Sir Christopher Wren was an English anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist, as well as one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches in the Ci...

William Stukeley was an English antiquarian who pioneered the archaeological investigation of the prehistoric monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury, work for which he has been remembered as "probably... the most important of the early forerun...

Alexander Pope is considered one of the greatest English poets of the eighteenth century. Born to a Roman Catholic family in 1688, Pope was educated mostly at home, in part due to laws in force at the time upholding the status of the establ...

François-Marie Arouet, better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and free trade. Voltaire was a proli...

William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic, and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like...

Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman...

As a brilliant, undisciplined, and unconventional thinker, Jean-Jacques Rousseau spent most of his life being driven by controversy back and forth between Paris and his native Geneva. Rousseau first attracted wide-spread attention with his...

Frederick the Great was the Hohenzollern King of Prussia from 1740 to 1786 and is regarded as one of the "enlightened despots" of 18th century Europe. He was highly educated and built his government as a model of efficiency, creating the fi...

Denis Diderot was a French philosopher, art critic and writer. He was a prominent figure during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor and contributor to the Encyclopédie along with Jean le Rond d'Alembe...

Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was an Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice. His autobiography, Histoire de ma vie (Story of My Life), is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European soc...

George Washington was the first, and only nonpartisan, President of the United States (1789–97), the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He...

James Watt was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world. W...

Sir Joseph Banks was an British naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage (1768–1771). Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia...

German poet, novelist, playwright, courtier, and natural philosopher, one of the greatest figures in Western literature. Throughout his life Goethe was interested in a variety of studies and pursuits. He made important discoveries in connec...

Gilbert Du Motier, marquis de La Fayette was a French aristocrat and military officer. La Fayette is considered a national hero in both France and the United States for his participation in the American and French revolutions. In 2002, he w...