885 – 1962

Niels Bohr was a Danish physicist who created the first quantum model of the atom and became a leading architect of quantum mechanics through the Copenhagen interpretation.

• Bohr model of the atom
• Copenhagen interpretation

Inventor · 1856 – 1943

Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor and electrical engineer whose pioneering work on alternating current and electromagnetism helped electrify the modern world.

• Alternating current (AC)
• The induction motor

Daimyo · 1534 – 1582

Oda Nobunaga was the warlord who began the unification of Japan, a ruthless and innovative military leader who broke the power of rival lords and the warrior monks and embraced firearms and new tactics before his betrayal and death.

• Beginning Japan's unification
• Use of firearms

Statesman · 1599 – 1658

Oliver Cromwell was the English military and political leader who helped overthrow and execute King Charles I in the English Civil War, then ruled England as Lord Protector in its only period as a republic — a deeply divisive figure ever since.

• English Civil War
• Execution of Charles I

Polymath · 1048 – 1131

Omar Khayyam was a Persian polymath of the Islamic Golden Age — a leading mathematician and astronomer — who is remembered in the West above all for the Rubaiyat, a collection of quatrains on life, fate and pleasure.

• The Rubaiyat
• Advances in algebra

Writer · 1854 – 1900

Oscar Wilde was an Irish writer and wit, one of the most celebrated playwrights of late-Victorian London, whose sparkling comedies, the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and famous epigrams made him a legend — before a scandalous trial destroyed his career.

• The Importance of Being Earnest
• The Picture of Dorian Gray

Statesman · 1815 – 1898

Otto von Bismarck was the Prussian statesman who unified the German states into the German Empire in 1871, serving as its first chancellor and reshaping the balance of power in Europe through ruthless realpolitik and diplomatic mastery.

• Unification of Germany
• Realpolitik

Poet · 43 BC – 17

Ovid was a Roman poet of the Augustan age whose Metamorphoses, a sweeping collection of mythological tales, became one of the most influential works of classical literature on later Western art and poetry.

• Metamorphoses
• Ars Amatoria

Painter · 1881 – 1973

Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter and sculptor who co-founded Cubism and ranks among the most influential and prolific artists of the twentieth century, creating works such as Guernica and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

• Cubism
• Guernica

Poet · 1792 – 1822

Percy Bysshe Shelley was an English Romantic poet, among the greatest lyric poets in the language, whose visionary and politically radical verse — including Ozymandias and Prometheus Unbound — influenced generations of poets and reformers.

• Ozymandias
• Prometheus Unbound