Frédéric Chopin

Composer · 1770 – 1827

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist, one of the greatest musicians in history, who bridged the Classical and Romantic eras and composed masterpieces even after going deaf.

• The Ninth Symphony
• Für Elise

Why The towering predecessor whose Romantic expressiveness opened the path Chopin followed at the piano.

Composer · 1756 – 1791

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was an Austrian composer of the Classical era, a child prodigy who produced more than 600 works of extraordinary range and beauty and is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in history.

• The Magic Flute
• Requiem

Why A Classical master whose clarity and elegance Chopin admired and absorbed.

Composer · 1840 – 1893

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian Romantic composer whose richly emotional music — including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker and the 1812 Overture — made him one of the most popular and widely performed composers in the world.

• Swan Lake
• The Nutcracker

Why A later Romantic composer who shared Chopin's gift for lyrical melody.

Composer · 1685 – 1750

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque era whose mastery of counterpoint and harmony — in works like the Brandenburg Concertos and the Mass in B minor — made him one of the greatest composers in Western history.

• Brandenburg Concertos
• Mass in B minor

Why Also a composer & musician · Comparable historical impact

Composer · 1098 – 1179

Hildegard of Bingen was a German Benedictine abbess and one of the most remarkable polymaths of the Middle Ages — a visionary, composer, writer, healer and natural philosopher.

• Visionary theology
• Sacred music

Why Also a composer · Comparable historical impact

Philosopher · 1712 – 1778

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan-French philosopher, writer, and composer whose ideas on the social contract, the general will, and natural human goodness shaped modern political thought, education, and the Romantic movement.

• The Social Contract
• The general will

Why Also a composer · Comparable historical impact

Mathematician · 1912 – 1954

Alan Turing was an English mathematician and computer scientist who founded theoretical computer science, helped break the German Enigma cipher in World War II, and pioneered the study of artificial intelligence.

• Turing machine
• Breaking the Enigma code

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

Painter · 1840 – 1926

Claude Monet was a French painter and the leading founder of Impressionism, whose studies of light and atmosphere — from Impression, Sunrise to the Water Lilies — revolutionized modern painting.

• Impressionism
• Impression, Sunrise

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

Physicist · 1887 – 1961

Erwin Schrödinger was an Austrian physicist who formulated the wave equation governing quantum systems and devised the famous Schrödinger's cat thought experiment.

• Schrödinger equation
• Wave mechanics

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

Philosopher · 1844 – 1900

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher whose radical critiques of morality, religion, and truth—including the proclamation that "God is dead" and the ideal of the Übermensch—made him one of the most influential and provocative thinkers of the modern era.

• "God is dead"
• The Übermensch

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

Activist · 1869 – 1948

Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of India's independence movement, who pioneered the philosophy and practice of nonviolent civil disobedience and inspired movements for civil rights across the world.

• Leading Indian independence
• Nonviolent civil disobedience

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

Physicist · 1867 – 1934

Marie Curie was a Polish-French physicist and chemist who pioneered research on radioactivity and became the first person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.

• Radioactivity research
• Discovery of polonium and radium

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

Activist · 1929 – 1968

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and civil rights leader who championed nonviolent resistance to racial injustice and became the most prominent voice of the movement for equality in the United States.

• I Have a Dream speech
• Civil rights leadership

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

Physicist · 1858 – 1947

Max Planck was a German physicist who originated quantum theory by introducing the quantum of action, a discovery that launched modern physics and earned him the 1918 Nobel Prize.

• Quantum theory
• Planck's constant

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

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

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

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

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

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

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

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

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

Chemist · 1920 – 1958

Rosalind Franklin was an English chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose images of DNA were crucial to discovering its double-helix structure, a contribution long under-recognized.

• X-ray image of DNA (Photo 51)
• DNA structure research

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

Painter · 1853 – 1890

Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter whose intense color, expressive brushwork, and emotional depth made him one of the most influential artists in Western history, though he found little recognition in his own lifetime.

• The Starry Night
• Sunflowers

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

Physicist · 1901 – 1976

Werner Heisenberg was a German physicist who founded matrix mechanics and formulated the uncertainty principle, two of the cornerstones of quantum mechanics.

• Uncertainty principle
• Matrix mechanics

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

President · 1809 – 1865

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, who led the nation through its Civil War, preserved the Union, and abolished slavery before his assassination in 1865.

• Leading the Union in the Civil War
• The Emancipation Proclamation

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

Novelist · 1890 – 1976

Agatha Christie was an English writer, the best-selling novelist of all time, whose ingenious detective stories featuring Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple made her the undisputed "Queen of Crime".

• Hercule Poirot
• Miss Marple

Why Active in the same era · Comparable historical impact

Writer · 1861 – 1941

Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, writer, composer and polymath who reshaped Indian literature and music and, in 1913, became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

• Gitanjali
• Nobel Prize in Literature 1913

Why Also a composer · Active in the same era