An online biographical encyclopedia

Discover the people who shaped the world — and the extraordinary stories that inspire us to shape what comes next.

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The natural sciences

PhysicistsMathematiciansAstronomersChemistsBiologists

Invention and computing

Computer scientistsInventorsEngineers

Business & Economy42

Enterprise and economics

Business & industryEconomists

History & Society48

Power and reform

Political leadersActivists & reformersJurists & legal scholars

Philosophy & Religion25

Ideas and belief

Painting, music and performance

ComposersPaintersSingers & songwriters

Writers, poets and playwrights

WritersPlaywrightsPoets

Explore by achievement

Nobel laureate43 Founders & entrepreneurs32 Inventors20 Heads of state13 Polymaths11

Notable people

Al-Biruni, Philosophers

Persian polymath

James Watson, Biologists

American molecular biologist

Irène Joliot-Curie, Physicists

Irène Joliot-Curie

French physicist and chemist

Bernhard Riemann, Mathematicians

Bernhard Riemann

German mathematician

Srinivasa Ramanujan, Mathematicians

Srinivasa Ramanujan

Mikhail Lomonosov, Astronomers

Mikhail Lomonosov

Russian polymath

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Biologists

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

Dutch microbiologist

Wernher von Braun, Physicists

Wernher von Braun

German-American rocket engineer

Alfred Russel Wallace, Biologists

Alfred Russel Wallace

Ibn al-Haytham, Mathematicians

Amartya Sen, Economists

Albert Abraham Michelson, Physicists

Albert Abraham Michelson

American physicist

John Forbes Nash, Mathematicians

John Forbes Nash

Thomas Robert Malthus, Economists

Thomas Robert Malthus

Robert Andrews Millikan, Physicists

Robert Andrews Millikan

American physicist

Wolfgang Pauli, Physicists

Edwin Hubble, Astronomers

Dorothy Hodgkin, Chemists

Dorothy Hodgkin

British chemist

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Engineers

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Russian rocket scientist

Svante August Arrhenius, Astronomers

Svante August Arrhenius

Swedish physical chemist

Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Mathematicians

Joseph-Louis Lagrange

Italian-French mathematician

Harriet Tubman, Activists & reformers

Activists & reformers

Robert Hooke, Physicists

English polymath

Larry Page, Business & industry

American computer scientist