Hi, this web page was designed by Saifur Rahman, and this site is called the Ranking of the 100 Most infleuntial persons in history. Not the greatest, but the most infleuntial, meaning, the people I have selected have played a large part in changing the course of human history, and they also played a part in the rise and fall of civillazation. This web contains detail of not what should occured or what occured, but rather there effectiveness in history. They include there biographies and contribution.
Everything I write about these people are rather of my own opinion, and remember you have a right to choose who are your 100 infleuntial persons of history are.
My selection of ranking is rather surprising, it is neither Jesus Christ or Marx who lead the list, but Muhammad. They also include some surprising historical figures such as Asoka and Zoroaster, and many religious leaders, such as Buddha and Moses, inventors, like Thomas Edison, and great scientists such as Isaac Newton, Einstein, Galileo,Copenicus, Kepler and Francis Bacon.
Many of the people in my list are mostly scientists, because throughout history, scientists have transformed and revolutionized our lives,than have politcians or military leaders have done.
I have decided to include new historical figures in my list, and they are Ernest Rutherford,Henry Ford and Gorbachev. Ernest Rutherford, was the most celebrated scientist of the twentieth century, and Mikhail Gorbachev, was a recent political figure, who was the last ruler of the Soviet Union from
(1985-1991), and had played a large part in the ending of the Cold War and the disintergration of the Soviet Union. I have ranked, Gorbachev at position 95, which is bellow Lenin, but ranks higher than many politicians of the past.
I now realize that the founders of Communism (Marx, Lenin and Stalin), are highly infleuntial, but are less important. Marxism, has been economically and politically a disaster, and I now realize that the works of Michael Farady are more important than the repressive Communist shadow, which has turmoiled nearly most of the twentieth century, and the reason being that the works of Farady is much important, is because five-hundred years from now, electricity will be important, and the hayday of Marxist power is finally coming to an end, and Mikhail Gorbachev was the man who was responsible for the ending of the Cold War, the break up of the Soviet Union, and the decline of Communism.
Marxist rule spread to many parts of the world, in 1949, the Chinesse Communist leader
Mao Zedong seized power in China, and in a matter of only twenty-years, Mao largely transformed China, and while he was alive, it looked as if his long-term infleunce in China, would endure for many centuries, but after his death in 1976, Deng Xiapeng took office, and under him there was some liberalization, but the dictatorial position of his government didn't come to an end, and convertion to demorcracy in China, for recent years, has been a struggle, and it even remains to be today. Under Deng, China was abandoning Socialism, and the economic policies of Mao, are rather less important, simply because they are fading away, and also China will be a capitalist nation in a matter of only thew years. Communist rule has spread to a large area of the world, and there were Marxist clients in Ethopia and Mongolia, and today these countries are no longer ruled by there Communist rulers.
Like I say, Communism has been economically and politically are disaster, and the price for Marxism, for being a sucess is around about 100 million deaths, and most of the catastrophy that occured in the Communist regimes, must not all be blamed to Lenin and Stalin, but also Marx.
It is certainly clear, that when Pol Pot, the leader of the Cambodian Communist party seized power in 1975 in Cambodia, he established a reign of terror, which at a price, met two million deaths, and I do not think Marx would have approved of the manic Marxist system Pol Pot built, simply because he would have been horrified, and many still yet blame Marx, for inspiring Pol Pot and Stalin.
Today there are only, a few countries that are ruled by Communnist tyrannies, they are
(Vietnham, Laos,North Korea,Cuba and the Peoples Republic of China). And there's more than a billion people are living under Communist rule. But none of these countries are economically strong enough to retain there position with Marxist rule, and the reason being, is that the dictorial position these Communist rulers hold is unsecure.
And we must give women, our credit for there contribution in history, and throughout history, they have been denied many times, and only with the dawn of the twentieth century, did we see such Feminist Movements commence in the western world.
And before I made this web page, I also thought of considering Martin Luther King Jnr, Abraham Lincoln and Babe Ruth, but they will get a place in my honourable place in my list, but we musn't forget they to played a part in creating the fascinating world we live in.
INTRODUCTION
I am Saifur Rahman, and I am from a city called Leicester in England, and before I say anything, must I thank David Bliss and Stephen Rooney, who were classroom assistants and friend from Charles Keene College, and I thank David mainly because he gave me some historical details, and myself, and Daniel Williams, my school collegue, who helped me convert this web page in the internet, and Mr Dave Thomas, Deputy Head of Ellesmere College, Leicester, who was my former English teacher, and from him, I learned a lot, from the works of the Ancient Greeks to the work of William Shakesphere, and I also want to thank Mr Trevor Davies, a long time ago , was my science teacher, gave me some scientific details, which later I learnt about Newtons Law of Motion and Einstein's theory of relativity. Before I say anything, may I thank you, because without you, this web page wouldn't have been made.
Remember most of the people in my list are not all great, for instance there is a place for someone like, a highly infleuntial, wicked and heartless person such as Stalin, or an evil genious such as Hitler, but no place for the saintly Mother Cabrini.
You may see the partnership of Karl Marx and Friederich Engels, the similar to the partnership of the Write Brothers, Orville and Wilber Wright. But I consider Marx to be the important of the two.
You think that the man who invented the machine gun, Andrew Gatland, was more important than Albert Einstein, and you may also think that I should re-consider, putting Gatland, in the same position of Einstein, which is position number 10, simply because the invention of the Machine Gun was more important than Einstein's theory of relativity.
I also thought of considering Aesop and also Sankara, who is totally unknown in the west, but is known throughout India, and may have been the only historical charactor representing the Hindus.
Other great figures, include T'sai Lun, who lived in China around about 105AD, and was the inventor of paper. Today, it is quite hard to imagine a world without paper, and T'sai Lun, who is known in the west by very thew many people, is not included in all biographical dictionaries or encyclopedia, and his standards of fame in the west is slightly rather poor, and ranks near the top ten in my list, and I used to thought that the invention of paper was less important, but when you look at it from this point of you, that, we use paper nearly everyday of our lives, and I have included him in these web, not because of his fame, but rather because of his developement of paper in the second century AD.
Other known figures also include Alexander the Great, George Washington, Augustus Caesar and Shi Huang Ti.
Alexander the Great, probably the most dramatic figure in history, had studied under Aristotle, the greatest scientist and philosopher of the ancient world, and Alexander also studied the poetry of Homer, and as well as that, he was a great conqueror, who carved up an empire, stretching from Macedonia to India, and founded many great cities such as Alexandria in Egypt, and Kandahir in Afghanisthan.
The celebrated French general Napoleon Bonapture, was also a great conqueror, and was also a disaster. Many historians, compare Napoleon with Adolf Hitler, and nothing in Napoleon's regime is compared to the babaric concentration camps, and Napoleon was rather an opportunatist, wherelse Hitler was an oppprtunatist, rather in a hideous ideology, for instance Napoleon had intentions to perperate such large scale massacres, and Hitler disturbed the world many times for than, Napoleon did in his lifetime.
For instance, 500,000 French Soldiers died during the Napoleonic Wars, and around about 8000000 German soldiers died during WWII, and I certainly think, Napoleon and Hitler have equal infleunce upon world history, but I see Napoleon the important of the two.
There has been other great world conquerors, such as the great Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan, and also known as Temujin, who during his lifetime, conquered large areas of Asia, and his sucessors Kublai Khan and Tamerlane, extended Mongol infleunce to a large areas of the world, and the Mongol conquest was effective for almost six hundred years. The great Chinesse Philosopher Confucious, who lived around about 500BC, in China, lived at the same time as Buddha.
Both also have equal infleunce upon human history, Buddha is much more infleuntial than Confucious, simply because, throughout the ages, Buddhism spread to South-East Asia, Japan, Korea,China, and by 1200AD, Buddhism was on the verge of decline in India. Buddhism originated from Northern India, from a local religion to one of the great religions of the world. The teaching's of Confucious remained in China, right to 1900AD, and with the advent of Communism in China, it looked Confucious teaching was less important, but with the recent decline of Communism in China, Confuciounism looks as if it will revive again, and the one thing I learnt about Confucious teachings is that, you must never under estimated his work, and Confucious also made the way for other great Chinesse philosophers such as Lao Zi, the founder of Taoism and Mencius, who had lived only in a matter of a thew generations after Confucious.
And the other reason, why Buddha is the important of the two, is Buddhism has been globally a sucess than Confucious has. Confuciounism, has been mainly sucessful in the oriental states of China, Japan and Korea.
The forerunner, to Buddha was Mahvira, the founder of Jainism, who had lived just a generation earlier before Buddha. Today there is only three million Jains, and there is a huge number of Buddhists, an estimating 200million, a huge number compared to how many Jains there are throughout the globe. It is certainly true had Columbus never discovered the Americas , they would have been discovered later on, but the discovery of the Americas in 1492, was a new chapter in human history, and 500 years later saw the dawn of the space age. The Space Age began in 1957, when the Soviets launched Sputnik into space, and in 1969, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, and the science of space exploration is like a new chapter in our lives, and hopefully, sometime in the early twenty first century, we may see the first manned-mission to our neighbouring planet Mars, and this expedition would cost a huge amount of money for NASA, and within the next five-centuries, we would have probably explore all our nine planets in the Solar System. I also included John F Kennedy in this list, simply not because of his political policies concerning, the disasterous Bay of Pigs invasion, or his legislation concerning civil rights, but simply because he was the inspirator of the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969. But his policies concerning civil rights at home , would have been introduced any way by any US president, following the post Kennedy administration era.
But the formation of the United States is another significant evet in world history. Who must we give credit,(George Washington,Thomas Jefferson,Benjamin Franklin or James Madison), in my opinion they both deserve a credit, but I see George Washington as similar, to how Augustus Caesar formed the Roman Empire back in 30BC.
I certainly think that Isaac Newton was probably the most infleuntial person in the last thousand years, and I have rated him higher than such Political figures such as Alexander the Great,George Washington, Constanstine the Great and great religious leaders such as Moses, Buddha and Jesus Christ, and is ranked second on my list, simply because science has a large involvement in our lives, and Newton was the founder of modern scientific theory. Newton layed the ground work for Einstein, as did Galileo did for Newton.
Darwin's theory of evalution, would have been formulated by someone else had Charles Darwin never lived, and the South American colonies would eventually would have one there independence, even without Simon Bolivar.
Modern Science arose in Europe in the fifteenth century, that period in history is also known as the Renaissance, which marks the begining of modern history, and the works of the pre-Christian era were re-discovered, they included Greek rationalism .
Mexico and Peru would have been conquered even without Hernando Courtes and Francisco Pizzaro, and the conquest of the Moslem caliphate Umar ibn al-Khattab, that the Arab conquest is far more important and enduring than the conquest of Julius Caesar and Charlemagne.
And the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, was far more important than the reformation, and Copenicus was far more important than Martin Luther, simply because the thirty years war, had little impact towards the world, and religious belief has declined in the west in the last 200 years.
I have also included the man from Stratford-upon-Avon, Edward DeVere, also known to many people as William Shakesphere is also in the list, with other great men, such as Michelangelo, Machiveli,Beethoven and Johan Sebastian Bach.
And we musn't forget the people, who played a major rise in the biological revolution of the last two-hundred years,were men like Louise Pasteur, Josepth Lister, Alexander Fleming and Gregory Pincus, who developed the contraception pill.
And finally, the reason being why I have ranked Muhammad higher than Jesus, because the entire theology of Islam was dominated by Muhammad, Christianity was founded by Jesus and St Paul.
Without Jesus, Christianity wouldn't have exist, and without St Paul it is hard to know how infleuntial the Christian religion would have been. Christianity, throughout the ages has had more adherents than any religion in history, but I see Muhammad as the most infleuntial single person in history.
I hope you enjoy surfing my web page, and if you want to know more about any historical websites, than go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/history, and if you have any interest in the Bible, then
go to http://www.biblemysteries.com, and this biblical website is made by Michael Sanders.
Remember this ain't the greatest people in history, but the most infleuntial, and we must sometimes we careful with the word Greatest, because it doesn't always mean you are good, for instance, Shi Huang Ti unified China and introduced new reforms back in 238BC, but he was a ruthless leader, as was Peter the Great and Elizabeth I, who also had ruthless ambitions, and by many historians were seen as one of the greatest people in history.
Thank you for surfing my web page.
Your sincerly
Saifur Rahman