Scientists through history
The atlas holds 62 people and 1,917 moments here, from 563 BC to 2023. The most recorded lives are Margaret Thatcher, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and J. R. R. Tolkien. Across the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment.
Notable people
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…
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
from 1646 to 1716
54 moments here
German polymath, philosopher, mathematician, jurist, diplomat, court councillor, historian, and librarian.…
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.…
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.…
Carl Friedrich Gauss
from 1777 to 1855
35 moments here
German mathematician, astronomer, geodesist, and physicist. Gauss was born in Brunswick, studied there and at Göttingen, worked privately in…
Friedrich Engels
from 1820 to 1895
39 moments here
German philosopher, political theorist, revolutionary socialist, businessman, and Karl Marx’s lifelong collaborator.…
Stephen Hawking
from 1942 to 2018
23 moments here
English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author whose work on singularities, black-hole thermodynamics, and Hawking radiation reshaped modern…
Blaise Pascal
from 1623 to 1662
11 moments here
French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer. Pascal spent his life principally between Clermont-Ferrand, Paris,…
Avicenna
from 980 to 1037
17 moments here
Ibn Sina (Avicenna; c. 980–22 June 1037) was a Persian philosopher, physician, and court official.…
Alfred Nobel
from 1833 to 1896
18 moments here
Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, and industrialist Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833–1896) developed dynamite and other explosives, built businesses…
Theodore Roosevelt
from 1858 to 1919
33 moments here
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (1858–1919) was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909.…
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,…
Francis Bacon
from 1561 to 1626
13 moments here
English philosopher, lawyer, statesman, Attorney General, and Lord Chancellor under James I.…
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…
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…
Dmitri Mendeleev
from 1834 to 1907
24 moments here
Russian chemist Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev formulated the periodic law and produced a foundational periodic table.…
Michael Faraday
from 1791 to 1867
21 moments here
English chemist and physicist whose experimental work transformed the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry.…
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.…
Geoffrey Chaucer
from 1359 to 1400
16 moments here
English poet, courtier, diplomat, and civil servant, best known for The Canterbury Tales. His documented career included military service in France,…
Ernest Rutherford
from 1871 to 1937
21 moments here
New Zealand-born physicist and chemist whose research on radioactivity, the atomic nucleus, and nuclear transmutation helped establish nuclear…
Helen Keller
from 1880 to 1968
60 moments here
Helen Adams Keller was an American deafblind author, lecturer, disability-rights advocate, and political activist.…
Omar Khayyam
from 1048 to 1131
5 moments here
Persian polymath, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet. The securely dated portions of his documented life place him in Nishapur,…
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.…