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).
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.
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.
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.
Someone who deserves to be more infamous is Thomas Midgley Jr. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Which is rather morbidly ironic since Mr. Haber was Jewish.
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.
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.
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.
