I assume you're going by the "Most influence via actions they took in the 20th C"? Because otherwise I'm going with Hart and saying Mohammed.
Ah, mmmeee0.
Agreed. Princip.
Ah, mmmeee0.
Agreed. Princip.
Last edited:
who had the greatest impact on 20th century history?
- Thread starter Mr. G
- Start date
Dure
Banned
This is a very difficult question. I think that most of the people that had the greatest influence on the 20th Century all lived in previous centuries:
The as yet unresolved debate between the followers and adherents of Karl Marx and Adam Smith have been a major theme throughout the 20th century.
Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker for changing the way we think about life and death.
Henri Dunant who started the Red Cross and gave rise to the humanitarian movements that followed.
Darwin’s theory whilst having a major impact on the science in its own time is only really impacting the way the common person thinks about the world now.
James Clerk Maxwell’s ideas in thermo-dynamics and most especially electro-magnetism have only really come into their own in the last century. Similarly the quantum theory of Max Planck is still being explored and was invented right on the cusp of the 19th and 20th centuries.
People who both changed and lived in the 20th Century include:
The mathematicians Kurt Godel and Alan Turing who demonstrated that not everything is provable and that everything is calculable (little joke there).
Tsiolkovski for telling us we must leave the cradle and Korolev and Gagarin for showing us the way.
I am inclined to agree with several other posters that Adolph Hitler made the world the shape it is today.
Lastly as the European model slowly conquers the world Clement Atlee.
The as yet unresolved debate between the followers and adherents of Karl Marx and Adam Smith have been a major theme throughout the 20th century.
Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker for changing the way we think about life and death.
Henri Dunant who started the Red Cross and gave rise to the humanitarian movements that followed.
Darwin’s theory whilst having a major impact on the science in its own time is only really impacting the way the common person thinks about the world now.
James Clerk Maxwell’s ideas in thermo-dynamics and most especially electro-magnetism have only really come into their own in the last century. Similarly the quantum theory of Max Planck is still being explored and was invented right on the cusp of the 19th and 20th centuries.
People who both changed and lived in the 20th Century include:
The mathematicians Kurt Godel and Alan Turing who demonstrated that not everything is provable and that everything is calculable (little joke there).
Tsiolkovski for telling us we must leave the cradle and Korolev and Gagarin for showing us the way.
I am inclined to agree with several other posters that Adolph Hitler made the world the shape it is today.
Lastly as the European model slowly conquers the world Clement Atlee.
And Gavrilo Princip wouldn't've been able to kill Franz Ferdinand if Franz Ferdinand's driver had been fifteen minutes late to work and delayed the whole procession. So Franz Ferdinand's driver is the most important person in history. Or wait, maybe he's not, because we can assume that Franz Ferdinand's driver's wife made him a good breakfast that morning, and that's why he wasn't late, so Franz Ferdinand's driver's wife is the most important person in history.
The Great Man theory of history is completely ridiculous.
The Great Man theory of history is completely ridiculous.
clintonforever
Banned
Isoroku Yamamoto.
Planned and executed attack on Pearl Harbour which launched the US into WWII.
Emperor Hirohito - oversaw rise of Japanese Empire and conquest of the Western Pacific though the real instigators was the Japanese Navy and Army which overthrow the government to carry out their plans....
Planned and executed attack on Pearl Harbour which launched the US into WWII.
Emperor Hirohito - oversaw rise of Japanese Empire and conquest of the Western Pacific though the real instigators was the Japanese Navy and Army which overthrow the government to carry out their plans....
Henry Ford. His desire to put the average man on wheels still drives the geopolitical world situation today. Ghandi a close second
Gavrilo Princip
With a couple of gunshots he destroys four monarchies and utterly re-draws the map of Europe.
With a couple of gunshots he destroys four monarchies and utterly re-draws the map of Europe.
Albert Einstein. "Basically the entire modern world was invented by a Swiss patent clerk in 1912."
Lenin because without Lenin you would not have Stalin, Zedong or Gorbachev (the obvious ones), but you would also not have Hitler (he came to power in large part due to the fear by the army about a Communist revolution...that fear goes away w/o Lenin/Stalin). Without Hitler, Churchill would be a foot note. Without Hitler it is unlikely there would have been a Manhattan project - without the Manhattan project Einstein is well known by scientists but not a household name. Without the Manhattan project Oppenheimer is not even well known by scientists - he is just some University President.
Ford has huge impact in the US but less outside the US. Roosevelt has major impact outside of the US due to WW II which you don't get (in the same form) without Hitler, which you don't get without Lenin...and so on.
i.e., Blame it all on Lenin
Ford has huge impact in the US but less outside the US. Roosevelt has major impact outside of the US due to WW II which you don't get (in the same form) without Hitler, which you don't get without Lenin...and so on.
i.e., Blame it all on Lenin
Do you mean Impact in general (Includes both good and/or bad) or a Good Impact? or a Bad Impact?
Impact in general. Does not matter if it's good or bad.
Also have people who actually lived in the 20th century in mind.
Even though I voted for Hitler (Wow that sounds weird) I still think that overall Princip was one of the more influential people of the twentieth century. The problem with that theory is that Europe was such a powderkeg at the time that anything could have set it off. But overall almost everything can be traced back to him, and even if it's traced back to something else it gets traced back to him.
WWII: Started because of Germany's unfair treatment at the Verseilles Treaty.
Cold War: Came from WWII and the Soviet Union winning WWII. The Soviet Union would not be around if WWI had not started.
The Great Depression: This is debateable but mostly coming from the good times after WWI collapsed.
Crisis In the Middle East: Came from France and Britain seriously screwing up the whole area after the decline of the Ottoman Empire. (To those of you saying it would have happend anyway, I agree it would but it was accelerated by WWI).
WWII: Started because of Germany's unfair treatment at the Verseilles Treaty.
Cold War: Came from WWII and the Soviet Union winning WWII. The Soviet Union would not be around if WWI had not started.
The Great Depression: This is debateable but mostly coming from the good times after WWI collapsed.
Crisis In the Middle East: Came from France and Britain seriously screwing up the whole area after the decline of the Ottoman Empire. (To those of you saying it would have happend anyway, I agree it would but it was accelerated by WWI).
I voted for Hitler for a specific reasons:
Imagine: A man who aspires to become artist, later have turn to lead Germany in 12 years. A man who tried to extreminate the Jews in Europe. A man who aspires to dominate the world in 1000 years.
Imagine: A man who aspires to become artist, later have turn to lead Germany in 12 years. A man who tried to extreminate the Jews in Europe. A man who aspires to dominate the world in 1000 years.
Macsporan
Banned
Gavrilo Princip
who started the chain of cataclysmic events that didn't end until the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and claimed the lives of 160,000,000 before it was done (World Wars, various other wars arising from them, mass murders by Communists and Nazis).
Quite an achievement for a gormless 19 year old Serbian nothing.
"You don't need talent to be famous" should be the motto of the 20th Century.
who started the chain of cataclysmic events that didn't end until the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and claimed the lives of 160,000,000 before it was done (World Wars, various other wars arising from them, mass murders by Communists and Nazis).
Quite an achievement for a gormless 19 year old Serbian nothing.
"You don't need talent to be famous" should be the motto of the 20th Century.
I voted for Lenin for setting up one of the centuries biggest and longest conflicts. However I think Gorbachev should get an award for Most Impact in the 1980s category. If Gorby hadn't seen the writing on the wall for the USSR, we might have had a more chaotic and dangerous collaspe of the Soviet Union.
Gavrilo Princip,
I actually disagree. Yes he did provide the spark for WWI, but anything might have done it by 1914!
Gavrilo Princip,
I actually disagree. Yes he did provide the spark for WWI, but anything might have done it by 1914!