Rank |
Name |
Influence |
1 |
Muhammad
|
founder of Islam, conqueror of Arabia
|
2 |
Isaac Newton
|
physicist, theory of universal gravitation, laws of motion
|
3 |
Jesus
|
founder of Christianity
|
4 |
Buddha
|
founder of Buddhism
|
5 |
Confucius
|
founder of Confucianism
|
6 |
St. Paul
|
proselytizer of Christianity |
7 |
Cai Lun
|
inventor of paper
|
8 |
Johann Gutenberg
|
developed movable type, printed Bibles
|
9 |
Christopher Columbus
|
explorer, led Europe to Americas
|
10 |
Albert Einstein
|
physicist, relativity, Einsteinian physics
|
11 |
Louis Pasteur
|
scientist, pasteurization
|
12 |
Galileo Galilei
|
astronomer, accurately described heliocentric solar system
|
13 |
Aristotle
|
influential Greek philosopher
|
14 |
Euclid
|
mathematician, Euclidean geometry
|
15 |
Moses
|
major prophet of Judaism
|
16 |
Charles Darwin
|
biologist, described evolution
|
17 |
Qin Shi Huang
|
Chinese emperor
|
18 |
Augustus Caesar
|
Roman ruler
|
19 |
Nicolaus Copernicus
|
astronomer, taught heliocentricity
|
20 |
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier
|
father of modern chemistry, philosopher, economist
|
21 |
Constantine the Great
|
Roman emperor who made Christianity the state religion |
22 |
James Watt
|
developed steam engine
|
23 |
Michael Faraday
|
physicist, chemist, discovery of Electromagnetic induction
|
24 |
James Clerk Maxwell
|
physicist, electromagnetic spectrum
|
25 |
Martin Luther
|
founder of Protestantism and Lutheranism
|
26 |
George Washington
|
first president of United States
|
27 |
Karl Marx
|
founder of Communism
|
28 |
Orville and Wilbur Wright
|
inventors of the airplane
|
29 |
Genghis Khan
|
Mongol conqueror
|
30 |
Adam Smith
|
economist, expositor of capitalism
|
31 |
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
|
Possibly wrote works attributed to William Shakespeare
|
32 |
John Dalton
|
chemist, physicist, atomic theory, law of partial pressures (Dalton's law)
|
33 |
Alexander the Great
|
conqueror |
34 |
Napoleon Bonaparte
|
French conqueror
|
35 |
Thomas Edison
|
inventor of light bulb, phonograph, etc.
|
36 |
Antony van Leeuwenhoek
|
microscopes, studied microscopic life |
37 |
William T.G. Morton
|
pioneer in anesthesiology
|
38 |
Guglielmo Marconi
|
inventor of radio
|
39 |
Adolf Hitler
|
conqueror, led Axis Powers in WWII
|
40 |
Plato
|
founder of Platonism
|
41 |
Oliver Cromwell
|
English political and military leader
|
42 |
Alexander Graham Bell
|
inventor of telephone
|
43 |
Alexander Fleming
|
penicillin, advances in bacteriology, immunology and chemotherapy
|
44 |
John Locke
|
philosopher and liberal theologian
|
45 |
Ludwig van Beethoven
|
composer
|
46 |
Werner Heisenberg
|
Codified the uncertainty principle
|
47 |
Louis Daguerre
|
an inventor/pioneer of photography
|
48 |
Simon Bolivar
|
National hero of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia
|
49 |
René Descartes
|
Rationalist philosopher and mathematician
|
50 |
Michelangelo
|
painter, sculptor, architect |
51 |
Pope Urban II
|
called for First Crusade
|
52 |
Umar ibn al-Khattab
|
Second Caliph, expanded Muslim empire
|
53 |
Ashoka
|
king of India who converted to and spread Buddhism |
54 |
St. Augustine
|
Early Christian theologian |
55 |
William Harvey
|
discovered the circulation of the blood |
56 |
The Lord Rutherford of Nelson
|
physicist, pioneer of Particle physics
|
57 |
John Calvin
|
Protestant reformer, founder of Calvinism
|
58 |
Gregor Mendel
|
Mendelian genetics
|
59 |
Max Planck
|
physicist, thermodynamics
|
60 |
Joseph Lister
|
principal discoverer of antiseptics which greatly reduced surgical mortality
|
61 |
Nikolaus August Otto
|
built first four-stroke internal combustion engine
|
62 |
Francisco Pizarro
|
Spanish conqueror in South America, brought down Tahuantinsuyu (Inca empire).
|
63 |
Hernando Cortes
|
conquered Mexico for Spain
|
64 |
Thomas Jefferson
|
3rd president of United States |
65 |
Isabella of Castile
|
Spanish ruler, patron of Cristopher Colombus
|
66 |
Joseph Stalin
|
revolutionary and ruler of the USSR
|
67 |
Julius Caesar
|
Roman general and politician |
68 |
William the Conqueror
|
laid foundation of modern England
|
69 |
Sigmund Freud
|
founder of Freudian school of psychology, psychoanalysis
|
70 |
Edward Jenner
|
discoverer of the vaccination for smallpox
|
71 |
Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen
|
discovered X-rays
|
72 |
Johann Sebastian Bach
|
composer |
73 |
Lao Tzu
|
founder of Taoism
|
74 |
Voltaire
|
writer and philosopher |
75 |
Johannes Kepler
|
astronomer, planetary motions
|
76 |
Enrico Fermi
|
initiated the atomic age, father of atom bomb
|
77 |
Leonhard Euler
|
physicist, mathematician, differential and integral calculus and algebra
|
78 |
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
|
French deistic philosopher and author
|
79 |
Niccolò Machiavelli
|
author of The Prince (influential political treatise)
|
80 |
Thomas Malthus
|
economist, wrote Essay on the Principle of Population
|
81 |
John F. Kennedy
|
president of United States, guiding force behind the US Space/Moon Program |
82 |
Gregory Pincus
|
endocrinologist, developed birth control pill
|
83 |
Mani
|
founder of Manicheanism
|
84 |
Lenin
|
Russian revolutionary and ruler
|
85 |
Emperor Wen of Sui China
|
Unified China, founder of the Sui dynasty
|
86 |
Vasco da Gama
|
navigator, discovered route from Europe to India |
87 |
Cyrus the Great
|
founder of Persian empire
|
88 |
Peter the Great
|
forged Russia into a great European nation |
89 |
Mao Zedong
|
founder of Maoism, Chinese form of Communism
|
90 |
Francis Bacon
|
philosopher, delineated inductive scientific method
|
91 |
Henry Ford
|
developed modern assembly line
|
92 |
Mencius
|
philosopher, founder of a school of Confucianism
|
93 |
Zoroaster
|
founder of Zoroastrianism
|
94 |
Queen Elizabeth I
|
British monarch, restored Church of England to power after Queen Mary
|
95 |
Mikhail Gorbachev
|
Russian premier who was instrumental to the collapse of Communism in the USSR and Eastern Europe
|
96 |
Menes
|
unified Upper and Lower Egypt
|
97 |
Charlemagne
|
Holy Roman Empire created with his baptism in 800 AD
|
98 |
Homer
|
epic poet |
99 |
Justinian I
|
Roman emperor, reconquered Mediterranean empire |
100 |
Mahavira
|
founder of Jainism
|
|
Runners-Up |
St. Thomas Aquinas
|
influential early Christian philosopher |
Archimedes
|
father of experimental science |
Charles Babbage
|
mathematician and inventor of forerunner of computer
|
Cheops
|
builder of Great Pyramids
|
Marie Curie
|
physicist, radioactivity
|
Benjamin Franklin
|
American politician and inventor |
Mohandas Gandhi
|
Indian leader and Hindu religious reformer
|
Abraham Lincoln
|
16th president of U.S., led during United States Civil War
|
Ferdinand Magellan
|
navigator, named Pacific Ocean, first circumnavigation of globe |
Leonardo da Vinci
|
artist, inventor |