Super Personas

[CheshireKat]

Oops, should’ve gone with Florence Nightingale.

[cormac262]

Jacques Cousteau
Bill Gates
Charles Manson

[Steken]

Religious leaders, yes; astronauts and cosmonauts, yes, probably.

Other than that, really not that many people, I think?

@Omar_Little

Dalai Lama

Politician. The leader of his country until the Chinese invasion.

Speaking of China: I don’t think the average Chinese person would have heard of Charlie Manson, Jacques Cousteau, Florence Nightingale, Lewis and Clark, Robert Baden-Powell or Helen Keller.

However, I’ve heard it said that for the longest time, the best-known non-Chinese person in China was - are you sitting down? - Jan Ove Waldner. A Swedish table tennis player. Whoudathunkit, right?

[BMalion]

Superman.

Sherlock Holmes.

[Leaffan]

@Steken

…Speaking of China: I don’t think the average Chinese person would have heard of Charlie Manson, Jacques Cousteau, Florence Nightingale, Lewis and Clark, Robert Baden-Powell or Helen Keller.

However, I’ve heard it said that for the longest time, the best-known non-Chinese person in China was - are you sitting down? - Jan Ove Waldner. A Swedish table tennis player. Whoudathunkit, right?

Hmm… I think Canadian doctor Norman Bethune more appropriately fills this role.

Dr. Bethune effectively brought modern medicine to rural China and often treated sick villagers as much as wounded soldiers. His selfless commitment to the Chinese people made such an impression on Mao Zedong that generations of Chinese students were required to memorise the Chairman’s eulogy to him.[1]

…Statues in his honour can be found in cities throughout China.

I’d never heard of Doctor Bethune until a Chinese colleague of mine brought him up in conversation and told me how famous he was in China.

[Siam_Sam]

@Procrustus

Any non-Americans who can comment on whether Lewis and Clark are well known internationally? I’ve never thought about that.

@Leaffan

I know Lewis and Clark, but I’m right next door. I would bet that Jack the Ripper, Jesse James. Blackbeard the Pirate (Edward Teach), Oswald, Marco Polo, and Amerigo Vespucci are also not internationally recognized. The world’s a big place.

In Canada is one thing, but they’re definitely not known on this side of the world. I know a Brit here who has recently taken to reading a lot of American history, and he’s become particularly fascinated with Lewis and Clark, whom he’d never heard of before.

[njtt]

I don’t think Lindbergh counts for very much outside America either. When I was a kid (in Britain) I learned that the first flight across the Atlantic was by Alcock and Brown, which is true. You have to gerrymander the conditions of what counts fairly vigorously to make Lindbergh’s flight count as any sort of first (except, of course, for simply being the first American to do the crossing). Sure he went solo and there were two of them. So fucking what?

On the other hand, the Wright brothers probably should count: a real first, and I think, internationally and widely recognized as such.

[Siam_Sam]

@njtt

I don’t think Lindbergh counts for very much outside America either. When I was a kid (in Britain) I learned that the first flight across the Atlantic was by Alcock and Brown, which is true. You have to gerrymander the conditions of what counts fairly vigorously to make Lindbergh’s flight count as any sort of first (except, of course, for simply being the first American to do the crossing). Sure he went solo and there were two of them. So fucking what?

“So fucking what”?? Are you serious? That was the whole point, being the first solo flight, and it was a big fucking deal. Sorry if it being an American offends your delicate sensibilities.

EDIT: I’m mystified. Do you honestly think he was the first American to have flown across the Atlantic at all, under any circumstances?