← Fame through time1780-1789
The 1780s
Whose working lives fell in the 1780s. Books are measured from 1800 and readers from 2015, so for this period we can say who lived then, not who was talked about then.
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 1780s, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe14 decades - 2
James Madison22 decades - 3
Francisco Goya18 decades - 4
Paul I of Russia21 decades - 5
Louis XVI of France22 decades - 6
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgordnot measured- - 7
Olympe de Gouges22 decades - 8
Jeremy Bentham22 decades - 9
Jacques-Louis David7 decades - 10
Antonio Salieri15 decades - 11
Mikhail Kutuzov8 decades - 12
Alessandro Volta22 decades - 13
Pierre-Simon Laplace2 decades - 14
Edward Jenner22 decades - 15
Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperornot measured- - 16
Tipu Sultan15 decades - 17
Charles IV of Spain17 decades - 18
Miguel Hidalgo Y Costilla21 decades - 19
Tadeusz Kościuszko0 decades - 20
Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeaunot measured- - 21
John Jay22 decades - 22
Francisco de Miranda22 decades - 23
Adam Weishaupt18 decades - 24
Joseph de Maistre21 decades - 25
Phillis Wheatley16 decades - 26
Seraphim of Sarov14 decades - 27
Ferdinand I of the Two Siciliesnot measured- - 28
Maria Anna Mozart3 decades - 29
Carlo Buonaparte20 decades - 30
Christian VII of Denmark0 decades - 31
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès0 decades - 32
Maria Carolina of Austria0 decades - 33
Lazare Carnot14 decades - 34
William Bligh16 decades - 35
Olaudah Equiano4 decades - 36
Maria Luisa of Parma17 decades - 37
_in_ceremonial_robes_of_the_Order_of_the_Holy_Spirit_by_Antoine_Fran%C3%A7ois_Callet.jpg?width=120)
Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléansnot measured- - 38
Vittorio Alfieri22 decades - 39
Denis Fonvizin9 decades - 40
Manon Roland10 decades - 41
Benjamin Rush22 decades - 42
Alexander Radishchev16 decades - 43
Caroline Herschel10 decades
- 44
Jeongjo of Joseonnot measured- - 45
Louis-Alexandre Berthier1 decades - 46
Adrien-Marie Legendre0 decades - 47
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi2 decades - 48
Louis Joseph, Dauphin of Francenot measured- - 49
William Jones22 decades - 50
Lorenzo Da Ponte19 decades - 51
Frederick Augustus I of Saxony22 decades - 52
William V, Prince of Orangenot measured- - 53
Gaspard Monge22 decades - 54
Marie Thérèse Louise of Savoy, Princesse de Lamballenot measured- - 55
Charles James Fox22 decades - 56
Charles XIII of Sweden0 decades - 57
Nicolas Appert6 decades - 58
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach11 decades - 59
Frances Burney13 decades - 60
Jacques Pierre Brissot0 decades - 61
Letizia Ramolino3 decades - 62
Gustav III of Sweden22 decades - 63
Henry Knox22 decades - 64
Richard Brinsley Sheridan22 decades - 65
Muzio Clementi17 decades - 66
Jean-Baptiste Kléber0 decades
- 67
Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeldnot measured- - 68
Uthman Dan Fodio0 decades - 69
Frederick I of Württemberg8 decades - 70
Maria Luisa of Spainnot measured- - 71
Kitagawa Utamaro0 decades - 72
Georg Forster22 decades - 73
Ali Pasha of Ioannina0 decades - 74
Betsy Ross13 decades - 75
Marie Joséphine of Savoy0 decades - 76Martha Jefferson11 decades
- 77
Yolande de Polastron0 decades - 78
Adolph Freiherr Knigge1 decades - 79
Edmund Randolph22 decades - 80
John Nash22 decades - 81
Benjamin Thompson22 decades - 82
Gouverneur Morris22 decades - 83
Philippe Pinel11 decades - 84
Banastre Tarleton5 decades - 85
Chevalier de Saint-Georgesnot measured- - 86
Vivant Denon22 decades - 87
Fyodor Ushakov0 decades - 88
Emanuel Schikaneder15 decades - 89
Domenico Cimarosa22 decades - 90
Pierre Charles L’Enfant0 decades - 91
Joseph Marie Jacquard0 decades
- 92
Robert R. Livingston22 decades - 93
Heshennot measured- - 94
Jean Baptiste Point du Sablenot measured- - 95
Dmytro Bortnianskyi3 decades - 96
Henri Grégoire18 decades - 97
Sophia Magdalena of Denmark0 decades
- 98
Ferdinand Karl, Archduke of Austria-Este0 decades - 99
Louis de Bonald7 decades - 100
Timothy Dexter8 decades
How to read these rankings
- Attention, not reputation. A place on these lists reflects the attention a person still draws in the public record. It is not a judgement on the life.
- Fame in print. The curves show how often a name appeared in the books of each decade from 1800 to 2019, drawn from the Google Books Ngram corpus.
- Gaps are left as gaps. Where the record is too thin to be fair, we would rather show nothing than guess.