User:Maurreen/Core topics/Bios

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is intended as a list of biographies of historically important people, as a possible guide for priorities for readers and editors.

Only dead people should be listed here. Their articles will generally be more stable, both because they aren't doing anything to update and time gives more perspective on them.

The initial list was based on Wikipedia:Vital articles. Also see Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics, another take on the minimal article list.

The numbers in parentheses indicate the quantity of articles in each section.

[edit] Hart's Top 15 (from the 1992 edition)

From [The 100|The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History]], 1992 edition, by Michael H. Hart.

Rank	Name	Influence
1	Muhammad	Prophet of Islam
2	Isaac Newton	physicist, theory of universal gravitation, laws of motion, major developments in mathematics, optics, thermodynamics
3	Jesus Christ	central figure of Christianity
4	Buddha	founder of Buddhism
5	Confucius	founder of Confucianism
6	St. Paul	proselytizer of Christianity
7	Ts'ai Lun	inventor of paper
8	Johann Gutenberg	developed movable type and made great advances in printing
9	Christopher Columbus	explorer, led Europe to Americas via southern passage
10	Albert Einstein	physicist, relativity, Einsteinian physics
11	Louis Pasteur	scientist, pasteurization, Germ Theory
12	Galileo Galilei	astronomer, accurately described heliocentric solar system, led way to Newton's work
13	Aristotle	Greek philosopher
14	Euclid	Greek mathematician, Euclidean geometry, author of various influential theories
15	Moses	major prophet of Judaism and leader