Millennium Superstars

[Barrett]

This weekend, A&E ran a 2-part series on the 100 most influential people of the millennium. The top 5 were Gutenberg (yup, yup, yup), Newton (fershure), Luther, Darwin & Shakespeare. I especially approve of the Immortal Bard's ranking, as he gave us multiple roles for Gwenyth Paltrow, but I digress.
The Wrights were only 40th, right ahead of Bill Gates, and Hiram Maxim wasn't mentioned at all. The committee was 360 "scholars" (some of whom are merely media flacks) while The Public was consulted as well, resulting in ranking such nonentities as Princess Di (78th, I think) and entertainers such as Caruso, Satchmo, Elvis and the Beatles. Among the top 25, five lived in the present century: Einstein, Freud, Edison, Hitler and Gandhi. (Churchill was 52nd.)
I think that the Wrights belong in the Top 10 and Maxim in the top 100. They were more influential than, say, Gandhi (17th), whose pacifism could not possibly have succeeded against anyone but post WW II Britain. Meanwhile, the Wrights & Maxim proved ultimately more successful than Karl Marx!
BTW: note that Scotland produced 2 finalists: inventor James Watt (25th) and economist Adam Smith (20th).
If this isn't good for 100+, I don't know what is.

I'm curious to know where Gavrilio Princip ranked in the list.

[Boom]

BT,

the big question is what difference does such a list make except to have each of us go back over history? I'm with you on the Wrights, especiallly the one with the same birthday as me.
cheers, Boom
PS In case ya did'n guess I'm sorta back.

Guess they couldn't bother with the anonymous ship captain who brought Bubonic Plague to Europe. Just a slight blip on the millenial radar screen.

Boom is correct. Unlike the Ten Commandments, lists such as A&E's "top 100" are not carved in stone. Rather, they serve to provoke people into reviewing their history and thinking it through. Their success should be measured in the numbers of people who jump up and protest - complaining about inclusions (I agree that Princess Diana was badly over-rated), exclusions and ranking. I did not watch more than 40 minutes of the A&E series (enough to confirm my suspicion that it was "fluff" rather than substance - but if it served to stimulate a discussion of history and the "great men" of history in households that would otherwise dine in silence or converse in banalities, then it was worth the effort.

Boom,
You must be really old!!!
Steve

[Barrett]

Steve & Forumites:
(1) We all rejoice in The Return of Boom
(2) Having survived any number of Tailhook reunions with Boom, I can state fershure that he's much older than he looks. (Um, did that come out right??)
(3) For the benefit of those concerned with the PREVIOUS millennium's influence, note that Boom flies 747s for an airline whose unofficial motto is "Row well--and live."

Forumites: Many of the people on that list of 'influential' people did things that resulted in the demise of millions of people, and should be considered administrative executionersand murderers; had the selectors known anything about history, they would have selected persons who advanced society by 'doing the greatest good to the greatest number' on a continuing basis: no one should be on that list whose life work did not improve the life of millions upon millions of people and that would eliminate folks like Princess Di and Freud and Einstein and the men who invented the A-Bomb and the machine gun, etc. the people who had a bad influence on people. It doesn't require 360 people to determine who these people are: Any medical who's who book would give a true list of hundreds healers who truly advanced mankind. EOM/10/13/99.

>Freud and Einstein ... etc. the people who had a >bad influence on people.

Beg to differ, but these (at least Einstein) certainly belong up there in the list.

And it was "influential" not "beneficial". YOu can hardly deny that Hitler left a footstep in history that will likely never be forgotten (if only in the form of myths in the milleniums to come).

Its kind of weired that two of the most influential humans (if not THE) of the last century are a German jew, who became first a swiss and then an US citizen (declining the offer to become the first head of state in Israel) and an Austrian who became a German and went out to kill all of the former. These two touch all things that really were important in the first half of our century.

I would have voted for Gutenberg as number one myself. Was Konrad Zuse among the top 100? Or Alan Turing? They imho belong into the top 50.

>Freud and Einstein ... etc. the people who had a >bad influence on people.

Beg to differ, but these (at least Einstein) certainly belong up there in the list.

And it was "influential" not "beneficial". YOu can hardly deny that Hitler left a footstep in history that will likely never be forgotten (if only in the form of myths in the milleniums to come).

Its kind of weired that two of the most influential humans (if not THE) of the last century are a German jew, who became first a swiss and then an US citizen (declining the offer to become the first head of state in Israel) and an Austrian who became a German and went out to kill all of the former. These two touch all things that really were important in the first half of our century.

I would have voted for Gutenberg as number one myself. Was Konrad Zuse among the top 100? Or Alan Turing? They imho belong into the top 50.