What single person do you think has had the greatest influence, for good or for ill, within the last one hundred years?

Me. :D

I don't know about you guys, But, I believe Martin Luther King, Jr. is the Most Influecial person who ever lived on the face of Planet Earth. He Marched with over 1000+ Supporters on his Side through Washington, D.C. fearless of all the racism that surrounded him.

It is a testament to the greatness of Martin Luther King Jr. that nearly every major city in the U.S. has a street or school named after him. It is a measure of how sorely his achievements are misunderstood that most of them are located in black neighborhoods.

The movement that King led swept all that away. Its victory was so complete that even though those outrages took place within the living memory of the baby boomers, they seem like ancient history. And though this revolution was the product of two centuries of agitation by thousands upon thousands of courageous men and women, King was its culmination. It is impossible to think of the movement unfolding as it did without him at its helm. He was, as the cliche has it, the right man at the right time.

Right to the end, where he was gunned down by a Gun Trotting-Coward in Tennessee, He still marched for freedom, to the end.

That's why I believe MLK,Jr. Is one of the most influential person in the world.

I think the person who was most influential in shaping events of the last 100 years was Theodore Roosevelt. He was the president who really founded the American empire, sailing the naval fleet around the world and forcing open markets in Japan. He also solidified the American control of the colonies taken from Spain in the Spanish American War, in which he served in Cuba.
He was the one who brought America onto the world stage as a superpower, and set the scene for our involvement in World War I and World War II. Eventually this led to the Cold War.
He was also a progressive Republican, and led the efforts to break up the momopolies that dominated the American business scene. This set the scene for the policies of the new deal under Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930's.
He also founded the National Park system, and set aside such gems as Yosemite and Yellowstone Parks. Truly an influential man.

I would like to cast a vote for the great men of science, Drs. Salk and Sabine, who developed the polio vaccinations.
TVs, computers, light bulbs are all very well and good--if you're alive to use them. Also don't want to neglect Dr. Alexander Fleming. who discovered penicillin.

I think Gavrilo Princeps was the peson who most changed the world.

When he killed the heir to the Austrian throne he plunged the world into the First World War. This war changed the shape of Europe, allowed the United States to begin emerging as a super power and gave impetus to colonies around the world to seek independence from their European masters.

Originally posted by Frogger
I think Gavrilo Princeps was the peson who most changed the world.

When he killed the heir to the Austrian throne he plunged the world into the First World War. This war changed the shape of Europe, allowed the United States to begin emerging as a super power and gave impetus to colonies around the world to seek independence from their European masters.

It is sad, and dangerous, that this war is all but forgotten nowadays, almost completely overshadowed by the next world war.
I have read that 60,000 British troops were killed during the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Sixty thousand in one day. I can't get over that.
(My grandpa served in this war, with Black Jack Pershing's American Expeditionary Force.)

Adolph Hitler and Prescott Bush

http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/10/1773530.php

I don't know about you guys, But, I believe Martin Luther King, Jr. is the Most Influecial person who ever lived on the face of Planet Earth.

Yea, because that Jesus character had no influence on anything....:rolleyes:

The answer to this question is difficult, there were so many political and military leaders, scientists, and artists that made huge impacts. Hard to choose just one.

If by influential, it is meant has most influence on what we have today in the world, then it has to be Hitler, if one assumes that without Hitler there would have been no WW2. In brief and by no means exclusively...
Would Israel exist without the Holocaust?
Without Israel, Middle Eastern politics would be very different, especially as the US would not have their client state in the centre.
Without WW2, Western economies would be very different, with no postwar loans and ongoing debts.
Germany would not be the economic force it became with postwar rebuilding.
Would the UN exist? The EU?
But, without WW2, would Europe eventually have become a battleground between East and West? And with what outcome...

It is good to see someone thinking outside the box and realizing that having influence does not necessarily mean being a good or pleasant person.

I can't help but think that Hitler never would have had the power he had if it weren't for the Treaty of Versailles.
In effect, World War I's aftermath was the main cause of World War Two!
Thoughts on this?
Or was this really just one war, with a 20-year break in between?

Originally posted by rendova
I can't help but think that Hitler never would have had the power he had if it weren't for the Treaty of Versailles.
In effect, World War I's aftermath was the main cause of World War Two!
Thoughts on this?
Or was this really just one war, with a 20-year break in between?

I agree, which is why Frogger's comment about Gavrilo Princeps makes so much sense.

Yes, but would WW! have happened without Princip? Given the political situation at the time, he was not the cause merely the trigger, If noit him something else would have brought about the inevitable.
The problem with Hitler is whether or not he was his own man or merely a figurehead (like GWB). If the former, then the chances are that even if WW2 was inevitable after Versailles, the Holocaust would not have happened.

Originally posted by KingEdward
Yes, but would WW! have happened without Princip? Given the political situation at the time, he was not the cause merely the trigger, If noit him something else would have brought about the inevitable.
The problem with Hitler is whether or not he was his own man or merely a figurehead (like GWB). If the former, then the chances are that even if WW2 was inevitable after Versailles, the Holocaust would not have happened.

Yes, good thought, and it's my undserstanding that as Europe was a tinderbox in the months before the assassination in Sarajevo, any number of things could have set off the conflagration that became the "Great War."

My vote goes to John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain, scientists at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 for the invention of the transistor.

I know that's three guys but what the hell.

Politically/Militarily: a triune of Hitler, Stalin, and Tse Tung...they resulted in the biggest political upheavals ever, and brought more deaths than the Black Death could have dreamed of taking.

Socially/Religiously: Mohandas Ghandhi and Pope John Paul II brought out the best of many and served as an inspiration to many people and many events.

Scientifically/Technologically: Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, and the Wright Brothers. They opened the doors for much in the ways of mathematics, transportation, and understanding of the human world and what makes us tick.

Just so hard to pick a single individual....

Overall: Evak, you know it. Why? who else is more of a pwnzor then me? :D

ICH BIN DER PWNZOR

Originally posted by rendova
I can't help but think that Hitler never would have had the power he had if it weren't for the Treaty of Versailles.
In effect, World War I's aftermath was the main cause of World War Two!
Thoughts on this?
Or was this really just one war, with a 20-year break in between?

I tend to think of it as one war with a 20 year break, just long enough to raise another generation of cannon fodder.
I do think that the whole of the world wars would have turned out considerably differently if Theodore Roosevelt hadn't pushed the idea of the United States as an international superpower. The United States might never have entered either World War. There was considerable sentiment against it during World War I, and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would never have occurred without our colonial interests in the Phillipines and the rest of the East Indies. It is interesting to speculate in the case of each World War, what the effect of American non-participation would have been. I think World War I might have remained stalemated in the west for several more years, resulting in greater casualties and perhaps much improved armored forces during that war. The role of airpower would probably also have increased. In the end, the terms of the peace would probably have been much more favorable to Germany.
The Second World War would probably have wound up two seperate wars, one between Japan and China, and the other European. In the European war, Germany might well have won, if the war occurred at all. A less punitive resolution to the first war might have resulted in no second war.

I think Gavrilo Princeps was the peson who most changed the world. When he killed the heir to the Austrian throne he plunged the world into the First World War. Gavrilo was not to blame for WWI. It is ridiculas to respond to an assisination with war, particularly when the assassin is an anarchist. It was the Germans who started WWI. So yes he may have been the most influencial but he was not the one who "plunged the world into the First World War."

Hey at least you guys can answer the question correctly. Time named the American GI the most influential person. What a bunch of idiots. Thats like answering "what was the most significant event of the past century?" with "violence".

This thread has a (obvious and expected) Western slant. I bet Stalin was a pretty damn big thing in Asia and Europe.

I don't pretend to even fathom the answer but I would have to go with Imagineer. Hitler was damn influential, particularly in killing technologies and agressive war. But Roosevelt invaded the entire world through imperialism. He also took the country off the Gold Standard (<---jackass). Effectively allowing the government to control, not just America's but, all economies world wide.

It was the Germans who started WWI.

Sorry, Quarter Ton Guerilla but you don't seem to know your history. You are simply repeating the canard that Germany started World War One.


Germany did not start World War One.

Gavril Princeps assasinated the archduke heir to the throne of Austria/Hungary.

He was a Serbian national and Austria/Hungary sent the Serbians the July Ultimatum which was a ten point ultimatum.

Serbia agreed to nine of the ten demands but refused on one.

Diplomatic relations between Serbia (a country that had publicly stated it intended to make the southern part of the Austro/Hungarian Empire part of Greater Serbia) and the Austro/Hungarian Empire were severed on July 25th.

Austria/Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28th.

Russia mobilized on July 30th in preperation for an invasion of Austria/Hungary.

Germany being bound by a treaty with Austria/Hungary told the Russians to stand down.

The Russians refused and since their fully mobilized forces could have easily overrun Austria/Hungary and then Germany, Germany formally declared war on Russia on July 31st.

I think Henry Ford has shaped most of the modern world. Without the automobile and mass production, jus imagine how different our world would be today.

Of course, like most people, if he had not done it another guy would probably have replaced him.

astrapol2,

If mass production is your criterium you should credit Ransom E. Olds rather than Henry Ford since it was Olds, not Ford, who invented the assembly line.

Sure, Olds got it started, Ford did it big.

They were willing to submit to 9 of the 10 points. Germany refused to compromise on it.

The national sovereignty of the courts is a pretty solid argument. You think they could have come to some sort of compromise.

I wouldn't want to name any one person because it detracts from a structural analysis over the "great leader" version of history.

But if I had to say one person, I'd say Lenin. The State and Revolution rivaled the Bible in the number of copies printed. His doctrines (and often just his namesake!) went on to play an influential role in most of Asia, especially China, as well as Cuba, Eastern Europe, etc.

"I am the walrus"