World History/Major Figures

[Will order later...trying to get names down first. If you get here before I do (if anyone is still active), please try for chronological order subdivided by region of influence. Just quick snapshots of big achievements should do. The idea is for the reader to look at what the Wikibook includes and to get a short summary.]

Philosophers / Intellectual Types / Artists / Inventors
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Eli Whitney, Johannes Gutenberg, Herodotus, Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolo Machiavelli, Galileo, Abu Rayhan Biruni, Avicenna, Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, Alhazen, Ibn al-Nafis, Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, Jenner, Louis Pasteur, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacues Rousseau, Voltaire, Baron de Montesquieu, Emmanuel Kant, Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Malthus -- wrote "Essay on Population." Eventually, organisms will reproduce more than they have the means to support, Adam Smith -- wrote "Wealth of Nations." Pioneer of laissez faire, David Ricardo -- wrote "Iron Law of Wages", Karl Marx -- wrote "The Communist Manifesto, Confucius (Kung fuzi)

Religious
Martin Luther, John Calvin, Saint Ignatius Loyola, Pope Urban II, Moses, Jesus of Nazareth, Paul of Tarsus, Augustine, Benedict, Muhammad, Thomas Aquinas

Explorers
Prince Henry the Navigator, Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, Commodore Perry, Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo

Leaders
Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar (Octavian), Attila the Hun, Cicero, Constantine, Justinian, Ivan the Terrible, Clovis, Charlemagne, Abu Bakr, Umar, William the Conqueror, Saladin, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Henry of Navarre, Charles V, Hernan Cortes, Francisco Pizarr, Oda Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Louis XIV, Peter the Great, Thomas Jefferson, Empress Dowager Cixi, Sun Yat-sen, Tsar Nicholas II, Emperor Wu Ti, Queen Victoria, Catherine The Great