Von in the context of "Ritter"

Leopold von Ranke (21 December 1795 – 23 May 1886) was a German historian and a founder of modern source-based history. He was able to implement the seminar teaching method in his classroom and focused on archival research and the analysis of historical documents. Building on the methods of the Göttingen school of history, he was the first to establish a historical seminar. Ranke set the standards for much of later historical writing, introducing such ideas as reliance on primary sources (empiricism), an emphasis on narrative history and especially international politics (Außenpolitik). He was ennobled in 1865, with the addition of a "von" to his name.

Ranke also had a great influence on Western historiography and is considered a symbol of the quality of 19th century German historical studies. Ranke, influenced by Barthold Georg Niebuhr, was very talented in constructing narratives without exceeding the limits of historical evidence. His critics have noted the influence of Lutheranism in guiding his work, especially his belief that God's actions were manifest in the lives of men and history, a viewpoint that shaped his ideas that the German Empire was a manifestation of God's intent.

Edler (German: [ˈeːdlɐ]) was until 1919 the lowest rank of nobility in Austria-Hungary and Germany, just beneath a Ritter (hereditary knight), but above untitled nobles, who used only the nobiliary particle von before their surname. It was mostly given to civil servants and military officers, as well as those upon whom the lower rank of an Order had been conferred. The noun Edler comes from the adjective edel ("noble"), and translated literally means "noble [person]". In accordance with the rules of German grammar, the word can also appear as Edle, Edlem, or Edlen depending on case, gender, and number.

Originally, from the Middle Ages, under the feudal system (in Europe and elsewhere), the nobility were generally those who held a fief, often in the form of heritable land worked by vassals. To preserve the feudal naming practice, even in cases where upper-ranking bureaucrats received patents of nobility for long service or merit, as in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries (see noblesse de robe), the old practice of denoting a noble with a territorial designation was continued out of a sense of tradition.

Ernst Werner Siemens (von Siemens from 1888; /ˈsiːmənz/ SEEM-ənz; German: [ˈziːməns, -mɛns]; 13 December 1816 – 6 December 1892) was a German electrical engineer, inventor and industrialist. Siemens's name has been adopted as the SI unit of electrical conductance, the siemens. He founded the electrical and telecommunications conglomerate Siemens and invented the electric tram, trolley bus, electric locomotive and electric elevator.

His dynamo laid the foundation for the modern age of electricity and he was involved in the development of the electric car.