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Filter by category and discipline, then by continent, country and century of birth. Countries not yet represented can be drafted at the research desk.

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All categoriesLiterature & Letters202Natural Sciences96Mathematics & Computing36Medicine & Healing Traditions99Engineering & Technology24Society, Peace & Law42Economics, Business & Politics52Music & Visual Arts0

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All countries (selected filter)Argentina4Barbados2Brazil6Canada6Chile2Colombia2Costa Rica1Cuba2Guatemala2Mexico3Peru1Saint Lucia1Trinidad and Tobago1United States76Uruguay1Venezuela1

5 figures

Benjamin Franklin

1706 – 1790

Electricity, bifocals, and the American public sphere.

United States·Physics · Literature · Engineering

Thomas Edison

1847 – 1931

1,093 patents and the industrial research laboratory itself.

United States·Engineering

Frederick Winslow Taylor

1856 – 1915

Scientific management — the origin of every productivity metric and its discontents.

United States·Business · Engineering

Henry Ford

1863 – 1947

The moving assembly line and the five-dollar day created mass consumer industry.

United States·Business · Engineering

Alberto Santos-Dumont

1873 – 1932

Flew the first publicly witnessed powered aircraft in Europe.

Brazil·Engineering

The Annals

A working reference, not a finished one.

Curated entries are hand-researched; the research desk drafts new profiles on demand and flags what is uncertain rather than inventing it.

Method

Dates and lineages follow mainstream scholarship. Where a family line is undocumented, we say so — and cite what stands behind every claim.