# Who was the Most Important Person in History? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 3, 2009, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753 "2009-01-03T23:03:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Jesse\_Leigh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@Jesse\_Leigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesse_Leigh)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/81 "2009-01-04T20:46:43Z")
> [@IAmNotSpartacus](#): > > What about his asking for a citation on the correct placement of commas? Is there a cite for contractions we can refer to? There are hundreds of sites, cites, and just as many opinions, and therein lies the problem. Lanuguage is continally morphing, changing, it’s as alive as those who use it, and that’s pretty much everyone, so in this ‘information age’ we can’t keep up - none of us can. No publishing house, no grammar guru, no writer, or reader, no one. I think the prudent thing to do it to attempt to convey what you want to in the best way you can. That’s what it comes down to nowadays. FWIW - Jesse. P.S. I do have a good site for hyphenation if you’d like a link to it. It’s one of the few areas that stays reasonably consistent. ---
**Author:** ![Jesse\_Leigh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@Jesse\_Leigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesse_Leigh)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/82 "2009-01-04T20:48:54Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > Right, and I have no quibble with that, but in GD, you have to provide evidence for what you say. “The Bible says it, and I believe it.” doesn’t cut it. > > But _I_ don’t go preaching in practically every thread I post in, do I? Thus that argument is ineffective against me. > > Looking silly tends to make your argument less effective, but maybe you’d rather do your work for God the way you want to rather than the way that actually works well. CC, How would you know what ‘works well’? You’re not ‘converted’ yet! 😉 - Jess. Edited to add: I’m not ‘preaching’ on _any_ thread. I think you’re mistaking a Christian worldview for active preaching. Were I to engage in preaching here, you’d know it. I didn’t come here for that. ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/83 "2009-01-04T20:52:08Z")
> [@Jesse\_Leigh](#): > > I _refuse_ to argue about grammar. It was a fun thread and a fun sentence to pick apart, but I have reams of books on grammar, and numerous supposedly up-to-date preferences in my favorites, but the fact is, _no one_ agrees on grammar anymore. Apart from a few basic rules, which we all (hopefully) still follow, it has become a matter of opinion and preference. As I stated in my post on the thread, ask ten experts and you’ll get ten differing answers to most grammar questions. …to say nothing of that branch of cognitive psych known as “psychology of reading”, complete with journals and everything, where people actually do empirical research on things like structural cues in text. But, of course, you already knew that. > [@](#): > > I write books for a living and your asking me for a citation for correct placement of commas? Come on now! I hate to break it to you, but you ain’t exactly the only published author on the boards. And based on the quality of writing in your posts here, I can understand your earlier comment in that grammar thread about how you spend a lot of time fighting with people who know about grammar. > [@](#): > > you’re simply arguing for the sake of it. You misspelled “calling me on my BS”. (And seriously, do you not acknowledge a pattern with how you behave here? You come across as _always_ witnessing. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/84 "2009-01-04T20:54:21Z")
> [@Toxylon](#): > > The guy / gal who succeeded in friction fire for the first time. Without the voluntary creation of fire humans would have never ventured outside the tropics, would never have developed anything resembling human culture, we would have no ceramics, no metals, no glass, no electricity, no engines, no nothing. > > Just the immediate boon of fire-at-will must’ve been stupendous. Primitive cultures use fire for innumerable every-day needs, not just for warmth, light, and a way to make food safe to eat and digestible (many important early food plants are poisonous if eaten raw) - huge deals alone. > > Anyone who has made fire with two sticks knows what a big gap there is between getting smoke and getting an actual flame, even with well-proven materials and instruction. The person succeeding in it without any prior knowledge must’ve been dedicated to the extreme as well as brilliant. I wonder how long man relied upon keeping natural arising fires continuously lit, before this came about though? My guess is it was a long time before the deliberation came about. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/85 "2009-01-04T20:57:24Z")
Let’s see. Can’t go with Jesus, because there is no proof that he existed. Even if you grant that there was a Jewish rabbi named Yeshua that the entire myth could be traced back to, there’s no proof that he had supernatural powers of any kind. Everyone else seems to have built off of those who went before for the most part, so I’ll have to go with Ug, or whatever his/her name was- the first being whose DNA would conclusively state that s/he was human, because without that person, everything else becomes a moot point. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/86 "2009-01-04T21:01:45Z")
> [@Jesse\_Leigh](#): > > How would you know what ‘works well’? You’re not ‘converted’ yet! 😉 - Jess. Talking about how much you love God all the time certainly makes me want to join a church a lot less than simply doing good works. > [@Jesse Leigh](#): > > Edited to add: I’m not ‘preaching’ on _any_ thread. I think you’re mistaking a Christian worldview for active preaching. Oh, please. My mother majored in Religion in college, my dad almost became a monk, and my sister is almost certainly going to be a Sister. I know what a Christian worldview is. > [@Jesse Leigh](#): > > Were I to engage in preaching here, you’d know it. “Preach the Gospel everywhere. Use words if necessary.” - spirit, though not phrasing, from St. Francis of Assisi. > [@Jesse Leigh](#): > > I didn’t come here for that. Could have fooled me. ---
**Author:** ![IAmNotSpartacus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@IAmNotSpartacus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IAmNotSpartacus)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/87 "2009-01-04T21:07:03Z")
> [@Jesse\_Leigh](#): > > There are hundreds of sites, cites, and just as many opinions, and therein lies the problem. Lanuguage is continally morphing, changing, it’s as alive as those who use it, and that’s pretty much everyone, so in this ‘information age’ we can’t keep up - none of us can. No publishing house, no grammar guru, no writer, or reader, no one. I think the prudent thing to do it to attempt to convey what you want to in the best way you can. That’s what it comes down to nowadays. > > FWIW - Jesse. > P.S. I do have a good site for hyphenation if you’d like a link to it. It’s one of the few areas that stays reasonably consistent. Whoosh. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/88 "2009-01-04T21:18:38Z")
> [@Jesse\_Leigh](#): > > \*\*I understand fully how surnames came about. I also understand that _birth names_ are kept on record as ones actual name at birth. > > If he changed his name to Gutenberg then that became his name, but it wasn’t the name he was _given_ at birth. I couldn’t care less if his name were Humphrey Cheese, but you are so persistent and impolite that I feel it is necessary to take this to its conclusion. Please read the following carefully.\*\* > > Cheers - Jesse. Read this carefully–you wrote it: "If we’re going to start revering this man, his real name ought to be known. Hint, it wasn’t Gutenberg. His real name was “Johann Gensfleisch” (John Gooseflesh), and he adopted the name Gutenberg when he invented his press. Li’l bit of trivia. - Jesse." Of course his real name was Gutenberg. He had every right to adopt it as his real name under the conventions of the time. Saying it was not his real name is like claiming neither Sarah Palin nor Hillary Clinton ran for office under their “real” names. And of course you are also wrong claiming “he adopted the name Gutenberg when he invented his press.” And where did I say, or imply, that the name given him at birth was Gutenberg? I believe the blunder of the confusion between “real” and “birth” is yours alone. See my earlier posts and practice your reading comprehension there. Then practice saying, “Oops; I got it wrong.” It can be difficult at first but it beats the embarrassment of persisting in your error, IMHO. Cheers. ---
**Author:** ![Jesse\_Leigh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@Jesse\_Leigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesse_Leigh)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/89 "2009-01-04T21:25:24Z")
> [@Hunter\_Hawk](#): > > …to say nothing of that branch of cognitive psych known as “psychology of reading”, complete with journals and everything, where people actually do empirical research on things like structural cues in text. > > But, of course, you already knew that. > > I hate to break it to you, but you ain’t exactly the only published author on the boards. And based on the quality of writing in your posts here, I can understand your earlier comment in that grammar thread about how you spend a lot of time fighting with people who know about grammar. > You misspelled “calling me on my BS”. > > (And seriously, do you not acknowledge a pattern with how you behave here? > You come across as _always_ witnessing. Well, perhaps I do. I’ve been a missionary for thirty-four years, my ‘take’ on things is going to be different from someone who is immersed in something else. As for misspelling, is that all I did? I’ve been awake for over 33 hours, and as I said on the other thread, or perhaps it was on this one, I _have_ to clock off and get some sleep. I just wanted to clear my e-mail inbox, but that isn’t happening. So, G’night - and have a spectacular day! - Jesse. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/90 "2009-01-04T21:25:35Z")
“Bryan Ekers” isn’t my real name. I was born Jock Strongo, but changed it for professional reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/91 "2009-01-04T21:42:16Z")
By the way, I vote Alexander, though Newton gets high marks for realizing that the rules of heaven were exactly the same as the rules of Earth, thus (I figure) starting the long slow process of dispelling superstition and its allegedly more respectable sibling, religion. ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/92 "2009-01-04T21:44:25Z")
> [@Jesse\_Leigh](#): > > Well, perhaps I do. I’ve been a missionary for thirty-four years, my ‘take’ on things is going to be different from someone who is immersed in something else. > > As for misspelling, is that all I did? I’ve been awake for over 33 hours, and as I said on the other thread, or perhaps it was on this one, I _have_ to clock off and get some sleep. I just wanted to clear my e-mail inbox, but that isn’t happening. > > So, G’night - and have a spectacular day! - Jesse. Ah, the good old _argumentum ad LA LA LA LA LA_ school of rhetoric. Charming. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/93 "2009-01-04T21:46:12Z")
> [@Jesse\_Leigh](#): > > I write books for a living and your asking me for a citation for correct placement of commas? I hope your editor knows the difference between “your” and “you’re.” ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/94 "2009-01-04T22:52:17Z")
Oops. DP. Sorry! ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/95 "2009-01-04T22:54:01Z")
> [@Spin\_Master](#): > > There have been many greats in human history: Emperors, military generals, philosophers, inventors, industrialists, scientists, and statesmen. But let’s focus on the top of the top–the best of the best. Much more than that, let’s focus on the heart of it all: The one person that has had a greater effect on the world than any other person in history; the one person who has made the greatest contribution to human society. > > When it comes to possessing personal characteristics that have inspired entire generations, when it comes to the accumulation and use of power, when it comes to innovation, ideas, and influence, who was the one person who stood above the rest? > > Who was the most important person to ever live? Kind of a difficult question, dontcha think? Especially as you asked it three, no, four times, each question slightly different from the other. 😉 1. Who has had a greater effect on the world? 2. Who has made the greatest contribution? 3. “When it comes to possessing personal characteristics that have inspired entire generations, when it comes to the accumulation and use of power, when it comes to innovation, ideas, and influence, who was the one person who stood above the rest?” 4. Who is the most important person to ever live? (oh, and the thread title: Who is the most important person in history? - that’s 5.) I’m not too sure that all these question can be satisfactorily answered with one name. For example, the “inventor” of fire is an obvious response, but that’s pre-history and doesn’t match the thread title. Enough pedantry, however. 😉 * * * I’m going to look at this in the reverse: Given our world today, what one person did the most to make it what it currently is? And, imho, that person is **Johann Gutenberg**. Easy. Oh, I know the arguments against: “Somebody would’ve invented the printing press anyway…”, “Gutenberg merely adopted an idea that wasn’t original with him…”, etc. But the fact remains that it was _Gutenberg_ who invented the movable type press, and thereby unwittingly gave the world to the West. Let me quote J.M. Roberts (bolding mine): > [@](#): > > By 1500, it has been calculated, some thirty-five thousand separate editions of books - _incunabla_, as they were called - had been published. This probably means about fifteen and twenty million copies; **there may well have been already at that date fewer copies of books in manuscript in the whole world** \*. In the following century, there were between a hundred and fifty and two hundred thousand separate editions and perhaps ten times as many copies printed. Such a quantitative change merges into one which is qualitative; the culture which resulted from the coming of printing with movable type was as different from any earlier one as it is from the one which takes radio and television for granted. The modern age was the age of print. For centuries, because of the printing press, Western Europe had a massive advantage in communications technology. From information given in the above passage one can calculate that within a mere 150 years after Gutenberg, in 1600 CE, well over 90% of the worlds knowledge resided in Europe in a format that was cheap, easy to reproduce, portable, and _common_. Because of the press, in that period, you had: 1. The Reformation 2. The Scientific Revolution 3. The conquest of the Americas 4. The Age of Reason Add another 200 years to the list (taking us to, say, 1800) and you can add: 1. The Enlightenment 2. The Industrial Revolution 3. The English, French, and American Revolutions 4. The development of the modern State All of these things occurring in Europe, all of them in large part driven by the ability of Europeans to communicate their ideas, _en masse_, with other Europeans. Were it not for the press, it is impossible to imagine Locke, Newton, Robespierre, _etc_, having anywhere near the influence, the impact that they had - for how would they have been accurately heard in a world driven largely by oral tradition? (It’s especially difficult to imagine the scientific and mathematical revolutions occurring _without_ the ability to reproduce words and numbers accurately.) So, the effect was unintended, but immense: The power that Gutenberg gave the Europeans turned it from a largely insignificant backwater on the western edge of Asia to the most successful global-spanning civilization in history - and all within a few hundred years. There is no doubt, no question, that the 500 years since Gutenberg has seen more change in the manner in which humanity lives their lives than the 5,000 years which preceeded it - and this was possible only because of the ability to communicate widely, with errors largely eradicated as information is passed from one person to the other. And the person who gave the world that ability, regardless of whether “anybody could’ve done it”, was Johann Gutenberg. \*Including the manuscripts already existant in Europe. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/96 "2009-01-04T23:54:58Z")
An important question to add is “Did this person discover or popularize something whose discovery was at most a few years away, anyway?” Were other inventors sneaking in the direction of the printing press at the time? We know of other people working on powered flight when the Wright Brothers first flew, and arguably other 16th-century European explorers would have found the Americas even if Columbus had never sailed, so just how pivotal **is** Gutenberg? Could the printing press have been developed anyway, albeit a decade or two later? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/97 "2009-01-05T00:05:24Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > An important question to add is “Did this person discover or popularize something whose discovery was at most a few years away, anyway?” Were other inventors sneaking in the direction of the printing press at the time? We know of other people working on powered flight when the Wright Brothers first flew, and arguably other 16th-century European explorers would have found the Americas even if Columbus had never sailed, so just how pivotal **is** Gutenberg? Could the printing press have been developed anyway, albeit a decade or two later? Nice thing about questions like that is that they are completely unanswerable. 😉 What is answerable, however, is that it _was_ Gutenberg who invented the European press, therefore, he gets the credit. And the idea that something “would’ve been invented anyway” supposes a certain inevitabilty about historical development, an inevitability that doesn’t, imho, exist. Sure, in retrospect, the press seems like an idea whose time has come… but, then, why not in Rome around 1 CE? China during the Ming dynasty? The Sumerians? It’s not as if the concept of a movable type press had to await a civilization advanced enough to develop it (unlike, say, powered flight, which needs a whole host of inventions to occur before it can occur). It could’ve been invented in Rome… but, in the end, it wasn’t. It was (re) invented by Gutenberg, and he’s the one to which we rightly give credit. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/98 "2009-01-05T00:16:13Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Nice thing about questions like that is that they are completely unanswerable. 😉 Well, not _completely_. Documentation about parallel/independent invention is useful. There were European inventors who were dabbling with powered flight. If the Wright brothers had elected not to go to Kitty Hawk, we’d still have airplanes. Movable type had existed in Asia for some centuries, but its widespread use was limited by cumbersome Asian alphabets. That said, was there anyone in Europe who was a few years or even a few decades from making the same discovery? > [@](#): > > What is answerable, however, is that it _was_ Gutenberg who invented the European press, therefore, he gets the credit. And I’m fully prepared to give him that credit, but I’d need some convincing that his was a truly once-in-a-millennium discovery comparable to Newton’s or Einstein’s, or as significant as a sweeping campaign of conquest, like Alexander or Julius Caesar. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/99 "2009-01-05T00:24:29Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, not _completely_. Documentation about parallel/independent invention is useful. There were European inventors who were dabbling with powered flight. If the Wright brothers had elected not to go to Kitty Hawk, we’d still have airplanes. Movable type had existed in Asia for some centuries, but its widespread use was limited by cumbersome Asian alphabets. That said, was there anyone in Europe who was a few years or even a few decades from making the same discovery? > > And I’m fully prepared to give him that credit, but I’d need some convincing that his was a truly once-in-a-millennium discovery comparable to Newton’s or Einstein’s, or as significant as a sweeping campaign of conquest, like Alexander or Julius Caesar. But why do Newton/Einstein etc get a pass while Gutenberg doesn’t? Wasn’t discovering a mathematical basis to nature something in the air in the mid-16th century? Einstein’s theory was partly in response to the Michelson-Morley experiments and already-known problems with Newtownian mechanics (orbit of Mercury, etc) and was definitely within “a few years or even a few decades” away from discovery in 1905, even had Albert been stillborn. So why give Einstein credit for a “once-in-a-millennium” discovery, when Special Relativity was there, waiting to be discovered? After all, had Albert not done it, _somebody_ would’ve. Right? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753/100 "2009-01-05T03:38:00Z")
Well, if you can show scientists working along similar lines that would’ve independently led to relativity or the photoelectric effect (Einstein) or optics or the laws of motion and gravity (Newton), fine. For example, though Newton is often credited with developing calculus, the principals were discovered independently by Gottfried Leibniz. I’m only asking _how_ revolutionary the printing press was. The wiki entry claims, with cites, that “Others in Europe were also developing movable type at this time, including goldsmith Procopius Waldfoghel of France and Laurens Janszoon Coster of the Netherlands. However, they are not known to have contributed specific advances to the printing press.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-most-important-person-in-history/479753.md?page=6)