I nominated Mansa Musa since I'm reasonably certain he was literally the richest man ever. I figure that's gotta count for something. Plus, yeah, the story of him destroying economies with his altruism is pretty hilarious.

Why Thatcher over the other suggested women as Leader?

@YHN ... richest man ever is probably true, and you are right ... it probably should count for something ... maybe grab bag, though, instead of leader?

@TrP ... I was adding to the roster, not making a claim of supremacy.

@ obi

I'll admit that War of the Worlds needs a reboot, but I, Robot? I thought the Will Smith version was adequate at worst, good at best. I enjoyed it, anyway. But Starship Troopers got screwed by Hollywood.

For anyone suggesting that the movie was an attempt to satirize Heinlein's book, no. Just no. The director and the writer simply shit the bed. Besides, was Heinlein so wrong as to warrant cinematic satire? I say no. Meritocracy and corporal punishment et al. are not unquestionably bad ideas per se.

Margaret Thatcher is one of the *worst* European leaders of the 20th Century. Britain today is still deeply and fundamentaly damaged as a result of her period of office. Any suggestion that she should be a candidate for "best leader" almost makes me want to be physically sick.

Some more women:

Leader: Queen Isabella I
Artist: Sappho
Scientist: Rosalind Franklin
Wildcard: Susan B. Anthony

@ Jamiet99uk

How do you qualify that statement? I thought she had a generally positive albeit controversial legacy.

Thoreau

I feel that this shouldn't be so much about positive impact as much as how big the impact was. I asked about her compared to others because some of the previously suggested female leaders have had larger impacts on more of the world.

Karl Marx hands down

David Suzuki has not yet been nominated, and I'm going to assume he'll be placed under Scientist. Other 3 nominations, Lando? You still have Leader, Artist, and Wild Card to pick.
Karl Marx has already been nominated as well as Thoreau. Thoreau has been placed as an Artist, and Marx was nominated as a Wild Card, but obi hasn't updated the lists yet. You both still have all 4 nominations.

Leader/Military:
Y'all left me with so few people to choose from. I'll go Charles V (the Holy Roman one) I suppose.

Artist:
As a giant Game of Thrones fan, I gotta go for George R. R. Martin.

Scientists/Inventors: I got no one. Bidding starts at 5 for me to nominate a scientist/inventor of your choice.

Wild Card: Jan Hus

@VirtualBob. I agree. I submitted him as my grab-bag. Mohammed was my leader.

Can we get a list of who has been picked?

@Gunfighter. I, Robot spent more time advertising Converse All Stars than having much of anything to do with Asimov's writing. Regarding Starship Troopers, let me quote Wikipedia: "Director Verhoeven says his satirical use of irony and hyperbole is 'playing with fascism or fascist imagery to point out certain aspects of American society... of course, the movie is about 'Let's all go to war and let's all die.'" So perhaps you're right in that the satirical focus was not principally directed at the book, but it was absolutely meant to be satire.

Also want to nominate James Watt, John Locke,

Locke has been nominated, Watt hasn't. You're now in the same boat as Lando. Might I suggest that you look at previous pages to check who all has been nominated. Or else can someone post a list?

"@ Jamiet99uk

How do you qualify that statement? I thought she had a generally positive albeit controversial legacy."

This would also interest me how he founds this. I'm curious very much...

In 1984 she reached under the motto „I want my money back“ the British discount valid till this day on payment of contributions of Great Britain to the former EC. For Europe her achievement can be hardly appreciated.

However, we let Jamie talk...

Personally updated list. If obi feels as though there are too many, he is free to cut it down as it is his thread and he made the rules here. Also, suggestions not added to the list. If anyone sees that any full nomination with standing is left out, please add to the list as appropriate:

Leaders:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Adolf Hitler
Gandhi
Hannibal
Theodore Roosevelt
Augustus Caesar
Tamerlane
Tokugawa
Cincinnatus
Erwin Rommel
Genghis Khan
Napoleon Bonaparte
Alfred the Great
Muhammad
Deng Xiaoping
Charlemagne
Nelson Mandela
Alexander the Great
Winston Churchill
Margaret Thatcher
Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson
Theodora
Alaric I
Winfield Scott
Isabella I
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Artists:
William Shakespeare
The Beatles
J.R.R. Tolkien
Arnold Schoenberg
Vincent Van Gogh
Pablo Picasso
Henry David Thoreau
Claude Monet
Leonardo da Vinci
Lao Tzu
Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Vergil
Lord Byron
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Michaelangelo
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Raymond Carver
Homer
Bob Dylan
Franz Liszt
Johann Sebastian Bach
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Kanye West
Giotto di Bondone
Eminem
Rivers Cuomo
Salvador Dali
Raphael
Robert A. Heinlein
Janis Joplin
Sappho
George R. R. Martin

Scientists/Inventors:
Albert Einstein
Thomas Edison
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Jonas Salk
Robert Oppenheimer
Nikola Tesla
Werner von Braun
Mendeleev
Archimedes
James Joule
Aristotle
Isaac Newton
Carl Bosch
Alan Turing
Copernicus
Marie Curie
Avicenna
Charles Darwin
David Suzuki
James Watt
Thomas Kuhn
Stephen Hawking
Sigmund Freud
Galileo Galilei
Gregor Mendel
Johannes Gutenberg
Edward Teller
Jane Goodall
Rosalind Franklin

Wild Card:
Plato
Immanuel Kant
Rene Descartes
Benjamin Franklin
Gichin Funakoshi
Khalid ibn al-Walid
Martin Luther
John Locke
Jesus
Mansa Musa
Bill Gates
Constantine
Olga of Kiev
Karl Marx
Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
Noam Chomsky
Richard Dawkins
Saul of Tarsus
Emma Watson
Frederick Rogers
Adam Smith
Buddha
Billy Waugh
Mother Teresa
Susan B. Anthony
Jan Hus

I nominated Gotthold Eisenstein as a scientist.

@ YHN

Okay, I'll yield to you on i, ROBOT. But could modern audiences truly appreciate a rendition more compatible with Asimov's original work? That is the question. Also, with respect to Starship Troopers, why take what was an excellent piece of literature, steal the name and general backstory, and turn it into a piece of satire? That's just taking a shit on LT Heinlein's grave for no good reason. It's not like everyone who saw the movie read the book, and now we have an entire generation of idiots who associate the title "Starship Troopers" with a cinematic debacle, not a well-executed work of literature.

"now we have an entire generation of idiots who associate the title "Starship Troopers" with a cinematic debacle, not a well-executed work of literature. "--- Almost totally with you on this unfortunate reality. It's indeed a shame that most people probably assume the movie has a similar tone and depth to the book. And I do think an actually faithful adaptation would be great. My only point of contention is your characterization of the film as a cinrmatic debacle- sure, it's not nearly as well executed as the book, but I think you may be attaching excessive value to being faithful to the book, and conflating faithfulness with quality. Consider World War Z- pretty damned different from the book bearing the same name, but a decent work in its own right. I feel the same about Starship Troopers the movie, and I would encourage you to try to give it another chance, taking care to realize both that it is not /meant/ to be a faithful interpretation of the book, and that it is, in fact, a work of satire.

Despite being a massive sci-fi fan, I could never get into Heinlein. I'm not entirely sure why.

Where is BISMARCK?!?! and our Russian Monarchs?

Also, suggesting Gustavus Adolphus.

@mendax, I know a lot of people are put off by Heinlein's habit of impartings tons of minute the relevance and narrative necessity of which is dubious.

Minutae* is a word, autocorrect