If you wanted to add more women, you could have added famous and significant women like Maria Curie, Eva Peron, Florence Nightingale, Catherine the Great, Cleopatra, Dolores Ibarruri... Helen Keller, Jane Austen and Amelia Earhart, with all due respect, absolutely don't belong in this list. Not to mention Rosa Parks, nobody outside US knows who she is, or should even care.
I am outside the USA and I know who Rosa Parks is. There is nothing wrong with learning the history of a country other than your own, particularly such an influential country as the USA.
Perhaps. But the list isn't supposed to be comprehensive or to contain exactly the top 40 most influential people. The quiz is fine the way it is and there is a lot of knowledge to be gained by knowing about the Civil Rights movement in the USA, and Rosa Parks was someone particularly famous in the movement.
One I didn't know altogether—Oliver Cromwell—and one I could only come up with the first name for—Horatio Nelson. But other than that, I guess I know my important historical figures!
Why is it when someone goes to the trouble of making a little quiz for jetpunkers many people try and pick fault or choose alternatives for the quiz. Make your own quizzes and then we can all pick holes in yours.
Interesting that you have incontrovertible proof of this, going back a few years where records are shady and claims are exaggerated. "Supposedly" is not denying it, so don't be so offended; it's merely implying that it isn't proven and some uncertainty exists. I don't think merely stating this as fact using capital letters will change many minds
Yes I did pay attention in history lessons (UK) but I only learnt 10 of these facts at school (and I couldn't remember all of those) and they were mostly in geography or science lessons! Many of the other facts I have learnt since although I couldn't remember their names. Some I only learnt in my late 20s.
No one reads her books or speeches, and the only reason anyone cared about them was that it was her giving them. In a sense, I suppose that makes her as a person more significant than someone like Braille; if he hadn't done his work, someone else would have. Still, her contributions are not likely to stand the test of time.
I tend to disagree. Helen Keller has become a pretty integral part of the American culture and she has inspired millions around the world. Additionally, I believe that 90% of American children could tell you about her as her life is widely taught in the American school system.
Notice how many times you used the word American. No-one has any idea who she is globally, compared to Cleopatra or Mandela or even someone like Elvis.
Same with Mark Twain really, what on earth is a Huckleberry
I have always felt that although what Rosa Parks did was brave and nobel, never was really that important. The civil rights movement would have happened without her, and a man like MLK was really who pushe the movement. Did her act affect the movement? Absolutley, but there have been thousands of people who have had a bigger affect on the world.
Hold up, quiz is called historical people that everyone should know, therefore my concern is why isn't Cyrus The Great on the list? Wrote the first human bill of rights, which is incorporated in the Constitution of the USA. He freed the Jews and his name is mentioned in the Bible, Torah and the Quran.
No one is saying that this is a competition and that some names are more notable than others. The name of this quiz isn't to be taken too seriously or literally you know.
Is it bad I don't know half the people here and some I do know I don't know the listed accomplishments (I have never heard of Moonlight Sonata) or was only being able to think robert downy jr?
I feel like the moon landing was a much more difficult accomplishment than simply getting into low earth orbit. Yes, the first person in space is an extremely important step, but landing on the surface of the moon was a larger step.
Nikola Tesla actually invented the lightbulb. Edison stole all his paperwork and stole everything from him. I would change Thomas Edison to Nikola Tesla.
Guttenburg did not invent the printing press. This is common knowledge at this point, people really need to stop repeating this nonsense. The first printed book was made in 849 AD. He didn't even invent moveable metal type. Various versions of this were made in China and Korea over the three or four centuries before Guttenburg made his. His only legitimate claim to fame is printing the Christian bible. Tesla also didn't invent the light bulb. This is even taught in schools nowadays.
Also, Lao Tzu is about as "supposed" as Homer. His existence is not verified by any evidence other than there is a book credited to an "Old Master."
What Gutenberg invented, and the Chinese did not, was the "mechanical" printing press, which I just added to the clue. There's a reason that Gutenberg's innovation shook the world in a way that the Asian printing press did not. According to Wikipedia... "Mechanical presses as used in European printing remained unknown in East Asia. Instead, printing remained an unmechanized, laborious process...".
1) It's complicated. No single person invented the light bulb. Edison did more than any other person to make electric light a reality. 2) In ancient times, Macedonians were Greeks.
People were well aware of gravity's existence long before either of those people, they just didn't know what caused it. What newton did was create an equation that could calculate the force of gravity. His equation does a pretty good job, but it's not quite right in more complex scenarios. Einstein came up with the idea of relativity and the equations of relativity are much more accurate than newtons equations. Interestingly, of the 4 fundamental forces, gravity might be the least well understood.
US-American is not a demonym, worldwidely is not a word, your sentence is not a sentence, your ignorance isn't representative of everyone who takes this quiz, and your point is incorrect if I'm going to describe it as generously as possible.
Not really to be honest. I've never heard of them in school, or after that for that matter. A lot of them are not really noteworthy people. And there are definetely more famous writers than those. I agree that the quiz is quite UK and American centric.
camus listed 3 authors, all of whom are extremely noteworthy and world famous authors, and you say "a lot" of them are not noteworthy? How much is "a lot" of 3? 2? Which 2 aren't noteworthy compared to the 1 other? What other authors, aside from Shakespeare, and maybe Paul the Apostle if you want to count him, and perhaps Muhammad if dictating an oral recitation counts as authorship, would you consider more noteworthy? I don't know what school you went to but you sound very uneducated.
It is hard to be a more famous author internationally than Dickens, Austen, Twain. Maybe Shakespeare. I could ask my Polish-German grandma, who probably hasn't read a book during the last 50 years, and if she's heard of any international authors, it's likely one of those. komtooverdebakker, either you 1) come from a country that has its own, non-Western literary canon 2) just don't know much about literature in general 3) have a blind hate for everything anglo. tzhg, we were talking about the most famous authors, not the most important ones. That's a difference.
This is pretty a European and American list. Only 4 Asians (assuming you count Muhammad an Asian, which I do). I'm pretty sure Asia isn't just 14% of all history. The Gautama Buddha created a religion which currently is followed by 10% of the world's people today, yet he's not important enough to be on this list? Akbar introduced a policy of religious tolerance to India and promoted arts, literature, education,etc. Ashoka expanded the Maurya Empire to the size of the peak Roman Empire. Zheng He created a Ming Fleet twice the size of Napoleon's. Qin Shihuangdi unified China for the first time. Cyrus the Great founded the first Persian Empire. Other ones - Otto Van Bismarck, Hernan Cortes (he is the reason most of the Americas speak Spanish), Galileo, Copernicus, and finally Catherine & Peter of Russia. They all did more work than most of the authors and English people on your list.
This isn't a top 40 list. QM took a crack at doing a most important people in history quiz, but that's on a different page. Should direct your complaints there.
To make it even more specific: It is more an American and UK list, with some other Europeans. And there should be more Asian people on the list. But European centric? That's hard, we don't really know much about for example the Oceanic or African history. I can't come up with another African king besides Musa.
It is truly a matter of perspective ... I didn't get a lot of the American related questions (I DID get Washington and the two Martin Luthers though!), but the one related to Australia and India not a problem.
Because I'm involved with the deaf community and understand how important it is for others to accept both them and their language - I was well versed with Helen Keller. If I didn't have the interest I have in sign language - then maybe she wouldn't seem that important to me. There is definitely more room for more quizzes like this one and perhaps take out the word 'most' and consider other perspectives? We will all learn things we didn't know then, I reckon.
Its worth noting that the quiz is not titled 'the 40 most important ppl in history'
So yes, there is nothing wrong with knowing who these ppl were. And obviously the list is very biased toward modern history . For example why is Mao more important than the emperors who actually united China into a massive nation?
And Thatcher? Rosa Parks? America thinks it is the only country with a civil rights movement?
I think the title is nice. This is just a non-exhaustive list of some people that anyone should know. Or at least any English speaker... Furthermore, the Quizmaster clearly tried to include as many women as possible, which is praiseworthy though a bit biased.
Ouch, that hurt my French speaker eyes, mm84. It is "Jeanne d'Arc", whose translation into English is always "Joan of Arc". Jean is masculine in French, it's the equivalent of John. Secondly, we always elide the article before a vowel.
Probably should change the name to 40 historical people all Americans should know... Surprised that no Yuri Gagarin, Confucius, Bismark, Stalin, Gorbachev. They are much more significant and well known than people here like Elizabeth the virgin queen or Rosa Parks
Kepler could be on this list in his own right. Him, Galileo, Einstein, Hawking - all much more important than Mark Twain and *checks notes* Helen.. Keller?
Have you ever wondered why most South American countries (other than Brazil) speak Spanish? Yeah that’s bc of Simon bolivar in which he captured Venezuela Bolivia and colombia
no, they were conquered, assimilated, and colonized by Spain which spoke Spanish, Bolivia and only Bolivia was named after Bolivar but most the South American nations see him as a national hero and hes helped found modern Venezuela and Colombia
I had a dream tonight about Russian Jetpunk and its quiz "40 Historical People that Everyone Should Know". Its American and British commenters complained that Lenin was just some guy who started a minor revolution in a remote part of the world, that Joseph Stalin may have caused the death of millions but most of them were Soviet citizens so this was only of local importance, and that no one outside Russian has ever heard of the hack that is Alexander Pushkin.
You should add in the most successful and impactful African-American, Elon Musk. He has changed the technology landscape in only 15 years. Quite a visionary
Helen Keller was the first American deaf and blind graduate - I don't think you can be sure that she was the first in the world. Could you please add the word 'American'.
"Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree."
I feel like Nelson is the least important person on the list, no idea why anyone should know of him. You could add Catherine the Great (was suggested earlier) instead. Or Marie Curie.
All respect to those people, but how can you put Cromwell, Roosevelt, Queen Elizabeth, Parks or Austen over Curie, Mandela, Pol Pot, Castro, Stalin, Copernicus, Galileo or Socrates?
Totally agree. There's more than enough fascinating figures from the world outside Anglo-America such that Cromwell being on the list but Khan being absent seems like a massive oversight.
What about Harriet Tubman, Babe Ruth, Erik the Red, Charles II, Henry VIII, Vlad the Impaler, Genghis Khan, Emmeline Pankhurst, Attila the Hun, um, the list just goes on and on!
It's disappointing that there's there's a lot of spots taken by people who had at best only local influence, mostly of America and England. There are several outstanding mathematicians and scientists that deserve at least an honorable mention, from Einstein and Turing to Al-Khawarizmi and Maxwell.
Never heard of/seen that one, but Jeanne d'Arc is pretty common. Like most things, there's some complexity in deciding what her "real name" was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Joan_of_Arc
There are countless other people he could have included you can’t really compare the importance of every historical figure. However I do agree that you can attribute to them a certain level of significance and that although the people within the same level are probably interchangeable, people of the highest level should be preferred for a quiz like this instead of far less significant figures like Helen Keller, Margaret Thatcher, Abraham Lincoln etc
I'd like to point out that there are a bunch of Napoleons. Only one is the one you're talking about-- Napoleon Bonaparte. Consider changing it (but accept "Napoleon).
Sorry but it feels like western propaganda like not including first man in moon (Yuri Gagarin), one of greatest leader (Chingis Khan), who made ex soviet countries democracy (Mikhail Gorbachew) and many more...
This has already been addressed in previous comments, but in the time of Alexander, Macedonians were Greeks. That's part of the stink that caused the modern day country to change its name to North Macedonia.
Macedonia is a prefecture of Greece. People from Northern Macedonia maybe now called "Macedonians" but birthplace of Alexander is in Greece, they praised Greek gods, they spoke Greek, they participated in Olympics. The Slavs that inhabit the country of North Macedonia are totally unrelated to them.
Not even close to accurate. And even if it is do you think it’s proportionate to include more people from the last 200 years of our existence than the rest of written history? I can name at least 200 Greek and Roman writers, philosophers, mathematicians, politicians and military leaders who were way more significant in our evolution than half of the fore mentioned people. Take Lincoln for example; his only significance is to the US since the civil war only affected them and the results of the war weren’t particularly helpful in the progress of the human race as slavery had pretty much already been abolished in Europe (in theory at least).
I think, there are much more people that deserved to be among the 40 people rather than Rosa Parks, Horatio Nelson or Amelia Earrhart. They are so insignificant compared to major world leaders or philosophers. Maybe you just need to make the quiz bigger, but firstly, you need to remove insignificant figures
I look at this as "who impacted society the most" and in ways others might not have done.
Black America has a whole host of "was the first to..." figures. In terms of their actual accomplishments, very few of them were significant (sitting on a bus). Rosa Parks beating out Einstein on this list is just remarkable.
shakespeare more known than washington, da vinci, columbus, churchill, gandhi, newton, muhammad, napoleon, edison, lenin, beethoven, homer, alexander the great, caesar, mao zedong, hannibal, cook
Homer DID write the Iliad.
Please remove the 'supposedly' from the quiz
If you have proof that Homer existed and authored those books, then many historians would be very grateful to you for sharing it
Same with Mark Twain really, what on earth is a Huckleberry
-Bolivar isn't the only one called Liberator in Latinamerica.
-Hellen Keller, Cromwell, Cook, Nelson, Parks, none of these I would consider part of basic general knowledge everyone should have.
- Austen, Dickens and Twain but no Cervantes, writer of one of the most influential books ever?
This list is heavily anglocentric. No suprise, of course.
I can't see why no one has mentioned that yet
Also, Lao Tzu is about as "supposed" as Homer. His existence is not verified by any evidence other than there is a book credited to an "Old Master."
1. Edison didn't invent a lightbulb - he patented it and used his enterprising skills to become famous.
2. Alexander the Great wasn't a Greek, but Macedonian.
"40 Historical People that Every US-AMERICAN Should Know"
Dickens, Austen, Earhart, Parks, Keller,Twain are not worldwidely important.
Because I'm involved with the deaf community and understand how important it is for others to accept both them and their language - I was well versed with Helen Keller. If I didn't have the interest I have in sign language - then maybe she wouldn't seem that important to me. There is definitely more room for more quizzes like this one and perhaps take out the word 'most' and consider other perspectives? We will all learn things we didn't know then, I reckon.
Good quiz - I enjoyed it.
So yes, there is nothing wrong with knowing who these ppl were. And obviously the list is very biased toward modern history . For example why is Mao more important than the emperors who actually united China into a massive nation?
And Thatcher? Rosa Parks? America thinks it is the only country with a civil rights movement?
Sure, it is newtonian physics, but there's a reason why we call them Kepler's laws of planetary motion....
"Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree."
"Yes but I've never even heard the name Horatio Nelson."
All respect to those people, but how can you put Cromwell, Roosevelt, Queen Elizabeth, Parks or Austen over Curie, Mandela, Pol Pot, Castro, Stalin, Copernicus, Galileo or Socrates?
Just search for the last and you'll see.
Where's Chopin? Maria Sklodowska-Curie? Sun Tzu? Mussolini? And many others?
proof
How the heck Thatcher, Earhart and FDR made the list when there was no room for Genghis Khan and Einstein?
But at least Alexander Fleming isn't there because who needs penicillin when you can just listen to Für Elise.
Other people I think should be here: Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, Suleiman the Magnificent
very englishcentric quiz
Black America has a whole host of "was the first to..." figures. In terms of their actual accomplishments, very few of them were significant (sitting on a bus). Rosa Parks beating out Einstein on this list is just remarkable.