100 Influential Men

Now, there happens to be this bloke. Michael Hart, who decided he shall dredge through all history all the way to the first caveman and pick the 100 most influential people in history. It could be pretty boring to just trawl through the list and think to yourself, "Who is this again?" , "What did he do? Was he a rocket scientist?". But, since the book did get rave reviews, maybe you should take another look at these 100 folks and ask yourself, how much DO you know really about the people who have shaped history as we know it?

That's if you can get your head out of the next guy's arse for the next five minutes. What? You like the constriction? It's therapy? Ok, then, skip along, Polly Pocket.

I've coloured the ones I know at least a teeny weeny bit about. My score is thus: 49/100. Well, isn't this the season of failure all of a sudden?

1. Prophet Muhammad
2. Isaac Newton
3. Jesus Christ
4. Buddha
5. Confucius
6. St. Paul
7. Ts'ai Lun - Inventor of paper
8. Johann Gutenberg - Developed movable type and advances in printing
9. Christopher Columbus
10. Albert Einstein
11. Karl Marx
12. Louis Pasteur
13. Galileo Galilei
14. Aristotle
15. Lenin
16. Moses
17. Charles Darwin
18. Shih Huang Ti
19. Augustus Caesar
20. Mao Tse-tung
21. Genghis Khan
22. Euclid
23. Martin Luther
24. Nicolaus Copernicus
25. James Watt
26. Constantine the Great - Conqueror and legalized Christianity in the Byzantine Empire
27. George Washington
28. Michael Faraday
29. James Clerk Maxwell - Formulated the basic laws of electricity and magnetism
30. Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright
31. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier - Father of modern chemistry
32. Sigmund Freud
33. Alexander the Great
34. Napoleon Bonaparte
35. Adolf Hitler
36. William Shakespeare
37. Adam Smith - Helped create the modern discipline known as economics
38. Thomas Edison
39. Anthony van Leeuwenhoek - Father of microbiology
40. Plato - Philosopher
41. Guglielmo Marconi - Inventor of radio
42. Ludwig van Beethoven
43. Werner Heisenberg - Creator of quantum mechanics
44. Alexander Graham Bell
45. Alexander Fleming
46. Simon Bolivar - AKA "El Libertador", gained independence for Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Bolivia
47. Oliver Cromwell - Made England a republic, commanded the Army by having anal sex with his superiors
48. John Locke - Contributed majorly to political philosophy especially liberal theory
49. Michelangelo
50. Pope Urban II - Started the First Crusade
51. Umar ibn al-Khattab - Second Caliph of Islam
52. Asoka
53. St. Augustine - Major development of Western Christianity
54. Max Planck - Founder of quantum theory
55. John Calvin - Founder of Calvinism or reformed theology
56. William T.G. Morton - Inventor of anesthesia
57. William Harvey - Credited with detailing the blood circulatory system
58. Antoine Henri Becquerel - Discovered radioactivity
59. Gregor Mendel - Father of modern genetics
60. Joseph Lister - Promoted idea of sterile surgery
61. Nikolaus August Otto - Inventor of internal combustion engine
62. Louis Daguerre - Inventor of photography
63. Joseph Stalin
64. Rene Descartes - Father of modern mathematics
65. Julius Caesar
66. Francisco Pizarro
67. Hernando Cortes - Initiated Spanish conquest of Mexico
68. Queen Isabella I - Laid foundation for political unification of Spain
69. William the Conqueror - Invaded England and won the Battle of Hastings
70. Thomas Jefferson - Author of Declaration of Independence
71. Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Philosopher
72. Edward Jenner - Introduced smallpox vaccine
73. Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen - Discovered EM radiation
74. Johann Sebastian Bach
75. Lao Tzu
76. Enrico Fermi - Developed first nuclear reactor
77. Thomas Malthus - Political economist and demographer
78. Francis Bacon - Philosopher
79. Voltaire - Philosopher
80. John F. Kennedy
81. Gregory Pincus - Inventor of contraceptive pill
82. Sui Wen Ti - Did a whole lot for China
83. Mani - Religious preacher
84. Vasco da Gama - Explorer, first to sail directly from Europe to India
85. Charlemagne - Founder of France, Germany and some say Europe
86. Cyprus the Great - ???
87. Leonhard Euler - Mathematician
88. Niccolo Machiavelli
89. Zoroaster - Founder of Zoroastrianism
90. Menes - United Egypt into one kingdom
91. Peter the Great - Made Russia into major European power
92. Mencius
93. John Dalton - Advocacy of atomic theory
94. Homer
95. Queen Elizabeth
96. Justinian I - Last Roman emperor
97. Johannes Kepler - First theoretical astrophysicist
98. Pablo Picasso
99. Mahavira - Established Jainism
100. Niels Bohr

Now, for every name you are dumbfounded by. There's always Wikipedia. Otherwise, buy the book HERE.

michael h. hart, 100 most influential persons in history
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