Frederick the Great

About Frederick the Great

Frederick II, known as Frederick the Great (1712–1786), was a transformative political figure and military leader who ascended as King of Prussia. His enduring historical importance stems from his role in the Age of Enlightenment and his military prowess, notably expanding Prussian territory and elevating its status to that of a major European power through conflicts like the Silesian Wars. This significance secures his position at #348 on MIT's Historical Popularity Index, recognizing his profound, multi-lingual, and long-lasting global cultural impact.

Despite this high historical ranking, Frederick the Great captures a modest 883K Wikipedia pageviews in 2025, indicating a clear attention gap. His level of online attention is quite low relative to his historical weight, evidenced by an +2x overattention score, which seems counterintuitive until compared with modern figures. For context, the contemporary politician Angela Merkel, ranked similarly at #366, garners 1.3M views, while Dwight D. Eisenhower (#814 importance) pulls in a massive 3.5M views, suggesting a massive contemporary interest bias over deep historical focus.

Encouragingly, Frederick's interest is not entirely static; the annualized year-over-year change is +1.1%, and his Q1 to Q3 momentum is a positive +4% in 2025, suggesting a slight but persistent interest trajectory in the modern digital sphere.