PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: army
1st president of the United States
George Washington was an American general and commander in chief of the colonial armies in the American Revolution (1775–83) and subsequently first president of the United States (1789–97). Washington’s...
emperor of France
Napoleon I was a French general, First Consul (1799–1804), emperor of France (1804–1814/15), and one of the most celebrated personages in the history of the West. He revolutionized military organization...
dictator of Germany
Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazi Party (from 1920/21) and chancellor (Kanzler) and Führer of Germany (1933–45). His worldview revolved around two concepts: territorial expansion and racial supremacy....
Chinese leader
Mao Zedong was the principal Chinese Marxist theorist, soldier, and statesman who led his country’s communist revolution. Mao was the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1935 until his death,...
Roman ruler
Julius Caesar was a celebrated Roman general and statesman, the conqueror of Gaul (58–50 bce), victor in the civil war of 49–45 bce, and dictator (46–44 bce), who was launching a series of political and...
English statesman
Oliver Cromwell was an English soldier and statesman, who led parliamentary forces in the English Civil Wars and was lord protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1653–58) during the republican Commonwealth....
king of Macedonia
Alexander the Great was the king of Macedonia (336–323 bce), who overthrew the Achaemenid Empire, carried Macedonian arms to India, and laid the foundations for the Hellenistic world of territorial kingdoms....
king of Prussia
Frederick II was the king of Prussia (1740–86), a brilliant military campaigner who, in a series of diplomatic stratagems and wars against Austria and other powers, greatly enlarged Prussia’s territories...
prime minister of Israel
Benjamin Netanyahu is an Israeli politician and diplomat who served as his country’s prime minister three times (1996–99, 2009–21, and 2022– ) and is the longest-serving prime minister since Israel’s independence....
Roman emperor
Augustus was the first Roman emperor, following the republic, which had been finally destroyed by the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, his great-uncle and adoptive father. His autocratic regime is known...
French heroine
St. Joan of Arc ; canonized May 16, 1920; feast day May 30; French national holiday, second Sunday in May) is a national heroine of France, a peasant girl who, believing that she was acting under divine...
emperor of Russia
Peter I was the tsar of Russia who reigned jointly with his half-brother Ivan V (1682–96) and alone thereafter (1696–1725) and who in 1721 was proclaimed emperor (imperator). He was one of his country’s...
president of Turkey
Kemal Atatürk was a soldier, statesman, and reformer who was the founder and first president (1923–38) of the Republic of Turkey. He modernized the country’s legal and educational systems and encouraged...
7th president of the United States
Andrew Jackson was a military hero and the seventh president of the United States (1829–37). He was the first U.S. president to come from the area west of the Appalachians and the first to gain office...
Mongolian warrior-ruler
Genghis Khan was a Mongolian warrior-ruler, one of the most famous conquerors of history, who consolidated tribes into a unified Mongolia and then extended his empire across Asia to the Adriatic Sea. Genghis...
Carthaginian general [247-c.181 BCE]
Hannibal was a Carthaginian general, one of the great military leaders of antiquity, who commanded the Carthaginian forces against Rome in the Second Punic War (218–201 bce) and who continued to oppose...
king of England
William I was a noble who made himself the mightiest in France and then changed the course of England’s history through his conquest of that country in 1066. One of the greatest soldiers and rulers of...
American statesman
Alexander Hamilton was a New York delegate to the Constitutional Convention (1787), major author of the Federalist papers, and first secretary of the treasury of the United States (1789–95), who was the...
Muslim caliph
ʿAlī was the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, and fourth of the “rightly guided” (rāshidūn) caliphs, as the first four successors of Muhammad are called. Reigning from 656 to 661,...
34th president of the United States
Dwight D. Eisenhower was the 34th president of the United States (1953–61), who had been supreme commander of the Allied forces in western Europe during World War II. Eisenhower was the third of seven...
president of France
Charles de Gaulle was a French soldier, writer, statesman, and architect of France’s Fifth Republic. De Gaulle was the second son of a Roman Catholic, patriotic, and nationalist upper-middle-class family....
king of Great Britain and Ireland
Charles I was the king of Great Britain and Ireland (1625–49), whose authoritarian rule and quarrels with Parliament provoked a civil war that led to his execution. Charles was the second surviving son...
Former president of Brazil
Jair Bolsonaro is a Brazilian politician who served as president of Brazil from 2019 to 2023. A right-wing nationalist, law-and-order advocate, and former army captain who expressed admiration for the...
king of Macedonia
Philip II was the 18th king of Macedonia (359–336 bce), who restored internal peace to his country and by 339 had gained domination over all of Greece by military and diplomatic means, thus laying the...
king of Sweden
Gustavus Adolphus was the king of Sweden (1611–32) who laid the foundations of the modern Swedish state and made it a major European power. Gustavus was the eldest son of Charles IX and his second wife,...
president of Palestinian Authority
Yasser Arafat was the president (1996–2004) of the Palestinian Authority (PA), chairman (1969–2004) of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and leader of Fatah, the largest of the constituent PLO...
Holy Roman emperor
Charles V was the Holy Roman emperor (1519–56), king of Spain (as Charles I; 1516–56), and archduke of Austria (as Charles I; 1519–21), who inherited a Spanish and Habsburg empire extending across Europe...
emperor of France
Napoleon III was the nephew of Napoleon I, president of the Second Republic of France (1850–52), and then emperor of the French (1852–70). He gave his country two decades of prosperity under a stable,...
26th president of the United States
Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States (1901–09) and a writer, naturalist, and soldier. He expanded the powers of the presidency and of the federal government in support of the...
Roman statesman
Pompey the Great was one of the great statesmen and generals of the late Roman Republic, a triumvir (61–54 bce) who was an associate and later an opponent of Julius Caesar. He was initially called Magnus...
18th president of the United States
Ulysses S. Grant was a U.S. general, commander of the Union armies during the late years (1864–65) of the American Civil War, and the 18th president of the United States (1869–77). Grant was the son of...
prime minister of Great Britain
Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington was an Irish-born commander of the British army during the Napoleonic Wars and later prime minister of Great Britain (1828–30). He first rose to military prominence...
emperor of Austria-Hungary
Franz Joseph was the emperor of Austria (1848–1916) and king of Hungary (1867–1916), who divided his empire into the Dual Monarchy, in which Austria and Hungary coexisted as equal partners. In 1879 he...
emperor of Qing dynasty
Kangxi was the second emperor (reigned 1661–1722) of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty (1644–1911/12). To the Chinese empire he added areas north of the Amur River (Heilong Jiang) and portions of Outer Mongolia,...
emperor of Russia
Alexander I was the emperor of Russia (1801–25), who alternately fought and befriended Napoleon I during the Napoleonic Wars but who ultimately (1813–15) helped form the coalition that defeated the emperor...
president of South Korea
Park Chung-Hee was a South Korean general and politician, president of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) from 1963 to his death. Widely regarded as the most influential South Korean leader of the 20th...
Russian revolutionary
Leon Trotsky was a communist theorist and agitator, a leader in Russia’s October Revolution in 1917, and later commissar of foreign affairs and of war in the Soviet Union (1917–24). In the struggle for...
Roman emperor
Diocletian was a Roman emperor (284–305 ce) who restored efficient government to the empire after the near anarchy of the 3rd century. His reorganization of the fiscal, administrative, and military machinery...
king of England
Richard III was the last Plantagenet and Yorkist king of England. He usurped the throne of his nephew Edward V in 1483 and perished in defeat to Henry Tudor (thereafter Henry VII) at the Battle of Bosworth...
Confederate general
Robert E. Lee was a U.S. Army officer (1829–61), Confederate general (1861–65), college president (1865–70), and central figure in contending memory traditions of the American Civil War. Robert Edward...
president of Venezuela
Hugo Chávez was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela (1999–2013). Chávez styled himself as the leader of the “Bolivarian Revolution,” a socialist political program for much of Latin America,...
Greek historian
Xenophon was a Greek historian and philosopher whose numerous surviving works are valuable for their depiction of late Classical Greece. His Anabasis (“Upcountry March”) in particular was highly regarded...
prime minister of Israel
Ariel Sharon was an Israeli general and politician, whose public life was marked by brilliant but controversial military achievements and political policies. He was one of the chief participants in the...
king of France
Henry IV was the king of Navarre (as Henry III, 1572–89) and the first Bourbon king of France (1589–1610), who, at the end of the Wars of Religion, abjured Protestantism and converted to Roman Catholicism...
president of Yemen
Ali Abdullah Saleh was a Yemeni military officer and president of Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) from 1978 until its 1990 unification with the south, after which he served as president of reunified...
Roman emperor
Theodosius I was a Roman emperor of the East (379–392) and then sole emperor of both East and West (392–395), who, in vigorous suppression of paganism and Arianism, established the creed of the Council...
Roman general
Scipio Africanus the Younger was a Roman general famed both for his exploits during the Third Punic War (149–146 bc) and for his subjugation of Spain (134–133 bc). He received the name Africanus and celebrated...
president of Egypt
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is an Egyptian military officer who became Egypt’s de facto leader in July 2013, after the country’s military removed Pres. Mohamed Morsi from power following mass protests against...
Roman general
Scipio Africanus was a Roman general noted for his victory over the Carthaginian leader Hannibal in the great Battle of Zama (202 bce), ending the Second Punic War. For his victory he won the surname Africanus...
33rd president of the United States
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United States (1945–53), who led his country through the final stages of World War II and through the early years of the Cold War, vigorously opposing Soviet...
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