How about one of those ancient Greeks in the wars against Persia? Callimachus cast the deciding vote to attack the Persians at the Battle of Marathon (and was one of the few Greeks who died in the battle). Several Years later the Athenian general Themistocles both persuaded the Greek allies to remain steadfast and got Xerxes to attack under his terms.
A more interesting case might be John Ericsson, who built the ironclad Monitor for the Union (i.e good guys) during the American Civil War. Besides maintaining the blockade, it may have had more of an influence in keeping the British and French from intervening on the side of the South (i.e bad guys), at least according to a recent “BBC History” magazine podcast. The British realized that there most prized possession, the Queen’s Navy, was suddenly obsolete and although the Monitor was a coastal vessel, in time sea going ironclads would be ready and make mincemeat out of the British wooden ships (and their half assed ironclad the Warrior). Also interesting to wonder if the South had succeeded, would either side had intervened in the World Wars of the 20th century,
The one and only person whoever saved the world or will save the world would be Jesus Christ. He did this about 27 AD when He was crucified for the sins of the world. All you have to do is accept Him as your savior and you will be saved.
CHOWRUNNER
I guess you missed this.
Great Debates
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In all fairness it is hard to credit Kennedy for anything he did during the Cuban missile crisis since he thoroughly bungled the invasion of Cuba that preceded and precipitated it. It would be more accurate to say that he doomed generations of Cubans to penury and tyranny when if he had planned better and acted more decisively the missile crisis would have never occurred. However you look at his actions they fall well short of saving the world since he was essentially trying to clean up a mess he had a large role in making.
You might be able to make a better argument that Reagan saved the world or at least removed the threat everyone had lived under until that point. Whether you credit him or Thatcher, or Gorbachev, or pornography, whiskey and Rock and Roll it is hard to argue that the end of the Cold War and its potential for large scale annihilation as well as its lethal proxy wars wasn’t a world saving event. It is certainly the closest thing I have seen in my lifetime.
Someone earlier made an argument that if the person who invented fertilizer (or any other invention that allowed billions to live) had not done what he did then someone else would have come along and done so. This is not at all evident. It is quite possible for human populations to go extinct or be massively culled before they could discover the one thing they needed to know to prevent the calamity that ultimately befell them. We are so used to the rapid pace of progress now that we do not understand how hard won many of our early advances were. That we would survive and flourish was never a certainty ---- nor is it now.