20 Historical Figures Whose Images Have Completely Changed

Messner became famous as a relentless, almost intimidating mountaineer who viewed Everest as a personal challenge, especially after reaching the summit without supplemental oxygen in 1978. After climbing all 14 peaks over 8,000 meters, he turned his attention to expeditions, museums, and environmental causes, giving his public image a new lease on life that goes beyond his reputation as a tough guy.

He got his start as a member of the Detroit Reds, a street gang, shaped by Harlem, prison, and a world that had given him little reason to be kind. His pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964 opened up new horizons for him and transformed him into a global advocate for human rights, endowed with a broader and deeper religious vision.

Landau was one of the Soviet Union’s most brilliant theoretical physicists—the kind of mind that made other intellectuals feel a little small. After a terrible car accident in 1962, his legacy quietly shifted from his own work to the generation of young physicists he had trained and shaped.

At first, Kant wrote about the natural sciences, metaphysics, and the mechanics of all things, which made him seem like a man eager to explain the entire universe. But it was his later moral philosophy—particularly the one he developed in Königsberg—that made him the philosopher most people think of today when they hear the word “duty.”

Elizabeth spent much of her youth as a political liability: the daughter of a disgraced mother, dependent on a king whose favor could vanish overnight. As queen, she transformed all that uncertainty into power, turning her identity as the “virgin queen” into something that felt less like a personal loss and more like a deliberate strategy.

Garibaldi’s early years were marked by failed uprisings, exile, and campaigns in South America that could have caused him to fade quietly into obscurity. Instead, the Red Shirts made him the face of Italian unification, and the 19th century reveled in it.

Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was still very young, which would have been enough to confine many writers to a single identity forever. But after enduring devastating personal losses and financial pressures, she forged a new identity for herself as a publisher, biographer, and serious political writer, carefully managing both her own career and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s reputation after his death.

He began his career as a Corsican artillery officer, possessing a genuine talent for making victories seem as though they had always been inevitable. He knew how to capitalize on this carefully cultivated imperial image so effectively that even after his exile, he returned presenting himself as a liberator—not as a man who had just lost everything.

Cassius Clay was already a champion, but Ali realized that fame without a sense of self was fundamentally meaningless. He refused to be drafted into the Vietnam War, suffered the professional consequences, and emerged with a stature far greater than that of a mere sports star.

François-Marie Arouet had a knack for antagonizing the powerful, which led to his imprisonment and sharpened his flair for the dramatic. Voltaire was born of satire, reason, and religious criticism.

Psalmanazar pulled off one of the strangest hoaxes of the 18th century by claiming to be from Formosa, with a made-up language and a completely fictional life story. Once it all came crashing down, he managed to reinvent himself as a writer and scholar.

He began his life as a nobleman trained in warfare and court life, as well as in all the duties of the aristocracy. After being wounded in battle in 1521, he applied all that discipline to religion and eventually founded the Society of Jesus.

Before becoming Saint Augustine, he was a rhetorician with insatiable curiosity who spent years tirelessly attending philosophical schools. His conversion made him one of Christianity’s most important thinkers.

Wilde first perfected the art of being seen, becoming the refined master of wit, theater, and high society in London. After his imprisonment, all that changed, and the wounded, reflective voice that followed became just as much a part of his legend as the sharp one that had preceded it.

He was born into a life of comfort, surrounded by wealth and protection. By renouncing all of that, embracing an ascetic lifestyle, and ultimately teaching a path to freedom from suffering, he forged a new identity for himself—one far greater than that of the prince he had left behind.

Saul of Tarsus began by actively opposing the nascent Christian movement—not exactly the path one would expect from a future apostle. After his conversion on the road to Damascus, he became one of the most tireless organizers and writers of that faith, helping to spread it throughout the Roman Empire.

Paine did not come from a background conducive to writing political works capable of changing the world, which makes his rise all the more surprising. He was hailed as a revolutionary voice, and his later deist writings clearly showed that he had no desire to rest on his laurels once he became famous.

Newton’s early years were directly linked to the brutal machinery of the transatlantic slave trade. After a religious awakening and a long and difficult period of soul-searching, he became a pastor and, eventually, a leading advocate for abolition.

Bonhoeffer first made a name for himself as a theologian and pastor, renowned for his rigorous scholarship and strict Christian ethics. Under the Nazi regime, all of that turned into something far more dangerous. He joined the resistance and was killed in 1945.

Ashoka began his reign as a Maurya emperor who expanded his power in the traditional manner—through force and at the cost of immense suffering. After the bloodbath at Kalinga, he publicly embraced Buddhist principles and reinvented himself as a ruler focused on the well-being, moderation, and welfare of his people. It was a nobler legacy than endless conquests—and, to be honest, a better policy as well.