User:Maurreen/Core topics/Bios

This is intended as a list of biographies of historically important people, as a possible guide for priorities for readers and editors.

Only dead people should be listed here. Their articles will generally be more stable, both because they aren't doing anything to update and time gives more perspective on them.

The initial list was based on Wikipedia:Vital articles. Also see Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics, another take on the minimal article list.

The numbers in parentheses indicate the quantity of articles in each section.

Hart's Top 15 (from the 1992 edition)

From [The 100|The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History]], 1992 edition, by Michael H. Hart.

Rank	Name	Influence
1	Muhammad	Prophet of Islam
2	Isaac Newton	physicist, theory of universal gravitation, laws of motion, major developments in mathematics, optics, thermodynamics
3	Jesus Christ	central figure of Christianity
4	Buddha	founder of Buddhism
5	Confucius	founder of Confucianism
6	St. Paul	proselytizer of Christianity
7	Ts'ai Lun	inventor of paper
8	Johann Gutenberg	developed movable type and made great advances in printing
9	Christopher Columbus	explorer, led Europe to Americas via southern passage
10	Albert Einstein	physicist, relativity, Einsteinian physics
11	Louis Pasteur	scientist, pasteurization, Germ Theory
12	Galileo Galilei	astronomer, accurately described heliocentric solar system, led way to Newton's work
13	Aristotle	Greek philosopher
14	Euclid	Greek mathematician, Euclidean geometry, author of various influential theories
15	Moses	major prophet of Judaism and leader

Approximately top 75

Explorers (9)

1. Roald Amundsen
2. Christopher Columbus
3. Hernán Cortés
4. Francis Drake
5. Vasco da Gama
6. Edmund Hillary
7. Ferdinand Magellan
8. Marco Polo

Scientists, inventors and mathematicians (9)

1. Charles Darwin
2. Leonardo Da Vinci
3. Thomas Alva Edison
4. Albert Einstein
5. Henry Ford
6. Galileo Galilei
7. Johann Gutenberg
8. Hippocrates
9. Isaac Newton
10. Pythagoras
11. Wright Brothers

Philosophers (7)

1. Aristotle
2. Confucius
3. Immanuel Kant
4. Karl Marx
5. Plato
6. Socrates
7. Lao Zi

Writers of stories and poetry (5)

1. William Shakespeare
2. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
3. Mary Wollstonecraft
4. George Orwell
5. J. R. R. Tolkien
6. Dante Alighieri
7. Homer

Politicians and rulers (31)

1. Timur (Tamerlane)
2. Genghis Khan
3. Gandhi
4. Sitting Bull
5. Kwame Nkrumah
6. Simón Bolívar
7. Saladin
8. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
9. Harry Truman
10. Mao Tse-tung
11. Shaka Zulu
12. Pol Pot
13. Hirohito
14. Charlemange
15. Cleopatra
16. Santa Ana

Political people in Europe (15)

1. Leon Trotsky
2. Julius Caesar
3. Caesar Augustus
4. Victoria of the United Kingdom
5. Wilhelm II (Germany)
6. Josef Stalin
7. Adolf Hitler
8. Benito Mussolini
9. Winston Churchill
10. Napoléon Bonaparte
11. Alexander the Great
12. Vladimir Lenin
13. Charles de Gaulle
14. Otto von Bismarck
15. Peter the Great (of Russia)

Miscellaneous (9)

1. Martin Luther King
2. Virgil
3. Akbar the Great
4. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
5. Johann Sebastian Bach
6. Martin Luther
7. Adam Smith
8. Herodotus

Approximately top 150

Artists (15)

1. Paul Cézanne
2. Salvador Dalí
3. Albrecht Dürer
4. Vincent van Gogh
5. Francisco Goya
6. Hokusai
7. Henri Matisse
8. Michelangelo
9. Claude Monet
10. Pablo Picasso
11. Jackson Pollock
12. Raphael
13. Rembrandt
14. Diego Velázquez
15. Andy Warhol

Authors (19)

1. Dante Alighieri
2. William Blake
3. Miguel de Cervantes
4. Fyodor Dostoevsky
5. Brothers Grimm
6. Homer
7. Victor Hugo
8. James Joyce
9. Franz Kafka
10. Li Bai
11. Molière
12. Pablo Neruda
13. Edgar Allan Poe
14. Jean-Paul Sartre
15. William Shakespeare
16. George Bernard Shaw
17. Sophocles
18. Mark Twain
19. Virgil

Composers and musicians (7)

1. Johann Sebastian Bach
2. The Beatles
3. Ludwig van Beethoven
4. Frédéric Chopin
5. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
6. Elvis Presley
7. Richard Wagner

Explorers (10)

1. Roald Amundsen
2. Jacques Cartier
3. Christopher Columbus
4. Hernán Cortés
5. Francis Drake
6. Vasco da Gama
7. Edmund Hillary
8. Ferdinand Magellan
9. Marco Polo
10. Zheng He

Inventors and scientists (14)

1. Nicolaus Copernicus
2. Charles Darwin
3. Thomas Edison
4. Albert Einstein
5. Henry Ford
6. Galileo Galilei
7. Bill Gates
8. Johann Gutenberg
9. Carolus Linnaeus
10. Isaac Newton
11. Louis Pasteur
12. Nikola Tesla
13. Leonardo da Vinci
14. Wright brothers

Mathematicians (4)

1. Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi
2. Archimedes
3. Gottfried Leibniz
4. Pythagoras

Philosophers and social scientists (24)

1. Thomas Aquinas
2. Aristotle
3. Augustine of Hippo
4. Averroes
5. René Descartes
6. Sigmund Freud
7. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
8. Herodotus
9. Hippocrates
10. Immanuel Kant
11. Søren Kierkegaard
12. Martin Luther
13. Rosa Luxemburg
14. Niccolò Machiavelli
15. Karl Marx
16. Friedrich Nietzsche
17. Plato
18. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
19. Adam Smith
20. Socrates
21. Sun Tzu
22. Thales
23. Voltaire
24. Max Weber

Politicians and leaders (42)

1. Akbar
2. Alexander the Great
3. Kofi Annan
4. Attila the Hun
5. Augustus
6. Pope Benedict XVI
7. Otto von Bismarck
8. Tony Blair
9. Simón Bolívar
10. George W. Bush
11. Julius Caesar
12. Charlemagne
13. Winston Churchill
14. Cleopatra VII of Egypt
15. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria
16. Charles de Gaulle
17. Hammurabi
18. Hannibal
19. Hirohito
20. Adolf Hitler
21. Pope John Paul II
22. Genghis Khan
23. Vladimir Lenin
24. Nelson Mandela
25. Mao Zedong
26. Benito Mussolini
27. Napoleon I of France
28. Kwame Nkrumah
29. Peter I of Russia
30. Qin Shi Huang
31. Franklin D. Roosevelt
32. Saladin
33. Shaka
34. Sitting Bull
35. Joseph Stalin
36. Timur
37. Leon Trotsky
38. Harry S. Truman
39. Victoria of the United Kingdom
40. George Washington
41. Wilhelm II of Germany

Revolutionaries and activists (6)

1. Mahatma Gandhi
2. Che Guevara
3. Joan of Arc
4. Martin Luther King, Jr.
5. Rosa Parks
6. Mother Teresa

Other lists

• World's Great Leaders
• 100 Greatest Britons
• 100 Worst Britons
• Unsere Besten
• The Greatest American
• Le Plus Grand Français
• The Greatest Canadian
• De Grootste Nederlander
• List of South Africans, SABC3's Great South Africans
• Suuret Suomalaiset
• Belg der Belgen