| A | B |
|---|
| Nasser, Gamal Abdel | (1918-1970) President of Egypt from 1956 to 1970. He was responsible for nationalizing the Suez Canal, and was an important leader to the Arab world. He was often at odds with the West and Israel. |
| Nehru, Jawaharlal | (1889-1964) Indian nationalist leader and the first prime minister of independent India from 1947 to 1964. Along with Mohandas Gandhi, he was instrumental in freeing India from Britain’s control. |
| Newcomen, Thomas | (1663-1729) Developed a steam engine powered by coal. |
| Nkrumah, Kwame | (1909-1972) Independence leader who help lead Ghana out of European imperialism after World War II. |
| Orlando, Vittorio | (1860-1952) Prime Minister of Italy during World War I. He was one of the formulators of the Treaty of Versailles. |
| Osama bin Laden | (1957- ) Saudi Arabian multimillionaire and leader of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. He is responsible for numerous terrorist attacks on the United States including the destruction of the World Trade Center. |
| Pahlavi, Muhammad Reza | (1919-1980), Dictator ruler of Iran from 1941 to 1979. He was supported by the United States throughout most of the Cold War due to his anti communist stance. Overthrown during the Iranian Revolution in 1979. |
| Pasteur, Louis | (1822-1895) French scientist who discovered the link between germs and disease. He also showed that killing germs, often prevented the spread of certain diseases. |
| Pericles | (495? BCE-429? BCE) Athenian statesman. He was the central ruler of Athens during its golden age. He was the central patron behind many of their achievements. He was also a very skilled speaker. Athens City-State of Ancient Greece and center of Greek golden age that occurred in the 5th century BCE. |
| Perry, Matthew | (1794-1858) Commodore. United States Navy officer who is responsible for opening Japan to trade and imperialism. |
| Philip II | (1527-1598) King of Spain from 1556 to 1598. Absolute monarch who helped lead the Counter Reformation by persecuting Protestants in his holdings. Also sent the Spanish Armada against England. |
| Pizarro, Francisco | (1476?-1541) Spanish conquistador who was responsible for the conquest of the Incan Empire. |
| Pol Pot | (1925-1998) Leader of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Pol Pot is responsible for the deaths of almost 2 million of his own people due to starvation, execution, and beatings. |
| Pope Urban II | (1040?-1099) The head of the Roman Catholic Church who issued the proclamation the began the First Crusade. |
| Prince Metternich | (1773-1859) Chancellor of the Astro-Hungarian Empire between 1821 and 1848. He was the most powerful political figure in Europe between 1814 and 1848. He was driven from power in the Revolutions of 1848. |
| Princip, Gavrilo | (1894 -1918) Serbian nationalist/terrorist who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in 1914. This event resulted in the start of World War I. |
| Ptolemy | (100?-170 CE) Greek astronomer, mathematician, and geographer. His geocentric model of the universe lasted until the 16th century. |
| Pythagoras | (582?-500?BCE) Greek mathematician responsible for the Pythagorean Theorem which states the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. |
| Rasputin, Grigory | (1872-1916) Russian peasant and self-proclaimed holy man. He was friends with the ruling Romanov family, and sometime advisor to Czarina Alexandra. His advice was on of the factors leading to the Russian Revolution. |
| Rhodes, Cecil | (1853-1902) British statesman who was instrumental in assuring British dominance of southern Africa. He founded the De Beers Mining Company, eventually controlling 90% of the world’s diamond production. After becoming prime minister of the Cape Colony (now South Africa) in 1890, he used his influence to strengthen British control over the region. His master plan was to establish a Cape to Cairo railroad line that would link British colonial interests in Africa between Egypt and the Cape Colony in southern Africa. The Boers, however, provided heavy and eventually armed resistance to this proposal. After authorizing an aggressive invasion of the Boer Republic of Transvall which ended poorly, Rhodes was removed from office. However, the seeds of the Boer War had been sown. |
