List of Famous people named Charles

Charles Julius Guiteau was an American writer and lawyer who assassinated United States President James A. Garfield on July 2, 1881. Guiteau falsely believed he had played a major role in Garfield's victory, for which he should be rewarded with a consulship. He was so offended by the Garfield administration's rejections of his applications to serve in Vienna or Paris that he decided to kill Garfield, and shot him at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. Garfield died two months later from infections related to the wounds. In January 1882, Guiteau was sentenced to death for the crime, and was hanged five months later.

Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz was an American cartoonist and creator of the comic strip Peanuts. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential cartoonists of all time, cited by cartoonists including Jim Davis, Bill Watterson, Matt Groening, Dav Pilkey and Stephan Pastis.

Charles III, called the Simple or the Straightforward, was the king of West Francia from 898 until 922 and the king of Lotharingia from 911 until 919–23. He was a member of the Carolingian dynasty.

Charles-Marie Vanel was a French actor and director. During his 76-year film career, which began in 1912, he appeared in more than 200 films and worked with many prominent directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, Luis Buñuel, Jacques Feyder, and Henri-Georges Clouzot. He is perhaps best remembered for his role as a desperate truck driver in Clouzot's The Wages of Fear for which he received a Special Mention at the Cannes Film Festival in 1953.

Charles, nicknamed the Bold, was the Duke of Burgundy from 1467 to 1477.

Charles II, called Charles the Bad, was King of Navarre 1349–1387 and Count of Évreux 1343–1387.

Charles Chi-tat Ng is a convicted Hong Kongese-American serial killer who committed numerous crimes in the United States. He is believed to have raped, tortured and murdered between 11 and 25 victims with his accomplice Leonard Lake at Lake's cabin in Calaveras County, California, in the Sierra Nevada foothills, 60 miles from Sacramento. After his 1985 arrest and imprisonment in Canada on robbery and weapons charges, followed by a lengthy dispute between Canada and the US, Ng was extradited to California, tried, and convicted of 11 murders. He is currently on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

Charles Butler McVay III was an American naval officer and the commanding officer of the cruiser USS Indianapolis when she was lost in action in 1945, resulting in a significant loss of life. Of all captains in the history of the United States Navy, he is the only one to have been subjected to court-martial for losing a ship sunk by an act of war, despite the fact that he was on a top secret mission maintaining radio silence. After years of mental health problems, he took his own life aged 70 years. Following years of efforts by some survivors and others to clear his name, McVay was posthumously exonerated by the 106th United States Congress and President Bill Clinton on October 30, 2000.

Charles Ponzi was an Italian swindler and con artist in the U.S. and Canada. His aliases include Charles Ponci, Carlo, and Charles P. Bianchi. Born and raised in Italy, he became known in the early 1920s as a swindler in North America for his money-making scheme. He promised clients a 50% profit within 45 days or 100% profit within 90 days, by buying discounted postal reply coupons in other countries and redeeming them at face value in the U.S. as a form of arbitrage. In reality, Ponzi was paying earlier investors using the investments of later investors. While this type of fraudulent investment scheme was not originally invented by Ponzi, it became so identified with him that it now is referred to as a "Ponzi scheme." His scheme ran for over a year before it collapsed, costing his "investors" $20 million.

Charles Carroll, known as Charles Carroll of Carrollton or Charles Carroll III to distinguish him from his similarly-named relatives, was an American statesman, a wealthy Maryland planter, an early advocate of independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain and one of the signers of the American Declaration of Independence. The sole Catholic signer of the Declaration, he is one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Carroll was known contemporaneously as the "First Citizen" of the American Colonies, a consequence of his editorials in the Maryland Gazette. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and Confederation Congress. Although he was not involved in framing the United States Constitution, it is believed that Freedom of Religion in the Constitution's First Amendment was included to show gratitude to Carroll because Carroll gave financial support from his personal funds for the American Revolutionary War. Carroll later served as the first United States Senator for Maryland. Carroll was the wealthiest and possessed the highest formal education of all of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. A product of his 17-year Jesuit education in France, Carroll spoke five languages fluently.