Contents: Most frequent mentions | Smartest | Science & Medicine | Links
Related Pages: Good People | Conservationists - Environmentalists

In order by number of occurences (3 or more) in 6 lists at
Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography/Core_biographies/Published_Lists



S-scince, ss-soft science (Psychology, economics), ph - philosophy, religion,
p-politics (leader elected or movement), i-industrialist/builder a-artist/musician

Eight people were listed in 5 or 6 of the lists:
s Albert Einstein - physics - theory of relativity
s Charles Darwin - biology - Theory of evolution
ss Sigmund Freud - psychology 
   - theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression
s Galileo Galilei - physics, astronomy - telescope - support of Copernicanism
ph John Locke - philosophy - empiricism 
  - Some theories reflected in the American Declaration of Independence
s Isaac Newton - physics - laws of gravity, classical mechanics
ph Jean-Jacques Rousseau - philosophy - liberal and socialist theory
   - influenced the French Revolution
p Mao Zedong - Leader of Chinese Communist Party in victory over Chiang Kai-shek,
  social program such as Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution

 - 4 listings -

Some Others only listed once: (Millions of web search hits)
Jesus Christ (28), Alexander the Great (5.5), Giuseppe Verdi (5.4), Moses (4.5), Babe Ruth (4.8), T.S. Eliot (3.9), Leonard Bernstein (3.7), Billy Graham (3.2), Aldous Huxley (3.2), Jean-Paul Sartre (2.7), Mother Teresa (2.5), John F. Kennedy (2.1), Wolfgang von Goethe (2.1), Dwight D. Eisenhower (1.8), Mikhail Gorbachev (1.8), T. E. Lawrence (1.6), Harry Truman (1.3), Bill Gates (1.3), John D. Rockefeller (1.1), Dalai Lama (1.0)

The Book of Genus, by Buzan and Keen lists the smartest people:

1. Leonardo da Vinci
2. William Shakespeare
3. The Great Pyramid Builders
4. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
5. Michelangelo

6. Isaac Newton
7. Thomas Jefferson
8. Alexander the Great
9. Phidias (architect of Athens)
10. Einstein

Sung dynasty, China [960-1280]

Used a procedure known as variolation, in which small amounts of the powdered crusts of smallpox pustules were inhaled or placed into a scratch made in the skin. Usually the resulting disease was mild, and a permanent immunity to smallpox resulted.

Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723)

Dutch drapery merchant and amateur scientist constructed a magnifying glass which allowed him to see microbes (bacteria and protozoa) in a drop of lake water.
In a letter to the Royal Society of London he descrived:
"...Very many little animalcules, whereof some were roundish, while others a bit bigger consisted of an oval. On these last, I saw two little legs near the head, and two little fins at the hind most end of the body. "

Mary Wortley Montagu [1717]

Wife of the British ambassador to Turkey, had their children immunized against smallpox by variolation and it became popular in Europe.

Louis Pasteur [1822-1895]

Discovered that there were germs in the air that caused liquids to go off. He went on to develop a process which he called 'pasteurisation', killing the germs by boiling. He used this discovery to help treat diseases and with the British doctor Edward Jenner he developed a process of vaccination against the killer disease, smallpox. Pasteur went on to discover vaccinations for chicken pox, cholera, diphtheria, anthrax and rabies. He recommended that surgical instruments be boiled before an operation to kill any germs on them, but most surgeons ignored this advice. This had to wait until aseptic surgery developed in the 20th century. Story

Edward Jenner [1840]

Country doctor in Gloucestershire. (Considered the father of vaccination although variolation had been used earlier; see above). Found smallpox "Vaccination" using less dangerous cowpox with help of research on germs from Louis Pasteur.

Wilhelm K. Roentgen [1901]

-Germany - X-ray

Marie Curie (1867 - 1934)

Discovered radium, a radioactive substance, in uranium oxide ore The research of Marie and Pierre Curie was crucial in the development of x-rays in surgery.

Sir Alexander Fleming [1928]

St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, London University. 1928 he discovered penicillin.

Maurice Ralph Hilleman [1941-84]

Dr. Hilleman created eight of the 14 most commonly used vaccines, including those for mumps, measles, chicken pox, pneumonia, meningitis, rubella and many other infectious diseases. He pioneered the development of vaccines against hepatitis A and hepatitis B and discovered the genetic changes that occur when the influenza virus mutates, known as shift and drift. He worked at E.R. Squibb & Sons, The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and Merck & Co.

Jonas Salk [1952]

polio vaccine

James Watson, Francis Crick, Roslyn Franklin. [1953]

Crick and Watson at Cambridge came up with the double helix, the model that resembles a twisted ladder, for wich they recieved the Nobel Prize. Their discovery was based on the x-ray diffraction images from Roslyn Franklin. Story.

Jacques Miller [1961]

Father of modern immunology. Melbourne University. In 1961 he discovered how the thymus produced t-cells, crucial to the immune system.

Kary Mullis [1993]

Mullis invented Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the process for amplifying nucleic acids, in 1993 while at Cetus Corporation. PCR has revolutionized the fields of microbiology, medical diagnostics, and forensics. It is used to discover faulty genes in hereditary diseases and diagnose viral and bacterial infections, including HIV.

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

Da Vinci is most famous now for his inventions: his bicycle, airplane, helicopter, and parachute were all some 500 years ahead of their time. Artwork includes the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and The Last Supper in Milan. Scientific work in his notebooks included geology, anatomy, flight, gravity and optics, but he never published it. Story

Carl Djerassi

"Father of the birth control pill"? Because millions of unwanted children were not produced, countless suffering has been abolished (including decreases in crime, child abuse, and ecological nightmares). With women gaining more control over their reproductive fate, society has changed. Reliable birth control became as easy as taking a pill, which some call the single greatest factor in helping women achieve equality.

Links:
Good People
Historic Figures at the BBC
TIME 100 - People of the Century
U.S. President Ratings
Historic Figures at the BBC
TIME 100 - People of the Century
Nobel Prize Winners at: nobelprize.org/, and The Nobel Prize Internet Archive