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Most Influential People in History

The 102 most influential people in history (in no particular order) according to Wikipedia's Level 3 vital article list.
Only surnames are required
Four people are in a group. If you name the group, it will be accepted for all four of them
Last updated: May 2, 2026
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idkmanimnotsmart
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Last updated: May 2, 2026
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First submittedFebruary 22, 2025
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Leaders and Politicians
Hint
Name
The sixth Amorite king of the Old Babylonian Empire, reigning from c. 1792 to c. 1750 BCE
Hammurabi
Third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt
Ramesses II
Founder of the Achaemenid Empire
Cyrus the Great
A king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon
Alexander the Great
Emperor of Magadha from c. 268 BCE until their death and the third ruler from the Mauryan dynasty
Ashoka
Founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of China
Qin Shi Huang
Roman general, statesman, and author who was the dictator of the Roman Republic almost continuously from 49 BCE until his assassination in 44 BCE
Julius Caesar
Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BCE and the last active Hellenistic pharaoh
Cleopatra
Founder of the Roman Empire who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BCE until his death in 14 CE
Augustus
The only undisputed female sovereign in the history of China; held power as the empress consort of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang dynasty from 660 to 683 and as empress dowager during the reigns of her sons, Emperors Zhongzong and Ruizong, between 683 and 690
Wu Zetian
King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian Empire from 800
Charlemagne
Founder and first khan of the Mongol Empire
Genghis Khan
Ninth Mansa of the Mali Empire, which reached its territorial peak during his reign
Mansa Musa
Turco-Mongol conqueror, first ruler of the Timurid dynasty, and the founder of the Timurid Empire, which ruled over modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia
Timur
Ottoman sultan from 1520 to 1566
Suleiman the Magnificent
Third Mughal emperor who reigned from 1556 to 1605
Akbar
Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603
Elizabeth I
Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796
Catherine the Great
Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797
George Washington
Emperor of the French from 18 May 1804 until his first abdication in 1814, with a brief restoration during the Hundred Days in 1815
Napoleon
Venezuelan statesman and military officer who led what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia to independence from the Spanish Empire
Simón Bolívar
16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until his assassination in 1865
Abraham Lincoln
Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule and later inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.
Mahatma Gandhi
Soviet revolutionary and politician who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953
Joseph Stalin
Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Germany during the Nazi era from 1933 until his suicide in 1945
Adolf Hitler
Chinese revolutionary, politician, writer, political theorist, and the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
Mao Zedong
South African anti-apartheid activist and politician who was the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999
Nelson Mandela
Explorers
Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed four Spanish transatlantic in the name of the Catholic monarchs, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas
Christopher Columbus
Artists
Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect
Leonardo da Vinci
Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance.
Michelangelo
Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and draughtsman
Rembrandt
Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period active as a painter and printmaker
Hokusai
Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art
Vincent van Gogh
Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France
Pablo Picasso
Philospohers and Social Scientists
Chinese philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages
Confucius
Ancient Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, perhaps the first Western moral philosopher, and a major inspiration on his student Plato, who largely founded the tradition of Western philosophy
Socrates
Ancient Greek philosopher of Classical Athens who is most commonly considered the foundational thinker of the Western philosophical tradition
Plato
Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath; his writings span the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts
Aristotle
Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, and writer who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises of the Roman Republic that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire
Cicero
Arab scholar, historian, philosopher, and sociologist; widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest social scientists of the Middle Ages, and is considered by a number of scholars to be a major forerunner of historiography, sociology, economics, and demography studies
Ibn Khaldun
Florentine diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian who lived during the Italian Renaissance
Niccolò Machiavelli
French philosopher, scientist, logician, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science during the Renaissance era
René Descartes
English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism"
John Locke
Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the field of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment
Adam Smith
Prussian-born German philosopher; considered one of the central thinkers of the Enlightenment
Immanuel Kant
English writer and philosopher best known for her advocacy of women's rights
Mary Wollstonecraft
German philosopher, social and political theorist, economist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist
Karl Marx
Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in the psyche through dialogue between patient and psychoanalyst, and the distinctive theory of mind and human agency derived from it
Sigmund Freud
Writers
Ancient Greek poet who is widely credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature
Homer
Ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period; composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid
Virgil
Chinese poet acclaimed as one of the greatest and most important poets of the Tang dynasty, and even in the whole of Chinese poetry
Li Bai
Japanese novelist, poet, and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court in the Heian period
Murasaki Shikibu
Sufi mystic, poet, and founder of the Islamic brotherhood known as the Mevlevi Order
Rumi
Italian poet, writer, and philosopher; his Divine Comedy is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and one of the greatest literary works in the Italian language
Dante Alighieri
English playwright, poet, and actor; widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist
William Shakespeare
French Enlightenment writer, philosophe, satirist, and historian
Voltaire
Russian writer; regarded as one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time
Leo Tolstoy
Bengali polymath (specifically a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter) of the Bengal Renaissance period
Rabindranath Tagore
Musicians
German composer and musician of the late Baroque period; known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the orchestral Brandenburg Concertos
Johann Sebastian Bach
Classical composer and musician; completed more than 800 works in his life, including symphonies, concertos, chamber music, opera, and choral music
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
German composer and pianist; mentored during the Classical period and incorporated more complex structure and emotion in his later works
Ludwig van Beethoven
American jazz and blues trumpeter and vocalist; among the most influential figures in jazz, with a five decade career spanning several eras in the history of the genre
Louis Armstrong
English musician, songwriter, and activist who was the founder, co-lead vocalist, and rhythm guitarist of an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960
John Lennon
English musician and songwriter who was the bassist and keyboardist of, as well as co-lead vocalist for an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960
Paul McCartney
English musician, singer, songwriter, and actor who was the drummer for an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960
Ringo Starr
English musician who was the lead guitarist of an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960
George Harrison
American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist; widely regarded as one of the most culturally significant figures of the 20th century
Michael Jackson
Filmakers
English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film
Charlie Chaplin
American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur
Walt Disney
Scientists and Inventors
Greek physician and philosopher of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine
Hippocrates
Preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world; a seminal figure of the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian rulers, and was influential to medieval European medical and Scholastic thought
Avicenna
Chinese polymath, scientist, and statesman of the Northern Song dynasty
Shen Kuo
German inventor and craftsman who invented the movable-type printing press
Johannes Gutenberg
Renaissance polymath who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center
Nicolaus Copernicus
Italian astronomer, physicist, and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath
Galileo Galilei
English polymath who was a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, author, and inventor
Isaac Newton
French nobleman and chemist who was central to the 18th-century chemical revolution and who had a large influence on both the history of chemistry and the history of biology
Antoine Lavoisier
English chemist and physicist who contributed to the study of electrochemistry and electromagnetism
Michael Faraday
English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology
Charles Darwin
English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing
Florence Nightingale
French chemist, pharmacist, and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization
Louis Pasteur
Scottish physicist and mathematician who was responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism, and light as different manifestations of the same phenomenon
James Clerk Maxwell
Russian chemist known for formulating the periodic law and creating a version of the periodic table of elements
Dmitri Mendeleev
American inventor and businessman; developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, sound recording, and motion pictures
Thomas Edison
Serbian-American engineer, futurist, and inventor; known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system
Nikola Tesla
Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist; shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband
Marie Curie
German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity
Albert Einstein
Mathematicians
Ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician; considered the "father of geometry", he is chiefly known for the Elements treatise, which established the foundations of geometry that largely dominated the field until the early 19th century
Euclid
Mathematician active during the Islamic Golden Age, who produced Arabic-language works in mathematics, astronomy, and geography
Al-Khwarizmi
Swiss polymath who was active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, logician, geographer, music theorist, and engineer
Leonhard Euler
German mathematician, astronomer, geodesist, and physicist who contributed to many fields in mathematics and science
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Logician, mathematician, and philosopher; considered to be one of the most significant logicians in history and profoundly influenced scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century
Kurt Gödel
English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist
Alan Turing
Religious Figures
Wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism
The Buddha
First-century Jewish preacher and religious leader in the Roman province of Judaea
Jesus
Arab religious, military, and political leader, as well as the founder of Islam
Muhammad
Fourth Rashidun caliph who ruled from 656 CE until his assassination in 661, as well as the first Shia Imam
Ali
Indian Vedic scholar and monk, philosopher, and acharya of Advaita Vedanta
Adi Shankara
German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and former Augustinian friar
Martin Luther
Buisnesspeople
American industrialist and business magnate; founder of the Ford Motor Company and is credited as a pioneer in making automobiles affordable for middle-class Americans
Henry Ford
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Your Next Quiz
Can you name the capitals cities of all 196 countries in the world?
Beat the clock to unscramble the names of these countries. The answers change every time you play!
Click on the names of the languages that actually exist without clicking any of the ones that don't.
Drag the pin onto the correct country. Careful, though! Three wrong moves and the game ends.
1 Comments
+1
Level 34
May 2, 2026
Version 2 changelog:

* Removed Joan of Arc, Zheng He, Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, James Cook, Herodotus, Thomas Aquinas, Friedrich Nietzsche, Miguel de Cervantes, Carl Linnaeus, Archimedes, and Emmy Noether (less influential people were removed in order to get the count down to around 100)

* Removed Laozi (now considered legendary by majority of scholars on the subject)

* Added one politician/leader

* Reworded hints to be a bit less ambiguous and more concise

* Fixed grammar issues with four hints