A Partial List In Rough Chronological Order (13 May, 2015, 24 Iyar, 5775)
Some (out of more) Sources Used in the article below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_redheads
http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/the-irish-and-the-most-famous-red-heads-in-history-see-photos-113571754-237771741.html
http://christophreilly.hubpages.com/hub/Redheads-Myths--Legends--and-Famous-Red-Hair
http://hubpages.com/hub/Top-20-Famous-Redheads-in-History
Esau
Brother of Jacob (Israel) was described as an "Admoni" (Genesis 25:25 ) which probably means red-haired.
See:
Esau the Red-Head
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/bible/esau2/esau1.html
Set (Seth)
Egyptian god. Killed and mutilated his own brother Osiris who was resurrected by Isis and remained long enough to impregnate her with Horus who in turn was worshipped by Ancient Egyptians and Israelites in Samaria, northern Israel. Set was identified with the desert, with the former Hyksos rulers of Egypt, and with the areas of Edom and Israel. Set had red hair, and for this reason people with red hair (according to Strabo) were regularly sacrificed in Egypt.
Ramses-2 of Egypt
Ruler of Egypt (d. 1230 BCE) probably had red hair.
David
King of Israel and prototype of the Future Messiah, author of the Psalms, also described as an "Admoni" (1-Samuel 16:12) i.e. red-head.
Alexander The Great
(356 - 323 BCE) Macedonian Conqueror of Greece and the Persian Empire and other places. Considered one of the most successful military commanders of all time.
Etruscans
An Ancient people in Tuscany, north Italy, the ancestors of some of whom had arrived from Lydia in West Turkey. Influenced the early Romans and intermixed with them. Etruscan wall frescoes depict mostly people with black hair along with quite a few whose hair appears to be red.
Judas Iscariot
former follower and allegedly ultimate betrayer of the Christian Messiah is usually depicted with red hair.
Boudicca
(died 60 / 61 CE) Boudica was a queen of the Brythonic Celtic Iceni people of Norfolk in Eastern Britain.
Lead a rebellion against the Romans. Roman historian Deo Cassius Boudicca as " tall and terrifying in appearance [with] a great mass of red hair."
Niall of the Nine Hostages
(ca. 300s-400s CE) the ancestor of the Ui Neill family that dominated Ireland from the 500s CE to the 900s and from whom most of the ancient kings were descended.
Descendants of Niall are identified by a peculiar genetic marker. Many of them have red hair. The incidence of red hair in Norway is now considered due to descendants of Niall who may have been brought there as captives.
Mahomad
(570-632) saw visions and founded a religion and changed the world. Mohamet is believed to have had red hair. In various hadiths (extraneous traditions) however it is said he dyed it that way.
Devout Muslims who have been to Mecca a number of times had the practice of dyeing their beard red. My father once saw a hair in India that was claimed to have belonged to Mohamed and revered by Muslims. It was red.
Rurik
(c. 862 CE) Viking founder of Rurik Dynasty in Russia.
Otto 2
(955 - 983), called the Red (Rufus), Holy Roman Emperor from 973 until his death in 983, conquered Italy.
William Rufus
i.e. William 2 ( c. 1056- 1100), of England (son of William the Conqueror of Normandy) was a great king with a bad reputation. He was good to the Jews.
Frederick Barbarossa
Frederick-1 (1122 - 1190), also known as Frederick Barbarossa, "red beard" in Italian; in German, he was known as "Kaiser Rotbart", which has the same meaning.
by inheritance Duke of Swabia, became King of Germany (1152) and then Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death in 1190. Conquests in Italy, died on his way to Crusades in the Holy land. Considered a Messianic Figure in German Mythology.
Richard the Lionheart
(1157-1199) King of England, and crusader leader.
The House of Plantagenet
a French family (originating from Anjou in France) that held the English throne from 1154 to 1485, had (in addition to Richard-1) at least some other red-haired members.
Genghis Khan
(c. 1162 - 1227), created the Mongol Empire.
Isabella I
(1451-1504) Queen of Castille married Ferdinand-2 of Aragon and thus united the Kingdom of Spain. Probably primarily responsible for Expulsion of the Jews in 1492. Helped sponsor discoveries of Christopher Colombus who also had reddish hair.
Christopher Columbus
(1451-1506) discovered America.
Spanish Inquisition Victims.
The Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478 by the monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella who herself had red hair. It is said to have interrogated red-haired people who were suspected of having Jewish blood or of being in league with the devil or both.
Henry-8
(1491-1547) broke with Rome and formed the Church of England.
Elizabeth-1
(1533 - 1603) Queen of England and Ireland. [The brother of Elizabeth, Edward-6, and her sister, Mary-1, were also monarchs of England and they too had red hair].
James 6 of Scotland and 1 of England
(1566 - 1625) united the crowns of England and Scotland. First Stuart monarch of Britain.
Galileo
(1564 - 1642) Improved telescopes, astronomical observations. Stephen Hawking says, "Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science."
Oliver Cromwell
(1599-1658) Leader of the English Parliamentary forces against the Stuart Kings, ruled as dictator (Lord Protector), known for his Puritan beliefs.
George Washington
(1732-1799) Founding Father of the United States, leader of its army, and its first President.
Napoleon Bonaparte
(1769 - 1821) Emperor of France, attempted conquest of all Europe, instituted widespread reform everywhere.
Thomas Jefferson
(1743 - 1826) an American Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and the third President of the United States (1801-1809).
Florence Nightingale
(1820 - 1910) Florence Nightingale was a celebrated English nurse. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night. Reformed care for the sick in Britain.
Ulysses S. Grant
(1822-1885) U.S. president and General
General George A. Custer
(1839 - 1876) George Armstrong Custer was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Today he is most remembered for a disastrous military engagement known as the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Vincent Van Gogh
(1853 - 1890) well-known Impressionist painter.
Mark Twain
(1835 - 1910) Samuel Langhorne Clemens author of 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' (1885), and 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' (1876).
Vladimir Lenin
(1870-1924) Russian Reolutionary.
George Bernard Shaw
(1856 - 1950) George Bernard Shaw was an Anglo-Irish playwright, wrote more than 60 plays.
Winston Churchill
(1874 - 1965). Leader of the Free World, statesman, historian.
Dwight Eisenhower
(1890 - March 28, 1969) Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe in WW2; the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961.
Red-Haired Rabbis
Many Rabbis were red-haired. This fact is usually not even mentioned unless there is something that has drawn attention to it, as in the example below:
# It is stated in the writings of Napoleon that in all his battles he saw a red-haired Jew winning the victory for him, just as Alexander the Great saw Simeon the Just in his battles [Talmud, Yoma 69a]. But at his last battle, at Waterloo, where he fell, he did not see the image of the red-haired man. It is known that our Rabbi, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Rymanov, was red-haired # (Ateret Menachem no 127).
Source: "Imagining Holiness: Classic Hasidic Tales in Modern Times"
By Justin Jaron Lewis p.125, Quebec, Canada, 2009