Biography started with a list of 250 people, representing the last one thousand years. Their list has been pared down to one hundred people who have had the most
influence (positive or negative) in
historical,
cultural,
political,
social, or
emotional terms, not just in their lifetime, but on future generations as well. They were presented in a special four hour "Biography of the Millennium" presentation, on
A&E, October 10th and 11th.
The Top 100 Most Influential People of the Past 1,000 Years:
- Johann Gutenberg
- Isaac Newton
- Martin Luther
- Charles Darwin
- William Shakespeare
- Christopher Columbus
- Karl Marx
- Albert Einstein
- Nicolaus Copernicus
- Galileo Galilei
- Leonardo Da Vinci
- Sigmund Freud
- Louis Pasteur
- Thomas Edison
- Thomas Jefferson
- Adolf Hitler
- Mahatma Gandhi
- John Locke
- Michelangelo
- Adam Smith
- George Washington
- Genghis Khan
- Abraham Lincoln
- St. Thomas Aquinas
- James Watt
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Napoleon Bonaparte
- Johann Sebastian Bach
- Henry Ford
- Ludwig Van Beethoven
- Watson and Crick
- Rene Descartes
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Vladimir Lenin
- Alexander Fleming
- Francois Voltaire
- Francis Bacon
- Dante Alighieri
- Wright Brothers
- Bill Gates
- Gregor Mendel
- Mao Zedong
- Alexander Graham Bell
- William the Conqueror
- Niccolo Machiavelli
- Charles Babbage
- Mary Wollstonecraft
- Mikhail Gorbachev
- Margaret Sanger
- Edward Jenner
- Winston Churchill
- Marie Curie
- Marco Polo
- Ferdinand Magellan
- Elizabeth Stanton
- Elvis Presley
- Joan of Arc
- Immanuel Kant
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
- Michael Faraday
- Walt Disney
- Jane Austen
- Pablo Picasso
- Werner Heisenberg
- D.W. Griffith
- Vladimir Zworykin
- Benjamin Franklin
- William Harvey
- Pope Gregory VII
- Harriet Tubman
- Simon Bolivar
- Princess Diana
- Enrico Fermi
- Gregory Pincus
- The Beatles
- Thomas Hobbes
- Isabella
- Joseph Stalin
- Elizabeth I
- Nelson Mandela
- Niels Bohr
- Peter the Great of Russia
- Guglielmo Marconi
- Ronald Reagan
- James Joyce
- Rachel Carson
- J. Robert Oppenheimer
- Susan B. Anthony
- Louis Daguerre
- Steven Spielberg
- Florence Nightingale
- Eleanor Roosevelt
- Patient Zero (first known hiv carrier)
- Charlie Chaplin
- Enrico Caruso
- Jonas Salk
- Louis Armstrong
- Vasco Da Gama
- Suleiman I
oh...and Tesla is pretty cool...
At first glance I can identify 37 people on this list whose chief contribution to humanity was made in the 20th century. I'm sure there are a few more with whom I am not previously familiar (oh, the shame!).
In view of the fact that the 20th century was its last, I would suggest that this list is not, in fact, comprehensive when it comes to the lives of people throughout the millenium. Rather it is a compilation of people whose past endeavours have a visible impact on how we live our lives today, and how they will be lived in th future.
In addition to that, this list seems to be peculiarly Euro-centric - it is true that Genghis Khan shaped the ethnic and national identity of much of modern day Eastern Europe, but what of Tamerlane, who changed the face of middle Asia for ever? This is just and example - I'm sure a case could be made for why Tamerlane wasn't as important as all that, so feel free to insert the name of your own favourite non-western personage there (the Moguls in India spring to mind).
Of all the indubitabely formidable people in the list above, the one that strikes me as paramount to the advancement of mankind as a whole is Guttenberg - he made the proliferation of the ideas of those who came after him possible. Then again, I'm a bad Eastern schoalr - perhaps the Chinese have known the secret of the press for centuries before Guttenberg came along...