Herzl is regarded as the father of modern political Zionism.

As Paris correspondent for the Viennese newspaper Neue Freie Presse, he covered the Dreyfus affair, which is often credited with shaping his conviction that Jews needed a state of their own.

• In Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State, 1896), he argued for the establishment of a Jewish state.

• He convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, and served as president of the Zionist Organization until his death.

• His novel Altneuland (1902) popularized the phrase "If you will it, it is no dream"; his remains were reinterred on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem in 1949.