# People Who Should Be More Famous **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 14, 2010, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424 "2010-03-14T04:12:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/21 "2010-03-16T03:34:09Z")
[Alexander Kerensky](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Kerensky) – he was the acting head of the Russian provisional government from the time of the Russian Revolution in February of 1917 (when the Tsar was forced to abdicate), until October when the Bolsheviks came in and overthrew the provisional government. A lot of people just assume it was the Bolsheviks that began the Revolution – but it actually started as a bread riot in St. Petersberg. (Lenin and company weren’t even IN Russia at the time, but under exile in Switzerland). I also think that if we’re talking about events, the sinking of the _Lusitania_ probably had far more of an impact on the world than that of the _Titanic_ (which really only changed safety regs). ---
**Author:** ![gravitycrash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@gravitycrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gravitycrash)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/22 "2010-03-16T04:29:23Z")
**Tesla** was robbed! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Man_With_The_Golden_Gun)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/23 "2010-03-16T05:39:02Z")
Every person on the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna student admissions board in 1907 and 1908. ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/24 "2010-03-16T06:28:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Charles Spurgeon-British clergyman Actually Spurgeon is a god in Calvinist circles. ---
**Author:** ![kidneyfailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9f8e36/32.png) [@kidneyfailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidneyfailure)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/25 "2010-03-16T10:01:35Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > [Dr Norman Bethune](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Bethune) > > Canadian doctor who developed tools for thoracic surgery, then went overseas to work with the leftists in the Spanish Civil War; in Spain he developed mobile blood-transfusion techniques. Later he went to China and did similar work. There are streets and other places named for him in Canada, Spain, and China–my aunt lived on Bethune Street in Peterborough. > > But you might not have heard of him because he was (gasp) a Communist. Actually, he is one of the most well-known people in the world…by grace of the fact that he’s adored by nearly billions of Chinese people, the vast majority of whom learned about him in school and or saw him portrayed in any of the several movies made in China about his life. I whole-heartedly agree that he should be more well-known outside of China, though. He lost his life treating the injured, Japanese _and_ Chinese, in the middle of a fucking warzone, and continued doing so after he became aware that he would most likely die of blood poisoning if he didn’t seek treatment himself. I’ve got respect for that. And his reputation getting buried because of his political affiliation is unfair and stupid and insulting. I think **Israel Epstein** should be more famous. If you’re a foreigner who lives in China you NEED to know this guy’s story. If you’re not a foreign expat in China you’ll still find his story completely fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/26 "2010-03-16T11:56:29Z")
> [@](#): > > How about the dude that received the nobel prize for “inventing” holograms? > > Given how much buzz (and research papers) holograms have generated over all these years you’d think he would be more well known. > > Interestingly enough, he “invented” them to solve a different and rather boring problem. And it didnt really work practically for that in the first place. **Dennis Gabor**. And his problem wasn’t boring, although it was nowhere near as exciting as 3-D pictures, I’ll grant you. He made is holograms with highly filtered, very monochromatic mercury emission, in 1948. It was over a dozen years before Leith and Upatnieks could apply highly coherent laser light to the situation, and with its long coherent length, produce 3-D images. But for 14 years, people were making holograms without lasers. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/27 "2010-03-16T12:25:58Z")
Maybe it’s because I live in NC, but people here know a lot about the Civil War and the generals. Or should I call it The War of Northern Aggression. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/28 "2010-03-16T15:36:16Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > Fritz Haber - developed the process for synthesizing ammonia using nitrogen in the air, making cheap fertilizer possible, “responsible for sustaining one-third of the Earth’s population”. [Haber process - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process) Perhaps he’s less celebrated because of his _other_ work: developing poison gas, both chlorine and other gases used in WWI and, later, the infamous Zyklon B, which would be chosen to be the death chamber gas used in the Holocaust. [The Father of Chemical Warfare](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber#World_War_I). ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/29 "2010-03-16T15:50:09Z")
Someone who deserves to be more infamous is [Thomas Midgley Jr](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley). He was responsible for developing lead as a petrol additive to prevent engine knocking. Then for an encore, he discovered CFCs could be used as refrigerants. I shudder to think what his hobbies were. ---
**Author:** ![TheHegemon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9c0ed/32.png) [@TheHegemon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheHegemon)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/30 "2010-03-16T16:03:30Z")
George Henry Thomas, Union general in the American Civil War. Far more able than Grant or Sherman. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/31 "2010-03-16T16:13:30Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Perhaps he’s less celebrated because of his _other_ work: developing poison gas, both chlorine and other gases used in WWI and, later, the infamous Zyklon B, which would be chosen to be the death chamber gas used in the Holocaust. [The Father of Chemical Warfare](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber#World_War_I). Perhaps, but for those in the US, that’s more of an “us versus them” thing than a “oh no, he created weapons” thing. A lot of the people responsible for the a-bomb are pretty highly known and celebrated after all. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/32 "2010-03-16T16:43:41Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Charles Spurgeon-British clergyman Spurgeon is about the most famous Christian cleric there is, short of Luther, Aquinas, Bede and some of the saints (More, Benedict, et al). He’s certainly the most famous other than Luther for his contributions as a cleric rather than as a leader of men (Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu) or a general philosopher. > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Not a person, but I think that the Islamic Golden Age is something that deserves at least some mention in history classes. Well, some of it does get a mention- IME, Omar Khayyam and discrete advances which reached Europe via Islam (many of which came in turn from India and China) like the decimal system, modern astronomy, and so on, are taught properly. > [@Dangerosa](#): > > Alice Paul, whose political extremism (and pretty good looks) forced the hand to FINALLY pass women’s sufferage. Nitpick: _suffrage_. It’s not related to the verb _suffer_, weirdly. Anyway, Alice Paul is my fiancee’s hero and has a blurb on her facebook page about how she is overlooked. ---
**Author:** ![Slypork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@Slypork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slypork)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/33 "2010-03-16T16:53:03Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Perhaps, but for those in the US, that’s more of an “us versus them” thing than a “oh no, he created weapons” thing. A lot of the people responsible for the a-bomb are pretty highly known and celebrated after all. Don’t forget what Alfred Nobel invented. Of course the one person who should be more famous is me!😃 ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/34 "2010-03-17T01:40:12Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Perhaps he’s less celebrated because of his _other_ work: developing poison gas, both chlorine and other gases used in WWI and, later, the infamous Zyklon B, which would be chosen to be the death chamber gas used in the Holocaust. [The Father of Chemical Warfare](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber#World_War_I). Which is rather morbidly ironic since Mr. Haber was Jewish. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Spurgeon is about the most famous Christian cleric there is, short of Luther, Aquinas, Bede and some of the saints (More, Benedict, et al). He’s certainly the most famous other than Luther for his contributions as a cleric rather than as a leader of men (Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu) or a general philosopher. Some of the more wildly popular televangelists (Billy Graham, Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, and some others) well exceed his popularity. Charles Spurgeon’s quite well-known among those who are Evangelical or have studied religion but not among the common, average Joe except if for instance their pastor mentioned him or something. ---
**Author:** ![Bootis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@Bootis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootis)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/35 "2010-03-17T05:57:05Z")
I think Ray Davies should be more famous for being the best modern songwriter of all time ---
**Author:** ![Hallucinex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba9def/32.png) [@Hallucinex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hallucinex)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/36 "2010-03-17T08:15:45Z")
> [@The\_Lurker\_Above](#): > > The fact that I first learned about Dr. Borlaug from a magician/comedian rather than in school doesn’t exactly reflect well on education in my province. Borlaug was the first that came to mind when opening the thread, precisely because the first I ever heard of the guy was Penn Radio. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/37 "2010-03-17T14:30:33Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Some of the more wildly popular televangelists (Billy Graham, Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, and some others) well exceed his popularity. Charles Spurgeon’s quite well-known among those who are Evangelical or have studied religion but not among the common, average Joe except if for instance their pastor mentioned him or something. Yes, but they’re _alive_. That’s different. Who is going to remember Osteen or Warren in a hundred years? Well, Ugandans, maybe. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/38 "2010-03-19T06:38:46Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Hong Xiuquan - A Chinese man who became convinced in 1844 that he was the living brother of Jesus Christ. What’s surprising was he also convinced several million other people of this and a civil war resulted between his followers and the Chinese government which lasted from 1850 to 1864. It was one of the biggest wars in history (25 million people died) but most people have never heard of it. I have never heard of this - and wow, what a great movie idea (if it already hasn’t been made into one). However, they would probably cast Jackie Chan as Hong Xiuguan and put Chris Rock as his partner…so never mind. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/39 "2010-03-19T09:57:10Z")
[Gail Borden,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gail_Borden) his newspaper made famous the slogan “Remember the Alamo!” He also invented pasteurization before Pasteur. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424/40 "2010-03-19T16:11:40Z")
> [@](#): > > I have never heard of this - and wow, what a great movie idea (if it already hasn’t been made into one). Not a movie as far as I know but it was the basis for one of the Flashman books, _Flashman and the Dragon_ (by George MacDonald Fraser). If you want a historical account, check out _God’s Chinese Son:The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan_ by Jonathan Spence. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-should-be-more-famous/532424.md?page=3)