Top 60 persons of the 18th Century

Hint

Answer

US Senator, Jefferson's VP, killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel

British Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer during the Napoleonic era, generally regarded as one of the best PMs

German princess, ruled Russia by usurping her husband, expanded and modernized Russia. Had an affair with a Polish noble who she made king of Poland.

Began as Duke of Parma, then King of Naples and Sicily and then finally as the King of Spain, unified and centralized Spanish governance, curtailed the Inquisition and the Jesuits

Wrote the Social Contract, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Emile, etc. French Enlightenment figure. Left his children in an orphanage.

French Enlightenment thinker and satirist. Wrote Candide.

The Wealth of Nations, Theory of Moral Sentiments. Those who quote the former to support capitalism should read the latter before citing this Scottish author.

Writer, newspaper editor, ambassador to France, US founding father, scientist

Inventor of the cotton gin

English-American radical and revolutionary, author of Common Sense

Child prodigy who died at the age of 35 but managed to compose over 600 symphonies, operas, etc

Prior to becoming the Russian Tsar, he worked in a Dutch shipyard. Modernized the Russian state and established St Petersburg as a window to the West.

The father of immunology, he developed the first small pox vaccine

An important figure in the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, he was eventually executed.

Swiss mathematician and physicist who spent most of career in St Petersburg and Berlin. Made several important discoveries in calculus and geometry

First president of the United States

His Critique of Pure Reason was an attempt to refute the skepticism of David Hume. Residents of Konigsberg set their clocks according to his daily walk.

Wrote the US Declaration of Independence and was the third US president.

His invention (or more accurately improvement) of the steam engine kick off the Industrial Revolution

HMS Endeavor and Discovery, mapped much of the Pacific Ocean before being killed in Hawaii

Perhaps the best skeptical philosopher. He wrote A Treatise of Human Nature

Led Sweden during the Great Northern War (1700 - 1721) in which he pillaged his way through central and eastern Europe. In the end he was defeated, Sweden declined as a great power and Prussia and Russia rose to take its place

The first monarch of the new Kingdom of Great Britain (1707) as opposed to a joint monarch of England and Scotland.

Generally considered the first prime minister of Great Britain serving from 1721 - 1742

The Methodist church is founded by these two brothers

Reigning over 60 years, this emperor expanded China and oversaw a general period of prosperity

A proponent of enlightened absolutism, he modernized the Prussian state ruling for over 40 years.

Founded the first Saudi state

Quebec City is conquered by the British. Both French and British commanders die in battle.

Pacific explorer finishes charting the Pacific coastline in North America and Australia. He has several places named after him including a city and an island in Canada

Hint

Answer

Helped lead the Haitian Revolution

After assisting in the American Revolution, he returned home to Poland where he was defeated attempting to stop the Second Partition

A moderate Jacobin in the French Revolution and was the first President of the Committee of Public Safety. He was guillotined in 1794

Through a palace coup he became the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and ended a period of modernizaiton and starting the long period of stagnation and decline.

German composer and organist

Famed violin maker

Spanish painter, known as the last of the masters and the first of the moderns

Founding writer of German Romanticism, he is best know for The Sorrow of Young Werther and Faust.

English writer and journalist best know for Robinson Crusoe

English essayists, biographer, critic and poet.

Anglo-Irish satirist, literary critic and political writer best known for Gulliver's Travels

Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher who argued for Idealism as opposed to the empiricism of John Locke.

Widely viewed as the founding political philosopher of modern conservatism, he was an Anglo-Irish statesmen who supported the American Revolution

American revivalist preacher and Puritan theologian

Islamic scholar and revivalist preacher who claimed to return Islam to its original state. Began a power sharing arrangement with the Saud family that continues today in Saudi Arabia where his version of Islam is supported by the monarchy.

Inventor of the electrical battery

Swedish astronomer who proposed the most commonly used temperature scale that bears his name

Developed the mercury thermometer and a temperature scale now considered dated and used mostly in the US.

French scientist commonly referred to as the father of modern chemistry

Swedish botanist who developed modern taxonomy

Published An Essay on the Principle of Population suggesting population growth would lead to poverty.

Danish explorer working for Russia explored Alaska. Bodies of water, land, and a glacier were named after him.

Created the spinning jenny helping to start the Industrial Revolution

English chemist and theologian usually credited with the discovery of oxygen and the development of laughing gas or nitrous oxide

Wrote The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

English slave trader who after undergoing a Christian conversion wrote Amazing Grace

English writer and advocate for women's rights best known for writing A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

One of the great Baroque composers best known for the violin piece The Four Seasons

German Baroque composer best known for the Messiah

British scientist known for the discovery of hydrogen, a theory of heat and developed an experiment to measure the density of the earth.