essay

{abstract}
     The average life span of the Famous People of the Second Millennium speaks to the impact of longevity on attaining Earthly immortality. These clever few (born after 975 AD and born before 1975) were perhaps better equipped to stay alive than the average guy; even so their Earthly span speaks to just how long any of us have to get something done. Over the Second Millennium the average lifespan of genius is ~68 years (although Anne Frank died at 16, Albert Hoffman lived to be 102). Interestingly, the earliest 10 players averaged ~70 years, while the most recent 10 percent lived only ~61 years. <#> indicates age by which acclaimed.

127 Familiar Players

• Lady Murasaki Shikibu (~975 - ~1015 ( 40 )) [Japanese novelist: Tales of Genji ~1010]<35>
• Kuo Hsi (11th century b?d? ( ? )) [Chinese artist:author Essay on Landscape Painting => perspective drawing]
• Myoan Eisai (1141 - 1215 (74)) [Japanese founder of 1st Zen Temple in Japan, later Kennin ji in Kyoto; brings green tea & way of tea to Japan]<50>
• Omar Khayyam (1048 - 1131 ( 83 )) [Persian poet-mathematician; algebraic problems: geometric solutions; heliocentric solar system; Rubiat of Omar K.]
• Leonardo Bonacci aka Fibonacci (1175 - 1250 ( 75 )) [Italian mathematician; popularizes Hindu-Arabic numerals with Liber Abaci 1202]<27>
• Wumen Huikai aka Mumon Ekai (1183 - 1260 (78) [Chinese chan monk, wrote Mumonkan describing "zen" duality as essence of koan]<46>
• Jalal ed-Din Rumi (1207 - 1273 (66)) [Persian born in greater Balkh; sufi poet, proponent of spiritual transformance {thru Qu’ran}, author of Mathnawi]
• Marco Polo (1254 - 1325 (71)) [Italian explorer from Venice; in China 17 years; paper money in China & cities of gold in Zipangri reported]
• Aligahieri Dante (1265 - 1321 (56)) [Italian poet: Comedia aka Divine Comedy after 1302]<37>
• Seami (1363 - 1444 (81)) [Japanese dramatist, Noh drama defined]<37>
• Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 - 1446 ( 69 )) [Italian architect; perspective employed; Dome on octogon of columns at Florence 1420]<43>
• Thomas a Kempis born Hemerken (~1380 - 1471 ( 91 )) [German Catholic priest, copyist and author; imitatio christi sets stage for reformation ~1478]
• Johann Gutenberg (1397 - 1468 ( 71 )) [German goldsmith become printer, cast type circa 1436; printed Bible ~ 1468]<39>
• Leone Battista Alberti (1404 - 1472 ( 68 )) [Italian artist, defines perspective in della Pittura 1436]<32 >
• Sandro Bottecelli (1444 - 1510 ( 66 )) [Italian artist, color and rhythms project beyond allegory; humanist overtones]
• Hieronymus Bosch born Jerome van Aken (1450 - 1516 ( 66 )) [Dutch artist]
• Seiko Kyūjō (1520 - 1602 (82)) [Korean monk, author of Zen-ke Ki-kan(1579) hold “great doubt”, escew rationcination, seek inspiration]<59>
• Sen no Rikyu (1522 - 1591 ( 69 )) [Japanese teamaster and advocate of chanoyu]
• Isabella of Castile (1451 -1504 ( 53 )) [Spanish queen with Ferdinand of Aragon, she financed Christopher Columbus personally]<40 >
• Christopher Columbus (1451 - 1506 ( 55 )) [Italian navigator and explorer, discovers The Newe Found Worldes enroute to Zipangri]<40 >
• Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519 ( 67 )) [Italian painter, inventor, designer; Last Supper 1495-1498]
• Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512 ( 58 )) [Italian navigator and cartographer; his flamboyant reports on the New World inspire Europe 1502-1507]<48>
• Erasmus of Rotterdam born Heramus Gerritszoon (~1469 - 1536 ( 67 )) [Dutch humanist; refutes predestination, The Freedom of the Will 1525]<56>
• Martin Waldseemüller (1470 - 1521/1522 ( 52 )) [German cartographer; Universalis Cosmographia, first use of Amerika on map 1507 ( age ))<37>
• Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528 ( 57 )) [German artist, painter, draftsman, humanist sympathizer]
• Nicholas Copernicus (1473 - 1543 ( 70 )) [Polish astronomer, heliocentric solar system in de revolutionibus orbium coelestium 1543]<40>
• Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 - 1564 ( 89 )) [Italian sculptor, painter, Pieta, David ~1501; Sistine ceiling ~1508-12; Last Judgement 1534-41]<26>
• Martin Luther (1483-1546 ( 63 )) [German monk become reformer by forcing Catholic Reformation 1517/1519]<34>
• Henry VIII England (1491 - 1547 ( 56 )) [English King 1509; Church of England]
• Nicolas Monardes (1493 - 1588 ( 95 )) [Spanish physician, Joyfull Newes out of the Newe Found Worlde 1569/71/74]<76>
• Georg Agricola born Georg Bauer (1494 - 1555 ( 61 )) [German physician, “father of minerology”; De Re Metallica 1556]<36>
• Benvenuto Cellini (1500 - 1571 ( 71 )) [Italian sculptor; goldsmith; Autobiography]
• Leonhard Fuchs (1501 - 1566 ( 65 )) [German physician and botanist, de historia stirpium 1542]<41 >
• Nostradamus born Michel de Notredame (1503 - 1566 ( 63 )) [French astrologer; obscure and symbolic predictions, Centuries 1555]<52 >
• Gerard Mercator born Gerard Kremer (1512 - 1594 ( 86 )) [Flemish cartographer; Maximilianus Transylvanus globe 1535; Mercator Projection 1569]<23>
• Christophe Plantin (1514 - 1589 ( 75 )) [Flemish publisher, early capitalist]
• Sen no Rikyu (1521 - 1591 ( 70 )) [Japanese tea master, advocate of raku]
• Pieter Bruegel (1525 - 1567 ( 42 )) [Flemish artist, genre painter, print maker, visual satirist]
• Abraham Ortelius born Ortels (1527 - 1598 ( 71 )) [Flemish cartographer, Theatrum orbis terrarum 1570, a picture book of maps with little text ]<43>
• Philip II (1527 - 1598 ( 71 )) [Spanish King 1556; non sufficit orbis; Pro Catholic anti Italian Jesuit supporter]
• Elizabeth 1 England (1533 - 1603 ( 70 )) [English Queen 1558; Empire of Islands; patron of Sir Francis Drake]
• Sir Francis Drake (1540 - 1596 ( 56 )) [English privateer, political theorist and philanthropist]<37>
• Miguel Cervantes (1547 - 1616 ( 69 )) [Spanish poet, playwrite, Don Quixote 1605]<58>
• William Shakespeare (1550 - 1604 ( 54 )) [English poet and dramatist; pseudonym, likely Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, Courtier 1573]<23>
• Galileo (1564 - 1642 ( 78 )) [Italian astronomer, refines telescope, gravity shown to be a universal]
• Johannes Kepler (1571 - 1630 ( 59 )) [German astronomer; Mysterium cosmographicum 1596; solar centered planetary system and laws of motion]<25>
• Mu-i Gen-rai (1573 1630 (57)) [Chinese? monk, author of Hakusan Zen Keigo, expousing need to get beyond “Whence is Life? Whither is it bound?]
• Miyamoto Musashi (1584 - 1645 ( 61 )) [Japanese swordsman, painter, poet and author: The Book of Five Rings]
• Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679 ( 91 )) [English philosphopher, Leviathon: Fear leads man naturally to surrender to the righteous authority of sovereigns]
• Shan Jahan (1592-1666 ( 74 )) [Mogul Emperor of India; commissioned Taj Mahal in 1629; first Peacock Throne]<37>
• Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 - 1661 ( 55 )) [Dutch artist, painter, print maker]
• Robert Boyle (1627 - 1691 ( 64 )) [English chemist: the element, the compound]
• John Locke (1632 - 1704 ( 72 )) [English philosopher, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 1690, logic]<58>
• Enkyu (1632 - 1695 (63)) [Japanese sculptor; "hachibori" buddhas]
• Seki Kowa (1637/42 - 1708 ( ~68 )) [Japanese mathematician, pi value, variables in equations, theory of limits and determinates => calculus]
• Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727 ( 85 )) [English mathematician, gravity is an attractive force; calculus, optics, Principia 1687; Optiks 1704]<45>
• Matsuo Basho (1644 - 1694 ( 50 )) [Japanese poet, haiku]<21>
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 - 1716 ( 70 )) [German mathematician, calculus]
• Daniel Defoe (1660? - 1731 ( ~71 )) [English novelist, Robinson Crusoe 1719; Moll Flanders 1722]<59 >
• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750 ( 65 )) [German composer]
• George Frederic Handel (1685 - 1759 ( 74 )) [German composer]
• Françoise Voltaire (1694 - 1778 ( 84 )) [French philosopher, Candide 1759]<63>
• Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790 ( 84 )) [American inventor, revolutionary, writer, political theorist]
• Carolus Linneas (1707 - 1778 ( 71 )) [Swedish botanist, taxonimist, nomeclature of plants, modern scientific classification]
• Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784 ( 75)) [British essayist and poet, A Dictionary of the English Language 1755]<46>
• Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784 ( 71 )) [French philosopher and writer, editor-in-chief of Encyclopédia]
• Adam Smith (1723 -1790 ( 67 )) [Scottish economist, Wealth of Nations 1776]<56>
• James Watt (1736 - 1819 ( 83 )) [Scottish engineer, condensing steam engine & reciprocating engine => industrial revolution]
• Thomas Jefferson (1743 -1826 ( 83 )) [American President writer, political theorist]
• Jean Baptist Lamarck (1744 - 1829 ( 85 )) [French naturalist, advocate of inherited experience]
• Francisco Goya (1746 - 1828 ( 82 )) [Spanish artist, painter, print maker, political satirist]
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1747 - 1832 ( 85 )) [German dramatist, Egmont (~1775 ( age ) Faust (~1773 ( age ), philosopher, Sturm und Drang]<28>
• Louie XVI France (1754 - 1793 ( 39 )) [French king 1774; assists American Revolution, Maria Antionette; revolution]
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791 ( 35 )) [German composer]
• Katsuhika Hokusai (1760 - 1849 ( 89 )) [Japanese artist, print maker whose theoretical landscapes => impressionism]
• Nicéphore Niépcé (1765 - 1833 (68)) [French inventor, first photograph]
• Thomas Malthus (1766 - 1834 ( 68 )) [English mathmatician, population dynamics]
• Alexander von Humboldt (1769 - 1859 ( 90 )) [German natuarlist & traveler, global interconnectedness Cosmos 1845]<76>
• Napoleon I (1769 - 1821 ( 52 )) [French Empire in Europe; sells Louisiana Territories to US in 1804 => end of Native America]<35>
• William Smith (1769 - 1839 ( 70 )) [English geologist: fossils in a strata => the past; demonstrates extinction; geological map of Britian 1799/1812]<30>
• Ludwig von Beethoven (1770 - 1827 ( 57 )) [German composer]
• Georg Wilhelm Hegel (1770 - 1831(61)) [German philosopher: Idealism, master-slave dialectic, The Phenomenology of Spirit 1807; Muse for Marx]<37>
• Jakob & Wilhelm Grimm (1785 - 1863 ( 78 ); 1786 - 1859 ( 73 )) [German folklorists, language & fairy tales]
• Louis Daguerre (1787 - 1851 (64)) [French photographer, inventor of Daguerrotype photographic process]
• Charles Babbage ( 1791 - 1871 ( 80)) [English mathematician, inventor of the mechanical computer; design for difference engine realized in 1891]<31>
• Sir John Herschel ( 1792 - 1871 ( 79)) [English mathematician, astronomer, and chemist, father of photography, inventor of actinometer]
• Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797 -1851 ( 54 )) [English novelist: Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometeus 1818]<21>
• William Henry Fox Talbot (1800 - 1877 (77)) [English photographer, inventor of callotype photographic process]
• Alexander Dumas (1802-1870 ( 68 )) [French novelist: Three Musketeers 1844; Count of Monte Cristo 1845]<42 >
• Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885 ( 83 )) [French novelist: Notre Dame de Paris 1831, Les Misérable 1862]<29>
• Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882 ( 73 )) [English naturalist, Origin of Species 1859, the Descent of Man]<50>
• Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865 ( 56 )) [American President, political theorist, Emancipation Proclamation 1862]<50>
• Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849 ( 40 )) [American novelist, Murder in the Rue Morgue 1841; The Gold Bug 1843; The Raven 1845]<32>
• Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 - 1896 ( 85 )) [American abolitionist writer, Uncle Tom’s Cabin 1852]
• Charles Dickens (1812-1870 ( 68 )) [English author; Pickwick Papers 1836; Oliver Twist 1837; David Copperfield 1849; A Tale of Two Cities 1859]<24>
• Charles Mackay (1814-1889 ( 75 )) [Scottish poet, song writer, journalist: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds 1841]<27>
• Ada Lovelace (1815 - 1852 ( 37 )) [English mathematician, binary language for Babbage Calculating Machines 1842 => software.]<27>
• Karl Marx (1818 - 1883 ( 65 )) [German social reformer and advocate of socialism, Das Kapital 1867]<49>
• Friedrich Engels (1820 - 1895 (74)) [German philosopher and social scientist, co-authored The Communist Manifesto 1848; finished Das Kapital]<28>
• George Johnstone Stoney (1826 - 1911 ( 85 )) [Irish physicist; practical units, universal vs Earthly: gravity, charge of electron, etc.]
• John Rollin Ridge (1827 - 1867 (40)) [Native American author & novelist, nee Yellow Bird; Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta 1854]<27>
• Dmitrii Mendeleev (1834 -1907 (73)) [Russian chemist; Periodic Law and Periodic table of elements by family of properties]
• Mark Twain (1835 - 1910 (75)) [American author, nee Samuel Clemens; Life on the Mississippi 1883, Tom Sawyer 1883, Huck Finn 1888]<30>
• John Muir (1838 - 1914 ( 76 )) [Scottish naturalist and pioneering environmental preservationist in America]
• Claude Monet (1840 - 1926 ( 86 )) [French artist, impressionism => theoretical landscapes of Japan]
• William James (1843 - 1910 ( 67 )) [American physician, Principles of Psychology 1890]<47>
• Thomas Edison (1847 - 1931 ( 84 )) [American inventor: light bulb, telephone transmitter, electric power distribution, movie cameras]
• Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890 ( 37 )) [Dutch artist, painter]
• Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939 (83 )) [Austrian psychoanalyst, Interpretation of Dreams 1900; Psychology of Everyday Life 1904]<44>
• Marie Sklodowaka Curie (1867 - 1934 ( 67 )) [Polish chemist & physicist, pioneer X-Ray research]
• Mohandas Gandhi (1869 - 1948 ( 79 )) [Indian separatist advocate and social reformer, passive resistence as activism]
• Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955 ( 76 )) [German born physicist: relativity, gravity, space & time, photo electric effect 1905]<26>
• Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1971 ( 90 )) [Spanish artist; cubism, psychological expressionism, multi-media]
• Emmy Noether (1882 - 1935 (53)) [German mathematician; mathematics of symmetry, "beauty conserved" allows Einstein to refine his theory of Relativity]<36>
• Georgia O’Keeffe (1887 - 1986 ( 99 )) [American artist, advocate of southwestern school of light; larger than life modernism]
• Louie Armstrong (1901 - 1971 ( 70 )) [American, voice of America through jazz]
• Walt Disney (1901 - 1966 ( 65 )) [American movie mogul and founder of animation & theme park empire based on Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse]
• Albert Hoffman (1906 - 2008 (102)) [Swiss research chemist who accidentally discovered LSD while doing ergot research]<32>
• Grace Hopper, Admiral (1906 - 1992(86)) [American mathematician & computer scientist; first computer compiler & first computer language COBOL, coined "bug"]<35>
• Rachel Carson (1907 - 1964 ( 57 )) [American biologist, environmentist and writer: The Sea Around Us 1951; Silent Spring 1962]<44>
• Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954 (47)) [Mexican artist; personal surrealism foretelling the age of the selfie] <37>
• Wernher von Braun (1912 - 1977 ( 65 )) [German rocket pioneer who worked both for the Nazis & for the USA, space exploration advocate]
• Rosalind Elsie Franklin (1920 - 1958 ( 38 )) [English biophysicist and crystallographer; deduced DNA double helix before 1953]<33 >
• Timothy Leary (1920 -1996 (76)) [American psychologist and psychedelic advocate]<42>
• Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987 ( 59 )) [American painter and ring master of 1960s POP art for a celebrity society]
• Yayoi Kusama (1929 - ?(90) [Japanese artist; New York happenings and Infinity Rooms ]
• Anne Frank (1929 -1945 ( 16 )) [German, Jewish Holocaust victim; Diary 1942-1944]<16>
• Bruce Lee (1940 - 1973 ( 33 )) [Chinese-American martial artist: The Big Boss 1971; Enter the Dragon 1973]<31>

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