Someone ought to nominate Justinian's wife, Theodora

Cleopatra is pretty overrated and led Egypt to thr loss of its independence. Hatshepsut or Nefertiti would be much better female Egyptian Pharaoh ideas.

Re: Mandela: I didn't have many ideas for what "Wild Card" means. It's ambiguous.

If you all like, I could go with Obiwan's suggestion of MLK.

Someone nominated him for WC, so that's where I put him...

Yeah, but she's (Cleo) still important...I'd actually be cool with Marie Antoinette in there, not because she was a good queen, but because she arguably hastened the French Revolution by angering the French people as she did.

I said importance was the bigger key here.

Either way, Nefertiti and Hatshepsut school her...Marie would just be kind of fun to shit on (tragic though her end was.)

If you're going to have a female leader/politician, make it be someone who actually did something. The Dowager Empress Cixi, or Elizabeth I of England or Catherine the Great of Russia. There's another Chinese Empress whom I'm forgetting, as well.

Also, obi, I put in Da Vinci as a Scientist/inventor. Do you think he belongs more in the artist category?

The other Chinese Empress: Wu Zhao?

@Obi ... swap out Immanuel Kant for John Muir please. Don't try to make all the changes at once; this is bound to get crazy.

^^^You got it YHN

Why has nobody nominated Tracey Emin as a great female artist? ;)

Some of you may recall Time magazine doing something very similar on a few occasions.

I don't think users should be limited to one nomination necessarily. If you get more than 16/32 you could make some decisions and cut out some or move excess to Grab Bag. But don't flood the thread too much with spam or debating the merits. That's for later.

Military Leader: Hannibal Barca - Kept an army in the field for twenty years on the home turf of a superior enemy and his victories are still viewed with wonderment today.
Artist: J.S. Bach - I'm not an expert on art and artists, but IMHO Bach perfected the science of music and no one has been able to top him since.
Scientist: Avicenna - his canon of medicine was used in medical schools in both the Muslim and non-Muslim world for 1000 years.
Wild Card: Muhammed ibn Abdullah - Prophet of a religion that had a greater influence on the world than any other in recorded history.

I beat ya to Hannibal, Tolstoy :p

Surprised no one else took Muhammed before you.

Someone did take Muhammed I believe.

Leader: Winston Churchill (for all his flaws, and he had many, he symbolises WWII Britain)
Scientist: Charles Darwin (nearly went for Hawking, who I saw speak once, but the man who is (popularly) responsible for the basic Theory of Evolution is the equivalent of Newton or Einstein in their fields)
Artist: Salvador Dali (I think the real contenders have been named already)
Wildcard: Richard Dawkins (not for his evolutionary biology (which is good), but for his championing of atheism as a position. He often goes too far in his views on religion mind you)

Leader: Gandalf the Grey (In case he's not qualified, then Abe Lincoln)
Artist: Eminem
Scientist: Galileo Galilei
Wild Card: EMMA WATSON! mmm <3

and MLK definitely needs to be in "Leader"

Military: Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson
Artist: Giotto di Bondone
Scientist: Gregor Mendel
Wild Card: Saul of Tarsus

leader: malcolm x
artist: kanye west
scientist: thomas kuhn (fuck you science and your paradigm shifts)
wild card: marx

should have done a greatest philosopher thread

^I think I love you #YeezyAllDay

I nominate Rivers Cuomo in the "artist" category.

Scientist (?): Sigmund Freud
Wild Card: Noam Chomsky

Didn't read anyone else's responses yet.
Leader: Nelson Mandela
Artist: Harriet Beecher Stowe
Science: Stephen Hawking
Wild Card: Niccolo Machiavelli

Mandela's taken. Might I suggest Alexander the Great.

Alright, just saw that. I'll go ahead and go with that suggestion. Alex the G is up.

Given my love for European History, I would like to suggest the following: Louis XIV, Otto von Bismarck, Cesare Borgia, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Giuseppe Garibaldi.

I would have said Louis XIV if Alexander were already taken.

I also suggest Queen Victoria.

Theodora, pass, Eisenstein, Mr Rogers.