Part 10: 100 Most Influential Rankings

[vcczar]

@vcczar @ShortKing @WVProgressive @ConservativeElector2 @mark2 @jnewt @Mark_W @OrangeP47 @Arkansas Progressive @A man from Colorado @SilentLiberty @Rodja @DakotaHale @jvikings1 @themiddlepolitical @Edouard @Vols21 @Timur @Patine @10centjimmy

Here's the 1st part of the 100 most influential rankings. 

Rules:

- Please keep discussion on topic. 

- No trolling. 

- No complaining, although constructive criticism is okay. 

- No personal attacks.

- No commenting without voting. 

Ernest Rutherford	Considered the "Father of Nuclear Physics" for his discovery of radioactive half-life, the element Radon, and differentiating alpha and beta radiation.
Euclid	"Father of Geometry," a discipline he might have founded. Wrote the main textbook for mathematics that lasted for about 2,000 years before new innovations in mathematic required an update.
Fatima al-Fihri	She founded the first and oldest continually operating university in world history
Ferdinand Magellan & Juan Sebastian Elcano	Led the expedition that was the first to circumnavigate the globe, proving that the world was round and that more land existed than was previously known to Europeans.
Florence Nightingale	The founder of modern nursing; laid the foundations for the first nursing school
Francis Bacon	the philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method. He is also considered the founder of empiricism, the idea that knowledge comes from sensory experience.
Francis Collins & Craig Venter	For creating the Human Genome Project, which sequenced human DNA, allowing advancements in medical diagnosis, treatment, and more insight into human DNA and biology.
Francisco Pizarro	Conquered the mighty Inca Empire, which led to the Spanish conquest of most of South America.
Franklin D Roosevelt	Longest-serving US president presided during the Great Depression and World War II; Forever changed the fundamentals of US government via the New Deal and strong executive actions; played a huge role in planning post-War Europe, establish relations with the Middle East, worldwide decolonization, etc.
Franklin, Watson, Crick	The primary research scientists that discovered DNA.

[vcczar]

This one is the most difficult for me so far. I can see a case for every one of them making the top 100. That is to say, I wouldn't be surprised if any of them somehow made the list. 

[OrangeP47]

24 minutes ago, vcczar said:

This one is the most difficult for me so far. I can see a case for every one of them making the top 100. That is to say, I wouldn't be surprised if any of them somehow made the list. 

Indeed, this was a hard one.  Some people I left off because they only really have a singular achievement, and while those achievements are impressive and deserve to be lauded, don't compare to someone with a "continuous achievement" or a political change that they affected.  IE Fatima al-Fihri.  That's impressive, but at the end of the day I don't think she can be credited with the entire concept of universities.  I try not to discredit people with a "if not them, someone else" despite not favoring "great man" history because the list is supposed to be about what actually happened, not what could have happened, but I think in some cases these things were "races" as to who would get there first with an achievement which is different than a vacuum being created if a certain figure never existed.

[Arkansas Progressive]

I had to leave Collins & Venter, Roosevelt, al-Fahri, and Pizzaro off my list. The former was because Watson and Crick are their forerunners, Roosevelt is based but he is simply American. Pizzaro was I think that the Spanish would have done the colonialism with or without the Incas. 

[Edouard]

I voted for FDR and Euclid

FDR decision to bring the US into war probably changed the result of WW2. Because, the USSR was also heavy supplied by the US from the moment that they were into war.

Also FDR with his social policies has popularized Keynesianism the first before that Beveridge comes up with the wealthfare state, an economic policy which still been copied and used for about 40 to 50 years.

I of course voted Euclid thanks to every consequences of his inventions including on architecture.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Edouard

[DakotaHale]

Lots and lots of heavyweights here

[pilight]

I did not mean to vote for Pizarro

[vcczar]

Need 6 or 7 votes for me to do the next group. 

[Pringles]

Another good list where it was a little tough. But ultimately, FDR, Euclid, and Ferdinand Magellan felt like the top to me. 

[vcczar]

1 hour ago, Patine said:

It seems a lot of people are dismissive of the impact Pizarro's conquest of the Inca, but I'd be willing to bet Cortes will get a lot of votes when he comes on. I'm not sure if people realize or not, but the Inca Empire was huge - geographically and in population and centralized rule and standing military power (though not comparable to Spanish horses, guns, and canons) - and was, in fact, number one in these areas over any other Pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere polity - dwarfing the Aztecs. Lima, built on an Incan coast, became Spain's first functional and reliable Pacific port-city. And silver! The lion's share of the Spanish colonial silver was mined from lands that had been controlled by the Inca. And the potato - the staple crop of the Inca and their subject and predecessor people in the Andes - revolutionized agriculture back in Europe, and then into other European colonies. I would not discount Pizarro's of the Inca as being a, "give or take," on importance.

Rutherford - despite all the evils and potential atrocities, global genocide, and environmental devastation nuclear fission makes possible, and constant paranoid scare of living close to a nuclear, or perhaps because of these things, definitely has been VERY significant.

Pizarro and Cortes are definitely top 100. What they did impacted the entire culture/religion of Central and South America and toppled the two leading Empires of this side of the world. 

[mark2]

Drop my vote for Fatima al-Fihri, I voted all with the sole purpose of excluding her but apparently misclicked and didn't remove her.

[vcczar]

Let's get 2 more votes and then I'll add the next one.