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.
Originally posted by eleveninches
My List (in no particular order):
Slightly more tha 100Joseph 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
/\ 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
Plus, he was the president who started america's involvement in vietnaameehh no, that was Eisenhower. US had direct involment in the war from 1955, the first combat troops ariived in 1965 JFK died in 1963
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."