Browse people · Page 17 of 35
1,666 profilesJean de La Fontaine
8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695
Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) was a French poet, the most famous fabulist in European literature. His twelve books of...
Jean le Rond d'Alembert
16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783
Jean le Rond d'Alembert was a French mathematician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist, a central figure of the...
Jean Monnet
9 November 1888 – 16 March 1979
Jean Monnet was a French political economist and diplomat regarded as one of the founding fathers of the European Union....
Jean Paul Gaultier
24 April 1952 – present
Jean Paul Gaultier is a French fashion designer who founded his own label in the 1970s after working as an assistant to...
Jean Racine
22 December 1639 – 21 April 1699
Jean Racine (1639-1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of seventeenth-century France alongsi...
Jean Sibelius
8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer widely regarded as his country's greatest and a central figure in creating a Finnis...
Jean-Antoine Watteau
c. 1684 – 18 July 1721
Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) was a French painter who invigorated the transition from Baroque to Rococo and invented...
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
29 August 1619 – 6 September 1683
Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683) was the French statesman who served as Controller-General of Finances under Louis XIV...
Jean-Baptiste Lully
28 November 1632 – 22 March 1687
Jean-Baptiste Lully was an Italian-born French composer, dancer, and violinist who dominated music at the court of Louis...
Jean-François Champollion
23 December 1790 – 4 March 1832
Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832) was a French philologist and orientalist, celebrated as the founding figure of Egy...
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778
Genevan philosopher and writer whose ideas on the social contract, education, and human nature profoundly influenced the...
Jean-Luc Godard
3 December 1930 – 13 September 2022
Jean-Luc Godard was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and critic who rose to prominence as a pioneer of the Fr...
Jean-Paul Sartre
21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980
Jean-Paul Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, and political activist who was a leading figure in 20th...
Jean-Philippe Rameau
c. 1683 – 12 September 1764
Jean-Philippe Rameau was a French composer and music theorist, the leading figure in French opera in the mid-eighteenth...
Jeanne Baret
27 July 1740 – 5 August 1807
Jeanne Baret (1740-1807) was a French botanist and explorer recognized as the first woman known to have circumnavigated...
Jeff Bezos
12 January 1964 – present
Jeff Bezos is an American entrepreneur who founded the online retailer Amazon in 1994 and built it into one of the large...
Jennifer Doudna
19 February 1964 – present
Jennifer Doudna is an American biochemist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, known for her work on...
Jensen Huang
17 February 1963 – present
Jensen Huang is a Taiwanese-American businessman and electrical engineer who co-founded the semiconductor company Nvidia...
Jeremy Bentham
15 February 1748 – 6 June 1832
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of modern uti...
Jesse Owens
12 September 1913 – 31 March 1980
Jesse Owens (1913-1980) was an American track and field athlete born in Oakville, Alabama, and raised in Cleveland, Ohio...
Jimi Hendrix
27 November 1942 – 18 September 1970
Jimi Hendrix was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter widely regarded as one of the most influential electric g...
Jimmy Carter
1 October 1924 – 29 December 2024
Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United States, serving from 1977 to 1981 after terms in the Georgia State Sen...
Jin Yong
10 March 1924 – 30 October 2018
Jin Yong was the pen name of Louis Cha Leung-yung, a Hong Kong novelist and newspaper publisher. Between 1955 and 1972 h...
Joan Miró
20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983
Joan Miró was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist associated with Surrealism. His playful biomorphic for...
Joan of Arc
c. 1412 – 30 May 1431
French peasant girl whose visions led her to command armies during the Hundred Years' War; she was executed at nineteen...
Jocelyn Bell Burnell
15 July 1943 – present
Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell is a British astrophysicist who, as a postgraduate student in 1967, discovered the first radio...
Joe Biden
20 November 1942 – present
Joseph R. Biden Jr. is an American politician who served as the 46th President of the United States from 2021 to 2025. H...
Joe Louis
13 May 1914 – 12 April 1981
Joe Louis was an American boxer who held the world heavyweight championship from 1937 to 1949, the longest reign in the...
Johan Cruyff
25 April 1947 – 24 March 2016
Johan Cruyff was a Dutch footballer and manager, the central figure in the Total Football played by Ajax and the Netherl...
Johann Gottfried Herder
25 August 1744 – 18 December 1803
Johann Gottfried Herder was a German philosopher, theologian, and literary critic, a key figure of the Sturm und Drang m...
Johann Pachelbel
c. 1653 – c. 1706
Johann Pachelbel was a German Baroque composer and organist, one of the most important figures of the middle Baroque sou...
Johann Sebastian Bach
31 March 1685 – 28 July 1750
German composer and organist of the Baroque period whose works, including the Brandenburg Concertos and the Mass in B mi...
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832
German poet, novelist, playwright, and scientist, the towering figure of German literature, best known for Faust and The...
Johannes Brahms
7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the Romantic period, based for most of his...
Johannes Gutenberg
c. 1400 – 3 February 1468
German goldsmith and inventor of the movable-type printing press, which transformed the spread of knowledge in Europe.
Johannes Kepler
27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630
German astronomer and mathematician who discovered the three laws of planetary motion, showing that planets move in elli...
Johannes Vermeer
c. 1632 – c. 1675
Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch Golden Age painter from Delft, celebrated for his serene domestic interior scenes and maste...
John Adams
30 October 1735 – 4 July 1826
John Adams (1735-1826) was an American statesman, Founding Father, and the second president of the United States. A lead...
John Atanasoff
4 October 1903 – 15 June 1995
John Vincent Atanasoff was an American physicist and inventor credited with building the first electronic digital comput...
John Bardeen
23 May 1908 – 30 January 1991
John Bardeen (1908-1991) was an American physicist and the only person to win the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: in 1956...
John Cage
5 September 1912 – 12 August 1992
John Cage was an American composer, music theorist and artist, a pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic musi...
John Calvin
10 July 1509 – 27 May 1564
John Calvin (1509-1564) was a French theologian and reformer who became the principal figure of the Reformed branch of P...
John Coltrane
23 September 1926 – 17 July 1967
John Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer regarded as one of the most influential musicians in jazz hi...
John D. Rockefeller
8 July 1839 – 23 May 1937
John Davison Rockefeller Sr. was an American business magnate who founded the Standard Oil Company and came to dominate...
John Dalton
6 September 1766 – 27 July 1844
John Dalton (1766-1844) was an English chemist, physicist, and meteorologist best known for introducing modern atomic th...
John F. Kennedy
29 May 1917 – 22 November 1963
The 35th President of the United States, who navigated the Cuban Missile Crisis and set the nation on course for the Moo...
John Glenn
18 July 1921 – 8 December 2016
John Glenn was an American aviator, astronaut and politician. A Marine Corps fighter pilot in the Second World War and t...
John Harrison
3 April 1693 – 24 March 1776
John Harrison was a self-taught English carpenter and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer, solving the proble...