3000 BC - 500 AD: Ancient Period (Greece and Rome)

• Ptolemy (ca. 100-ca. 700)
   
•  

• Aganice (ca. 1878 BC)
   
• Aglaonike
   
• Arate of Cyrene
   
• Diotama
   
• En Hedu'Anna (ca. 2354 BC)
   
• Gargi
   
• Hipparchia
   
• Hypatia (370-415)
   
• Lasthenia
   
• Lilovarti
   
• Maritrayee
   
• Perictione
   
• Shi Dun
   
• Theano
   
• Themista

• Anaximander (ca. 611-547 BC)
   
• Apollonious of Perga (ca. 300-200 BC)
   
• Archimedes (287-212 BC)
   
• Eratosthenes (ca. 276-196 BC)
   
• Euclid (ca. 300 BC)
   
• Eudoxus (408-355 BC)
   
• Pythagoras (ca. 582-500 BC)
   
• Zeno of Elea (ca. 5th century BC)

500-1500: Medieval, Renaissance, and Enlightenment Period

• Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
   
• Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)
   
• Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
   
• Jan Babtista van Helmont (1580-1644)
   
•  

• Barbapiccola
   
• Celia Grillo Borromeo
   
• Dorotea Bucca
   
• Cristine di Pisan (1383-1431)
   
• Bettina Gozzadini
   
• Mary Hebraea (ca. 1st century)
   
• Herrad
   
• Hildegard von Bingen (1099-1179)
   
• Nor Mahal
   
• Elena Cornaro Piscopia

• Alhazen (965-ca. 1040)
   
• Al-Battani (ca. 858-929)
   
• Muhammad ibn Mûsâ al-Khwârizmî (ca. 780-850)
   
• Qin Jinshao (ca. 1202-1260)
   
• Zhu Shijie (ca. 1250-1303)
   
• Leonardo Fibonacci (ca. 1170-1240)

1600-1900: Modern Period

• Galileo (1564-1642)
   
• Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
   
• Voltaire (François Marie Arouet) (1694-1778)
   
• Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782)
   
• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
   
• George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
   
• John Dewey (1859-1952)
   
• Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
   
• Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953)
   
• Svante August Arrhenius (1859-1927)
   
• Francis William Aston (1877-1945)
   
• Amedeo Avogadro (1776-1856)
   
• Pierre Eugéne Marcelin Berthelot (1827-1907)
   
• Baron Jöns Jakob Berzelious (1779-1848)
   
• Joseph Black (1728-1799)
   
• Aleksandr Porfiryevich Borodin (1833-1887)
   
• Robert Boyle (1627-1691)
   
• Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811-1899)
   
• Henry Cavendish (1731-1810)
   
• Sir William Crookes (1832-1919)
   
• John Dalton (1766-1844)
   
• Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829)
   
• Sir James Dewar (1842-1923)
   
• Jean Babtiste André Dumas (1800-1884)
   
• Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850)
   
• Thomas Graham (1805-1869)
   
• Fritz Haber (1868-1934)
   
• Otto Hahn  (1879-1968)
   
• August Wilhelm von Hofmann (1818-1892)
   
• Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz (1829-1896)
   
• Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794)
   
• Baron von Justus Liebig (1803-1873)
   
• Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (1711-1765)
   
• Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev (1834-1907)
   
• Julius Lothar Meyer (1830-1895)
   
• Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833-1896)
   
• Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932)
   
• Joseph Priestly (1733-1804)
   
• Joseph Louis Proust (1754-1826)
   
• Sir William Ramsay (1852-1916)
   
• Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)
   
• Carl Wilhem Scheele (1742-1786)
   
• Frederick Soddy (1877-1956)
   
• Harold Clayton Urey (1893-1981)
   
• Chain Weizmann (1874-1952)
   
• Friedrich Wöhler (1800-1882)
   
• Charles Adolphe Wurtz (1817-1884)
   
• Karl Ziegler (1898-1973)
   
• Louis Victor de Broglie (1892-1987)
   
• Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961)
   
• Paul Dirac (1902-1984)
   
• Max Planck (1858-1947)
   
• Niels Bohr (1885-1962)
   
• Sir Joseph John Thompson (1856-1940)
   
• Arthur Holly Compton (1892-1962)
   
• Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1860-1959)
   
• Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882)
   
• (Jean) Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (1807-1873)
   
• William Bateson (1861-1926)
   
• Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)
   
• Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884)
   
• Carlos Juan Finlay (1833-1915)
   
• Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (1887-1975)
   
• Alfred Charles Kinsley (1894-1956)
   
• Lazzaro Spallanzini (1729-1799)
   
• Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687)
   
• Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695)
   
• James Bradley (1693-1762)
   
• Anders Celsius (1701-1744)
   
• John Flamsteed (1646-1719)
   
• Edmond Halley (1656-1742)
   
• Charles Messier (1730-1817)
   
• Anders Jonas Ångström (1814-1874)
   
•  

• Sophia Brahe (16th century)
   
• Margart Cavendish (1623-1673)
   
• Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz (1651-1695)
   
• Marie Cunitz (1610-1664)
   
• Maria Margarethe (1670-1720)
   
• Maria Sibylla (1647-1717)
   
• Tarquinia Molza
   
• Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799)
   
• Maria Angela Ardinghelli
   
• Anna Atkins (1799-1871)
   
• Laura Bassi (1711-1778)
   
• Jane Colden (1724-1766)
   
• Emilie Marquise du Chatelet De Breteuil (1706-1749)
   
• Jeanne Dumee (18th century)
   
• Sophia Germain (1776-1831)
   
• Catherine Green (18th century)
   
• Caroline Lucretia Herschel (1750-1848)
   
• Josephine Kablick (18th century)
   
• MME. Nichole-Reine-Lepaute (1723-1788)
   
• Martha Daniell Logan (1702-1779)
   
• Anna Morandi Manzolini (1716-1774)
   
• Sybilla Masters (ca. 1715)
   
• MME. du Pierry (18th century)
   
• Eliza Luca Pinckney (1723-1766)
   
• Martha Laurens Ramsey (1718-1811)
   
• Sabliere (18th century)
   
• Mary Somerville (1780-1872)
   
• Janet Taylor (18th century)
   
• M. Carey Thomas (18th century)
   
• Jeanne Villepreux-Power (1794-1871)
   
• Elisabeth Adams (19th century)
   
• S. Josephine Baker (1873-1945)
   
• Ruth Benedict (1887-1948)
   
• Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910)
   
• Elizabeth Knight Britton (1858-1934)
   
• Mary E. Britton (19th century)
   
• Mary Bush (19th century)
   
• Mary Whiton Calkins (1863-1930)
   
• Cornelia Clapp (1849-1934)
   
• Maria Dalle Donne (19th century)
   
• Ellen Eglui (19th century)
   
• Alice Fletcher (1838-1923)
   
• Williamina Fleming (1857-1911)
   
• Margaret Murray Huggins (1848-1916)
   
• Mary Kies (19th century)
   
• Sofia Kovalevskia (1850-1891)
   
• Lefebre (19th century)
   
• Lady Augusta Ada Byron Lovelace        (1815-1851)
   
• Mrs. A. H. Manning (19th century)
   
• Sarah Mather (19th century)
   
• Maria Mitchell (1818-1889)
   
• Florence Nightingale (19th century)
   
• Beatrix Potter (19th century)
   
• Ellen Swallow Richards (1842-1911)
   
• Emily Roebling (d. 1903)
   
• Clemence Augustine Royer (b. 1830)
   
• Caterina Scarpellini (b. 1808)
   
• Nettie Stevens (1861-1912)
   
• Lucy Hobbs Taylor (1833-1910)
   
• Mary Walker, MD. (1832-1919)
   
• Margaret Floy Washburn (1871-1939)
   
• Sarah F. Whiting (1846 - 1927)

• Leonhard Euler (1707-1783)
   
• Joseph Louis, Comte de Lagrange (1736-1813)
   
• Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665)
   
• Gottfried Wilhelm Lebiniz (1646-1716)
   
• Gaspard Monge, Comte de Péluse (1746-1818)
   
• John Napier (1550-1617)
   
• Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
   
• Niels Henrik Abel (1802-1829)
   
• Charles Babbage (1792-1871)
   
• Johann Jakob Balmer (1825-1899)
   
• Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784-1846)
   
• János Bolyai (1802-1860)
   
• George Boole (1815-1864)
   
• Georg Cantor (1845-1918)
   
• Augustin Louis Cauchy (1789-1857)
   
• Arthur Cayley (1821-1895)
   
• Jean Baptiste Fourier (1768-1830)
   
• Gottlob Frege (1848-1925)
   
• Évariste Galois (1811-1832)
   
• Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855)
   
• David Hilbert (1862-1943)
   
• Karl Gustav Jacobi (1804-1851)
   
• Sir James Hopwood Jeans (1877-1946)
   
• William Thomson Kelvin (1824-1907)
   
• Nikolay Lobachevsky (1793-1856)
   
• Emmy Noether (1882-1935)
   
• Jules Henri Poincaré (1854-1912)
   
• Siméon-Denis Poisson (1781-1840)
   
• Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866)
   
• Paolo Ruffini (1765-1822)
   
• Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
   
• Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass (1815-1897)
   
• Hermann Weyl (1885-1955)
   
• Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
   
• Norbert Wiener (1894-1964)

• J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
   
• G. F. Handel (1685-1759)
   
• W. A. Mozart (1756-
   
• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
   
• Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
   
• James Joyce (1882-1941)
   
•  

• Ellen Glasgow (1873-1945)
   
•  

• Hobbes meets Galileo in Florence (1636)
   
• Execution of Charles I - England becomes a Republic (1649)
   
• Restoration of Charles II (1660)
   
• Death of Charles II; accession of James II (1685)
   
• Isaac Newton, Principia (1687)
   
• Overthrow of James II (1688)
   
• Accession of William and Mary (1689)
   
• Death of William III; accession of Queen Anne (1702)
   
• Duke of Marlborough's victory at Blenheim (1704)
   
• Act of Union of Scotland and England (1707)
   
• Accession of Charles VI of the Holy Roman Empire (1711)
   
• Last execution for witchcraft in England (1712)
   
• Lebiniz, Monadology (1714)
   
• Death of Queen Anne; accession of George I (1714)
   
• Accession of Catherine I of Russia (1725)
   
• Accession of Anne of Russia (1730)
   
• Repeal of English statutes against witchcraft (1736)
   
• Accession of Frederick II of Prussia and Marie-Theresa of Austria; Frederick II creates liberty of press and worship (1740)
   
• First performance of Handel's Messiah - Dublin (1741)
   
• British Museum founded (1753)
   
• Samuel Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
   
• Beginning of the Seven Years' War (1756)
   
• Boston Tea Party (1773)
   
• American Declaration of Independence (1776)
   
• First Constitution of the United States of America (1777)
   
• Relief Act for Roman Catholics in England (1778)
   
• England officially recognizes the United States of America (1783)
   
• Death of Frederick II; succeeded by Frederick William II (1786)
   
• Declaration of Rights of Man (1789)
   
• Fall of Bastille (1789)
   
• Death of Frederick William II; succeeded by Frederick William III (1797)
   
• Beethoven, First Symphony (1800)
   
• Death of George III; accession of George IV (1820)
   
• Catholic Emancipation Act in Britain (1829)
   
• Death of George IV; accession of William IV (1830)
   
• Slavery abolished throughout the British Empire (1833)
   
• Death of William IV; accession of Victoria (1837)
   
• National Gallery opened (1838)
   
• Dickens, Oliver Twist (1838)
   
• Potato Famine in Ireland (1845)
   
• British Museum opened (1847)
   
• Darwin, Origin of Species (1859)
   
• Lincoln assassinated (1865)
   
• Slavery abolished in the United States of America (1865)
   
• Suez Canal opened (1869)
   
• Secret Ballot Act introduced in Britain (1872)
   
• London Medical School for Women founded (1875)
   
• Queen Victoria named Empress of India (1877)
   
• Married Woman's Property Act (1882)
   
• Irish Home Rule Bill defeated (1886)
   
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet - First Sherlock Holmes novel (1887)
   
• Celluloid film invented (1887)
   
• Freud, Studies in Hysteria - First work on psychoanalysis with Breuer (1895)
   
• Marconi's first radio transmission (1898)

1900-Present: Contemporary Period

• Derek H. R. Barton (1918-1998)
   
• Willard Frank Libby (1908-1980)
   
• Linus Carl Pauling (1901-1994)
   
• Frederick Sanger (1918- )
   
• Norbert Rillieux (1906-1894)
   
• Glenn Theodore Searborg (1912-1999)
   
• Robert Burns Woodward (1917-1979)
   
• Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976)
   
• Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958)
   
• Shin'ichiro Tomonaga (1906-1979)
   
• Julian Seymour Schwinger (1918-1994)
   
• Richard Phillips Feynman (1918-1988)
   
• Hans Albrecht Bethe (1906- )
   
• Werner Arber (1929- )
   
• David Baltimore (1938- )
   
•  

• Herthhha Marks Ayrton (1854-1923)
   
• Margaret Burbidge (1919- )
   
• Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941)
   
• Bessie Coleman (1893-1926)
   
• Deborah Crocker (1957- )
   
• Marie Curie (1867-1934)
   
• Bessie Delany (1889-1995)
   
• Sadie Delany (1891-1999)
   
• Rosalind Elsie Franklin (1920-1957)
   
• Kate Gleason (1865-1933)
   
• Evelyn Boyd Granville (1924- )
   
• Anna J. Harrison (20th century)
   
• Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910-1994)
   
• Grace Hopper (1906-1992)
   
• Sethanne Howard (1944- )
   
• Dorothea Klumpke (1861-1942)
   
• Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921)
   
• Margaret E. Matlby (1845-1926)
   
• Maria Goeppert Mayer (20th century)
   
• Barbara McClintock (1902-1992)
   
• Lise Meitner (1878-1968)
   
• Maud Menton (20th century)
   
• Juila Morgan (20th century)
   
• Emily Noether (1882-1935)
   
• Donna Osif, AG1 (20th century)
   
• Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900-1978)
   
• Sophia Pereyaslaw (20th century)
   
• Georgia Dwelle Rooks (20th century)
   
• Patsy Sherman (20th century)
   
• Ida Eva Tacke (20th century)
   
• Maria Telkes (20th century)
   
• Mary Olliden Weaver (20th century)
   
• Dorothy Wrinch (1894-1976)
   
• Chien Shiung Wu (20th century)
   
• Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (1921- )

• John von Neumann (1903-1957)
   
• Alan Mathison Turing (1912-1954)
   
• Sir Fred Hoyle (1915- )
   
• Benoit Mandelbrot (1924- )

• Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949)
   
• Carson McCullers (1917-1967)
   
• (Mary) Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)
   
• Lydia Huntley Sigourney
   
• Elizabeth Oakes Smith
   
• Frances Sargent Locke Osgood
   
• Alice and Phoebe Cary
   
• Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt

• Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
   
• Death of Queen Victoria; accession of Edward VII (1901)
   
• End of the Boer War (1902)
   
• Lenin becomes Bolshevik leader (1903)
   
• Movement for Women's Suffrage becomes active in Britain (1906)
   
• Labour Bill to give women the right to vote defeated (1907)
   
• Death of Edward VII; accession of George V (1910)
   
• Marie Curie awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911)
   
• Titanic disaster (1912)
   
• Assassination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo (1914)
   
• Outbreak of the First World War (1914)
   
• Easter Rising in Ireland (1916)
   
• Battle of Verdun (1916)
   
• Revolution in Russia (1917)
   
• America enters World War I (1917)
   
• Collapse of Central Powers ends First World War (1918)
   
• Vote given to women over 30 and men over 21 (1918)
   
• Countess Markiewicz becomes first woman elected to Parliament (1918)
   
• Prohibition in America (1919)
   
• First flight across the Atlantic by Alcock and Brown (1919)
   
• Degrees open to women at Oxford University (1920)
   
• Irish Free States established (1921)
   
• Joyce, Ulysses (1922)
   
• Death of Lenin (1924)
   
• Women equal to men in suffrage (1928)
   
• Wall Street Crash (1929)
   
• Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany (1933)
   
• Thirteen women elected to British Parliament (1933)
   
• Hitler assumes title of Furher (1934)
   
• Death of George V; accession by Edward VIII (1936)
   
• Abdication of Edward VIII, 325 days later (1936)
   
• Accession of George VI (1937)
   
• Second World War begins (1939)
   
• Battle of Britain (1940)
   
• Hitler invades Russia (1941)
   
• America enters World War II (1941)
   
• Start of Hitler's 'Final Solution' (1942)
   
• D-Day invasion of Europe (1944)
   
• End of Second World War (1945)
   
• Mussolini executed (1945)
   
• Hitler commits suicide (1945)
   
• Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945)
   
• First meeting of the UN General Assembly (1946)
   
• State of Israel proclaimed (14 May, 1948)
   
• Mao Tse-Tung proclaims People's Republic of China (1949)
   
• Death of George VI; accession by Elizabeth II (1952)
   
• First women peers introduced to House of Lords (21 October, 1958)
   
• John F. Kennedy elected President of the United States of America (1960)
   
• Trial of Eichmann in Jerusalem (1961)
   
• Eichmann executed in Israel (1962)
   
• First female astronaut - Bykovsky/Tereshkova space flight (1963)
   
• Assassination of President Kennedy (1963)
   
• Black civil rights 'freedom march' on Washington, D. C. (1963)
   
• Enactment of US Civil Rights Bill (1964)
   
• Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1964)
   
• US troops sent to Vietnam (1965)
   
• Appointment of first woman high court judge in Britain (1965)
   
• Outbreak of Six-Day War in Middle East (1967)
   
• Abortion Act passed in Britain (1967)
   
• Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968)
   
• Mrs. Martin Luther King becomes the first woman to preach at St. Paul's (1969)
   
• US Astronauts land on the moon (1969)
   
• Death penalty abolished in the United Kingdom (1969)
   
• Decimal currency introduced in Britain (1971)
   
• Paris Peace Settlement ends Vietnam War (1973)
   
• Ireland, Britain, and Denmark join the European Community (1973)
   
• Watergate scandal (1974)
   
• UN peace force sent to Lebanon (1978)
   
• First direct elections for European Parliament take place in all nine member states (1979)
   
• Solidarity Trade Union confronts Communist government in Poland (1980)
   
• Falklands War between Britain and Argentina (1982)
   
• US space shuttle (Challenger) explodes on take-off (1986)
   
• Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Soviet Union (1986)
   
• Fall of Berlin Wall (1989)
   
• Break-up of Soviet Union (1991)
   
• Gulf War; Iraq driven out of Kuwait (1991)
   
• Break-up of Yugoslavia (1992)
   
• Ratification of Maastricht Treaty on European Unity (1993)
   
•  

Return to course description for The History of Western Women Philosophers

For a more comprehensive list of leading women philosophers, especially since 1900, see KJ Warren's Introduction.

Return to KJ Warren's Index of Courses.

Return to KJ Warren's web page.