A&E's Top 100 People of the Millenium

[Gazelle]

I think this is the right place to start up this topic. If not, dear moderator, please move to the forum of your choice.

Here's a link to their site - they just aired the show with the final 100, but they haven't updated their site yet. It still shows the original list of 250 which was whittled down:

http://www.biography.com/features/millennium/list.html

For those of you who did not see the show, Johann Gutenberg, developer of movable type and the printing press was number 1. I agree with that choice.

I think the main thing to remember is that the list is subjective.

The only choice on their top 100 list that I completely disagree with is Princess Diana. One of the most influential people of the past 1000 years? I don't think so!

What do you guys think?

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Most common question I ask: "What?"
Most common question I get: "Are you really hearing impaired?"

[Keeves]

Many of their choices were very debatable, but I feel pretty good about predicting Gutenberg as #1. Inventions of this century have moved Transmission Of Ideas from being Easy to being Very Easy, but Gutenberg moved it from Virtually Impossible to Moderately Difficult, and that paved the way for everything else.

[Polycarp]

Great list. A number of the post-WWII people I think may be just a bit trendy. But they did great for 950 years, so give them a little slack! :)

[Felinecare]

My main objection to the list is that they don't really state how they defined influential, or else I was in another room when they did.

How did Wendy What's Her Name make the panel anyway? Pulitzer or no, her plays aren't that good.

[Hunsecker]

I thought they did an amazingly good job, considering that there is no way they could satisfy everyone. A hell of a lot better than that AFI 100 best films list at any rate.

I agree with Hunsecker--at least A&E did a better job than those idiots at the AFI (the BFI list, by the way, is slightly less moronic).

I also agree that some of the modern people were thrown in to sell videotapes: no matter how nice they may have been, Diana, Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson and Ryan White were not "important" in any real or lasting way.

Virginia Woolf must be the cat's pajamas: "she's so nice, we listed her twice!"

[C K Dexter Haven]

In the category of "most annoying" however was Gloria Steinem's comment about how the list only included white males. The statement was patently false -- Ghandi was in the top 10, for instance, and there were lots of women (some, like Princess Diane, of dubious qualification) in the top 100. Plus, let's face facts, women were not allowed to play strong roles in politics, science, or academia in the last 1000 years. Why should the list be distorted to reflect modern sensibilities?

I thought it was a well-put together show, with some thought-provoking comments (such as about Christopher Columbus and Thomas Jefferson.) My wife and I both predicted and agreed with # 1 (Guttenberg) and # 2 (Isaac Newton).

[Polycarp]

Ryan was on the link provided. BTW, Marshall? George C., right, not William the or Thurgood or Wilson's VP? If so, I totally agree.

[Boris B]

I think it's kind of funny that they listed the Grateful Dead as one of the top people. I also think it's funny that they listed Princess Diana as a "Public figure for his fight against AIDS".

And I'm sore that Lockheed's Kelly Johnson didn't make the list, and Admiral Grace Hopper didn't either. But I expect modern aviation and computer programming don't count much compared to Oprah and Pavarotti.

Penny Marshall? Definitely!

[Fretful Porpentine]

Alice Walker and Toni Morrison? More influential than John Donne, or Ben Jonson, or Samuel Johnson, or Goethe, or Byron, or Twain?

I think these people have more political correctness than literary taste.

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On registration day at taxidermy school
I distinctly saw the eyes of the stuffed moose
Move.
- Gavin Gunhold

[Sake Samurai]

ADD:

Soren Keirkegaard & Martin Heidegger for philosophic thought and influence

Fyodor Dostoyevsky & Franz Kafka for literary accomplishments

SUBTRACT:

Every thing from the last 50 years. We should really wait a while more before we proclaim Jack-O a musical giant.

[tracer]

So ... how does this list compare to the Time Magazine 100 for the Century?

[tracer]

Oh dear.

I just looked at that biography.com site listing the top 250 list (before it was pared down to 100 for A&E). And ...

... fair and impartial list, my buttocks!

How could they list Bach and Mozart among the top 250 imfluential persons of the millenium, and not mention Beethoven?!? Beethoven had a FAR greater impact on Western music than either of those two hacks.

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Quick-N-Dirty Aviation: Trading altitude for airspeed since 1992.

[Omniscient]

I'd say its equally flawed to the Time 100. Both included way to many non-factors like Princess Di, and modern entertainers who will be forgotten in 50 more years. I totally agree with he list that Gates belongs near the top, its just he's been so vilified that people are certain he's just a fad, well let me clue you in here, he's at least as significant as Ford already, and he's only had about 15 years to get to that point. He and a couple of others are the only exceptions to the thought that no one from the last 50 years belongs.

Where can I find the entire list? I only saw the program in parts so I missed alot of it. Damn A&E get you website updated! Lazy bastards.

I'm not sure about Gutenberg being number one. I definately believe his contribution is significant, and influenced most that have come since, but his invention is pretty basic, not all that revolutonary. I can't help but think that within a few decades someone else would have made the same advance. It just too simple, and non-distinctive. I'd lean more towards Einstein, Newton, or Nobel.

But I'll have more to share after I get to see the entire concise list.

[Omniscient]

Um, IIRC Beethoven was on the list and was higher than Mozart and Bach. Nevertheless he was definately on the list in the top 25.

[Boris B]

Wait a minute!
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
1719-1787

Did Mozart really live until he was 68? I thought he died in his thirties! And I also found out that not only was Princess Diana not an AIDS patient, she wasn't a male either! What are they tryin ta push over on us?

(Who would name their kid The Beatles anyway?)

[Boris B]

Mozart
1756 - 1791
Much better

[Boris B]

Did you know that there were four U.S. Presidents who made the Bill of Rights part of the Constitution? That must mean the first forty amendments are all part of the Bill of Rights!

(James Madison reference. I'll shut up now.)

[metroshane]

did i miss the wright bros?

Martin Luther also is the first to write the commom rules for bowling, where would we be without that?

and elvis!!! Long live the king

I had a hard time with the performers--differentiating "popular" from "important." I don't like Charlie Chaplin, but can't really argue against his inclusion. Though I would say Mary Pickford was just as important in the formation of the film industry and as one of the first film superstars.

Marilyn Monroe will probably be remembered in 100 years--but was she "important?"

Irving Berlin was important, as were Harrigan & Hart, Edwin Booth, Louisa Lane Drew, Weber & Fields, Florenz Ziegfeld--but stage stars and producers aren't as well remembered, because their work dies with them. Probably the only 19th century stage stars the "man on the street" knows today are Sarah Bernhardt and (for the wrong reason) John Wilkes Booth.

[Ukulele Ike]

Well, if you want to add Mary Pickford to Chaplin because she was an archetype, why not throw in Doug Fairbanks, too? Just in case you need to have your buckles swashed.

D.W. Griffith's on the list already, so we could have ALL the United Artists.

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Uke

[Narile]

Polycarp, correct. Gen George C. Marshall, a great man.

The Wright Bros were #40 on the final list, and as I grew up near Huffman prairie outside of Dayton, am very happy A&E didn't pull a Disney. (In the ride at Epcot where you see the history of inventions, they have the Wright Brothers animatronics saying they are N.Carolina natives....Grrrrrr.)

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>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry....unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<

---The dragon observes

[tracer]

Omniscient wrote:

Um, IIRC Beethoven was on the list and was higher than Mozart and Bach. Nevertheless he was definately on the list in the top 25.

Beethoven may have been in the A&E Top 100 show(s), but he sure as heck wasn't among the Top 250 on the URL given in the OP.

Glad A&E changed their minds about Ludwig Van, if he did appear.

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Quick-N-Dirty Aviation: Trading altitude for airspeed since 1992.

[Omniscient]

Millennium List 1706-1978:
http://www.biography.com/features/millennium/list3.html

Beethoven's bio page:
http://search.biography.com/print_record.pl?id=1340

Read more carefully next time.

[tracer]

And now, the moment I'm sure you've all been waiting for. Namely, MY vote for most influential person of the millennium.

My vote for the #1 most influential person in the entire millennium goes to ...

... (drum roll) ...

Nicholas LeBlanc!!

Who is Nicholas LeBlanc, you ask? He was the man who, in 1791, invented a cheap way to make lye from ordinary salt. And cheap lye meant ... cheap soap!!!

No single invention in this millennium has probably had a greater or more far-reaching impact than abundant soap. The difference it made in ones chance of surviving to adolescence, due to the vastly improved sanitary conditions it allowed (not to mention its action as a minor disinfectant) was astounding. The all-encompassing lifestyle change that came with soap was so profound that unless you're living in a 4th-world country as you read this, you probably can't even imagine life without it. That wacky fat-and-lye mixture!

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Quick-N-Dirty Aviation: Trading altitude for airspeed since 1992.

[tracer]

Omniscient: Huh. I'll be darned. I coulda sworn L. van B. wasn't on the Top 250 list (page 3) the first two times I looked.

Musta been those aliens who abducted me.

[Omniscient]

I'll let it slide....once! :)

[Manda JO]

Am I just blind, or is Marx really not on their list?

[kaylasdad99]

I haven't seen either list yet, but I'm sure to before the day is out. I just wanted to jump in and point out that they DO have another year to get it right. As everyone HERE knows. :)

Kaylasdad

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Only a yar??? I'd better get crackin' on that FTL perpetual motion doo-hickey in the basement.

[kaylasdad99]

Note to Self: Don't just proofread the posts; proofread the signature line, too.

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Only a year??? I'd better get crackin' on that FTL perpetual motion doo-hickey in the basement.

[Kamino Neko]

MandaJo, assuming you mean Karl and not Groucho, he indeed was. Top 10, in fact, IIRC.

Although, I can't seem to find him on the webpage either.

Hrmmm....



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'They couldn't hit an Elephant from this dist...!'

Last words of General John Sedgwick

[Omniscient]

...dad, be careful, bringing up that millenium crap is likely to get you stoned in these parts.

[Phaedrus]

Unless I missed something I didn't see Sigmund Freud on the list. If their criteria were in fact, "Our list has been pared down to one hundred people who have had the most influence (positive or negative) in historical, cultural, political, social, or emotional terms, not just in their lifetime,
but on future generations as well." He most definitely should have been included. I would have included more philosophers and way less "first women" I don't think that they contribute all that much in the way of influence.

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That which a man had rather were true he more readily believes.

[C K Dexter Haven]

Yes, ol' Sigmund was in the top 25.

[Ukulele Ike]

Who the hell is Ryan White?

[Ukulele Ike]

Just looked him up. Ooop, is my face red. (With a monicker like that, I was worried he was a basketball player or something.)

Still, why a poster boy? Did he rank higher than, say, the guy who developed the smallpox vaccine?

[Polycarp]

I think the whole idea was that AIDS was one of those "we don't talk about that" ideas before he contracted it, and he made it his life's work (however tragically short) to educate the public on what the problem was, and get people's heads out of.... well, you get the idea.

Not bad for someone who died at 18!

[Narile]

I don't think Ryan White made the top 100, rather they chose 'patient zero' of aids. My irk is that they had Bill Gates at #41, and Jack Kilby wasn't on the list....Kilby invented the integrated cicuit, and the influence of that can't be argued really.

I also think Marshall should have been on the list.

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>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry....unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<

---The dragon observes

[John John]

Was Rachel Carson on that list?

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Brille
"Wet Floor" sign does not mean do it.

[astorian]

I learned long ago to ignore "100 GReatest ____ of all time" and "Top Ten" lists (except for David Letterman's) from ANY source. Even when I AGREE with the rankings, they're still a silly idea at best, and usually a cheap gimmick to sell something.
I mean, I AGREE that James Jouce's "Ulysses" is a great novel, but that list of the top 100 literary masterpieces was OBVIOUSLY a gimmick to sell books.

And when a TV station/program puts such a list together (whether it's this A & E list or the ESPN top athletes list), it's BOUND to be filled with undeserving candidates, chosen solely for being telegenic or controversial.

I mean, A & E wants ratings- so does it surprise ANYONE that Lady Di is deemed the equal of Gutenberg, Napoleon, Mozart or FDR?

[Polycarp]

Narile said:
In the ride at Epcot where you see the history of inventions, they have the Wright Brothers animatronics saying they are N.Carolina natives.

Like myself, Satan, and Fretful, they were North Carolina natives who came from somewhere else. :D

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

How about the person who "discovered" the chlorination of water? (If that person's name is even known.)

"Clean" water sure cuts down on water-borne diseases.

[C K Dexter Haven]

Yes, both Marx and Rachel Carson were on the top 100 list.

The argument that "if Guttenburg hadn't invented moveable type, someone else would have invented it a few years later" doesn't hold up, IMHO. The same argument can be applied to almost anyone -- if Columbus hadn't made that voyage, someone else would have a few years later; if Washington hadn't led the Revolution, someone else would have; etc. We gotta deal with history as she is, not as she might have been.

[DSYoungEsq]

I think it quite silly to try and comprehend the fullness of the effect any person had on our world within the last 250 years. I think we should wait until at least 2251 to make judgment. ;)

[Gazelle]

1. I can't believe I misspelled millennium when I opened the topic.

2. CKDextHavn said:


In the category of "most annoying" however was Gloria Steinem's comment about how the list only included white males.

She actually said (not exact quote) that "it was mostly white males with a few token women and people of color thrown in." I found it annoying, too, but she did pay attention and see the few that were on the list.

3. Does anyone actually believe that it would be possible to come up with a "fair, impartial list?"

I sure don't.

[Occam]

I ask you. What's so great about conqueror's? Tamerlane, Osman, Nepolean, Edward I...What did they do to further humanity? As far as I can tell someone gets big bad and dangerous, pushes other people around gets paranoid and falls prey to asassination, disease, lunacy or something unsavory. So what? Voltaire was more important than Nepolean, and I can't think of any lasting impression the other three had. Ideas and the people that bring them to life are far more important because they outlive their creator.

[Manda JO]

Occam: No lasting impression? I don't want to be rude here, but the list is of people that had a great impact, not nicest people to have over to dinner.

Osman: Did not conqour all that much, actually, was really more of a frontier warlord, but he founded the Ottoman Empire, which was certainly one of the shaping forces of the second half of this Millenium. The modern mess in the Balkans can be interprested as a direct result of the Ottoman empire; the fact that the Hagia Sophia is a mosque is due to the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman empire was for centureies one of the top 3-4 players in world politics, and to say that it had no impact on the rest of the world is tantemont to saying that the existance of France was trivial.

Tamerlane: Was actually much more of a SOB than Osman ever dreamed of being. It is also is some ways harder to defend him because he definitly destroyed much more than he built--while Osman was interested in forming a LASTING empire, Tamer was more of your "rape and pillage" type. His empire began to desentagrate about five minutes after he died. (In bed, by the way, while on the way to attack China--at the age of seventy)However, even destruction makes a huge impact. Many, many small kingdoms that exisited before Tamer never recovered, and were instead swept up into larger political entities that had been able to take the blow (the Ottomans were one of these groups that survived and expanded into the confussion Tamer left behind). The whole map of the middle east was redrawn, permently. From a Eurocentric point of view, his actions were extremely influential if only because his almost complete distruction of the Ottomans delayed the conquest of Constantanople fifty years, which gave the Greek scholors of Constantanople fifty more years to see the writting on the wall and take thier books and flee to Italy, where they sparked the Italian Rennasiance and all of its reprocussions. From a more worldly perspective, one of Tamer's decendents (I think a grandson, but I get confused. Tamer was a Warrior's Warrior and kept having children by various women/girls/sheep until the day he died. The enourmous number of male heirs is part of the reason the empire fell apart), Baber went to India and founded the Moghul empire, which was extemly important in its own right.

I don't mean to jump down your throat, but history is not a pretty subject, and someone who "gets big bad and dangerous, pushes other people around gets paranoid and falls prey to asassination, disease, lunacy or something unsavory." often also changes the shape of the world. You may not admire them, but it is nieve to deny their role.

On a side note, I do think the whole list thing is pretty silly. It is hard to see how one desides who affected history "more". There is also the question of intent. Much of the effects people have are not willed. Tamer certainly didn't mean to give Constantanople another fifty years--should he get credit? This is why historians rarely, if ever, use the "great man" theroy of History, and stick to the broader forces that contributed to the rise and fall of great men.

[Sam Stone]

And a lot of 'great men' were simply people who happened to be in the right place at the right time. The Wright Brothers were a good example. The main reason we didn't have powered flight before 1908 was because engine technology wasn't ready. For flight to be possible, you need to be able to generate a certain amount of HP/lb, and we just couldn't do that until that time. The engines finally came available, and the Wright Brothers were there. They made some minor engineering innovations, but nothing really fantastic. And powered flight could have taken place without those innovations (Lilienthal could have flown his glider forever if he had the right engine for it, 30 years earlier. George Cayley designed and flew an airplane with wings, fuselage and tail in 1799, and flew models of it. But he had no engine).

Gates is another example. He was in the right place at the right time. There was a need for a universal operating system for microcomputers, and he was the guy who provided it. If he wasn't around, there were lots of others ready to step into the void. OS/2, UNIX, GEM, you name it.

[tracer]

I hate to break this to you, dhanson, but IBM contracted Microsoft to write OS/2. In fact, many elements of the OS/2 kernel and OS/2 Presentation Manager wound up in Windows.

[Narile]

dhanson, I'm not arguing that someone else wouldn't have made the airplane if the Wrights had not, but what they did were not 'minor' engineering innovations. Pretty much every detailed history of flight that I've read stated they were the first to understand how and why wing warping works, and therefor were the first to easily steer their plane. As CKDestHavn stated, the claim of right person, right time, can be made of any inventor, but don't belittle them due to that.

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>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry....unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<

---The dragon observes

[Sam Stone]

I'm not belittling them, but if they hadn't flown first, there would have been another powered flight by someone else within 5 years. Bleriot's Monoplane, which flew 4 years after the Wright Brother's plane, was of a completely different, and much more modern design. The Wright Flyer was a box-kite biplane with a canard and a pusher engine. Bleriot's plane had a tractor engine, a fuselage and tail, and a single wing. He gained little or no knowledge from the Wright's design, and was already working on his planes when the Wright Flyer flew.

Wing warping wasn't necessary for controlled powered flight. Modern powered hangliders do it through body shift. If a wing has dihedral, you don't even need ailerons or wing warp. Just turn the rudder, and the plane will bank into the turn properly.

Anyway, wing warp wasn't that great an idea. Ailerons work much better. If you look at gliders built since 1799 you'll see that the designers knew about cambered airfoils, so it's a very small step to controlling the lift on one wing by modifying the camber, either through warp, or ailerons, or spoilers.

Anyway, George Cayley may have been more important than the Wrights. Here are some of his contributions to flight:

A) He set down the mathematical principles of flight (i.e. lift, thrust, drag)

B) He was the first to make use of models for flying research, among them a very modern-looking glider which flew well using a single wing, a fuselage, and a tail with a rudder and elevator. He flew it in 1804.

C) He was the first to draw attention to the importance of streamlining

D) He was the first to suggest the benefits of biplanes and triplanes to get increased lift without increasing span

E) He was the first to construct and fly a man-carrying glider, in 1849, 54 years before the Wright Flyer came along.

F) He was the first to demonstrate the means by which a cambered airfoil provides lift.

G) He was the first to suggest the use of an internal combustion engine and propellor to provide thrust.

If the engines had been available, I think Cayley would have flown a powered aircraft in the mid-late 1800's. Unfortunately, fuel oil didn't have a low enough flash point to make a serviceable engine, so manned, powered flight had to wait.

BTW, an unmanned airplane achieved powered, sustained flight in 1857, using a steam engine. The problem was that the steam engine was too heavy to provide enough thrust to carry itself and a man.