Yes, but in a sense we can thank his incompetence for that America was found. Would any sensible explorer had miscalculated the circumference of Earth that badly? The guy though he had come to India, even on his death bed.

1. America would almost certainly have been "found" soon after anyway, given the increasing navigational capabilities of Spain and Portugal. The Vikings had already made it as far as Canada centuries earlier. There is now evidence that English sailors may have been fishing off the Newfoundland Coast even before Columbus. I'm finding, at least, that fewer students are coming in with the absurd misconception that Columbus was one of few Europeans who believed the Earth was spherical, or that he somehow proved that it was.

2. His profound miscalculation was based in part off of his bizarre reading of eschatology in the Bible and popular works in Europe. Few people know that one of Columbus' major objectives was to raise money on his voyages for a new Crusade that he believed would usher in the return of Christ. His journey was, for him, quite literally a voyages to the ends of the Earth.

3. Yes, he continued to believe he had been to Asia on his deathbed (most people are also unaware that he died penniless and disgraced, his barbarous treatment of the Native Americans too much for even the Spanish crown to tolerate). If you read his logs, he made observations of the local flora and fauna based on his theory that he had arrived in China. The first thing that smelled like cinnamon was declared to be cinnamon. The first plant resembling a description of Chinese rhubarb was proclaimed to be it.

I suspect you have little idea of Churchill's contributions outside WW2. Huge impact on WW1, general strike etc. Even the minimum wage has had a huge impact. Plus loads of other stuff.

Nearly losing us WW2 is just one of his efforts - a bit controversial but we would have been in trouble if Churchil had had his way over Chamberlain in the early days..

The people who made the biggest impact are too easily missed.

HH Asquith should be included. British prime minister from 1908-1916. Led the world into ruin and devastation

Wait.. there are more Muslims than Christians in the world though. I think its something like 2.2 billion Muslims and 2.1 billion Christians, so how do you come up with this number? Or are you speaking in Euro-centric terms?

I'm not arguing with you or shooting you down, but are you only citing people influenced in the Western World?

I haven't checked world religion populations stats lately so you may be right there may be more Muslims than Christians particularly since in some countries Muslims have higher birth rates than Christians.

But Christ even influenced Muslims to some degree. He's considered a prophet by them.

In your mind.

That's where he's suppose to be. The most terrible things happen in the world when people lose track of him and his example.

Newcomen or Savery anyone? inventors of the steam engine? the first step towards industrialization?

This does not belong in the history forum.




Added by Zeno:


Correct, so the inappropriate portion has been deleted in the OP, along with the quote here and your response.

So that clears the board.

Sun Tzu, if he hasn't been mentioned.

1. Gutenberg

Some names I havent seen in the list.

Henry Ford
Voltaire
Socrates

I think there are significantly more Christians than muslims.

It's between about 4:3 and 2:1 in favor of the Christians atm, depending who you ask. However, Islam is growing at a significantly higher pace relative to Christianity, which may even by contracting relative to world population for the first time in centuries.

so I was right then

Ahh yes. I'm sorry, there are more Muslims together than Catholics or protestants, but not together.

For some reason I was under the impression there was more put together.

True, but why are lumping all Muslims together if we're going to divide up Christians into (albeit slightly) narrower categories?

One of the big questions about influence is how big an impact the great scientists and inventors had by themselves. Would the things have been discovered anyway, soon? Which impact did for example Gutenberg, Darwin, Tesla, Edison and Pasteur have by themselves, as compared to the destructive warlords? And, how about Newton and Einstein?

I'm surprised there's no mention of Norman Borlaug yet. Maybe he's not in the top ten but he def should be somewhere in the top 50 at least.

edit- also John Bardeen

Edward Jenner
Vaccination would have been discovered anyways sometime. But the amount of lives saved and the immediate impact up to this day certainly warrant to mention him.

I agree with this view. I think scientists and inventors tend to be slightly overrated on these lists. Newton, Einstein and a few others surely deserve top spots, but in a lot of cases the major invention or discovery was probably coming anyway. Churchill and Hitler were such unique and influential/powerful characters that it's likely the world would be completely different had they not existed. I've seen lists in a different thread that had no Churchill/Hitler, and almost strictly scientists.

Big Erf

Those facts, along with the fact that Columbus wasn't sold on the fact that the world was round, was the reason he rode on the last ship, so he'd have time to turn around.

If you wanna be really lame/fun you could just point to how investment in new technologies etc. is pretty much the definitive way society evolves and develops. Kinda taking economics and shoving it into history, but i think it's more or less right.
In regards to philosophers, politicians etc., you have to be very carefull imho to differ between those who merely epitomised social movements and those who created/altered them significiantly; so compare Wilson etc. of the Treaties of versailles which set up the next 30 odd years and Hitler, Roosevelt, Lenin etc. who pushed it. Which was more inevitable? I would say that the Versailles signatories, and results from it were so societally influenced they matter alot less than the power of Lenin and the Bolsheviks and Roosevelt and the new deal.

I would say you can't really put these guys in as they were very articulate recorders and philosophizers in what was a pretty popular and mildly entrenched philosophy. You see people as far back as Grotius talk about idea's similar to this; its more of an ingrained idea within our culture. It would be like placing Rawls, a brilliant theoretician and great articulator and philsopher very high, even though the idea's he espoused were already very popular. He just tried to give theoretical and logical background.
Its people like Descartes etc. who you really wanna look to if idea's of the person is where you want to look