Historidex / Leaders

Great Leaders in History: Photos and What They Did

Rulers and leaders, what made them matter, and what you can learn from it.

36 great leaders in history stories

• Eisenhower with paratroopers before D-Day 1944, Greenham Common, England

  The day before D-Day, Eisenhower wrote a note to release if the invasion failed. It ends, "If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone." In this photo he talks with 101st Airborne paratroopers that evening, as they prepared for Normandy.

• The tsar who worked in a shipyard 1697, Dutch Republic

  In 1697 Peter the Great left Russia incognito as Peter Mikhailov and worked as a shipbuilder in the Netherlands. In 1722 he issued the Table of Ranks, 14 grades of state service, where reaching the 8th civil grade at first made a man a hereditary noble. It stayed in use until 1917.

• Ambrosius, the leader Gildas named 5th century, Britain

  Gildas, writing in the 500s, never mentions Arthur, but he credits Ambrosius Aurelianus with rallying the Britons against the Saxons before their victory at Badon Hill. Arthur appears in a Latin history compiled in Wales about 830, and no one has shown he existed. This Welsh picture of Ambrosius was drawn around 1500.

• Roosevelt picks the rainy season 1906, Panama Canal Zone

  Theodore Roosevelt said he chose November, the rainiest month, for his 1906 Panama trip so that any defects in management would be easiest to see. In three days ashore he inspected hospitals, housing and the Culebra Cut. Here he sits at the controls of a steam shovel.

• Elizabeth I recalls the debased coins 1560 to 1562, England

  Under Henry VIII and Edward VI, England's silver coins were mixed with base metal. In 1560 and 1561 Elizabeth I had the debased coins called in and melted, then reissued with more silver. This sixpence was struck in 1562, soon after.

• The law code Napoleon pushed through 1804, Paris, France

  A commission of four jurists drafted the French Civil Code, and Napoleon chaired more than half of the sessions that debated it. It took effect in 1804, replacing a patchwork of local laws, and later shaped law from Louisiana to Chile. It also required wives to obey their husbands.

• Frances Perkins, Roosevelt's Labor Secretary 1945, Washington, D.C., USA

  In 1933 Frances Perkins agreed to become Labor Secretary, the first woman in a US cabinet, only if Roosevelt backed her program. She stayed for his entire presidency, longer than any other Labor Secretary. This photo shows her in a car, apparently at the White House, on the day he died.

• Suleiman, the Lawgiver 1520 to 1566, Ottoman Empire

  Turks call Suleiman Kanuni, the Lawgiver. His government issued law books of sultanic rules on crime, land and tax, and his chief jurist Ebussuud Efendi worked to bring them in line with Islamic law. His criminal code set fines graded by the offender's wealth.

• Cyrus's clay cylinder from Babylon about 539-530 BCE, Babylon, Iraq

  After Cyrus the Great took Babylon in 539 BCE, a clay cylinder in his name was buried there. In the style of earlier Babylonian kings, it says he returned gods' statues to their shrines and let exiled peoples go home. Scholars read it as a typical royal inscription, not a human rights charter.

• Emperor Meiji in a Western uniform 1873, Tokyo, Japan

  In October 1873, after Emperor Meiji cut off his topknot, Uchida Kuichi photographed him in a new Western-style army uniform. Copies went to every prefectural office from November 1873, and it remained his official portrait until 1888.

• Haiti's help for Bolívar 1816, Haiti and Venezuela

  In 1816 Haiti's president Alexandre Pétion supplied Bolívar with muskets, munitions and men in return for a promise to free the enslaved. Bolívar's June 1816 decree declared them free but ordered able-bodied men aged 14 to 60 to enlist or stay enslaved with their families. Venezuela abolished slavery in 1854.

• Ashoka's orders, carved in stone c. 250 BCE, Allahabad, India

  After his bloody conquest of Kalinga, Ashoka had edicts carved on rocks and pillars across his empire. One rock edict orders medical care for people and animals and wells along roads. This is the Allahabad pillar, photographed about 1870, and its lion was added by the British in the 1830s.

• Liliuokalani lobbies Washington 1897, Washington, D.C., USA

  In late 1897 Liliuokalani lobbied in Washington against annexing Hawaii, while delegates delivered a petition with 21,269 Native Hawaiian signatures, more than half the Native population. By February 1898 the Senate lacked the votes to ratify the treaty. Annexation passed that July by joint resolution anyway.

• Charlemagne's order for schools 789, Frankish Empire

  In 789 Charlemagne issued the Admonitio generalis, orders that called for schools in every monastery and bishopric where boys would learn to read, and for church books to be corrected. Under his rule the clear Carolingian minuscule script spread. This portrait was engraved in 1662, more than 800 years after he died.

• Hatshepsut kneeling with offering jars about 1473-1458 BCE, Deir el-Bahri, Egypt

  Hatshepsut had at least ten kneeling statues like this made for her temple at Deir el-Bahri, and each held offering jars for the god Amun. Met excavators found the broken pieces there, and the museum rebuilt this one with plaster.

• Akbar with a lion and a calf c. 1630, Mughal India

  Govardhan painted Akbar about 1630, years after the emperor's death. A lion and a calf rest at his feet, a sign of peace under his rule, and cherubs bring a crown. In 1575 Akbar built a debating hall at Fatehpur Sikri, later opened to scholars of other faiths.

• Bismarck and his two dogs 1891, Friedrichsruh, Germany

  Bismarck outlawed socialist groups in 1878, then pushed through health insurance in 1883, accident insurance in 1884 and old-age and disability pensions in 1889. Historians still debate whether he wanted welfare or fewer socialist votes. Here he sits with his dogs Tyras II and Rebecca in 1891, after Wilhelm II dismissed him.

• Toussaint Louverture and his constitution 1801, Saint-Domingue, now Haiti

  Born enslaved, Toussaint Louverture fought for Spain, then switched to France after it abolished slavery in 1794. His 1801 constitution banned slavery forever in Saint-Domingue, but it also made him governor for life and let him use police rules to keep field workers on the plantations. He died in a French prison in 1803.

• The emperor who collected photographs 1876, Washington, D.C., USA

  Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, photographed by the Brady studio probably during his 1876 US tour, collected more than 21,000 photographs. He named some photographers Imperial House Photographer and bought images on his travels. He left the collection to Brazil's National Library, and UNESCO listed it in 2003.

• Washington gives up command 1783, Annapolis, Maryland

  At Newburgh in March 1783, with his officers unpaid and angry, Washington put on reading glasses and said he had grown gray and almost blind in his country's service. The officers backed down. John Trumbull's painting, finished in 1824, shows him at Annapolis that December, handing his commission back to Congress.

• Sun Yat-sen's immigration photo 1910, Probably Honolulu, Hawaii

  Sun Yat-sen was born in China in 1866, but in 1904, with Chinese Exclusion laws keeping most Chinese out of the US, he obtained a Hawaiian birth certificate claiming an 1870 birth there. As a US citizen on paper, he could enter and raise money for revolution. This immigration photo dates from 1910.

• Gudea's statue and its wrong head about 2144 to 2124 BCE, Girsu, Iraq

  Twice in the 20th century, this headless statue of Gudea was fitted with a head that came from a different sculpture. Cleveland separated them in 1974. Gudea ruled Lagash from about 2144 to 2124 BCE and was portrayed in many statues.

• Marble portrait of Alexander the Great 334 BCE, Granicus River, Turkey

  Alexander became king at 20, after lessons from Aristotle. At the Granicus in 334 BCE he led the cavalry charge himself, took a blow to the helmet, and was saved when Cleitus cut off a Persian's sword arm. This marble head in the Louvre, a Roman copy, is thought to follow a portrait by Lysippos.

• Mary McLeod Bethune and her students 1943, Daytona Beach, Florida, USA

  Mary McLeod Bethune opened her school in a rented Daytona Beach house in October 1904 with six students, five girls and her son. In 1936 she organized the Black Cabinet, Black federal officials who met weekly at her Washington home. Here she says goodbye to students in 1943 after stepping down as president.

• Susan B. Anthony on her porch 1900, Rochester, New York

  Susan B. Anthony stands on the porch of her Rochester home around 1900. In 1863 she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the Women's Loyal National League, which gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures asking Congress to abolish slavery. In 1873 a court fined her $100 for voting, and she refused to pay.

• Clara Barton and 60,000 letters 1865, Washington, D.C., USA

  Clara Barton opened the Office of Missing Soldiers in Washington in 1865. Families sent more than 60,000 letters asking about missing soldiers, and she hired clerks to answer them. At Andersonville she wrote to families rather than identifying graves, as is often claimed.

• Florence Nightingale, statistician 1858, England

  In 1858 Florence Nightingale put a colored polar-area diagram in a report on army health. It showed Crimean War deaths by cause and month, to argue that sanitary reform would save lives. That year she became the first woman elected to the Statistical Society of London.

• Cleopatra, the Younger Goddess 37 to 33 BCE, Possibly Antioch, Syria

  This 15 gram silver coin calls her Queen Cleopatra, the Younger Goddess. Mark Antony issued it during their alliance, and the museum notes her profile is an exact copy of his. His portrait, name and titles are on the back.

• Portrait of Ida B. Wells 1893, Chicago, Illinois, USA

  After a mob destroyed her Memphis newspaper office in 1892, Ida B. Wells was warned not to come back and settled in the North. She kept investigating lynchings, and for A Red Record in 1895 she used the Chicago Tribune's tallies, compiled by white men, rather than Black sources.

• The Maya queen who outranked her king 692, Waka', Guatemala

  This limestone stela, 2.7 m tall, was carved in 692 to mark a 20 year period called the k'atun in the Maya town of El Perú. It shows a royal woman known as Lady K'abel, who ruled there with her husband. She seems to have outranked him, serving as a military governor.

• Stela B at Copán 1899, Copan, Honduras

  Copán's Stela B was raised by a king who ruled from 695 to 738. Alfred Maudslay's team took paper molds of Copán's carvings, and plaster casts made from them went to London's South Kensington Museum, now the V&A. This print comes from the Maudslays' 1899 book.

• Gold Coin of Emperor Otho 69 CE, Rome

  Otho ruled Rome from 15 January to 16 April 69 CE. This gold coin shows him on the front and Securitas, the personification of security, on the back. He killed himself after his army lost to Vitellius's forces at Bedriacum.

• Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee 1906, Tuskegee, Alabama, USA

  Booker T. Washington reached Tuskegee in June 1881 with no land or buildings. The school opened July 4 with 30 students, who later made the bricks and built the campus. Here he stands third from left beside Robert Ogden, William Howard Taft and Andrew Carnegie, in April 1906.

• Alexander in an Elephant Scalp 306 BCE, Alexandria, Egypt

  Ptolemy I of Egypt put the dead Alexander the Great on his silver coins, wearing an elephant scalp that points to Alexander's campaign in the East. The back shows Athena and the Greek word for 'of Alexander'. The museum says Ptolemy used the image to back his own claim to power.

• Robert Smalls, Later a Congressman 1870s, Washington, D.C., USA

  On May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls took the steamer Planter out of Charleston harbor with his family and other enslaved people aboard, wearing the captain's coat and straw hat. He gave the proper signal at Fort Sumter, then surrendered to the Union blockade under a white bedsheet. He later served in Congress.

• Caesar's Comet on a Coin 19 to 18 BCE, Spain

  A comet shone over Rome in July 44 BCE during games honoring the murdered Julius Caesar, and many Romans took it as his soul. About 25 years later a mint in Spain put a comet on this silver denarius for Augustus, with the words DIVVS IVLIVS, the divine Julius.

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