Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.

Who would be on your list??

Partial List:
Joseph Stalin
Lenin
Hitler
Einstein
Heisenburg
Schrodinger
Dirac
DeBroglie
Mao Zedong / Mao TseSung (spelling variations)
Gorbochov
Bohr
JFK
Roosevelt
Martin Luthor King
Inventor of the Transistor
John Logie Baird
Inventor of the casette tape
Inventor of the VHS
Inventor of the CD
Inventor of the DVD
Picasso
John Lennon
Elvis Pressley
Bob Dylan
Bob Geldoff
Andy Warhol
Monet
Walt Disney
Ghandi
Mohammed Ali
Bruce Lee
Che Guverra
Wright Brothers
Inventor of the Jet Engine
Inventor of the fixed wing-aircraft
Eddison
Inventor of the vacuum cleaner
Mother Teresa
Akira Kurosawa
George Lucas
Senator McCarthy
Nixon
Churchill
Margret Thatcher
Kaiser Willhelm II
Franz Ferdinand
Pele
Maradonna
T.S.Elliot
George Orwell
Inventer of Internet
Bill Gates
Inventor of Telephone
Yuri Gagarrin
Neil Armstrong
Inventor of the space shuttle
Stephen Hawking
Henry Kissinger
Assimov
Neitzche
Inventor of DOS
Saddam
Osama BIn-LAden
Prince of Dubai
Queen Victoria of england
Queen Elizabeth II of england
KIng George VI of england
King Edward VIII of england
Pol Pot
Lawrence of Arabia
Inventor of the automatic firearm
Emperor Hirihoto of Japan
Kim Jong-Il
Trotski
Chen Duxiu (Chen Tu-hsiu)
Freud
Ho Chi Minh
Reagen
Castro
Inventor of MP3
Inventor of Atari/spectrum/Sinclair

I dont have time for all 100 but heres the top

Bill gates
George Bush
Saddam Hussin
Osma Bin laden
JFK
Regan
MLK
Hitler
Stalion

churchill
hitler
castro
roosevelt

Is it possible that the people putting JFK could justify that? This is meant to be a table about influence, after all... not fame...

good call USH

He is one of the most famous presidents in american history

Yes... that kinda only reinforces what I said though, doesn't it? Famous... but not really influential. There is quite a bdoy of evidence that makes out he had virtually no influence at all, so convuluted was the politics of his family. If you had said his father perhaps...

famous ain't the same as influential though, and it was his assasination that brought him most of his fame

and Ush beat me to it so............ bugger it

I also have to add jesus

I had rather assumed that you had to be alive in the 20th century to count...

But his influce is

Then most of the lists submitted so far would have to be junked and every influential figure in history ever put in in place. This would somewhat remove the point of the exercise, so I think it is far more sensible to only have people that were IN said century.

You're off the mark, there's many many more religions now that Jesus has no influence in

which will borderline Queen Victoria

Absolutely, she scrapes in by a whisker, and frankly cannot really be called influential in this century at all.

And also Monet was born in the 19th century therefore, he is one of the most influential of said century

well Monet influenced a lot of painters in around the first two decades of last century though, if I aint all that far off he died around 1925-26

Yes, but didn't he do most of his work before 1900?
I don't think the man himself was very influential, I think his work is

you ever met him???

We had tea yesterday


And come to think of it, alot of those people don't belong in this century in my opinion

the question was about the 20th century which was last century not this

When I said this century, I meant 20th
Thought that was implied, sorry

Nils Henrik or Harald Bohr?

i despise most of the people on that list but a good few of them were hugely influential...

and jfk... don't people remember cuba?

Bay of Pigs or Missile Crisis? If the first, all he did was ok Eisenhower's plan, and then quickly disowned it. If the second, then yes, he had a part to play in a singnificant part of history.

But only a part. Obviously, no Americn President can be UN influential, but there is a hell of a lot of cpmetition for a top 100 list, and it must be said, if he hadn;'t have been shot, he wouldn't rate on that list at all because most would have forogtten him.

Batman


But really a lot of people.

Chuirchill
Hitler
The most probably the Diplomats who made the traty of Versailles
And others. I can't think of right now

The physisyst. Niels BOhr. The guy who did work on the configuration of the atom

true...

So, who would be on your list?

the list would be from a matter of perspective...

it depends on what country your from...

people like gerry adams and ian paisley would be on mine, but some people wouldn't have heard of them...

Uh lets see:

Bill Gates
Bush
Washaton
George Orwill

and I guess that is it .JM

who the hell is washaton? and what Bush, are we talking Bush sr, cause todays president was not influential to the last century in anyway

I think that's washington

My List (in no particular order):
Slightly more tha 100

Joseph Stalin
Vladamir Lenin
Adolf Hitler
Albert Einstein
Werner Heisenburg
Erwin Schrodinger
Paul Dirac
Louis DeBroglie
Mao Zedong
Mikhail Gorbochov
Niels Bohr
John F Kennedy
Theodore Roosevelt
Martin Luthor King
Inventor of the Transistor
John Logie Baird
Inventor of the casette tape
Inventor of the VHS
Inventor of the CD
Inventor of the DVD
Pablo Picasso
John Lennon
Elvis Pressley
Bob Dylan
Bob Geldoff
Andy Warhol
Claude Monet
Walt Disney
Mahatma Ghandi
Mohammed Ali/Cassius Clay
Bruce Lee
Che Guverra
Wilbur Wright
Orville Wright
Maralyn Monroe
Freddie Mercury
Michael Jackson
Inventor of the Jet Engine
Inventor of the fixed wing-aircraft
Thomas Eddison
Inventor of the vacuum cleaner
Mother Teresa
Akira Kurosawa
George Lucas
Senator McCarthy
Alexander Graham Bell
Richard M. Nixon
Winston Churchill
Margret Thatcher
Kaiser Willhelm II
Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Pele (Edson Arantes)
Maradonna
T.S.Elliot
George Orwell
Inventer of Internet
Bill Gates
Inventor of Telephone
Yuri Gagarrin
Neil Armstrong
Inventor of the space shuttle
Stephen Hawking
Henry Kissinger
Issac Assimov
Friedrich Neitzche
Inventor of DOS
Saddam Hussain
Osama BIn-LAden
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum(Prince of Dubai)
Queen Victoria of england
Queen Elizabeth II of england
KIng George VI of england
King Edward VIII of england
Pol Pot
T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)
Inventor of the automatic firearm
Emperor Hirihoto of Japan
Kim Jong-Il
Leon Trotski
Chiang Kai-shek
Sigmund Freud
Ho Chi Minh
Ronald Reagen
Fiddel Castro
Inventor of MP3
Inventor of Atari/spectrum/Sinclair
Dwight D. Eisennhower
Eva Peron
General Montgommery
Franklin Roosevelt
Paul von Hindenburg
Pope Pius XII
Hermann Goring
Heinrich Himmler
Heinz Guderian
Benito Mussolini
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery
Charles de Gaulle
King Juan Carlos II
Francisco Franco
Harry. S. Truman
Erwin Rommel
Augusto Pinochet
Nicolae Ceausescu
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

105 people.

And this is the most influencial of the 20th centuary. That is the poeple who had the most effect on the world, not just the people who were liked the most, but those who influenced the world, whether it be in politics, military, culture, technology, economics, philosophy, religion, art, law, society, entertainment, etc...

HALLE BERRY.

thats an opinion...

everybody would have different lists...

I meant that this thread is for the most influential people. I didnt mean that my list definately was a list of the most influential people.

shit

apologies dude...

But if history has taught us anything, it's that people in general are stupid (although a person can be non-stupid).

There was a list released at the turn of the millenium, in which people could vote for the most influential briton of the last 1000 years. The problem was that everybody was allowed to vote, even those who know nothing about history and therefore only voted for people that they knew of in their own lifetimes.
Princess diana was voted in the top 3.
David beckham was voted higher than George stephenson.
William Wallace was not on the list at all.
And the list was obviously full of people who might be famous at the moment, but can hardly be called 'great' in any true meaning of the word. In particular, there were a lot of footballers on the list, who would be forgotten in 50-100 years or less.

I think that that list should have not included anybody who had not been dead for at least 40 or so years. Otherwise, people are just going to vote for those that are famous at the moment rather than those who are truely great and will be rememberred throughout history long after their own death, because of what they did or what they achieved.

/\ plus 9 more i've just thought of:
Juan Peron
Michael Collins
Ngo Dinh Diem
Thich Quang Due
Jim C Walton (&family)
Alsaud, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal
Henry Ford
Enrico Fermi
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

explain how JFK was influential, he is famous for being an assasinated president, nothing more

cuban missile crisis.

Plus, he was the president who started america's involvement in vietnaam

I am so bad with names. One of the most influential people I know would have to MLK.

hmm... we're doing about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in history ATM

So that's 115 on my list now.

eehh no, that was Eisenhower. US had direct involment in the war from 1955, the first combat troops ariived in 1965 JFK died in 1963
And the cuban missle crisis, well he was forced to act the way he acted so he was mere a pond in a greater scheme, wouldnt call him influential because of it though. His vice president became a more influential person

maybe I overlooked him but I havent seen Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founder of the Turkish republic yet

from:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/VietnamWar.htm

Kennedy agreed and in 1961 he arranged for the South Vietnamese to receive the money necessary to increase the size of their army from 150,000 to 170,000. He also agreed to send another 100 military advisers to Vietnam to help train the South Vietnamese army. As this decision broke the terms of the Geneva Agreement, it was kept from the American public.

In 1962, the Strategic Hamlet programme was introduced. For sometime the governments of South Vietnam and the United States had been concerned about the influence of the NLF on the peasants. In an attempt to prevent this they moved the peasants into new villages in areas under the control of the South Vietnamese army. A stockade was built around the village and these were then patrolled by armed guards.

This strategy failed dismally and some observers claimed that it actually increased the number of peasants joining the NLF. As one pointed out: "Peasants resented working without pay to dig moats, implant bamboo stakes, and erect fences against an enemy that did not threaten them but directed its sights against government officials."

In the majority of cases the peasants did not want to move and so the South Vietnamese army often had to apply force. This increased the hostility of the peasants towards the Ngo Dinh Diem government.

The peasants were angry at having to travel longer distances to reach their rice fields. Others were upset for religious reasons for they believed that it was vitally important to live where their ancestors were buried.

Kennedy became worried when he was informed that despite the Strategic Hamlet programme, the membership of the National Liberation Front had grown to over 17,000 - a 300 per cent increase in two years - and that they now controlled over one-fifth of the villages in South Vietnam.

These details were used to pressurise Kennedy into supplying more military advisers. This he agreed to do and by the end of 1962 there were 12,000 in Vietnam. Kennedy also made the decision to supply South Vietnam with 300 helicopters. Their American pilots were told not to become "engaged in combat" but this became an order that was difficult to obey. Although Kennedy denied it at the time, American soldiers were becoming increasingly involved in the fighting in Vietnam.

Roman Catholics made up only just over 10% of the population in South Vietnam. As a reward for adopting the religion of their French masters. Catholics had always held a privileged position in Vietnam. The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and most of the officials who helped administer the country for the French were Catholics.

The main religion in Vietnam was Buddhism. Surveys carried out in the 1960s suggest that around 70% of the population were followers of Buddha. The French, aware of the potential threat of Buddhism to their authority, passed laws to discourage its growth.

After the French left Vietnam the Catholics managed to hold onto their power in the country. President Ngo Dinh Diem was a devout Catholic and tended to appoint people to positions of authority who shared his religious beliefs. This angered Buddhists, especially when the new government refused to repeal the anti-Buddhist laws passed by the French.

On May 8, 1963, Buddhists assembled in Hue to celebrate the 2527th birthday of the Buddha. Attempts were made by the police to disperse the crowds by opening fire on them. One woman and eight children were killed in their attempts to flee from the police.

The Buddhists were furious and began a series of demonstrations against the Diem government. In an attempt to let the world know how strongly they felt about the South Vietnamese government, it was decided to ask for volunteers to commit suicide.

On June 11, 1963, Thich Quang Due, a sixty-six year old monk, sat down in the middle of a busy Saigon road. He was then surrounded by a group of Buddhist monks and nuns who poured petrol over his head and then set fire to him. One eyewitness later commented: "As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him." While Thich Quang Due was burning to death, the monks and nuns gave out leaflets calling for Diem's government to show "charity and compassion " to all religions.

The government's response to this suicide was to arrest thousands of Buddhist monks. Many disappeared and were never seen again. By August another five monks had committed suicide by setting fire to themselves. One member of the South Vietnamese government responded to these self-immolations by telling a newspaper reporter: "Let them burn, and we shall clap our hands." Another offered to supply Buddhists who wanted to commit suicide with the necessary petrol.

These events convinced President John F. Kennedy that Ngo Dinh Diem would never be able to unite the South Vietnamese against communism. Several attempts had already been made to overthrow Diem but Kennedy had always instructed the CIA and the US military forces in Vietnam to protect him. In order to obtain a more popular leader of South Vietnam, Kennedy agreed that the role of the CIA should change. Lucien Conein, a CIA operative, provided a group of South Vietnamese generals with $40,000 to carry out the coup with the promise that US forces would make no attempt to protect Diem.

At the beginning of November, 1963, President Diem was overthrown by a military coup. After the generals had promised Diem that he would be allowed to leave the country they changed their mind and killed him. Three weeks later. President Kennedy was also assassinated.

After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, his deputy, Lyndon B. Johnson became the new president of the United States. Johnson was a strong supporter of the Domino Theory and believed that the prevention of an National Liberation Front victory in South Vietnam was vital to the defence of the United States: "If we quit Vietnam, tomorrow we'll be fighting in Hawaii and next week we'll have to fight in San Francisco."

I put him in on the first ammendment to the list

Whatever Kennedy agreed to the US involment in Vietnam started in 1955, the first US casualty was in 1957

well, he started their involvement in it. He even sent troops over in helicopters, although they were ordered not to engage the enemy, but he started the road to war.

how can he have started their involvement when they were already there when he became president, he just continued the road they were on and Lyndon b Johnson escalated US involvement after JFK`s assassination

dunno.

thats becasue it statred during the period of Eisenhower

ok.
i knew the french were involved long before the americans, but didnt know that america had made any commitments before JFK

yeah the French got their ass whooped real good

um,....
so did the americans.


The americans still refuse to admit defeat in vietnaam.
They called it a tactical withdrawal

u shittin me? america got its ass whupped when it shouldnt have.

tactical withdrawl... my arse...

that country(vietnam) is still f*cked up today...

if they'd planned better they could have helped vietnam no end.

its what happens when politicians tries to run a war 1000 of miles form where the war actually is fought

That was my point. THe most powerful country in the world got its a$$ kicked by a 3rd world country.
But the point was that america NEVER actually admitted defeat in vietnaam. They called it a tactical withdrawal, so, for all intents and purposes, the war is still going on.

Homer Simpson.

This could be like that absurd 100 greatest Britain competition. Or more likely the private Eye's spoof; Roy Jenkin's submission "far be it fwom me to blow my own twumpet, an always unattwactive twait in any chwonicler of the passing pawade of our pwoud histowy. But when I consider my own mewits, albeit weluctantly, I am forced to conclude that as a statesman, histowian and dare I say, connoiseur of clawet, my claims to being considered the gweatest Bwiton of all are by no means inconsidewable."

More to add to my list:
Ernest Shackleton
Robert Falcon Scott
Vaughn Williams
Richard Strauss
John Williams
Igor Stravinsky

Neils
He's the guy that had some famous philosophical debates with einstein.

(on quantum theory)
Einstein: God does not play dice!
BOhr: Don't tell God what to do with his dice.

Me.




Yeah, that's right. I went there...

how old are you?

214 people /\

Mark Twain?

why not?

Oh well I guess you could count him 20th century.

no Quisling

Alexander Graham Bell.

George Bush? Are you insane?

Re that greatest Briton ever thingy, William Wallace would probably have come back from the dead just to brutally murder anyone who called him a "Briton."

But Anyhoo, 20th Century, influencial folkies:

Stalin
Hitler
Churchill
Mandela (sp)
Geldof
Theresa
Maggie "evil devil ***** of hell" Thatcher
Pele
Beatles
Sex Pistols
canna be arsed writing anymore........

My pet canine was a *****, a temperamental sort, with poor personal hygene and questionable sexual morality.

Tucker Max is at least #93. At least.

the last few years vietnam has steadily been growing and developing, but it is still rife with corruption...

the effects of the war are still shown today in the culture of vietnam, you wouldn't believe some of the stories i've heard...

tis a beautiful country though... one of the untouched gems of asia...

No side actually admitted defeat, which is why no US ships are ever allowed in vietnaamese waters

that's true... though relations are alot less strained than before...

I believe the term was "raggedy-arsed fourth rate country."

Ever since WW2 ended, america has not known how to fight a war. All they know how to do is arragne a bombing campaign. They have no idea how to make intelligent military decicions.

The war in iraq, for example:
The British troops advanced slowly and carefully across iraq in order to make sure they targeted the enemy and minimised civilian casualties.
The americans, however, just advanced as fast as possible (wanting to reach baghdad quickly), and fired at anything that got in their way, disregarding any civilian casualties.
The US army has nowhere near the discipline and training as the British army does.

vietnam? really... so does that disclude the fact it has one of the fastest growing economies in asia?



imo it has to do with bad leadership... i'm sure there are plenty of great american troops being herded by assholes...

/\the US regular army just recruits whoever it can find to enlist.
The UK army tends to be rather more selective in who it will take to be a soldier. The officer training is second to none, and the UK army has one of the most disciplined armies in the world.

i'm not disputing that, i'm just saying that i'll bet there are plenty of good men and women in the u.s. army...

being a good person is not the same as being an effective soldier.
In fact, most war crimes in iraq were caused by the lack of discipline. A well-trained soldier would not have let their emotions to cause them to do anything illegal. They should be professional about the job that they do.

when i said good men and women i meant good soldiers...

you can be both...

not the ones I have encounterd and I met a lot of them, they got one big problem.......they dont listen cause they think they know it all

"They should be professional about the job that they do."

Anyone in the army etc is professional about their job. How professional do you have to be to kill someone with a gun or a bomb? The term you are looking for is ethical, I believe. Or "moral". Even then, it's stretching it.

Bill Hicks would make my list, easily.

-AC

if soldiers let their ethics or their opinions of "right and wrong" , then they could end up killing loads of people, believing that they were doing the right thing.

What they should do is to obay orders and follow the codes of war (geneva convention), regardless of how emotional they may feel.

nobody gives a shit about the GC in times of war

/\that's when things like the holocaust happen

they did it in nam, they're still doing it... but its not all...

well genocide is what happen during war, its a shame but its the truth

thats why they have the GC.
there's no point in it if it is ignored during wartime. It is meant to be a guideline for the limits in wartime

well certain people are just too stupid to have respect for other human beings in wartime... gc or not...

again nobody gives a rats ass about it in times of war. And there is no point in it either because when at war nobody gives a shit

/\thats not right

oh really, so who cared in the Balkan conflict, who cared in Somalia who cares in Afghanistan, Iraq

I CARED!!!!

vietnam too...

you have what military training? and your concern and caring helped who during these past and ongoing conflicts?

there's nothing i can do to help any of them. That doesn't mean that i don't care at all about human suffering

nobody said you didnt but you aint in a middle of a war either.
Its easy to be 1000 of miles away talking about peoples rights during an armed conflict, but whenever one occur the GC is worthless for the participants of the conflict, armed and civilians