There have been a few of those ‘greatest ever’ polls for various nationalities - so I’ve compiled a list of those I can be bothered to (if your nationality isn’t included, it’s because I’m racist and I hate you) of the top ten results. Which one of those top ten do you reckon is the greatest?
Loooong poll incoming, so bear with us. Grouped them by nationalities and results, in descending order to see if you lot agree with the results.
Sorry, but I can’t answer your poll. Five of the so-called ten greatest Americans (Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Elvis Presley, Oprah Winfrey) don’t belong in the top ten. I doubt they belong in the top 100. I’m not claiming the others all do, but these five do not. Note that seven of the ten come from the 20th or 21st century and six of the seven are famous for the last half of the 20th century or the 21st century.
Christopher Columbus was Italian, not Spanish. Marie Curie was Polish, not French. Stalin was Georgian, not Russian. Alexander the Great was Macedonian, not Greek (ok, maybe that one is a bit nitpicky).
Apart from those inaccuracies (and there may well be more - I did not search hard) there are some very weird options here, and some glaring omissions, quite apart from the very arbitrary selection of countries (Canada, but no Italy or Netherlands! No China!). There are several French people I have never heard of, for instance, but no Descartes, no Napoleon, no Villon, no Louis XIV, no Lavoisier, no Laplace, no Poincaré, no Sartre, no Racine, no Montaigne. Sorry, this poll is borked. I am not voting.
Also, George W. Bush wasn’t even the best American President named George Bush! (And even the one who was does not really belong on a list of better than average Presidents, let alone Greatest Americans.)
I am glad to see that Ben Franklin is leading. He was a true polymath and the best evidence we have for time travelers so far. He was an inventor, scientist, publisher, founding father, ambassador as well as a ladies man. There are not too many examples of that breadth of human endeavor among anyone ever except someone like Leonardo Da Vinci (even Leonardo didn’t help found any great nation).
Again, these are from the top ten results found from the ‘greatest nationality’ programs, these *aren’t *my personal choices. Should have made that more clear I guess. Out of the top ten pick your preference, if you have one.
I think Florence Nightengale should be in the top ten for Great Britain. Come on, she basically invented the modern hospital system, not to mention the profession of nursing. (Yes, of course there were members of religious orders who were nurses before her, but she turned secular nurses into a valued part of the health care system–although not nearly valued enough, in my opinion.) She also worked on improving public sanitation.
The socialist in me likes Tommy Douglas but in my view Newton, Shakespeare, Plato, Einstein and Mendeleev should be at the top. That I can vote for Don Cherry really makes my day.
Unless you’re just winding me up for shits and giggles, it’s not my list, I took them all from “Greatest American” “Greatest Canadian” etc. programs; in the Canadian version Don Cherry was ranked number 7 (and is the seventh Canadian choice as a result).
You chose to post it. Why not find something sensible and interesting to post next time, instead of incoherent rubbish like this? You don’t have to repost all the shit you find on the internet here.