Writers through history
The atlas holds 180 people and 5,946 moments here, from 620 BC to 2025. The most recorded lives are Edgar Allan Poe, Molière and Thomas Jefferson. Across the Cold War and the Interwar Period.
Notable people
Edgar Allan Poe
from 1809 to 1849
30 moments here
American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic whose work helped shape Gothic fiction, detective fiction, and early science fiction.…
Molière
from 1622 to 1673
24 moments here
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known as Molière, was a French playwright, actor, and theatrical manager.…
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…
Oscar Wilde
from 1854 to 1900
36 moments here
Irish author, poet, playwright, critic, and leading figure in late nineteenth-century aestheticism.…
Adam Smith
from 1723 to 1790
25 moments here
Scottish moral philosopher and political economist of the Scottish Enlightenment, author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the…
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…
Walt Disney
from 1901 to 1966
25 moments here
Walter Elias Disney was an American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur. His documented movements include childhood residences in…
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.…
George Orwell
from 1903 to 1950
56 moments here
George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, an English novelist, essayist, journalist, critic, and democratic socialist.…
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;…
Thomas Aquinas
from 1225 to 1274
21 moments here
Italian Dominican friar, priest, theologian, and philosopher. His documented movements connected family residences in southern Italy, Dominican and…
Ernest Hemingway
from 1899 to 1961
55 moments here
American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. Hemingway’s documented movements ranged from Illinois and Michigan to Italy in World War I,…
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,…
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…
Gabriel García Márquez
from 1927 to 2014
41 moments here
Colombian novelist, journalist, screenwriter, and Nobel laureate whose life moved between Colombia, Europe, Cuba, the United States, Mexico, and…
James Joyce
from 1882 to 1941
40 moments here
Irish novelist, poet, and critic whose life moved between Dublin, continental Europe, and Switzerland.…
Albert Camus
from 1913 to 1960
29 moments here
French writer, philosopher, journalist, and political activist, born in French Algeria. Camus studied and worked in Algiers, moved between Algeria…
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
from 1646 to 1716
54 moments here
German polymath, philosopher, mathematician, jurist, diplomat, court councillor, historian, and librarian.…