Sunday, August 12, 2018

Red-haired first and founders, 1st part (1 - 50)

While working at our partner blog Famous Redheads in History I couldn’t help but notice the great number of “first” and “founders” among our famous redheads. Here’s a list of the first 50.

For the second part, see here.
Third part here
Fourth part

Fifth part.

1) Francis Drake:  he carried out the second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580, and was the first to complete the voyage as captain while leading the expedition throughout the entire circumnavigation.


2) William Farel:  founder of the Reformed Church in the Principality of Neuchâtel, in the Republic of Geneva, and in Switzerland in the Canton of Bern and the (then occupied by Bern) Canton of Vaud.

3) Galileo Galilei:  he has been called the "father of observational astronomy", the "father of modern physics", the "father of the scientific method", and even the "father of science".

4) Tycho Brahe:  he has been described as "the first competent mind in modern astronomy to feel ardently the passion for exact empirical facts."

5) Camille Jenatzy:  He is known for breaking the land speed record three times and being the first man to break the 100 km/h barrier.

6) Dodge Brothers: founders of dodge Brothers Company. Horace invented the first dirt-proof ball bearing.

7) Christopher Colombus:  discoverer of the American continent.

8) Suzanne Valadon:  in 1894, Valadon became the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.


9) George Washington:  first American president.

10) Nathaniel Lyon: first Union general to be killed in the American Civil War.

11) Elizabeth of York:  first Tudor queen.

12) Ismail I:  founder of the Safavid dynasty of Iran.

13) Geoffrey I Plantagenet:  first Plantagenet king.

14) Cato the Elder:  first historian to write history in Latin.

15) Alexander Mackenzie: he is known for his overland crossing of what is now Canada, that reached the Pacific Ocean in 1793. This was the first east to west crossing of North America north of Mexico and preceded the Lewis and Clark Expedition by 12 years.

16) H. S. Lewis:  first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

17) Tamerlane:  as the founder of the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia he became the first ruler in the Timurid dynasty.

18) Philip I of Castile:  first member of the house of Habsburg to be King of Castile.


19) John Glenn:  first American to orbit the Earth, circling it three times.

20) Herbert B. Swope: first Pulitzer Prize for Reporting.

21) Mona von Bismark: first American to be named "The Best Dressed Woman in the World" by a panel of top couturiers, including Coco Chanel, and she was also named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame.

22) Patrick Henry:  a Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia.

23) Anna Bronwell Jameson:  first English art historian.


24) Brigham Young:  he founded Salt Lake City and served as the first governor of the Utah Territory.

25) Gerda Taro:  she is regarded as the first woman photojournalist to have died while covering the frontline in a war.

26) William Sherman:  British military historian B. H. Liddell Hart declared that Sherman was "the first modern general".

27)  Henry IV of France: first French monarch of the House of Bourbon, a branch of the Capetian dynasty.

28) Venus Ramey Murphy:  first Miss America to be photographed in colour.


29) Anita Snook: pioneer aviator who achieved a long list of firsts. She was the first woman aviator in Iowa, first woman student accepted at the Curtiss Flying School in Virginia, first woman aviator to run her own aviation business and first woman to run a commercial airfield.

30) Amelia Earhart:  first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

31) Fulk I of Anjou:  first count of Anjou.

32) Abd-ar-Rahman I:  founder of a Muslim dynasty that ruled the greater part of Iberia for nearly three centuries (including the succeeding Caliphate of Córdoba).

33) Gustav Vasa: he has been labelled the founder of modern Sweden, and the "father of the nation". He founded one of the now oldest orchestras of the world, the Kungliga Hovkapellet (Royal Court Orchestra).


34) Andrew Jackson:  founder of the Democratic Party.

35) L. R. Hubbard: founder of Scientology.

36) Isabella Stewart Gardner: founder of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

37) Florence Nighingale: founder of modern nursing and first female member of the Royal Statistical Society.

38) Vittorio Alfieri: he is considered the founder of Italian tragedy.


39) Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote is considered the first modern novel, a classic of Western literature, and among the best works of fiction ever written. His influence on the Spanish language has been so great that the language is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes").

40) Charlemagne: he was the first recognised emperor to rule from western Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state that Charlemagne founded is called the Carolingian Empire.

41) H. P. Blavatsky: co-founder of the Theosophical Society.

42) Edward VI of England: first monarch to be raised as a Protestant.

43) Richard Henry Lee: American founding father.

44) Bernardo O’Higgins: he is considered one of Chile's founding fathers, as he was the first holder of this title to head a fully independent Chilean state.

45) Alexander Hamilton:  American founding father.

46) Giuseppe Garibaldi:  Italian founding father.



47) Infanta Beatrice of Portugal: she was the one who introduced the name Emanuele into the House of Savoy through his son Emmanuel Philibert.

48) William Holman Hunt: co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

49) Henry VIII of England: his disagreement with the Pope about the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon led him to initiate the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from papal authority. He appointed himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England. Henry is also known as "the father of the Royal Navy"; he invested heavily on the navy, increasing its size greatly from a few to more than 50 ships.

50) Henry IV of England: Henry's mother was Blanche, heiress to the considerable Lancaster estates, and thus he became the first King of England from the Lancaster branch of the Plantagenets and the first King of England since the Norman Conquest whose mother tongue was English rather than French.