Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. He surpassed his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds to become the dominant British portraitist of the second half of the 18th century. He painted quickly...

Peter III was Emperor of Russia for six months in 1762. He was very pro-Prussian, which made him an unpopular leader. He was supposedly assassinated as a result of a conspiracy led by his wife, who succeeded him to the throne as Catherine I...

Johann Heinrich Lambert (Jean-Henri Lambert in French) was a Swiss polymath who made important contributions to the subjects of mathematics, physics (particularly optics), philosophy, astronomy and map projections. Edward Tufte calls him an...

Captain James Cook was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer, ultimately rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy. Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean during which he ac...

Johann Gottfried Müthel was a German composer and noted keyboard virtuoso. Along with C.P.E. Bach, he represented the Sturm und Drang style of composition. As far as is known, he was the first to use the term fortepiano in a published wo...

Joseph Black was a Scottish physician and chemist, known for his discoveries of latent heat, specific heat, and carbon dioxide. He was professor of Medicine at University of Glasgow (where he also served as lecturer in Chemistry). James Wat...

Matthew Boulton was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century, the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on th...

Ignatius Sancho was a composer, actor, and writer. He is the first known Black Briton to vote in a British election. He gained fame in his time as "the extraordinary Negro", and to 18th century British abolitionists he became a symbol of th...

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, the first of the truly German dramatists, was born in a Lutheran clergyman's family. As was a frequent custom in clergymen's families, his father looked after his early education, later sending him to a famous scho...

Catherine II of Russia, also known as Catherine the Great, was the most renowned and the longest-ruling female leader of Russia, reigning from 1762 until her death in 1796 at the age of 67. Born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia as Sophie Frie...

Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party. He is mainly remembered f...

Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville was a French admiral and explorer. A contemporary of James Cook, he took part in the French and Indian War and the unsuccessful French attempt to defend Canada from Britain. He later gained fame for his...

Johannes le Francq van Berkhey war ein niederländischer Naturforscher, Dichter und Maler. 1764 siedelte er nach Warmont über, wo er sich ein Landhaus kaufte. Er begann sein sechsbändiges Hauptwerk Natuurlyke Historie van Holland (Die Naturg...

Josiah Wedgwood was an English potter, founder of the Wedgwood company, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. A prominent abolitionist, Wedgwood is remembered for his "Am I Not A Man And A Brother?" anti-slavery...

Henry Cavendish was a British scientist noted for his discovery of hydrogen or what he called "inflammable air". He described the density of inflammable air, which formed water on combustion, in a 1766 paper "On Factitious Airs". Antoine La...