A & E's Biography: 100 Most Influential People of the Millennium

A & E's Biography: 100 Most Influential People of the Millennium

--Musicians on the list are marked by an asterisk [*]--

1 Johann Gutenberg (mass media--movable type for printing)
2 Isaac Newton (gravity)
3 Martin Luther (Protestant Reformation)
4 Charles Darwin (evolutionist writer)
5 William Shakespeare (Renaissance playwright)
6 Christopher Columbus (explorer)
7 Karl Marx (19th c. political writer)
8 Albert Einstein (physicist)
9 Nicolaus Copernicus (astromony)
10 Galileo Galilei (astromony)
11 Leonardo da Vinci (for science)
12 Sigmund Freud (psychoanalysis)
13 Louis Pasteur (bacteria)
14 Thomas Edison (inventor)
15 Thomas Jefferson (3rd US president, Declaration of Independence)
16 Adolf Hitler (Nazi leader during WWII)
17 M. Gandhi (led peaceful revolution in modern India)
18 John Locke (17th c. philosopher)
19 Michaelangelo (Renaissance artist/sculptor)
20 Adam Smith (18th c. Scottish philosopher and economist)
21 George Washington (1st US president, General of Revolutionary War)
22 Ghengis Khan (12th c Mongul conqueror)
23 Abraham Lincoln (16th US president)
24 St. Thomas Acquinas (Catholic philosopher)
25 James Watt (Scottish inventor; steam engine)
*26 W A Mozart (great Classic composer)
27 Napoleon (French general, president and self-proclaimed emperor)
*28 JS Bach (great Baroque composer)
29 H. Ford (mass production of automobile)
*30 Beethoven (great late Classic/early Romantic composer)
31 WatsonCrick (DNA)
32 Descartes (philosopher)
33 ML King Jr (US civil rights leader)
34 Rousseau (great philosopher of French "Enlightenment")
35 N. Lenin (Russian political lewader/writer)
36 A Fleming (pen)
37 Voltaire (great philosopher of French "Enlightenment")
38 Francis Bacon (deductive reasoning)
39 Dante Alighieri (Medieval writer)
40 Wright Bros. (first human flight)
41 Bill Gates (computer software giant)
42 Mendel (genetics)
43 Mao Tsedung (1st Chairman of Chinese Communist party)
44 A G Bell (telephone)
45 William the Conquerer (11th c. leader of Normans and English)
46 Machiavelli (political philospher)
47 Charles Babbage (17th c. early "computer" pioneer)
48 Mary Wollstonecraft (women's rights)
49 Gorbachev (1st Soviet premier to establish good relations with US)
50 Margaret Sanger (crusader for birth control legislation)
51 Edward Jenner (vaccination)
52 Churchill (Prime Minister of Britain during WWII)
53 Marie Curie (radioactivity)
54 Marco Polo (explorer)
55 F. Magellan (explorer)
56 E. Stanton (womens rights)
*57 Elvis Presley (first major icon of Rock and Roll)
58 Joan of Arc (French religious martyr)
59 I. Kant (philosopher)
60 FD Roosevelt (longest serving US President)
61 M. Faraday (chemist/physicist; electricity & magnetism)
62 Walt Disney (early animation)
63 Jane Austen (writer)
64 Pablo Picasso (painter)
65 Werner Heisenberg (physicist; "uncertainty principle")
66 D W Griffith (film)
67 Vlad Zworkin (TV/RCA)
68 Ben Franklin (inventor, writer, statesman)
69 William Harvey (blood circulation)
70 Pope Gregory VII (separated church & state)
71 Harriet Tubman (underground railroad)
72 Simon Bolivar (great South American general and freedom fighter)
73 Princess Diana (human rights)
74 Enrico Fermi (nuclear physicist; quantum theory)
75 Pincus (birth control pill)
*76 The Beatles (most influential band in rock history)
77 Thomas Hobbes (17th c. philosopher)
78 Queen Isabella I (supporter of Columbus' voyages)
79 Joseph Stalin (ruthless Russian leader during WWII)
80 Elizabeth I (Queen of England in late Renaissance)
81 Nelson Mandela (imprisoned leader against Apartheid)
82 Niels Bohr (atom)
83 Peter the Great (Russian Czar)
84 Marconi (radio)
85 Ronald Reagan (40th US President)
86 James Joyce (author)
87 Carson (environment)
88 Oppenheimer (atomic bomb)
89 Susan B. Anthony (US women's suffrage)
90 Daguerre (photo)
91 Spielberg (film)
92 Florence Nightingale (medicine)
93 Eleanor Roosevelt (United Nations and human rights)
94 Patient Zero (1st AIDS victim)
95 Chaplan (film)
*96 Caruso (famous singer and early recording star)
97 Salk (polio vaccine)
*98 Louis Armstrong (great jazz trumpeter and scat singer)
99 Vasco de Gama (explorer)
100 Suleyman I (greatest Sultan of the Ottoman Empire

You would think the guy who developed the Polio vaccine might be a little higher.

I thought George Washington and Ben franklin would be higher.

59 I. Kant (philosopher)

Does anyone else find this humerous?

/\/\ that is pretty funny

i'm fine with the list. I feared it will have all these historical figures and then throw Jay Z or some bullshit in there.

KingsOwn19 wrote:

/\/\ that is pretty funny

i'm fine with the list. I feared it will have all these historical figures and then throw Jay Z or some bullshit in there.

That would have sucked.

No Ali

how bout Elvis ahead of the beatles? I know Elvis came first, but Beatles were of a different vein, and it seems to me more popular(if not at their respective peaks, their popularity seems to have carried better).

I also tend to think Edison could be a little higher. That guy was in on everything. Davinci too. Granted they are up there.

It's a cool list though.

captain organic wrote:

how bout Elvis ahead of the beatles? I know Elvis came first, but Beatles were of a different vein, and it seems to me more popular(if not at their respective peaks, their popularity seems to have carried better).

I also tend to think Edison could be a little higher. That guy was in on everything. Davinci too. Granted they are up there.

It's a cool list though.

Elvis is American, nuff said.

I don't think Altair and Ezio are getting their due, or even Desmond.

This is a good list, but the order of the list... no.

captain organic wrote:

how bout Elvis ahead of the beatles? I know Elvis came first, but Beatles were of a different vein, and it seems to me more popular(if not at their respective peaks, their popularity seems to have carried better).

I also tend to think Edison could be a little higher. That guy was in on everything. Davinci too. Granted they are up there.

It's a cool list though.

Agree on the Beatles should be higher than Elvis. I actually have a hard time finding people that arent in their 60's nowadays who even like Elvis..but not often find somebody willing to admit they don't like the Beatles, even if they don't regularly listen to them.

I like The Beatles and Elvis but the Beatles influence and popularity has aged much better than Elvis. Maybe Elvis gets higher because he was the first one to be a larger than life rock/pop star figure and performance artist.