Iraq (23??-23?? BC): Writer of one of the first detailed law codes, which exempted widows and orphans from taxes and banned women from taking multiple husbands.
Iraq (23??-2284 BC): Founder and first ruler of the Akkadian Empire.
Iraq (18??-17?? BC): Possibly fictional patriach of Judaism.
Syria (14??-14??): Hittite master horse trainer who wrote up detailed instructions in the horse training that allowed the Hittites to pioneer use of chariots.
Iraq (12??-12??): Exorcist priest who edited and transcribed the 'Epic of Gilgamesh'.
Afghanistan (????-???? BC): Prophet of ancient Iran who authored 'the Gathas' and parts of 'the Avestar' and so created modern Zoroastrianism.
Lebanon (8??-7?? BC): Noble woman of Tyre, also known as Elissa, who founded the city of Carthage in Tunisia.
Iraq (689-627 BC): The last strong king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire prior to the rise of Babylon.
Iraq (634-522 BC): Babylonian king credited for the construction of the hanging gardens and the destruction of Jerusalem's temple.
China (6??-531 BC): Reputed author of the 'Tao Te Ching' and the founder of philosophical Taoism.
Iran (600-530 BC): Founder of the First Persian Empire.
Nepal (563-483 BC): The sage on whose teachings Buddhism was founded.
China (551-479 BC): Philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period who espoused the golden rule.
China (544-496 BC): General traditionally credited as the author of The Art of War.
Turkey (484-425 BC): Author of 'The Histories' and the first historian known to collect his materials systematically and critically.
Pakistan (4??-3??): Grammarian who formulated the rules of Sanskrit morphology and fathered the discipline of linguistics.
Turkey (412-323 BC): One of the founders of Cynic philosophy who publically mocked Plato, Socrates and Alexander the Great.
India (????-???? BC): Harbinger-poet in Sanskrit literature, attributed with writing the 'Ramayana'.
Afghanistan (340-310 BC): First wife of Alexander the Great.
India (340-297 BC): Founder of the Maurya Empire and the first emperor to unify north India into one state.
Turkey (3??-2?? BC): The first superintendent of the Library of Alexandria who invented the 'metadata' system of library organisation.
India (304-232 BC): Emperor who conquered almost all of the Indian subcontinent and then converted to Buddhism out of remorse for the deaths he caused.
China (260-210 BC): The founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of China.
China (145-86 BC): Historian known as 'the father of Chinese historiography' who wrote the book 'Records of the Grand Historian'.
Israel (4 BC-30): Religious leader who became the central figure of Christianity.
Israel (??-64): Apostle who, according to Christian tradition, was the first bishop of Rome and pope of the Roman Catholic Church.
Turkey (5-67): Persecuter of Christians who had a vision on the road to Damascus and became one of the most influencial christian apostles.
Israel (37-100): Jewish rebel who recorded Jewish history for a Roman audience in his books 'The Jewish War' and 'Antiquities of the Jews'.
China (48-121): Innovator in the field of paper making.
China (1??-1??): The first person to document the chemical composition of gunpowder.
India (1??-1??): Author of the Kama Sutra.
China (155-220): Chancellor of the Eastern Han dynasty who was a central figure of the Three Kingdoms period and lost the decisive Battle of Red Cliffs.
Iran (180-242): Founder of the Sasanian Empire who overthrew the Parthians.
Iraq (216-274): Prophet and founder of Manichaeism.
Armenia (257-311): Religious leader who converted Tiridates III to christianity meaning Armenia became the first nation to adopt Christianity as its official religion.
Lebanon (30?- 383): First Bishop of Axum who spread Christianity throughout Ethiopia.
Saudi Arabia (570-632): Central figure of Islam who united Arabia into a single Muslim polity.
Saudi Arabia (585-642): Commander-in-chief of the Rashidun army during the Arab conquest of the middle east.
India (598-6??): Mathematician who was the first to give rules to compute with zero and wrote the astronomical work 'Khandakhadyaka'.
Saudi Arabia (601-661): Cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad whose questioned legitimacy as Muhammad's heir is the reason for the Shia/Sunni split.
China (622-705): Founder of the later Zhou dynasty and the only Empress regnant of China.
Japan (659-720): Powerful member of the imperial court of Japan who established the Taihō Code of law and governance based on the chinese Tang Dynasty.
Syria (668-715): Umayyad Caliph who oversaw the conquest of Spain and Pakistan and saw the Caliphate reach its greatest power.
China (701-762): Poet who wrote 'Waking from Drunkenness on a Spring Day', 'The Hard Road to Shu', and 'Quiet Night Thought'.
Iran (721-815): Chemist and alchemist who worked with acids and whose name was later used by European alchemists to lend credibilty to their work.
India (7??-7??): Buddhist master also known as Guru Rinpoche who bought Buddhism to Tibet.
Uzbekistan (780-850): Mathematician and one of the fathers of algebra who wrote 'The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing'.
Iraq (801-873): The 'father of Islamic and Arabic philosophy' who also developed the cipher breaking technique of frequency analysis.
Iran (854-932): Early proponent of experimental medicine and chief physician of the Baghdad and Rey hospitals.
Kazakhstan (872-950): Philosopher and jurist who wrote both the first treatises to deal with social psychology and 'The Book of Music'.
North Korea (877-943): King who completed the unification of Korea.
China (927-966): Emperor who effectively ended the the tumultuous Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period and who printed the first government sanctioned paper money.
Iran (940-1020): Poet and the author of 'Shahnameh', the world's longest epic poem created by a single poet.
Iraq (965-1040): Astronomer and philosopher who wrote the 'Book of Optics' and is seen as the father of the scientific method.
Central Asia (9??-1021): Turkish leader who led the turks south into Iran and converted them to Islam, setting the scene for the great turkish muslim empires that followed.
Japan (973-1031): Poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court who wrote 'The Tale of Genji', the world's first modern novel.
Uzbekistan (980-1037): Physician and philosopher known for writing 'The Book of Healing' and 'The Canon of Medicine'.
India (9??-1044): Hindu Tamil General and enemy of Buddhism who conquered Sri Lanka and raided the territories of Srivijaya in Malaysia, Southern Thailand and Indonesia.
China (990-1051): Inventor of the world's first movable type technology.
Cambodia (10??-1145): King of the Khmer Empire who built Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world.
Iran (1048-1131): Influential thinker who derived general methods for solving cubic equations and whose poetry was translated into English by Edward FitzGerald.
Iran (1058-1111): Islamic scholar who wrote 'The Revival of Religious Sciences' and 'The Incoherence of the Philosophers' which rejected any causes other than the will of god.
Iraq (1137-1193): Sultan of Egypt and Syria during the Third Crusade and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty.
Afghanistan (1149-1206): Sultan of the Ghurid Empire who played a key role in the muslim conquest of South Asia and whose slave, Qutbu l-Din Aibak, was the first sultan of Delhi.
Japan (1157-1247): Female samurai warrior who fought in the Genpei War.
Georgia (1160-1213): Ruling Queen of Georgia during the apex of the Georgian Golden Age.
Mongolia (1162-1227): The founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire.
Mongolia (1175-1248): Uriankhai general and the primary military strategist of Genghis Khan and Ögedei Khan who conquered thirty-two nations and won sixty-five pitched battles.
Tajikistan (1207-1273): Best selling poet who wrote 'Masnavi' and 'Fihi Ma Fihi'.
Turkey (12??-1324): Leader of the Ottoman Turks and the founder of the Ottoman dynasty.
China (1328-1398): Rebel against the Mongol Yuan dynasty who became the founder and first emperor of the Ming dynasty.
Uzbekistan (1336-1405): Turco-Mongol conqueror who emerged as the most powerful Muslim ruler after defeating the Mamluks of Egypt, the Ottoman Empire and the Delhi Sultanate.
Singapore (1344-1414): Last king of Singapura, founder of Malacca City and muslim convert, who helped spread Islam among the Malay Archipelago.
China (1371-1435): Ming dynasty court eunuch who commanded the 'treasure voyages' to Southeast Asia, South Asia, Western Asia, and East Africa.
Iran (1394-1449): Timurid ruler and astronomer who determined the positions of 992 fixed stars, the length of the sidereal year and the angle of Earth's axial tilt.
Mongolia (1449-1510): Female warlord who reunited the Mongol tribes.
Pakistan (1469-1539): Founder of Sikhism and the first of the ten Sikh Gurus.
Uzbekistan (1483-1530): Founder of the Mughal Empire in India.
Iran (1487-1524): Founder of the Safavid dynasty who converted Iran from Sunni to Shi'a Islam.
Turkey (1494-1566): Sultan of the Ottoman Empire at the apex of its power who conquered Belgrade and Rhodes and laid siege to Vienna.
Malaysia (14??-15??): Slave of Ferdinand Magellan, also known as Henry the Black, who escaped in Cebu, 2500 km before he would have completed the world's first circumnavigation.
China (1512-1565): Ming General who wiped out the Wokou pirates of Xu Hai and Wang Zhi.
Myanmar (1516-1550): Founder of the Toungoo Empire, the largest but shortest lived empire in south-east Asia.
Japan (1536-1598): Daimyo, and follower of Oda Nobunaga, who helped end the Sengoku Jidai and led the newly unified Japan in the Imjin war against Korea.
South Korea (1545-1598): Korean naval commander whose victories against the Japanese navy saved Korea during the Imjin war.
Japan (15??-15??): Noblewoman who created an all-female group of ninja agents in service of the Takeda clan.
China (1559-1626): Jurchen chieftain who united the Manchu tribes and began the conquest of China that was completed by his grandson, the Shunzhi Emperor.
Japan (1590-1630): Head of the Japanese immigrants to the Ayutthaya Kingdom, who led hundreds of exiled Samurai into battle against Pegu and Cambodia.
India (1593-1631): Mughal Empress and chief consort of emperor Shah Jahan from whom the Taj Mahal was built as a tomb.
China (1594-1651): Tibetan Buddhist lama and the unifier of Bhutan as a nation-state.
Japan (1618-1694): Artist known for popularizing the ukiyo-e genre of woodblock prints and paintings.
Thailand (16??-1700): Siamese diplomat who led the 1686 Embassy to France and then later masterminded the anti-French Siamese revolution of 1688.
Japan (1625-1662): Ming loyalist who resisted the Qing conquest of China's southeastern coast and established a kingdom on exile on Taiwan, which he conquered from the Dutch.
India (1627-1680): Devout Hindu and first King of the Maratha Empire.
Japan (1644-1694): Famous poet of the Edo period recognized as the greatest master of haiku.
Oman (16??-1711): Imam of Oman who drove the Portuguese out of Kenya and Tanzania and established the Omani african empire.
Iran (1698-1747): Powerful Persian ruler who overthrew the Safavid dynasty and won major victories against the Ottoman and Mughal empires.
Japan (17??-17??): Singer and shamisen-player from Fukagawa who was the first woman to call herself a Geisha.
China (17??-1795): Chinese settler who established the democratic Lanfang Republic in western Borneo.
India (1750-1799): Sultan of Mysore who was a pioneer in the use of rocket artillery which he deployed in four wars against the British East India Company.
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