Theodor Herzl (Hebrew: תאודור הרצל‎, Hungarian: Herzl Tivadar; May 2, 1860 – July 3, 1904), born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl (Hebrew: בִּנְיָמִין זְאֵב הֵרצְל‎, also known as חוֹזֵה הַמְדִינָה, Hozeh HaMedinah, lit. "Visionary of the State") was an Ashkenazi Jewish Austro-Hungarian journalist and the father of modern political Zionism and in effect the State of Israel.

He was born in Pest, Hungary, to an Ashkenazi Jewish family originally from Zimony (today Zemun, Serbia), which was then part of Austria-Hungary. He was second child of Jeanette and Jakob Herzl, who were German-speaking, assimilated Jews. A precocious, moody daydreamer, he aspired to follow the footsteps of Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal. He did not succeed in the sciences, and he developed a growing enthusiasm for poetry and the humanities. This passion would later develop into a successful career in journalism and a less celebrated pursuit of play-writing.

Herzl had minimal interest in religious Judaism as a child, consistent with his parents’ lax adherence to the Jewish tradition. His mother relied more on German humanist Kultur than Jewish ethics. Instead of a Bar Mitzvah, Herzl's thirteenth birthday was advertised as a "confirmation". He grew up as a "thoroughly emancipated, antitraditional, secular, would-be German boy" who dismissed all religion, and spoke of Judaism with "mocking cynicism." He exhibited a secularist disdain toward religion, which he saw as uncivilized. Even after becoming interested in the "Jewish question," Herzl's writing retained traces of Jewish self-contempt, according to Elon.

His Imperial Majesty, The Sultan Abdülhamid II, Emperor of the Ottomans, Caliph of the Faithful (also known as Abdul Hamid II , Abd Al-Hamid II Khan Ghazi and The Crimson Sultan) (Ottoman Turkish: عبد الحميد ثانی `Abdü’l-Ḥamīd-i sânî, Turkish: İkinci Abdülhamit) (21/22 September 1842 – 10 February 1918) was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He was the last Sultan to exert effective control over the Ottoman Empire. He oversaw a period of decline in the power and extent of the Empire, ruling from 31 August 1876 until he was deposed on 27 April 1909. He was succeeded by Mehmed V. His deposition following the Young Turk Revolution was hailed by most Ottoman citizens, who welcomed the return to constitutional rule.

Abdülhamid II was born in Topkapı Palace in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople). He was the son of Sultan Abdülmecid I and one of his many wives, the Valide Sultan Tirimüjgan, 16 August 1819 – Constantinople, Feriye Palace, 3 October 1852), originally named Virjin. He later also became the adoptive son of another of his father's wives, Valide Sultan Rahime Perestu. He was a skilled carpenter and personally crafted most of his own furniture, which can be seen today at the Yıldız Palace and Beylerbeyi Palace in Istanbul. Abdülhamid II was also interested in opera and personally wrote the first-ever Turkish translations of many opera classics. He also composed several opera pieces for the Mızıka-ı Hümayun which he established, and hosted the famous performers of Europe at the Opera House of Yıldız Palace which was recently restored and featured in the film Harem Suare (1999) of the Turkish-Italian director Ferzan Özpetek, which begins with the scene of Abdülhamid II watching a performance. Unlike many other Ottoman sultans, Abdülhamid II traveled to distant countries. Nine years before he took the throne, he accompanied his uncle Sultan Abdülaziz on his visit to Austria, France and England in 1867.

Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] ( listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II, and the Holocaust.

A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.

Derek Jonathan Penslar (born 1958) is a Canadian historian. He was raised in Los Angeles, attended Stanford University for his first degree, and then took his graduate degrees at the University of California at Berkeley, where his advisors were Richard Webster, Amos Funkenstein and Gerald Feldman. Penslar taught at Indiana University in Bloomington from 1987 to 1998, when he moved to Toronto to assume the Samuel J. Zacks Chair in Jewish History at the University of Toronto (U of T). Between 2002 and 2008 he directed U of T's Centre for Jewish Studies.

In 2011, it was announced that he was to become the first Stanley Lewis professor of Israel studies at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, following a £3m donation. He will become a fellow of St Anne's College.

Penslar's areas of research expertise include modern European Jewry, Zionism and Israel. Historian Michael Berkowitz calls Penslar "one of the most trenchant [analysts] of how Zionism functioned on the ground in Palestine in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."