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MILITARY PERSONNEL

Simo Häyhä

1905 - 2002

Photo of Simo Häyhä

Icon of person Simo Häyhä

Simo Häyhä (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈsimo ˈhæy̯hæ] ; 17 December 1905 – 1 April 2002), often referred to by his nickname, The White Death (Finnish: Valkoinen kuolema; Russian: Белая смерть, romanized: Belaya smert’), was a Finnish military sniper in World War II during the 1939–1940 Winter War against the Soviet Union. He used a Finnish-produced M/28-30 (a variant of the Mosin–Nagant rifle) and a Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun. He is believed to have killed over 500 enemy soldiers during the Winter War, the highest number of sniper kills in any major war. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Simo Häyhä has received more than 9,587,284 page views. His biography is available in 48 different languages on Wikipedia. Simo Häyhä is the 27th most popular military personnel (down from 25th in 2019), the 3rd most popular biography from Finland (down from 2nd in 2019) and the most popular Finnish Military Personnel.

Simo Häyhä is most famous for his service in the Winter War, where he was credited with killing over 500 Soviet soldiers.

Memorability Metrics

  • 9.6M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 76.07

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 48

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 10.55

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 2.86

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Page views of Simo Häyhä by language


Among MILITARY PERSONNELS

Among military personnels, Simo Häyhä ranks 27 out of 1,468Before him are Ratko Mladić, Ptolemy I Soter, Pyrrhus of Epirus, Cao Cao, Charles XIV John of Sweden, and Cesare Borgia. After him are Jochi, Wilhelm Keitel, Friedrich Paulus, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Vercingetorix, and Douglas MacArthur.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1905, Simo Häyhä ranks 5Before him are Jean-Paul Sartre, Howard Hughes, Ayn Rand, and Albert Speer. After him are Christian Dior, Viktor Frankl, Greta Garbo, Elias Canetti, Dag Hammarskjöld, Henry Fonda, and Mikhail Sholokhov. Among people deceased in 2002, Simo Häyhä ranks 4Before him are Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, and Astrid Lindgren. After him are Pierre Bourdieu, Thor Heyerdahl, Hans-Georg Gadamer, John Rawls, Billy Wilder, Richard Harris, Vavá, and Prince Claus of the Netherlands.

Others Born in 1905

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Others Deceased in 2002

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In Finland

Among people born in Finland, Simo Häyhä ranks 3 out of 642Before him are Alvar Aalto (1898) and Jean Sibelius (1865). After him are Tove Jansson (1914), Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (1867), Paavo Nurmi (1897), Sauli Niinistö (1948), Tarja Halonen (1943), Urho Kekkonen (1900), Mika Waltari (1908), Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1888), and Juho Kusti Paasikivi (1870).

Among MILITARY PERSONNELS In Finland

Among military personnels born in Finland, Simo Häyhä ranks 1After him are Ernst Linder (1868), Ilmari Juutilainen (1914), Carl Johan Adlercreutz (1759), Erik Heinrichs (1890), Paavo Talvela (1897), Ali Aaltonen (1884), and Aaro Pajari (1897).