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Who They Are / What They Did
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Person
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1
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Messiah of Christianity
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Jesus Christ
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2
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Founded Islam
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Muhammad
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3
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Deeply influenced Chinese thought
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Confucius
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4
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Founded Buddhism
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Buddha
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5
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Rediscovered the New World
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Christopher Columbus
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6
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Started WWII
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Adolf Hitler
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7
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Conquered most of Asia
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Genghis Khan
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8
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Invented the printing press
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Johannes Gutenberg
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9
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Sparked the Protestant Reformation
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Martin Luther
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10
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Father of Communism
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Karl Marx
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11
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Founded the Persian empire
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Cyrus the Great
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12
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Conquered most of Europe
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Napoleon Bonaparte
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13
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Won WWII, modernized the USSR, killed millions
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Joseph Stalin
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14
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Led the Communist revolution in China
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Mao Zedong
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15
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Unified China
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Qin Shi Huang
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16
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Conquered the Persian Empire and spread Greek culture
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Alexander the Great
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17
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Led India to independence from the UK
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Mohandas Gandhi
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18
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Expanded the Maurya Empire to most of the Indian subcontinent
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Ashoka
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19
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Started Taoism
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Laozi
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20
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First Roman emperor
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Augustus
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21
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Conquered England
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William the Conqueror
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22
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Discovered calculus and the theory of gravitation
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Isaac Newton
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23
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Father of Western Philosophy
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Plato
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24
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Leader of the American revolution
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George Washington
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25
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Expanded the Frankish empire
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Charlemagne
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26
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Led the Communist revolution in Russia
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V. I. Lenin
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27
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Helped Latin America achieve independence
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Simón Bolívar
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28
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Converted the Gentiles to Christianity
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St. Paul
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29
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Started a once-popular religion called Zoroastrianism
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Zoroaster
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30
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Started the Crusades
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Pope Urban II
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31
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Conquered Gaul. Became dictator of Rome
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Julius Caesar
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32
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Improved the steam engine
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James Watt
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33
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Made huge breakthroughs in disease prevention
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Louis Pasteur
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34
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Discovered evolution
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Charles Darwin
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35
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Allowed Rome to become a Christian empire
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Constantine
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36
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Greatest pharaoh of the New Kingdom
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Ramesses II
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37
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Discovered relativity
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Albert Einstein
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38
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Attempted a first comprehensive system of Western thought
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Aristotle
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39
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Father of Economics
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Adam Smith
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40
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Helped invent the lightbulb and much more
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Thomas Edison
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41
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Conquered Central Asia in the late 1300s
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Timur
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42
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Greatly expanded the Russian empire
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Peter the Great
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43
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Unified Spain (two people)
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Ferdinand & Isabella
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44
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Led the U.K. through WWII
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Winston Churchill
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45
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Led England to a period of great discovery and prosperity
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Queen Elizabeth I
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46
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Led the U.S. through the Civil War
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Abraham Lincoln
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47
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First to sail from Europe to India
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Vasco da Gama
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48
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Invented the airplane (two people)
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Wright Brothers
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49
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To Sunnis, the fourth caliph; to shiites, the first imam
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Ali
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50
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Invented the smallpox vaccine
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Edward Jenner
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51
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Preeminent mathematician of the 18th century
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Leonhard Euler
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52
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Made discoveries about radiation
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Marie Curie
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53
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Broke England away from the Catholic church
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Henry VIII
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54
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Invented birth control
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Gregory Pincus
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55
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Figured out how to make artificial fertilizer
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Fritz Haber
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56
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Potentially saved hundreds of millions by improving crop yields
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Norman Borlaug
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57
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Father of Geometry
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Euclid
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58
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Emperor who led China to a golden age during the Tang dynasty
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Taizong of Tang
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59
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Assembly line and automobile pioneer
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Henry Ford
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60
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Led the U.S. through the Great Depression and WWII
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Franklin Roosevelt
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61
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Made huge contributions to mathematics and philosophy in the 17th century
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René Descartes
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62
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Discovered genetics
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Gregor Mendel
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63
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Founded the Umayyad caliphate
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Muawiyah I
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64
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Conquered Persia and much of the Byzantine Empire
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Umar
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65
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Conquered Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire
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Mehmed the Conqueror
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66
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First President of Indonesia
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Sukarno
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67
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Made important discoveries about electromagnetism
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Michael Faraday
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68
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Made important discoveries about electromagnetism
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James Maxwell
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69
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Led Russia to become a great power
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Catherine the Great
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70
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Discovered penicillin
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Alexander Fleming
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71
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First post-apartheid President of South Africa
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Nelson Mandela
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72
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Conquered the Incas
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Francisco Pizarro
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73
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Conquered the Aztecs
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Hernán Cortés
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74
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Founder of Jainism
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Mahavira
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75
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Helped develop the Scientific Method
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Francis Bacon
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76
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Unified Germany under Prussian leadership
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Otto von Bismarck
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77
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Sometimes called the Father of Modern Science
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Galileo Galilei
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78
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Discovered that the Earth revolves around the Sun
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Nicolaus Copernicus
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79
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Father of Modern Chemistry
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Antoine Lavoisier
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80
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Improved the microscope. Observed single-celled organisms
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Antony van Leeuwenhoek
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81
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Promoted sterile surgery
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Joseph Lister
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82
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Father of nuclear physics
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Ernest Rutherford
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83
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Prophet who founded Manichaeism, a now extinct religion
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Mani
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84
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Invented the radio
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Guglielmo Marconi
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85
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Founder of Pakistan
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Muhammad Ali Jinnah
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86
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Emperor of Ethiopia, messiah of a minor religion
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Haile Selassie
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87
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Father of computer science
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Alan Turing
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88
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Most prominent figure in the American Civil Rights movement
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Martin Luther King, Jr.
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89
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Helped overthrow the Shogunate in Japan
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Sakamoto Ryōma
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90
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Hero of Mexican independence
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Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla
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91
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Founder of psychoanalysis
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Sigmund Freud
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92
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Playwright
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William Shakespeare
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93
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Important artist and "Renaissance" man
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Leonardo da Vinci
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94
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Musical composer
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Ludwig van Beethoven
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95
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Renaissance artist
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Michelangelo
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96
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Probably the most influential painter of the 20th century
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Pablo Picasso
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97
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Arguably influenced pop culture more than anyone else
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Walt Disney
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98
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Pop musician
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John Lennon
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99
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19th century novelist
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Charles Dickens
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100
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20th century athlete
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Pelé
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Oda Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu or Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Or maybe Meiji, who undoubtedly led Japan to the modern age?
Once he did it, 37 more did in the next year and hundreds after that.
Until he changed their belief it would never have happened.
But more important than that, Lennon over Elvis? Lennon would have strongly disagreed.
My only real quibble with the list is perhaps John Lennon, whose significance I would never diminish, but in terms of pop musicians, I am not sure his actual influence is as profound as that of Elvis or Michael Jackson or Frank Sinatra
On second thought, no, no athletes should be on this quiz at all.
Most influential person in the 20th century? Definitely not. Most consequential person of the 20th century? Not #1, but he might be up there.
That said, this is a very impressive list. It's a hard thing to assemble and in most respects it's very good.
1. Florence Nightingale developed the nursing profession into what it is today, saving and improving countless lives around the world
2. The Manhattan Project caused huge changes all over the world, though I'm not sure which 1 person that would be attributable to (Richard Feynman was involved and also helped popularise science but maybe there would be someone else more appropriate)
And who is Pelé? only Messi could be on that short list of athletes.
Al-Khwaritzmi should make the cut also. For such thing of The Numbers
Reply if you are.
For the one Japanese person, I probably would have chosen Tokugawa Ieyasu (reunified Japan after centuries of regional warfare) or maaaaybe Murasaki Shikibu (author of the Tale of Genji) over Sakamoto, but I do agree with the choice to go with him over the Emperor Meiji--anyone who's studied Japanese history knows the emperor is never the most influential person.
you took off Moses for being a figure of mythology. (good call) You should have also taken off Jesus for the same reason. We don't even know if he was a real person let alone much about him or how influential he really was. Or at least put him below Paul. There's a growing scholarly consensus that Muhammad should fall in to the same category, as there is almost nothing written about Muhammad that actually survives from his lifetime. (though there is a lot more than we have for Jesus, aka nothing)
You left Pincus on the quiz?? He absolutely doesn't belong. This was one of the dumbest things about the original quiz. The man is the CO-inventor of combined oral contraceptives. Not even the sole inventor. Not the inventor of birth control (which had been being practiced for hundreds of years various ways). As I said on the previous quiz, you could have given his spot to Margaret Sanger, who underwrote his
I agree, that Paulus had a bigger influence on the christian doctrine than any theoretical predecessor. That is again the question, what kind of influence is meant and to be held higher. There are also a lot of figures of early christianity with a similar record than him, that were one by one purged from the records, yet who still had influence on the legacy.
If you'd apply higher standards for historicity, that's good, but I also think it is interesting to see, how people asses that question from a more personal point of view.
In short I see your point and could see it either way it just seems inconsistent to me to remove Moses from the list entirely, and then rank Jesus #1.
If this is not enough, he also happens to be the most mentioned person on all of Wikipedia
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/06/11/the-most-influential-person-on-wikipedia-is-someone-youve-probably-never-heard-of/?utm_term=.e07279044fda
https://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/42254/top-100-people-of-the-millennium
I know I don't follow sports much but what makes him more influential than Mozart or Thomas Jefferson or some other people not here?
It's sad how few women there are (not a critic to you, it's obviously true to reality)
The one person i feel is left out is Carl Linnaeus the botanist. After all he is the person responsible for the naming of basically all flora and fauna. No Homo Sapiens or Canis Lupus and such without Linnaeus.
Also i dont know why Sukarno is so high up, but that might just be ignorance on my part.
Calling him a "pop musician" isn't exactly wrong, but it's really misleading. No wonder so few people are guessing that one correctly.
(For reference, the word "pop" shows up twice on his Wikipedia page. "Rock" is used 15 times (plus another 15 in the References section.)
Also pedant alert. You can't invent evolution. And to be accurate Darwin didn't even "invent" the theory of Evolution. That was already around. He came up with the mechanism for it to work i.e. Natural Selection. The Theory (since proved) is Natural Selection. Evolution is a fact and always was. This is the rebuttal to intelligent designers who go Oh but Evolution is only a Theory
There were 2 clues that I thought could be better though. Ashoka expanded the Mauryan Empire by conquering Kalinga, but I feel like the work he did to expand Buddhism is both more well known and more important and thus should be highlighted in the clue.
I also feel that the Pasteur clue is somehow too vague--the way it's phrased, I somehow thought it was a doctor or epidemiologist. It might be a good idea to highlight his work in microbiology and popularizing the germ theory of disease.
Most famous Marconi's invention was stolen from Tesla (which is proved), so it's nonsense to put him in this list instead of Tesla.
Edison was surely material for this list, but not more important than Tesla. Because Edison is realy high on the list, my opinion is that, you should have put Tesla on the list also.
Mightn't greater specificity help? e.g. "Renaissance physicist and astronomer from Pisa" for Galileo, "19th century British novelist and social critic" for Dickens, "20th century Brazilian footballer" for Pele?
Mahavira was an early Jain (6,000,000 followers, mainly in India)
Just saying…
Of all the mathematicians and scientists you added, you left out Gauss!?!?
You clearly forgot artists so you just decided to put them at the end.
If you are looking for an influential sports figure, it would have to be either Ali or Jordan over Pele.
So many things I disagree with that I have to call this bad...just bad
Stalin was in power for longer, killed more people, made USSR into a global power that lasted for 60 years, decided the modern borders of half of Eurasia, resettled millions of people, forever changing the demographics of many regions, set up the Cold War and Iron Curtain etc. Basically defined the world's geopolitics for 50 years to come.
Most of Hitler's deeds, although very significant and horrible, seem to have smaller reach in terms of time scale, number of people and amount of area affected, unless you decide that starting WWII makes him automatically more influencial than Stalin, which if you do, I would like to hear some arguments for, not necessarily that I want to challenge you on this but because I would like to know your line of reasoning.
Having said that, I do think Margaret Sanger probably deserves the spot over Gregory Pincus.
I took the Pele one as a bit of a gag. It is #100 after all. Threw in a fun one - that one one else seems to appreciate.
I could've done with some more time, but I was taking it pretty slow.
This is quite ambiguous, as China had fractured and united over and over through millennia. we can say that every emperor who united China is a correct answer.
Obligatory nitpick. Gutenberg did not invent the printing press. The printing press had existed in numerous cultures for many years before he made his improvement. He is notable for inventing the movable type printing press. That made changing a print job much easier and cheaper. Prior to his contribution, every printing plate had to be either cast out of metal or carved out of wood.