People

In-depth guides that start simply enough for children and go deep enough for researchers.

80 articles

• Literature · c. 2285–2250 BCEEnheduannaEnheduanna was a princess and high priestess who lived in the Mesopotamian city of Ur about 4,300 years ago, and she is often called the first author in history whose name we know, because ancient tradition credits her with powerful hymns to the goddess Inanna.Map
• Literature · c. 750–650 BCEHomerHomer is the name the ancient Greeks gave to the poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two great epic poems about the Trojan War and a hero’s long journey home, although no one knows for certain who he was or whether one person made both poems.Map
• Philosophy · 624–546 BCEThales of MiletusThales was a Greek thinker from the trading city of Miletus, about 2,600 years ago, who is remembered as the first philosopher because he tried to explain the world by looking for natural causes instead of telling stories about gods.Map
• Philosophy · c. 600–300 BCELaoziLaozi, the “Old Master”, is the ancient Chinese sage traditionally said to have written the Daodejing, a short book teaching that people and rulers do best when they act gently and naturally, like water, instead of forcing things.Map
• Philosophy · c. 563–400 BCEThe Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama)The Buddha was a teacher from ancient India who, after searching for a way out of suffering, taught that people can find lasting peace by understanding how their own minds work and by living kindly, honestly and mindfully.Map
• Philosophy · 551–479 BCEConfuciusConfucius was a teacher in ancient China who taught that people should be kind, respectful and honest, and that good leaders should guide others by setting a good example.Map
• Philosophy · c. 470–391 BCEMoziMozi (Master Mo, about 470–391 BCE) was an early Chinese thinker who taught that people should care about everyone, not just their own family or state, and who opposed wars of conquest while training his followers to defend cities under attack.Map
• Philosophy · 470–399 BCESocratesSocrates (about 470–399 BCE) was an Athenian philosopher who wrote nothing, spent his life asking people hard questions about how to live well, was put to death by his own city, and became, through the writings of his students, one of the founding figures of Western philosophy.Map
• Philosophy · 427–347 BCEPlatoPlato was a philosopher in ancient Athens who wrote conversations about big questions—What is fair? What is real? How should we live?—and started one of the first schools in the world.Map
• Philosophy · 384–322 BCEAristotleAristotle was an ancient Greek thinker who studied almost everything, from animals and stars to friendship, government and poetry, and whose ideas about how to reason and how to live well are still taught all over the world.Map
• Philosophy · c. 372–289 BCEMenciusMencius was a Chinese thinker who lived over 2,300 years ago and taught that every person is born with seeds of goodness that can grow, and that rulers must care for their people or lose the right to rule.Map
• Philosophy · c. 369–286 BCEZhuangzi (Zhuang Zhou)Zhuangzi was a Chinese thinker of the fourth century BCE whose funny, strange and beautiful stories, like the man who dreamed he was a butterfly, invite us to question what we think we know and to live more freely.Map
• Philosophy · c. 300–266 BCEEuclidEuclid was a Greek mathematician who worked in Alexandria around 300 BCE and wrote the Elements, a thirteen-book work that builds geometry and number theory step by step from a few definitions and assumptions, and that served as the world’s most influential mathematics textbook for more than two thousand years.Map
• History · c. 268–232 BCEAshokaAshoka was an emperor of ancient India who, after a terrible war, carved messages on rocks and pillars across his empire asking people to live kindly, tell the truth and respect all religions.Map
• History · c. 145–86 BCESima QianSima Qian was a Chinese court official, living over 2,000 years ago, who wrote the Records of the Grand Historian, a giant history book that told the story of China from legendary times to his own day through the lives of kings, generals, thinkers and ordinary people.Map
• Literature · 70–19 BCEVirgilVirgil was a Roman poet who lived in the first century BCE and wrote the Aeneid, a long poem about the Trojan hero Aeneas and the beginnings of Rome that became the most famous poem in the Latin language.Map
• History · 40–43 CEThe Trưng SistersThe Trưng sisters were two noblewomen from what is now northern Vietnam who led an uprising against Han Chinese rule in 40 CE, ruled for about three years, and are remembered today as national heroines of Vietnam.Map
• History · 100–139 CEZhang HengZhang Heng (78–139) was a Chinese official of the Eastern Han dynasty who was at once a great astronomer, inventor and poet, and who is famous for building the first known instrument to detect distant earthquakes.Map
• History · 105 CECai LunCai Lun was a palace official in Han-dynasty China who in 105 CE presented the emperor with a better way of making paper from bark, hemp, old rags and fishing nets, and so became famous as the father of papermaking.Map
• Philosophy · c. 150–250 CENāgārjunaNāgārjuna was an Indian Buddhist thinker who lived about 1,800 years ago and argued that nothing exists all by itself, because everything depends on other things, an idea called “emptiness” that became one of the foundations of Buddhist philosophy across Asia.Map
• Philosophy · 161–180 CEMarcus AureliusMarcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor who ruled from 161 to 180 CE and, while fighting wars and facing a terrible plague, wrote private notes to himself about how to stay calm, fair and good, which we now call the Meditations.Map
• Literature · c. 350–450 CEKālidāsaKālidāsa was a poet and playwright of ancient India, probably living around 1,600 years ago, who wrote in Sanskrit about love, nature and gods so beautifully that many people consider him the greatest poet of the Sanskrit language.Map
• Philosophy · 386–430 CEAugustine of HippoAugustine was a teacher from Roman North Africa who became a Christian bishop about 1,600 years ago and wrote books, such as the Confessions and The City of God, that shaped how Europe thought about God, the mind, sin, freedom and history for more than a thousand years.Map
• History · c. 499–550 CEAryabhataAryabhata was an Indian mathematician and astronomer who, at just 23 years old around the year 499, wrote a short book in verse that gave a very accurate value for pi, a table of sines, and the bold idea that the Earth spins on its axis.Map