Scientists through history
The atlas holds 62 people and 1,917 moments here, from 563 BC to 2023. The most recorded lives are Albert Einstein, Karl Marx and Leonardo da Vinci. Across the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment.
Notable people
Heraclitus
in 500 BC
2 moments here
Heraclitus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher associated with Ephesus in Ionia, active around 500 BC.…
Hypatia
from 370 to 415
5 moments here
Hypatia was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, and teacher. Her birth is disputed, with estimates ranging from about 350 to…
Ibn Battuta
from 1304 to 1369
113 moments here
Maghrebi Muslim jurist, traveller, explorer, and author from Tangier. Between 1325 and 1354 he journeyed through North and East Africa, the Middle…
Ibn Khaldun
from 1332 to 1406
15 moments here
Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) was a Tunis-born historian, jurist, political official, teacher, and author of the Muqaddimah.…
Immanuel Kant
from 1724 to 1804
15 moments here
German Enlightenment philosopher whose critical philosophy transformed epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and political thought.…
James Cook
from 1728 to 1779
35 moments here
British naval officer, hydrographer and explorer whose surveys of Newfoundland and three Pacific voyages transformed European geographic knowledge of…
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
from 1712 to 1778
39 moments here
Genevan philosopher, writer, composer, and a major figure of the European Enlightenment. Rousseau’s documented movements ranged across Geneva, Savoy,…
Johannes Kepler
from 1571 to 1630
16 moments here
German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher, and music theorist. Kepler’s documented life moved from Württemberg schooling…
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
from 1749 to 1832
78 moments here
German poet, dramatist, novelist, scientist, theatre director, and statesman. Born in Frankfurt, Goethe studied in Leipzig and Strasbourg, practiced…
John Locke
from 1632 to 1704
28 moments here
English philosopher, physician, and political writer. Locke was born in Somerset, educated in London and Oxford, served Lord Shaftesbury in London,…
Joseph Stalin
from 1878 to 1953
16 moments here
Soviet revolutionary and political leader, born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili in Gori, Georgia.…
J. R. R. Tolkien
from 1892 to 1973
38 moments here
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English philologist, university professor, and author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.…
Karl Marx
from 1818 to 1883
53 moments here
German philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. Born in Trier, Marx studied in Bonn and Berlin, worked in Cologne, and…
Kofi Annan
from 1938 to 2018
39 moments here
Ghanaian diplomat and statesman who served as Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006.…
Leonardo da Vinci
from 1452 to 1519
27 moments here
Italian Renaissance painter, draftsman, engineer, architect, anatomist, and natural philosopher.…
Leonhard Euler
from 1707 to 1783
18 moments here
Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, engineer, and polymath. Euler’s documented life moved from Basel and nearby Riehen to Saint Petersburg,…
Li Keqiang
from 1955 to 2023
41 moments here
Chinese politician and economist who rose from rural labour in Anhui through the Communist Youth League, led Henan and Liaoning, served as vice…
Louis Pasteur
from 1822 to 1895
24 moments here
French chemist and microbiologist whose work on molecular asymmetry, fermentation, germ theory, pasteurization, and vaccines transformed modern…
Margaret Thatcher
from 1925 to 2013
35 moments here
British stateswoman Margaret Hilda Thatcher (née Roberts) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, the first woman to hold the…
Marie Curie
from 1867 to 1934
37 moments here
Polish-born, naturalized-French physicist and chemist who pioneered research on radioactivity. With Pierre Curie she discovered polonium and radium.…
Michael Faraday
from 1791 to 1867
21 moments here
English chemist and physicist whose experimental work transformed the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry.…
Mikhail Gorbachev
from 1931 to 2022
57 moments here
Soviet and Russian politician who led the Soviet Union from 1985 until its dissolution in 1991.…
Montesquieu
from 1689 to 1755
29 moments here
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, was a French jurist, historian, and political philosopher.…
Muḥammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi
from 780 to 825
3 moments here
Persian mathematician, astronomer, geographer, and author active under the Abbasid caliphs. Biographical evidence is exceptionally sparse and his…