Influence (397 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 0.88 on 9 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by mike <mikeeegeee.at.hotmail.com> (View user info) at 2004-06-07 23:33:46 EDT
I went to a Texas Hold'em poker party a couple months ago. After a while of playing my friends and I got to talking about how school was going. They said that they had recently been asked the questions "Who was the most influential person in the past one hundred years?" and "What was the most influential event of the past one hundred years?" Apprently my friend's class settled on Jesus as the most influential person... in the past hundred years.
I love public school.
I forget what they said for most influential event though. Two months later I had the same question on my world history final except it was for all time, not the past hundred years. For event, I answered the inventing of the printing press. If you think about it, it really could be because without it, we wouldn't have book like we do today. Without those books, the inventors of today wouldn't be as educated so we would be without much that we have today. I think it really started the beginning of the exponentially advancing technology.
For person, I didn't come up with such a good answer. I said Joseph Stalin because he had the potential to bring the entire world to an end. Then again, a lot of people did including most U.S. presidents. So I'm wondering what you guys think here:
Who was the most influential person ever and what was the most influential event ever?
Oh, please don't say Jesus, or anything religiously based for that matter.
User Reviews
Submitted by Iago (user info) at 2004-12-05 08:50:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
which public school did you go to?
Submitted by buxton (user info) at 2004-06-08 07:29:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Event: fall of the Roman Empire
Person: Julius Ceaser
An argument could be made for D-Day + Hitler, The Civil War + Lincoln and many other combinations, all of which had a huge impact on the world from that point on. I went with these because they are the oldest, so in my mind their impact has been felt longer. Of course there are older critical events and older powerful figures, but to me the Roman Empire was the first great power in the world, everything before it didn't hold the overwhelming power it did.
Submitted by Scotsman (user info) at 2004-06-08 05:42:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Ooooohhh.,....this has been drunkenly discussed a few times with me and my buddies...hmmmm.
Its not an individual person or anything but I would like to include the Roman Empire for the biggest effect on the World. The Western world owes a lot to the Romans and subsequently a major effect on the World as the Western powers expanded across the world.
I agree on the agriculture thing.
For a person....hmmm...I dunno....whoever the hell it was who discovered that fermenting grain (or whatever is used) produced beer :)
Another question is if you could have any 5 people (imaginary or real) at your party who would you have?
Submitted by funk_boy (user info) at 2004-06-08 05:13:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Texas Hold'em..
beautiful game
Submitted by Slapshot99 (user info) at 2004-06-08 05:05:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Easy one mook..........Thomas Edison
Submitted by moneyshot (user info) at 2004-06-08 04:06:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I think when I play Civilization on my PC I am pretty influentual. But seriously, I would go with Hitler as a person becuase he had the ability to take over the world but spread himself too thin. The event would be D-day. If we had not suceeded in liberating France and the rest of Europe Hitler very well may have been able to launch an attack on US soil and thus alter the course of history forever.
Submitted by ornerybastard (user info) at 2004-06-08 01:30:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
It's tough to narrow down to a single most influential person of the past decade, let alone all of history. You could make a case for all of the world's great political leaders, as well as any number of scientists, philosophers and explorers. As for a single event, that's a little more easy to pinpoint. The single most influential and significant event in the history of human civilization was the advent of agriculture. Farming is widely considered the dawn of human civilization -- the point at which language and rational thought was born. Can't get much more influential than that.
As for the past century, I think WWII helped shape modern life more than any other single event. As the progenitor of the war, Hitler was probable the most influential person.
Submitted by mikeeegeee (user info) at 2004-06-07 23:50:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I know I said the thing about non-religion in the answers, but yeah I'll take Martin Luther as logical. What he did with rebelling and posting the 95 theses on church doors to convert people to Lutheranism really did a lot to break people away from the old way. As for D-Day, I suppose, but the history of people as a whole? I dunno but I think I'd say that it's too soon to know if anything in the past century really was that influential.
Oh and as for now, any religious figure whose existance can be proven is elligable for the person category i suppose.
Submitted by MoneyG (user info) at 2004-06-07 23:43:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Stalin was not the most influential person, because he did not possess the same destructive powers that others did. Just about any US president after 1954 had the power to destroy the world, as did the Russians after Stalin. But Saddam Hussien could have destroyed the world years ago (they did find he had weapons, and had since disposed of them. this was long before the present situation.) so i think the title of most influential person would have to rest on more than power of destruction.
if you don't think jesus was the most influential, consider martin luther. Catholisism was the religion adhered to by the entire christian world, and this man stopped all that. he broke the power of the church and pope, and created a division of the world that would determine its future, which included many wars, for hundreds of years.
as for an event, i would definatly go with D-Day. try to imagine what the world would be like if the allies failed to take normandy.