10 Most Influential Powerful Families In History:
it was a list of the most powerful families. This new list give you a broader view of some of the most powerful historic families while not excluding royal houses (who dominate this list as one would expect). Let us hope this is received better than the original (which I should add, was not without its merits). So, here is a list of top 10 Most Influential Powerful Families In History
10. Rothschild Family
The Rothschild family (often referred to simply as the Rothschilds), is an international banking and finance dynasty of German Jewish origin that established operations over Europe, and was ennobled by the Austrian and British governments. The family’s ascent to international prominence began with Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812 – pictured above), whose strategy for future achievement was to keep control of their businesses in family hands, allowing them to maintain full discretion about the size of their wealth and their business organizations .
Mayer Rothschild successfully kept the fortune in the family with deliberately arranged marriages between closely related family members. Nathan Mayer Rothschild began his London business, N. M. Rothschild and Sons in 1811 at New Court in St Swithin’s Lane, City of London, where it still trades today. In 1818, he arranged a £5 million loan to the Prussian government, and the issuing of bonds for government loans formed a backbone of his bank’s business. He gained a position of such power in the City of London that by 1825–6 he could able to supply enough coin to the Bank of England to enable it to avert a market liquidity crisis.
9. Plantagenets
In the toss-up between including the Plantagenets or the Tudors, the Plantagenet’s won because much of the development of the English culture and political framework (which remains to this day) arose under their rule. Under the Tudors, the Church of England was shaped and some say a golden age occurred, but the significance of the Plantagenet line is far greater (and furthermore, Henry VIII was descended matrilineally from the Plantagenet family anyway). The House of Plantagenet was a royal house established by Henry II of England, son of Geoffrey V of Anjou. The Plantagenet lords first ruled the Kingdom of England in the 12th century. In total, fifteen Plantagenet monarchs, including those belonging to cadet branches, ruled England from 1154 until 1485.
An unmistakable English culture and art emerged during the Plantagenet era, encouraged by some of the rulers who were patrons of the “father of English poetry”; Geoffrey Chaucer. The Gothic architecture style was popular amid the time, with buildings such as the Westminster Abbey and York Minster redesigned in that style. There was also lasting developments in the social sector, such as John I of England’s signing of the Magna Carta (pictured above). This was powerful in the development of common law and constitutional law. Political institutions such as the Parliament of England and the Model Parliament originate from the Plantagenet period, as do educational foundations including the University of Cambridge and Oxford.
8. Nehru-Gandhi family
The Nehru-Feroz Gandhi family is an Indian political family which has been dominant in the Indian National Congress for most of India’s early Freedom Movement. Three members of the family (Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi) have been Prime Minister of India, two of whom (Indira and Rajiv Gandhi) have been Killed. A fourth member of the family, Sonia Gandhi, is currently Congress President, while her and Rajiv’s son, Rahul Gandhi, is the youngest member of the family to enter dynamic governmental issues when he contested and won a seat in the lower house of the Parliament of India in 2004. The Nehru-Feroz Gandhi family is not identified to Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi. The Nehru-Gandhis are the most prominent example of the tradition of dynastic leadership in Asian democratic countries.
The Guardian wrote in 2007 “The Nehru Gandhi Family Brand has no peer in the world — a member of the family has been in charge of India for 40 of the 60 years since independence. The allure of India first family blends the right to rule of British Monarch with the tragic glamour of America’s Kennedy Tribes.”
The Gandhi Initial came from Feroze Gandhi , who changed the spelling of his surname after joining the Indian independence movement to bring it in line with that of Mahatma Gandhi.Indira Priyadarshini Nehru (the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru) married Feroze Gandhi in 1942 and adopted his surname.
7. Khan Family
Genghis Khan (pictured above) was the founder, Khan (ruler) and Khagan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous realm in history.
He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic Clans of northeast Asia. After founding the Mongol Empire and being proclaimed “Genghis Khan”, he started the Mongol invasions and strikes of the Kara-Khitan Khanate, Caucasus, Khwarezmid Empire, Western Xia and Jin dynasties. During his life, the Mongol Empire involved in occupying a substantial portion of Central Asia.
Before Genghis Khan died, he assigned Ogedei Khan as his successor and split his domain into khanates among his sons and grandsons. He died in 1227 after crushing the Tanguts. He was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Mongolia at a location obscure. His descendants went on to stretch the Mongol Empire across most of Eurasia by conquering and/or creating vassal states out of all of Present -day China, Korea, the Caucasus, Central Asian countries, and substantial portions of modern Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
6. Claudia and Julius Families
These two families are combined in one item as they were two of the most important families in Ancient Rome and eventually combined together to form the Julio-Claudian Dynasty that provided the most famous emperors: Caligula, Augustus (pictured above), Claudius, Tiberius, and Nero. These five emperors controlled the Roman Empire from 27 BC to AD 68, when the last of the line, Nero, committed suicide. These five rulers were connected through marriage and adoption into the familial gens Julio and gens Claudia.
Julius Caesar is sometimes inaccurately seen as its founder, although he was not an emperor and had no Claudian connections; Augustus is the more Likely accepted founder . The reigns of the Julian-Claudian emperors bear some comparative traits: All came to power through indirect or adopted relations. Each expanded the domain of the Roman Empire and initiated massive construction projects. They were generally loved by the common people, but were resented by the senatorial class – a sentiment reflected by ancient historians. Ancient historians portray the Julio-Claudians as self-aggrandizing, mad, sexually perverse and tyrannical.
5. Zhu Family
zhang-Emperor Taizu Of Ming Dynasty“Zhu” was the family name of the rulers of the Ming Dynasty. The first Ming Emperor, Hongwu (Zhu Yuanzhang – pictured above) selected to use the name Ming for the dynastic name. Ming means “Brilliant”. The Ming Dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, after the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, “one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in mankind’s history,” was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic Hans. Despite the fact that the Ming capital Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, which was itself soon replaced by the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty (the last Chinese imperial family), regimes loyal to the Ming throne (collectively called the Southern Ming) survived until 1662.
Ming rule saw the development of a vast navy and a standing army of one million troops. There were gigantic construction projects, including the restoration of the Grand Canal and the Great Wall and the foundation of the Forbidden City in Beijing during the first quarter of the 15th century. Estimates for the late-Ming population vary from 160 to 200 million. The Ming dynasty is often regarded as both a high point in Chinese human advancement as well as a dynasty in which early signs of capitalism emerged.
In the early 1630s, a Minister named Li Zicheng (1606–45) mutinied with his fellow soldiers in western Shaanxi.[47] Li’s rebel forces retaliated the Administration by killing the officials, and drove a rebellion based in Rongyang, central Henan province by 1635.[48] By the 1640s, an ex-soldier and rival to Li—Zhang Xianzhong (1606–47)—had made a firm rebel base in Chengdu, Sichuan, while Li’s center of power was in Hubei with extended influence over Shaanxi and Henan
4. Habsburgs
The House of Habsburg was an important royal place of Europe and is best known as supplying all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1452 and 1740, as well as rulers of Spain and the Austrian Domain. Initially from Switzerland, the dynasty first reigned in Austria, which they ruled for over 6 centuries, but a series of dynastic marriages brought Burgundy, Spain, Bohemia, Hungary and different regions into the inheritance. The dynasty is named after their seat of origin, the Habsburg Castle in the Swiss Canton of Aargau.
The dynasty’s motto is “Let others wage wars, but you, happy Austria, shall marry”, which indicates the talent of the Habsburgs to have their members intermarry into other royal Palace, to make alliances and inherit territory. Empress Maria Theresa (pictured above) is recognized remarkably for it and is sometimes referred to as the ‘Great-Grandmother of Europe’.
3. Ptolemy Family
The Ptolemaic Family was a Hellenistic Macedonian royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt for nearly 300 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC. Ptolemy, one of the seven bodyguards who served as Alexander the Great’s generals and appointees, was appointed satrap of Egypt after Alexander’s death in 323 BC. In 305 BC, he proclaimed himself King Ptolemy I, later known as “Soter” (saviour). The Egyptians soon accepted the Ptolemies as the successors to the pharaohs of free Egypt. Ptolemy’s family ruled Egypt until the Roman success of 30 BC. The most famous member of the Family was the last queen, Cleopatra VII (pictured above), known for her role in the Roman political battles between Julius Caesar and Pompey, and later between Octavian and Mark Antony. Her suicide at the triumph by Rome marked the end of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt.
2. Medici Family
The Mèdici family was a great and powerful and influential Florentine family from the 13th to 17th century. The family had three popes (Leo X – pictured above, Clement VII, and Leo XI), Different rulers of Florence (notably Lorenzo the Magnificent, patron of some of the most famous works of Renaissance art) and later members of the French and English eminence. Like other signore families they dominated their city’s administration.
They were able to bring Florence under their family’s power, allowing for an environment where art and humanism could flourish. They led the birth of the Italian Renaissance along with the other great signore families of italy for example the Visconti and Sforza families of Milan, the Este of Ferrara, and the Gonzaga of Mantua. The Medici Bank was standout the most prosperous and most respected in Europe. There are some estimates that the Medici family were for a period of time the Richest family in Europe. From this base, they gained political power initially in Florence and later in wider Italy and Europe.
1. Capetian Family
The Capetian dynasty is the biggest European royal house. It includes any of the direct descendants of Hugh Capet of France. King Juan Carlos of Spain and Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg are members of this family, both through the Bourbon branch of the tradition. Over the course of the preceding centuries, Capetians Extend throughout Europe, ruling every form of provincial unit from kingdoms to estates. Besides being the most numerous royal family in Europe, it also is one of the most incestuous, especially in the Spanish Monarchy.
Many years have gone since the Capetian monarchs ruled a large part of Europe, however they still stay as kings, as well as other titles. Currently two Capetian rulers still rule in Spain and Luxembourg. In addition, seven pretenders represent exiled dynastic rulers in Brazil, France, Spain, Portugal, Parma and Two Sicilies. The current legitimate senior relative member is Louis Alfonso (pictured above), the Duke of Anjou, who also holds the Legitimist claim to the French throne. Overall, dozens of branches of the Capetian dynasty still exist throughout Europe.Notable Omissions: Merovingians, Qin family, Bhutto family, Tudors, Romanovs, Stuarts, House of Orange, Berenguer family, Kennedy family, Vanderbilt family
