Alexander von Humboldt

1769 – 1859

Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian polymath, geographer, and naturalist whose five-year expedition through South America and Mexico from 1799 to 1804 produced thousands of pages of empirical observation that founded the modern field of biogeography. He was among the first scientists to argue, as early as 1800, that human activity could induce climate change at a global scale, and his integrative approach to the natural world influenced Charles Darwin, Henry David Thoreau, and generations of ecologists. The 30-volume Cosmos he published in his last decades attempted nothing less than a unified description of the physical universe.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM