Historical Icons

  • Period: 356 BCE to 323 BCE

    Alexander the Great

    king of Macedon; member of the Agreed dynasty; born in Pella; succeeded Philip II; led unprecedented military campaign through Western Asia and northeast Africa; created one of the largest empires of the ancient world (stretched from Greece to northwestern India); undefeated in battle; considered one of the most successful military commanders
  • Period: 304 BCE to 232 BCE

    Ashoka

  • Period: 287 BCE to 212 BCE

    Archimedes

  • Period: 63 BCE to 14

    Augustus

  • Period: 354 to 430

    Augustine of Hippo

  • Period: 384 to 322

    Aristotle

  • Period: 406 to 453

    Attila

  • Period: Sep 15, 601 to Jan 29, 661

    Ali

  • Period: 847 to Oct 26, 899

    Alfred the Great

  • Period: 870 to Jun 12, 918

    Æthelflæd

    lady of the Mercians; ruled Mercia in the English Midlands; eldest daughter of Alfred the Great (king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex) and Ealhswith
  • Period: Mar 9, 1454 to Feb 22, 1512

    Amerigo Vespucci

  • Period: Jun 11, 1456 to Mar 16, 1485

    Anne Neville

  • Period: 1501 to May 19, 1536

    Anne Boleyn

  • Period: 1515 to Jul 16, 1557

    Anne of Cleves

  • Period: 1542 to

    Akbar

    third Mughal emperor; succeeded Humayun under regent Bairam Khan (helped expand and consolidate Mughal domains in India)
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    Anne Hutchinson

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    Adam Smith

    FRSA; Scottish economist; philosopher; author; moral philosopher; pioneer of political economy; key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment; "the Father of Economics"; "the Father of Capitalism"; wrote 'the Theory of Moral Sentiments'; wrote 'an Inquiry into the Nature of Causes of the Wealth of Nations' or 'the Wealth of Nations', his magnum opus and first modern work of economics; introduced the theory of absolute advantage
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    Alexander Hamilton

    American statesman; politician; legal scholar; military commander; lawyer; banker; economist; one of the Founding Fathers of the United States; an influential interpreter and promoter of the US Constitution; founder of the United States financial system, the Federalist Party, the United States Coast Guard, Bank of North American, the First Bank of the United States and the "New York Post"; first Secretary of the Treasury; main author of the economic policies of George Washington
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    Andrew Jackson

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    Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

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    Abraham Lincoln

    statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States; led the nation through its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis in the American Civil War; preserved the Union; abolished slavery; strengthened the federal government; modernized the US economy
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    Ada Lovelace

    countess of Lovelace; an English mathematician and writer; chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine; the first to recognize that the Analytical Engine had applications beyond pure calculation; published the first algorithm to be carried out by the Analytical Engine; widely regarded as the first to recognize the full potential of computers and one of the first computer programmers
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    Alfred Nobel

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    Andrew Carnegie

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    Alexander Graham Bell

    Scottish-born American inventor; scientist; engineer; credited with inventing and patenting the first practical telephone; co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T)
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    Alfred Stieglitz

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    Albert Einstein

    German-born theoretical physicist; developed the theory of relativity (one of the two pillars of modern physics alongside quantum mechanics); known for influencing the philosophy of science; created the mass-energy equivalence formula (E=mc^2) (the world's most famous equation; received the Novel Prize in Physics for his services to theoretical physics and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect (a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory)
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    Alexander Fleming

    FRS; FRSE; FRCS; Scottish biologist; physician; microbiologist; pharmacologist; known for discovering the enzyme lysozyme and benzylpenicillin (Penicillin G) (the world's first broadly effective antibiotic substance) from the mould Penicillium notatum; shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain; wrote articles on bacteriology, immunology, and chemotherapy
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    Adolf Hitler

    German politician; leader of the Nazi Party; rose to power as the chancellor of Germany; Führer; initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland during his dictatorship; closely involved in military operations throughout the war; central to the perpetration of the Holocaust
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    Agatha Christie

    appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for contribution to literature; English writer; known for 66 detective novels; known for 14 short story collections; created Hercule Poirot; created Miss Marple; wrote "the Mousetrap" (world's longest-running play) (performed at West End); pseudonym Mary Westmacott
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    Amelia Earhart

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    Al Capone

    "Scarface"; American gangster; business man; attained notoriety during the Prohibition era; co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit
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    Alfred Hitchcock

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    Ansel Adams

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    Alan Turing

    OBE; FRS; English mathematician; computer scientist; logician; cryptanalyst; philosopher; theoretical biologist; highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science providing a formalization of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine (a model of a general-purpose computer); widely considered the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence; not fully recognized due to his homosexuality (covered by the Official Secrets Acts)
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    Andy Warhol

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    Audrey Hepburn

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    Anne Frank

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    Arnold Schwarzenegger

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    Angelina Jolie