Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus was a Roman author, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia (Natural History), a comprehensive thirty-seven-volume work covering a vast array of topics on human knowledge and the natural world, which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field.
Herodotus
Herodotus was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the Histories, a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars, among other subjects such as the rise of the Achaemenid dynasty of Cyrus. He has been described as "The Father of History", a title conferred on him by the ancient Roman orator Cicero and the "Father of Lies" by others.
Thucydides
Thucydides was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work.
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars.
Tacitus’ two major historical works, Annals (Latin: Annales) and the Histories (Latin: Historiae), originally formed a continuous narrative of the Roman Empire from the death of Augustus (14 AD) to the end of Domitian’s reign (96 AD). The surviving portions of the Annals focus on the reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors (69 AD).
Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was an English naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator.[4] He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection; his 1858 paper on the subject was published that year alongside extracts from Charles Darwin's earlier writings on the topic. It spurred Darwin to set aside the "big species book" he was drafting and to quickly write an abstract of it, which was published in 1859 as On the Origin of Species.
Claude Shannon
Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, computer scientist, cryptographer and inventor known as the "father of information theory" and the man who laid the foundations of the Information Age. Shannon was the first to describe the use of Boolean algebra—essential to all digital electronic circuits—and helped found artificial intelligence (AI), Roboticist Rodney Brooks declared Shannon the 20th century engineer who contributed the most to 21st century technologies, and mathematician Solomon W. Golomb described his intellectual achievement as "one of the greatest of the twentieth century".
Ibn Battuta
Ibn Battuta (/ˌɪbən bætˈtuːtɑː/; 24 February 1304 – 1368/1369),[a] was a Maghrebi traveller, explorer and scholar.[7] Over a period of 30 years from 1325 to 1354, he visited much of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Iberian Peninsula. Near the end of his life, Ibn Battuta dictated an account of his journeys, titled A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling, commonly known as The Rihla.
Ibn Battuta travelled more than any other explorer in pre-modern history, totalling around 117,000 km (73,000 mi), surpassing Zheng He with about 50,000 km (31,000 mi) and Marco Polo with 24,000 km (15,000 mi).
Strabo
Strabowas an ancient Greek geographer who lived in Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. He is best known for his work Geographica, which presented a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known during his lifetime. Additionally, Strabo authored historical works, but only fragments and quotations of these survive in the writings of other authors.
Ignatius of Loyola
Ignatius of Loyola was a Basque Spaniard Catholic priest and theologian, who, with six companions, founded the religious order of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), and became its first Superior General, in Paris in 1541.
Ignatius envisioned the purpose of the Society of Jesus to be missionary work and teaching. In addition to the vows of chastity, obedience and poverty of other religious orders in the church, Loyola instituted a fourth vow for Jesuits of obedience to the Pope, to engage in projects ordained by the pontiff.Jesuits were instrumental in leading the Counter-Reformation.
Anselm of Canterbury
Anselm of Canterbury OSB (/ˈænsɛlm/; 1033/4–1109), also known as Anselm of Aosta (French: Anselme d'Aoste, Italian: Anselmo d'Aosta) after his birthplace and Anselm of Bec (French: Anselme du Bec) after his monastery, was an Italian[4] Benedictine monk, abbot, philosopher, and theologian of the Catholic Church, who served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109.
As Archbishop of Canterbury, he defended the church's interests in England amid the Investiture Controversy. For his resistance to the English kings William II and Henry I, he was exiled twice: once from 1097 to 1100 and then from 1105 to 1107.
Francis of Assisi
Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone (c. 1181 – 3 October 1226), known as Francis of Assisi, was an Italian mystic, poet and Catholic friar who founded the religious order of the Franciscans. Inspired to lead a Christian life of poverty, he became a beggar and itinerant preacher.
One of the most venerated figures in Christianity, Francis was canonized by Pope Gregory IX on 16 July 1228. He is commonly portrayed wearing a brown habit with a rope tied around his waist, featuring three knots symbolizing the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Origen
Origen of Alexandria also known as Origen Adamantius, was an early Christian scholar,ascetic, and theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Alexandria. He was a prolific writer who wrote roughly 2,000 treatises in multiple branches of theology, including textual criticism, biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, homiletics, and spirituality. He was one of the most influential and controversial figures in early Christian theology, apologetics, and asceticism.He has been described by John Anthony McGuckin as "the greatest genius the early church ever produced".
Clement of Alexandria
Titus Flavius Clemens, also known as Clement of Alexandria was a Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among his pupils were Origen and Alexander of Jerusalem. A convert to Christianity, he was an educated man who was familiar with classical Greek philosophy and literature. As his three major works demonstrate, Clement was influenced by Hellenistic philosophy to a greater extent than any other Christian thinker of his time, and in particular, by Plato and the Stoics.[5] His secret works, which exist only in fragments, suggest that he was familiar with pre-Christian Jewish esotericism and Gnosticism as well. In one of his works he argued that Greek philosophy had its origin among non-Greeks, claiming that both Plato and Pythagoras were taught by Egyptian scholars.
Girolamo Savonarola
Girolamo Savonarola, also referred to as Jerome Savonarola, was an ascetic Dominican friar from Ferrara and a preacher active in Renaissance Florence.[8] He became known for his prophecies of civic glory, his advocacy of the destruction of secular art and culture, and his calls for Christian renewal. He denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule, and the exploitation of the poor.
Ibn Khaldun
Ibn Khaldunbwas an Arab Islamic scholar, historian, philosopher and sociologist. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest social scientists of the Middle Ages, and considered by a number of scholars to be a major forerunner of historiography, sociology, economics, and demography studies.
His best-known book, the Muqaddimah or Prolegomena ("Introduction"), which he wrote in six months as he states in his autobiography influenced 17th-century and 19th-century Ottoman historians such as Kâtip Çelebi, Mustafa Naima and Ahmed Cevdet Pasha, who used its theories to analyze the growth and decline of the Ottoman Empire.[20] Ibn Khaldun interacted with Tamerlane, the founder of the Timurid Empire.
Abu Bakr
Abd Allah ibn Abi Quhafa better known by his kunya Abu Bakr,[d] was a senior companion, the closest friend, and father-in-law of Muhammad. He served as the first caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, ruling from 632 until his death in 634. Abu Bakr was granted the honorific title al-Ṣiddīq[e] (lit. the Veracious) by Muhammad, a designation that continues to be used by Sunni Muslims to this day.
Born to Abu Quhafa and Umm al-Khayr of the Banu Taym, Abu Bakr was amongst the earliest converts to Islam and propagated dawah to the Mushrikites.
Umar
Umar ibn al-Khattab[a] (Arabic: عُمَر بْن ٱلْخَطَّاب, romanized: Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb; c. 584 – 644), also spelled Omar, was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) and is regarded as a senior companion and father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Initially, Umar opposed Muhammad, who was his distant Qurayshite kinsman. However, after converting to Islam in 616, he became the first Muslim to openly pray at the Kaaba. He participated in nearly all of Muhammad’s battles and expeditions, and Muhammad conferred upon him the title al-Fārūq ("the Distinguisher") for his sound judgement.
Ali
Ali ibn Abi Talib (Arabic: عَلِيُّ بْن أَبِي طَالِب, romanized: ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib; c. 600 – 661 CE) was the fourth Rashidun caliph who ruled from 656 CE until his assassination in 661, as well as the first Shia Imam. He was the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Born to Abu Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib and Fatima bint Asad, Ali was raised by his elder cousin Muhammad and was among the first to accept his teachings.
Ali played a pivotal role in the early years of Islam when Muslims were severely persecuted in Mecca.
Saladin
Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub commonly known as Saladin,[b] was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, he spearheaded the Muslim military effort against the Crusader states in the Levant. At the height of his power, the Ayyubid realm spanned Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen, and Nubia.
Alongside his uncle Shirkuh, a Kurdish mercenary commander in service of the Zengid dynasty, Saladin was sent to Fatimid Egypt in 1164, on the orders of the Zengid ruler Nur ad-Din.
Alfred Nobel
Alfred Bernhard Nobel 21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896) was a Swedish chemist, inventor, engineer and businessman. He is known for inventing dynamite, as well as having bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prizes.[1] He also made several other important contributions to science, holding 355 patents during his life.
Born into the prominent Nobel family in Stockholm, Nobel displayed an early aptitude for science and learning, particularly in chemistry and languages; he became fluent in six languages and filed his first patent at the age of 24.
J. J. Thomson
Sir Joseph John Thomson (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was an English physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906 "in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases."
In 1897, Thomson showed that cathode rays were composed of previously unknown negatively charged particles (now called electrons), which he calculated must have bodies much smaller than atoms and a very large charge-to-mass ratio.
