Oh, that's right, forgot about those, sorry, Tolstoy...though I WOULD suggest/request another in place of John Borwn, I mean, again, he was one of many factors for one war fought by one country--how is that "Top 100 eople EVER in Mankind's History" material...Top 100 US Citizens, maybe, but WORLD?
Can't force it, but still...don't you have anyone else you'd like to honor with that spot...though I will give you he's a better pick than Madonna. *shudders*
Is that a nomination, spyman? (And I would half agree, I'd say Twain and Hemmingway are the best novelists, Poe is far and away the best poet and short story writer, and Tennessee Williams owns the American stage...all four are on a different level from the rest, and so the "best" is a bit of a judgment call, and as I LOVE all four men's work, hard for me to make, actually, as an English Major...I honestly can't choose, each has such a distinct style, such memorable characters, and works that can be considered the finest in Ameican literature, from Poe's House of Usher, Raven, and Cask of Amontillado to Twain's Tom Sawyer and even better Huckleberry Finn to Hemmingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls, The Man and the Sea, and one of my all-time favortie books and one I'd argue is BETTER than the hyped Great gatsby, A Farewell To Arms, and then finally we have Williams with many great plays and the dual GIANTS of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Glass Menagerie...I CAN'T DECIDE!) :)
OK, putting in the first four of Tolstoy's picks, (again, not forcing and being a list-Nazi, just saying is all...ANYONE else you have in mind, someone with maybe a bit more of a universal impact?)
Hammurabi
Moses
Homer
Confucius
Sun Tzu
Buddha
Socrates
Plato
Aristotle
Alexander the Great
Archimedes
Euclid
Wu of Han
Caesar
Augustus
Jesus
Trajan
Mohammed
Umar
Xuanzong
Athelstan the Glorious
William the Conqueror
Richard I
Gengis Khan
Edward I
Ibn Battuta
Marco Polo
Edward III
Henry V
Tamerlane the Great
Babur
Leonardo Da Vinci
Michaelangelo
Copernicus
Martin Luther
Hernando Cortez
Johannes Gutenberg
Galileo Galilei
Elizabeth I
Shakespeare
Isaac Newton
William III
William Penn
Zumbi
Rousseau
Robespierre
Adam Smith
Benjamin Franklin
Washington
John Marshall
Mozart
Napoleon Bonaparte
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Arthur Schopenhauer
Shaka Zulu
Charles Darwin
Sitting Bull
Friedrich Nietzsche
Nikola Tesla
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Henry Ford
Marie Curie
Karl Marx
Fydor Dyostoevsky
Gandhi
Vladimir Lenin
Winston Churchill
Pablo Picasso
Albert Einstein
Alexander Fleming
Ernest Hemingway
Francisco Franco
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Adolph Hitler
Erwin Rommel
Josef Stalin
Salvador Dali
Augusto Pinochet
William Burroughs
Nelson Mandela
Pope John Paul II
Arthur C. Clarke
Ronald Reagan
Madonna
84 selected, meaning we have a Sweet 16 to go (and one my last pick, who to pick...) before we vote!
Notables not on:
Abe Lincoln
Beethoven
Goethe
The Wright Brothers (again, count them as one...?)
Charlemegne
Louis XIV
Theodore Roosevelt
Thomas Edison
The Beatles/John Lennon (hey, if Madonna gets in...)
Alexander Graham Bell
Lao Tzu
Otto von Bismark
Catherine the Great
Peter the Great
James T. Kirk (I kid, I kid...though in a few centuries, who knows...)
The Wonderful 100: History's Greatest Persons
each, first to reach 100 wins, and then we'll see the rankings.
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