--- title: Who’s Biggest? The 100 Most Significant Figures in History description: Who's bigger: Washington or Lincoln? Hitler or Napoleon? Charles Dickens or Jane Austen? That depends on how you look at it. When we set out... canonical: https://time.com/archive/7131291/whos-biggest-the-100-most-significant-figures-in-history/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2013-12-10T19:15:15.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-16T09:07:44.104Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Who’s Biggest? The 100 Most Significant Figures in History og:description: Who's bigger: Washington or Lincoln? Hitler or Napoleon? Charles Dickens or Jane Austen? That depends on how you look at it. When we set out... og:url: https://time.com/archive/7131291/whos-biggest-the-100-most-significant-figures-in-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte784c96a72d9cddd/698a9121c9e9419ec81235d0/122218061-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: Christ Crucified by workshop of Guido Reni, oil on canvas, 1640-1645 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Who’s Biggest? The 100 Most Significant Figures in History twitter:description: Who's bigger: Washington or Lincoln? Hitler or Napoleon? Charles Dickens or Jane Austen? That depends on how you look at it. When we set out... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte784c96a72d9cddd/698a9121c9e9419ec81235d0/122218061-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Ideas](/section/ideas/) # Who’s Biggest? The 100 Most Significant Figures in History > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs takes readers inside the newsroom, revealing the journalists, ideas and editorial choices behind the stories shaping the global conversation. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=86103902-5b66-4d79-8b0e-773a2fcae23c&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Dec 10, 2013 7:15 PM UTC  UNSPECIFIED - CIRCA 2010: Workshop of Guido Reni (1575-1642), Christ Crucified, 1640-1645, oil on canvas, 286x186 cm. (Inv. 1184). Copyright Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana. (Photo By DEA / VENERANDA BIBLIOTECA AMBROSIANA/De Agostini/Getty Images) UNSPECIFIED - CIRCA 2010: Workshop of Guido Reni (1575-1642), Christ Crucified, 1640-1645, oil on canvas, 286x186 cm. (Inv. 1184). Copyright Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana. (Photo By DEA / VENERANDA BIBLIOTECA AMBROSIANA/De Agostini/Getty Images) De Agostini/Getty Images by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Dec 10, 2013 7:15 PM UTC Who’s bigger: Washington or Lincoln? Hitler or Napoleon? [Charles Dickens](http://topics.time.com/charles-dickens/) or Jane Austen? That depends on how you look at it. When we set out to rank the significance of historical figures, we decided to _not_ approach the project the way historians might, through a principled assessment of their individual achievements. Instead, we evaluated each person by aggregating millions of traces of opinions into a computational data-centric analysis. We ranked historical figures just as [Google](http://topics.time.com/google/) ranks web pages, by integrating a diverse set of measurements about their reputation into a single consensus value. Significance is related to fame but measures something different. Forgotten U.S. President Chester A. Arthur (who we rank as the 499th most significant person in history) is more historically significant than young pop singer Justin Bieber (currently ranked 8633), even though he may have a less devoted following and lower contemporary name recognition. Historically significant figures leave statistical evidence of their presence behind, if one knows where to look for it, and we used [several data sources](http://www.whoisbigger.com) to fuel our ranking algorithms, including Wikipedia, scanned books and Google n-grams. To fairly compare contemporary figures like Britney Spears against the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, we adjusted for the fact that today’s stars will fade from living memory over the next several generations. Intuitively it is clear that Britney Spears’ mindshare will decline substantially over the next 100 years, as people who grew up hearing her are replaced by new generations. But Aristotle’s reputation will be much more stable because this transition occurred long ago. The reputation he has now is presumably destined to endure. By analyzing traces left in millions of scanned books, we can measure just how fast this decay occurs, and correct for it. We don’t expect you will agree with everyone chosen for the top 100, or exactly where they are placed. But we trust you will agree that most selections are reasonable: a quarter of them are philosophers or major religious figures, plus eight scientists/inventors, thirteen giants in literature and music, and three of the greatest artists of all time. We have validated our results by comparing them against several standards: published rankings by historians, public polls, even in predicting the prices of autographs, paintings, and baseball cards. Since we analyzed the English Wikipedia, we admittedly measured the interests and judgments of primarily the Western, English-speaking community. Our algorithms also don’t include many women at the very top: Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) \[at number 13\] is the top ranked woman in history according to our analysis. This is at least partially due to women being underrepresented in Wikipedia. Each year since 1927, _TIME_ Magazine has selected an official Person of the Year, recognizing an individual who “has done the most to influence the events of the year.” Our rankings provide a way to see how well these selections have stood up over time. Adolf Hitler \[7\] proves to be the most significant Person of the Year ever. [Albert Einstein](http://topics.time.com/albert-einstein/) \[19\] was the most significant modern individual never selected for the annual honor, though _TIME_ did name him Person of the Century in 1999\. Elvis Presley \[69\] is the highest ranked figure that has been completely dissed: no author or artist has ever so been honored. The least significant Person of the Year proves to be Harlow Curtice \[224326\], the president of General Motors for five years during the 1950s who increased capital spending in a time of recession, which helped spur a recovery of the American economy. Other obscure selections include Hugh Samuel “Iron Pants” Johnson \[32927\], who Franklin Roosevelt appointed to head the depression-era National Recovery Administration, and fired less than a year later. John Sirica \[47053\] was the District Court Judge who ordered President Nixon to turn over tape recordings in the Watergate Scandal. David Ho \[66267\] is credited with developing the combination therapy that provided the first effective treatment for AIDS. His contributions to human health arguably deserve a better significance rank than our algorithms gave him here. **The 100 Most Significant Figures in History** 1 Jesus 2 Napoleon 3 Muhammad 4 William Shakespeare 5 Abraham Lincoln 6 George Washington 7 Adolf Hitler 8 Aristotle 9 Alexander the Great 10 Thomas Jefferson 11 Henry VIII of England 12 Charles Darwin 13 Elizabeth I of England 14 Karl Marx 15 Julius Caesar 16 Queen Victoria 17 Martin Luther 18 Joseph Stalin 19 Albert Einstein 20 Christopher Columbus 21 Isaac Newton 22 Charlemagne 23 Theodore Roosevelt 24 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 25 Plato 26 Louis XIV of France 27 Ludwig van Beethoven 28 Ulysses S. Grant 29 Leonardo da Vinci 30 Augustus 31 Carl Linnaeus 32 Ronald Reagan 33 Charles Dickens 34 Paul the Apostle 35 Benjamin Franklin 36 George W. Bush 37 Winston Churchill 38 Genghis Khan 39 Charles I of England 40 Thomas Edison 41 James I of England 42 Friedrich Nietzsche 43 Franklin D. Roosevelt 44 Sigmund Freud 45 Alexander Hamilton 46 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi 47 Woodrow Wilson 48 Johann Sebastian Bach 49 Galileo Galilei 50 Oliver Cromwell 51 James Madison 52 Gautama Buddha 53 Mark Twain 54 Edgar Allan Poe 55 Joseph Smith, Jr. 56 Adam Smith 57 David, King of Israel 58 George III of the United Kingdom 59 Immanuel Kant 60 James Cook 61 John Adams 62 Richard Wagner 63 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 64 Voltaire 65 Saint Peter 66 Andrew Jackson 67 Constantine the Great 68 Socrates 69 Elvis Presley 70 William the Conqueror 71 John F. Kennedy 72 Augustine of Hippo 73 Vincent van Gogh 74 Nicolaus Copernicus 75 Vladimir Lenin 76 Robert E. Lee 77 Oscar Wilde 78 Charles II of England 79 Cicero 80 Jean-Jacques Rousseau 81 Francis Bacon 82 Richard Nixon 83 Louis XVI of France 84 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 85 King Arthur 86 Michelangelo 87 Philip II of Spain 88 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 89 Ali, founder of Sufism 90 Thomas Aquinas 91 Pope John Paul II 92 René Descartes 93 Nikola Tesla 94 Harry S. Truman 95 Joan of Arc 96 Dante Alighieri 97 Otto von Bismarck 98 Grover Cleveland 99 John Calvin 100 John Locke _Steven Skiena and Charles B. Ward are the authors of_ [Who’s Bigger? Where Historical Figures Really Rank](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1107041376/ref=s9%5Fpsimh%5Fgw%5Fp14%5Fd0%5Fi1?pf%5Frd%5Fm=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf%5Frd%5Fs=center-2&pf%5Frd%5Fr=1T50XTX9WKERMNRPSNSM&pf%5Frd%5Ft=101&pf%5Frd%5Fp=1630083502&pf%5Frd%5Fi=507846), _Cambridge University Press, 2013\. The views expressed are solely their own._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7131291/whos-biggest-the-100-most-significant-figures-in-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7131291/whos-biggest-the-100-most-significant-figures-in-history/"},"headline":"Who’s Biggest? The 100 Most Significant Figures in History","datePublished":"2013-12-10T19:15:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-16T09:07:44.104Z","description":"Who's bigger: Washington or Lincoln? Hitler or Napoleon? Charles Dickens or Jane Austen? That depends on how you look at it. 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