Famous People Who Died In 1900

Widely regarded as one of the most popular writers of all time, Oscar Wilde is best remembered for his plays and epigrams. He was also one of the best-known personalities during his time as he was popular for his conversational skills, flamboyant dressing sense, and biting wit. Imprisoned in 1895 for consensual homosexual acts, Oscar Wilde was pardoned posthumously in 2017.

German philosopher, cultural critic, composer, and poet Friedrich Nietzsche has had a profound influence on modern intellectual history. He held the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel. His work spanned philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction. He suffered from numerous health problems from a young age and died at the age of 55.

The leading English art critic of the Victorian era, John Ruskin was a hugely influential figure in the latter half of the 19th century. Also a philosopher and prominent social thinker, he wrote on varied subjects like geology, architecture, education, botany, myth, ornithology, literature, and political economy. He founded the charitable trust Guild of St George.

Gottlieb Daimler was a German engineer, industrialist, and industrial designer. A pioneer of automobile development and internal combustion engines, Daimler is credited with inventing the liquid petroleum-fueled engine. In 1978, Gottlieb Daimler was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.

In spite of his short life, which ended at age 24, Birsa Munda is remembered for spearheading the tribal movement against the British. He also made the British introduce new laws for the protection of the tribal land rights. He died in prison while undergoing trials.

Remembered for his awe-inspiring marine art, Russian painter Ivan Aivazovsky was the son of an Armenian merchant. His 60-year career had seen him produce around 6,000 works, most of which were seascapes. He had been the Russian navy’s official painter and inspired Anton Chekhov’s phrase worthy of Aivazovsky’s brush.

Wilhelm Steinitz was an Austrian-born American chess player. He is recognized as the first World Chess Champion, having reigned from 1886 to 1894. A multi-talented personality, Wilhelm Steinitz was also an influential chess theoretician and writer. Steinitz is also remembered for having a huge impact on the game and was a well-known player during his time.

Max Müller was a German-born Orientalist and philologist. Müller is credited with co-founding the western academic disciplines of religious studies and Indian studies. In 1874, he was honored with the Pour le Mérite. He received the prestigious Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art in 1875. In India, the Goethe Institutes are named in his honor.

Belle Boyd was a Confederate spy who was active during the American Civil War. Operating from her father's hotel in Virginia, Boyd provided key information to Confederate Commander Stonewall Jackson in 1862. Belle Boyd's life and career inspired a series of silent films called The Girl Spy.

The founder of the Armstrong Whitworth manufacturing company, William George Armstrong, also known as Baron Armstrong, redefined the design of guns and also invented the high-pressure hydraulic mechanism. Initially a lawyer, he later quit his practice to devote more time to engineering. He was also knighted for his feats.

Isaac Levitan was a Russian landscape painter remembered for his work that popularized the mood landscape genre. One of the most important landscape painters of his generation, Levitan was elected to the Russian Academy of Arts in 1897. The following year, Levitan was chosen as the head of the Landscape Studio at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.

An influential English ethical philosopher and economist of the Victorian era, Henry Sidgwick is perhaps best known for his utilitarian treatise The Methods of Ethics. He promoted higher education of women and co-founded Newnham College. He remained a member of the Metaphysical Society and co-founded and served as first president of the Society for Psychical Research.

English ethnographer and traveler Mary Kingsley was the daughter of renowned physician and traveler George Kingsley and the niece of Charles Kingsley. Unlike girls of her era, she was well-educated and later ventured on an exploratory trip to West Africa, becoming the first European to enter remote areas such as Gabon.

Étienne Lenoir was a Belgian-French engineer. He is credited with developing the internal combustion engine which was commercialized in sufficient quantities. Lenoir is also credited with inventing such electrical devices as an improved electric telegraph which played a key role during the Franco-Prussian War. 

Washakie was an influential leader of the Shoshone people, a Native American tribe. He was recognized as the head of the Eastern Shoshones for a major part of his life by the representatives of the US government. He was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners in 1979.

American abolitionist Elizabeth Van Lew is best-known for developing and running an extensive and efficient spy-ring for Union Army during American Civil War. She was the first person in Richmond who raised the US flag in the city after it fell to US forces in April 1865. She later served as Postmaster General of Richmond and modernized the city's postal-system.

Born into a poor peasant family, Marcus Daly was 14 when he arrived in New York as an Irish refugee. He started his career unloading ships and then worked as a ranch boy and a railroad worker, eventually taking over the copper mining industry and emerging as a Copper King of Montana.

Kuroda Kiyotaka, also known as Kuroda Ryōsuke, played a significant role in the Meiji Restoration. Apart from being president of the Privy Council, he had been the prime minister of Japan, too. He introduced Western agricultural methods in Hokkaido but reigned in the wake of controversies related to unequal treaties.

José Maria de Eça de Queirós was a Portuguese writer and novelist. Widely regarded as the greatest exponent of literary realism in the Portuguese language, Eça's works have been translated into many languages, including English. Many of his works have also been adapted into films, TV series, and theatrical plays.

Isaac Mayer Wise was an American Reform rabbi, author, and editor. He is best remembered for his service as the rabbi of the congregation Beth-El of Albany. In this capacity, Isaac Mayer Wise effected many changes, such as the consent for having a mixed-sex choir, allowing women and men to sit together in family pews, and elimination of Bar Mitzvah.

James Edward Keeler initially worked at the Lick Observatory and later proved that the rings of Saturn aren’t solid but are made of tiny particles. He used the reflecting telescope for his astrophotography projects. He had also been the director of the Allegheny Observatory and had co-founded Astrophysical Journal.

Apart from being a lawyer and a war historian, Jacob Dolson Cox had served as the governor of Ohio and as a US representative from Ohio's 6th district. During the American Civil War, he was a Union general. As the Secretary of the Interior, he introduced a civil service merit system.

Alexandre de Serpa Pinto was a Portuguese explorer and colonial administrator. His journey across Africa earned him the prestigious Founder's Medal from the Royal Geographical Society in 1881. Alexandre de Serpa Pinto also received many honorary memberships and awards for his achievements.

Sigbjørn Obstfelder was a Norwegian poet and writer whose debut collection of poems is cherished as one of the earliest and finest examples of modernism in literature in Norway. Widely regarded as one of the late 19th century's most prominent figures in Norwegian literature, Sigbjørn Obstfelder's works are considered to be the literary equivalent of Edvard Munch's paintings.

The son of the Sahle Selassie, the king of Shewa, Darge Sahle Selassie was an able general. He later became the governor of Shewa and an advisor to his nephew, Menelik II, or Sahle Maryam, the emperor of Ethiopia. He also often served as a regent in the emperor’s absence.