Writers through history
The atlas holds 180 people and 5,946 moments here, from 620 BC to 2025. The most recorded lives are Helen Keller, Horace and Omar Khayyam. Across the Cold War and the Interwar Period.
Notable people
Helen Keller
from 1880 to 1968
60 moments here
Helen Adams Keller was an American deafblind author, lecturer, disability-rights advocate, and political activist.…
Horace
from 65 BC to 8 BC
15 moments here
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, known as Horace, was a Roman lyric poet, satirist, and former republican military tribune.…
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,…
Aesop
from 620 BC to 564 BC
2 moments here
Greek fabulist and storyteller traditionally credited with Aesop’s Fables. His historical existence and biography are uncertain; this atlas records…
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.…
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…
Hafez
from 1315 to 1390
2 moments here
Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez Shirazi was a Persian lyric poet. Surviving biographical evidence is notably sparse; the defensible physical-presence…
Sun Tzu
from 544 BC to 496 BC
2 moments here
Sun Tzu (traditionally Sun Wu) was a Chinese military strategist traditionally placed in the late Spring and Autumn period.…
Jonathan Swift
from 1667 to 1745
21 moments here
Anglo-Irish writer, satirist, political pamphleteer, and Church of Ireland cleric, best known for Gulliver's Travels, A Tale of a Tub, and A Modest…
Petrarch
from 1304 to 1374
38 moments here
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) was an Italian scholar, poet, cleric, diplomat, and foundational humanist.…
Abu Nuwas
from 756 to 814
5 moments here
Abū Nuwās al-Ḥasan ibn Hānī al-Ḥakamī was a classical Arabic poet. Sources document his birth in the Ahvaz area, childhood and study in Basra and…
Murasaki Shikibu
from 973 to 1013
8 moments here
Japanese novelist, poet, and lady-in-waiting of the Heian court, best known for The Tale of Genji.…
Robin Williams
from 1951 to 2014
31 moments here
Robin McLaurin Williams was an American actor and comedian, born in Chicago and raised in Illinois, Michigan, and California.…
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.…
Plutarch
from 66 to 95
4 moments here
Greek Platonist philosopher, biographer, essayist, magistrate, and Delphic priest. He was born at Chaeronea between 45 and 47 CE and died after 119…
Thomas Hobbes
from 1588 to 1679
11 moments here
English philosopher and political theorist, best known for Leviathan (1651). Hobbes’s documented movements include study at Oxford, European travel…
Rumi
from 1207 to 1273
9 moments here
Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi was a Persian-language poet, jurist, teacher, and Sufi mystic. Born at Wakhsh in the Khwarazmian Empire, he moved with his…
Seneca the Younger
from 5 to 65
9 moments here
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, commonly called Seneca the Younger, was a Roman Stoic philosopher, writer, and statesman.…
Euripides
from 480 BC to 406 BC
6 moments here
Euripides was an Athenian tragic playwright traditionally born on Salamis around 480 BC and conventionally said to have died in Macedon around 406…
Desiderius Erasmus
from 1466 to 1536
27 moments here
Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, theologian, editor, and author. Erasmus was born in the Burgundian Netherlands, educated in the Low…
John Milton
from 1608 to 1674
40 moments here
English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. This chronology follows documented residences, education, continental travel, marriages, public service,…
Aeschylus
from 525 BC to 456 BC
6 moments here
Ancient Greek tragedian and soldier, born at Eleusis in Attica and active in the Persian Wars.…
Ali ibn Abi Talib
from 600 to 661
21 moments here
Ali ibn Abi Talib was the fourth Rashidun caliph (656–661), cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, and first Shia Imam.…