Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Albrecht von Haller

Switzerland

1708 – 1777 (69 years old)

Swiss polymath, anatomist, and poet celebrated as the 'Father of Modern Experimental Physiology', who discovered the distinction between muscular irritability (contractility) and nervous sensibility in animal tissues.

Bern, Switzerland

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Philosophy & Thought

17

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David Hume

United Kingdom

7 May 1711 – 25 August 1776 (65 years old)

Foremost thinker of the Scottish Enlightenment whose radical empiricism dismantled the rational basis of causality, personal identity, and induction, waking Kant from his 'dogmatic slumber'.

Edinburgh, United Kingdom

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Humanitarian & Peace

6

Religious Figures & Theologians

John Woolman

United States

1720 – 1772 (51 years old)

Prédicateur quaker itinérant américain, artisan majeur de l'abandon de l'esclavage par la Société des Amis et pionnier de la justice économique.

York, United Kingdom

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George Whitefield

Kingdom of Great Britain

1714 – 1770 (55 years old)

English evangelist whose booming voice, dramatic oratory, and thirteen transatlantic journeys fueled the First Great Awakening across Britain and the American colonies.

Newburyport, Massachusetts, United States

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François Boucher

Kingdom of France

1703 – 1770 (66 years old)

Premier French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer whose pastoral mythologies, sensuous pastels, and portraits of Madame de Pompadour epitomized the elegance of Louis XV.

Paris, France

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Resistance & Human Rights

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Giambattista Tiepolo

Republic of Venice

1696 – 1770 (74 years old)

Supreme decorative fresco genius of the 18th century whose breathtaking ceiling in the Würzburg Residenz created the largest continuous ceiling fresco in the world.

Madrid, Spain

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Resistance & Human Rights

Chico Rei

Galanga (Chico Rei)

Congo

c. 1700 – c. 1770 (70 years old)

African monarch (Galanga) captured into slavery in Minas Gerais who hid gold dust in his hair to purchase his own freedom, bought the richest gold mine in Ouro Preto (Encardideira), and purchased the freedom of hundreds of his enslaved countryfolk.

Ouro Preto (Minas Gerais), Brazil

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Religious Figures & Theologians

Pontiac

Obwandiyag

United States

c. 1720 – 1769 (~49 years old)

Ottawa war leader who organized Pontiac's War, a monumental multi-tribal rebellion against British post-Seven Years' War military occupation in the Great Lakes.

Detroit, United States

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Hakuin Ekaku

白隠慧鶴

Edo Period

1686 – 1769 (82 years old)

Great reformer of Japanese Rinzai Zen, painter, and calligrapher who systematized koan study and created the legendary riddle 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?'.

Numazu (Shizuoka), Japan

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Military Leaders & Strategists

Giovanni Antonio Canal

Canaletto

Republic of Venice

1697 – 1768 (70 years old)

Foremost Venetian veduta (view) painter whose sparkling, geometrically precise paintings of the Grand Canal and London palaces defined the visual souvenir of the Grand Tour.

Venice, Italy

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Malhar Rao Holkar

मल्हारराव होळकर

Maratha Empire

1693 – 1766 (73 years old)

Founder of the Holkar Dynasty of Indore and supreme Maratha cavalry general who rose from a shepherd family to command imperial campaigns across northern India and Malwa.

Alampur (Bhind, Madhya Pradesh), India

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Sciences & Discovery

10

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Mikhail Lomonosov

Михаил Васильевич Ломоносов

Russia

19 November 1711 – 15 April 1765 (53 years old)

Universal Russian polymath who founded Moscow State University, discovered the atmosphere of Venus during its 1761 transit, and formulated the conservation of mass and energy before Lavoisier.

Saint Petersburg, Russia

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William Hogarth

Kingdom of England

1697 – 1764 (66 years old)

English pictorial satirist, painter, and pioneer of comic strips whose moral narrative series 'A Rake's Progress' and 'Marriage A-la-Mode' exposed 18th-century corruption.

London, United Kingdom

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2,501

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Jean-Philippe Rameau

France

1683 – 1764 (80 years old)

Pivotal French Baroque composer and harmonic music theorist whose operas and treatises revolutionized Western music.

Paris, France

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Literature & Poetry

Religious Figures & Theologians

Cao Xueqin

曹雪芹

Qing Dynasty China

c. 1715 – c. 1763 (48 years old)

Qing dynasty author who wrote Dream of the Red Chamber (The Story of the Stone), universally celebrated as the supreme pinnacle of classical Chinese fiction.

Beijing, China

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