Genealogy of Influence

I was a history major in college and have always been fascinated by all sorts of historical things. This gentlemen has mapped out visually a relationship map called "Genealogy of Influence" which documents a visualization of the connections between the most influential writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians of Western culture.
If you go to the page its a relatively large flash or Java file, but once you get there you can click on each individual and how they are interrelated. It is extremely neat to see how the screen moves let alone how some people influenced others and how they continue to 100's of years after there deaths!