Political Leaders through history
The atlas holds 107 people and 4,290 moments here, from 1281 BC to 2025. The most recorded lives are Mao Zedong, Niccolò Machiavelli and Che Guevara. Across the Cold War and the Interwar Period.
Notable people
Mao Zedong
from 1893 to 1976
38 moments here
Chinese communist revolutionary and political leader who led the Chinese Communist Party and founded the People’s Republic of China.…
Niccolò Machiavelli
from 1469 to 1527
32 moments here
Florentine diplomat, civil servant, political theorist, playwright, and historian of the Italian Renaissance.…
Che Guevara
from 1928 to 1967
44 moments here
Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928–1967) was an Argentine physician, Marxist revolutionary, Cuban government official, diplomat, and guerrilla commander.…
Thomas Jefferson
from 1743 to 1826
29 moments here
Thomas Jefferson was an American lawyer, Virginia political leader, diplomat, secretary of state, vice president, and third president of the United…
Charles de Gaulle
from 1890 to 1970
47 moments here
French army officer, leader of Free France during the Second World War, head of France's Provisional Government, and president of the French Fifth…
Otto von Bismarck
from 1815 to 1898
27 moments here
Otto von Bismarck was a Prussian and German statesman, diplomat, and the first chancellor of the German Empire.…
Lord Byron
from 1788 to 1824
46 moments here
George Gordon Noel Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788–1824), was a British poet, peer, and political speaker.…
Benjamin Franklin
from 1706 to 1790
28 moments here
American printer, scientist, civic leader, colonial agent, revolutionary statesman, and diplomat.…
Nicolaus Copernicus
from 1473 to 1543
15 moments here
Renaissance astronomer, canon, physician, administrator, and economist whose heliocentric model placed the Sun rather than Earth at the center of the…
Sophocles
from 480 BC to 406 BC
5 moments here
Ancient Athenian tragic playwright, probably born at Colonus in Attica and active chiefly in Athens.…
Marco Polo
from 1254 to 1324
25 moments here
Venetian merchant, traveler, and author whose account describes journeys across Asia between 1271 and 1295.…
Pythagoras
from 570 BC to 490 BC
5 moments here
Ancient Greek philosopher and founder of the Pythagorean way of life. The surviving evidence for his biography is sparse and often contradictory;…
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,…
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…
Pope John Paul II
from 1920 to 2005
31 moments here
Karol Józef Wojtyła (1920–2005), Pope John Paul II from 1978, was a Polish Catholic priest, bishop, cardinal, and pope.…
Fidel Castro
from 1926 to 2016
52 moments here
Cuban revolutionary and political leader who led the 26th of July Movement against Fulgencio Batista, became Cuba's prime minister in 1959, and later…
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
from 1646 to 1716
54 moments here
German polymath, philosopher, mathematician, jurist, diplomat, court councillor, historian, and librarian.…
Yuri Gagarin
from 1934 to 1968
27 moments here
Soviet pilot and cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first human to travel into outer space and to orbit Earth on Vostok 1 on 12 April…
Cicero
from 106 BC to 43 BC
83 moments here
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) was a Roman lawyer, orator, philosopher, consul, provincial governor, and defender of the late Republic.…
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.…
Benito Mussolini
from 1883 to 1945
45 moments here
Italian journalist, Fascist leader, and dictator of Italy from 1922 until his removal in 1943.…
Friedrich Engels
from 1820 to 1895
39 moments here
German philosopher, political theorist, revolutionary socialist, businessman, and Karl Marx’s lifelong collaborator.…
Henry Ford
from 1863 to 1947
26 moments here
American industrialist and founder of Ford Motor Company. Ford grew up in rural Michigan, worked in Detroit engineering and machine shops, developed…
Jimmy Carter
from 1924 to 2024
51 moments here
James Earl Carter Jr. was an American naval officer, Georgia state senator and governor, the 39th president of the United States, and a…