Cecil Rhodes

About Cecil Rhodes

Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902) was a British imperialist, businessman, and mining magnate whose political and financial power was instrumental in shaping the southern African map, including the territories that would eventually be named Rhodesia. As a pivotal figure in the expansion of the British Empire, his influence warranted a high placement in the Pantheon project, securing him an Historical Popularity Index (HPI) rank of #733 among approximately 15,000 figures.

Despite this significant historical weight, Rhodes's modern internet attention is relatively modest. In 2025, his Wikipedia page garnered 666K annualized views, placing his Attention Gap at approximately 1x, suggesting his online visibility is fairly aligned with his historical importance when compared to the overall baseline. However, this number is markedly lower than other businesspeople in the comparison pool, such as Bill Gates (#765 importance) who received 3.4M views, or even Oskar Schindler (#963 importance), who saw 1.4M views.

Interestingly, Rhodes's online presence shows a positive trend, with year-over-year Wikipedia pageviews increasing by +16.4%, though his short-term momentum between Q1 and Q3 of 2025 was flat at 0%.