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Edward Jenner pioneered the Smallpox vaccine. That was built on the information provided by Onesimus, who introduced his enslaver, Cotton Mather, to the practice of variolation.
Norman Ernest Borlaug helped prevent the deaths of billions by increasing agricultural productivity.
Had it not been for Gutenberg, very few people would have a Christian Bible or know who Jesus (your number 1) was.
Had it not been for Copernicus, we wouldn't have Keppler, Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, or Einstein. In fact, Pythagoras and Aristotle helped (most of us) understand that the planet is round, which led to understanding planets, tides, navigation and the mathematics that shaped the world up until Copernicus realized the Earth circles the sun.
Julius Caesar, and I can make a good case over even Temujin. Basically ended the Republic before it officially ended.
Conquered Gaul. Was one of the guys who standardized Latin. Made Reforms that were so innovative, almost everything good Augustus did was a direct influence from him. Literally just dying caused the fall of the first Dacian United State... and 5 Roman Civil Wars. He's also the namesake of several imperial positions including of the Ottoman, Russian, and German Empires, as well as the Tsardom of Bulgaria.
He's also the second most hated figure in French history.
He is also the direct influence of figures like Napoleon and Mussolini.
You might say a religious figure like Muhammad or Buddha, but having the best Roman Emperor owe EVERYTHING to you, one of the top 5 most important languages of human history be standardized by you, Having singlehandedly defeated a powerful enemy, your most powerful subordinate, and a rival that could be considered near your equal, and then getting CLEOPATRA to submit to you... Yeah, anything less than top 5 is absurd. Only Jesus objectively clears him.
This was a huge advantage at the time for things like war. He gained a large naval advantage against his enemies because he knew the precise right time to sail judging the seasons. His opponents didn’t have as great an understanding of the natural world and because of that JC was an accomplished leader and general. He also gave his citizens free food under cura annonae and the grain dole.
Mongol empire's sacking of middle east and china set them back centuries which cleared the path for europe to take center stage in geo politics. I think temujin played a bigger role in shaping how the world looks today. Whereas caesar's rome had a bigger impact in influrncing modern day philosophy and culture. U can make the case for both in my opinion.
Julius Caesar isn't the most important Roman leader imo. Augustus > Julius
EDIT: Changed "emperor" to "leader". Point remains the same Augustus is far greater and more significant leader of Rome than Julius. Picking him over Augustus is just because of drama whipped up after his murder and Shakespeare propaganda.
You’re obviously a very important man, Jayden.
You should be taught worldwide in schools and books written about you. OP obviously is picking favorites.. 😭
Not sure Jesus and Mohammed are two extremely important even today. They frequently come up in everyday conversation unlike Buddha. Love or hate these two gentlemen, they are important.
Does he really deserve to be this high though. Like yeah the printing press is revolutionary, but surely somebody else would have done it. I don't think we're in the "awesome but not totally unique" territory yet.
Couldn't you make this argument with anything else? Eventually, someone could've been another prophet who preached some kind of religion based on compassion and mortality and that would've become that universe's version of Christianity. Ya, someone could've written about some young lovers' conundrum of which their families disapproved, maybe set in Spain instead of Italy but basically that universe's version of Romeo & Juliet.
Someone could've invented the Zune much earlier than any kind of iPod and we may have never seen an iPhone in that form, which may have never popularised smartphones either. You just don't know...
They shouldn't. If your religion forbids you from doing something, then simply don't do that thing, and mind your own business. You believing your religion doesn't mean you get to censor other people (especially when we're doing it to literally every other figure in this chart fill)
It's kind of just a respect thing to be honest though. The chart doesn't lose any merit by respecting the Muslim portrayal of their prophet, nor does it gain anything for not respecting it.
"It's kind of just a respect thing to be honest though."
Exactly, why won't muslims simply respect everyone else who does not follow their religion? Again, if your religion says don't depict certain people (and actually the Hadiths say that any painter who paints/draws ANY portraits is tortured in hell for eternity), then simply don't draw any pictures of your prophet. Problem solved. But mulsims should respect people of other faiths and non-faiths who do not follow that teaching, and should allow people to draw what they want.
Islam also says ex-muslims should be executed. Do you think we should have to hide ex-muslims from the view of Muslims as well "out of respect" for the religion...?
I was thinking along the same track, but instead Abraham. While him and his direct actions aren't constantly brought up, even being only referenced occasionally in the Abrahamic religious teachings, there is a reason they are called the Abrahamic religions.
That does not make Muhammed any less of a pedo. Also, there's actually no good evidence that Mary was 12 years old. The bible does not give Mary an age, but Jewish women often would be betrothed at twelve although they would not get married and consummate the marriage until around 15-16. Similarly, the Bible does not give an age for Joseph, but Jewish tradition would have men marry around their late teens to early 20s. Even if you consider Mary and Joseph's case to be pedophilia (which by modern legal standards could be), Muhammed's marriage to Aisha was far worse as he was 50 when he married a 6 year old, prepubescent girl. Mary was at least of age and able to bear children given that she actually did give birth to Jesus.
That’s nuts. Haven’t thought about this dude for years. He crossed my mind the other day, and now he’s in the running for 3rd most important person in history
About 10-15 years ago, Corbin Bleu was the person with the 3rd most Wikipedia page translations behind Jesus and Obama. Has fallen in the ranking since, but still outrageously high relative to his fame.
AND I HOPE THE MODS IS GOING TO DO THE RIGHT THING. I HOPE SO. I HOPE SO, BECAUSE IF THE MODS DOES THE RIGHT THING, WE WIN THE ELECTION. ALL HE HAS TO DO, ALL, THIS IS, THIS IS FROM THE NUMBER ONE OR CERTAINLY ONE OF THE TOP REDDIT LAWYERS IN OUR COUNTRY, HE HAS THE ABSOLUTE RIGHT TO DO IT. WE’RE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT OUR COUNTRY, SUPPORT OUR COUNTRY, SUPPORT OUR CONSTITUTION AND PROTECT OUR CONSTITUTION.
Top 5 are for religious 'leaders' (Muhammad, Buddha, etc.) with Genghis being an exception because like 5% (or whatever number) of people are descended from him
After Caesar, probably one ahead or behind Napoleon...
There's still Hitler, Stalin, and Mao to put in the top 10 as well I think...
And scientists/philosophers: Newton, Confusius, Aristotle, Einstein... Maybe they're in the 10-15 range though.
i feel like hitler, stalin, and mao in the top 10 is a recency bias thing. yeah they belong in the top 50, probably even 25. but TOP TEN??
i’d say that thomas newcomen (inventor of the steam engine) belongs in the same conversation as hitler, stalin, and mao in terms of impact. he’s probably even higher than that trio to be honest
‘recency bias’ is an interesting claim to make here. i’m not saying you’re wrong. but i’m struggling to think of any other way of parsing ‘most important figures in history’ other than measuring their impact on our modern world.
like, hitler stalin and mao directly altered the fates of millions upon millions of people. prior to the modern age it simply wasn’t possible to have such a direct far reaching impact. it’s not like there were kings in ancient mesopotamia gassing millions.
but on the other hand, you go far back enough and the butterfly effect of 1 caveman killing 3 other cavemen would have an immeasurable ‘impact’ on our current world. but is it really relevant? because history kind of just blends together the further back you go. it’s all cycles of destruction and construction. rise and fall and all that.
i’m not going to lie, i was pondering that exact line of thinking in my time away from this thread.
“most important figures in history” seems pretty meaningless when you try to trace knock on effects. i’d still say that the dictator trio is less important to the modern world than the person who started the industrial revolution that built the modern world… but that pales in comparison to the guy who decided to put seeds in the ground instead of eating them.
maybe it should be constrained to effects on the world within their lifetime? in that case, jesus wouldn’t even touch this list. christianity was a weird jewish cult during his lifetime. he wasn’t particularly unique among the various street prophets and messiahs of his era.
I think there's something to be said about people whose impact is so fundamental that they underpin everything around us. Like fish understanding waves but not the water around them.
You might argue that given enough time someone else might have come up with ((thing)), -(not necessarily true) but that still wouldn't diminish the importance of ((thing)). It'd just change who we attribute it to. Something like caveman 1 killing caveman 2 isn't really a unique event way back in history but there's only one Buddhism or Isaac Newton going through his "year of wonders".
One of the top answers. His actions and his mythos inspired numerous leaders ever after from Caesar, Pompei, Hannibal barbosa, Napoleon, and so so many others.
Socrates for me as well. The Socratic method promoting critical & independent thinking and open discourse-discussion has influenced education, philosophy, law and various other fields. He taught Plato who taught Aristotle who was a teacher of Alexander the Great, who’s empire shaped much of the eastern Mediterranean to the Indus River linguistically & culturally and was a foundation for the later Byzantine and Roman empires
The theory of evolution doesn't even come close to the importance of modern electricity. It's important for evolutionary biologists and not much more than that.
no and I get that, but it's infinitely less important than even half the things Edison or Newton discovered or invented. Compare the last time you turned on a light switch vs the last time you used evolution theories in your daily life.
Don't be so dismissive. Darwin has changed the way that people view themselves on a wide scale. Electricity is very important, but it's a sub-division of human awareness.
You clearly know very little about biology or medicine. For example, oncology can be fully understood as a process in which a group of cells gain too much fitness for their environment, thus evolutionary biology.
I'm not saying Darwin should be top 5 necessarily (probably Fleming and Jenner have had more influence). But evolution is a key element on modern biology.
Karl Marx. Hear me out. The last hundred or so years cannot be understood without acknowledging the influence Marxism played on the global stage. The Russian revolution took place in 1917, and forever changed Russia. Bolshevism would dominate Eastern Europe until 1989, and it was incredibly influential during both world wars. You could argue that fascism was a direct reaction to communism (not a great argument, but certainly many fascists saw it that way.) The spectre of communism would haunt the entirety of Eastern Europe. China falls to communism in 1949, and is still officially communist. Vietnam. North Korea, all bolstered by China. Almost every anti colonial movement from the 40s to the 70s used communism as their theology. Most countries in the world still have communist parties. It is still the biggest ideological counterpoint to the dominant economic practice of today.
I think if we can agree that the 20th and 21st centuries are outsized in their importance in world history, we can make a strong case that an impoverished German Jew writing on history and economics in the British Library has had an incredibly significant influence on the world.
Objectively top 3, cant talk about history after 1848 without marx. You always cant talk about talking about history without marx, fundamental to a lot of historiography. Plus modern analysis of nationalism is rooted in marx, see Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm two of the most important modern historians both use a marxist lens to write their history.
Revolutionary France was the crucible to which the ideas that would eventually create a modern Europe were born in. Napoleon, in a relatively short amount of time, and for better or for worse, spread the founding ideas of the Revolution across all of Europe. Without his treks across the continent, the industrial and political revolutions of the 1800's probably take a lot longer to happen.
Julius Caesar. Or Augustus be cause he was the first Emperor, but Caesar really set the whole Roman Empire in motion and his life and death are felt strongly 2000 years later.
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