The 100

The 100 : A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History is the title of a book by the American astronomer, mathematician and historian Michael H. Hart , in which he lists the 100 most influential people in world history according to several criteria sets up.

The book has been widely debated since it was first published in 1978 and its concepts have found wide acceptance. Commenting on the position of Mohammed at the top of the list, Hart comments: “That I have made Mohammed head the list of the 100 most influential people in world history will surprise some readers and be questioned by others. But he was the only man in history who was highly successful in both religious and secular fields. "

Hart's top 50

According to Michael H. Hart, the fifty most influential people in world history:

rank	Surname	influence
1	Mohammed	Founder of Islam and Arab military leader ( Maghazi )
2	Isaac Newton	Physicist and mathematician, including calculus and classical mechanics
3	Jesus of Nazareth	Founder of Christianity
4th	Buddha	Founder of Buddhism
5	Confucius	Founder of Confucianism
6th	Paul of Tarsus	Most important missionary in Christianity
7th	Cai Lun	Inventor of paper
8th	Johannes Gutenberg	Inventor of the printing press
9	Christoph Columbus	Discoverer of the New World
10	Albert Einstein	Physicist, among other things developer of the theory of relativity
11	Louis Pasteur	Chemist, including the founder of microbiology
12	Galileo Galilei	Mathematician , physicist and astronomer, is considered the founder of modern natural science
13	Aristotle	Philosopher, significantly influenced science, politics, religion and ethics
14th	Euclid	Philosopher, including Euclidean geometry
15th	Cunt	According to the Bible, leader of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt
16	Charles Darwin	Founder of the theory of evolution
17th	Qin Shihuangdi	Founder of the Chinese Qin Dynasty and the Chinese Empire
18th	Augustus	First Roman emperor , founder of the Julio-Claudian imperial dynasty
19th	Nicolaus Copernicus	Astronomer, doctor and mathematician, founder of the heliocentric worldview
20th	Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier	Chemist , co-founder of modern chemistry
21st	Constantine the Great	Roman emperor, pioneer of the Constantinian turning point
22nd	James Watt	Inventor and improvement of the steam engine caused, among other things, the industrial revolution
23	Michael Faraday	Experimental physicist , development of the electrical industry and the theory of electromagnetism
24	James Clerk Maxwell	Physicist, laid the foundation for electricity and magnetism , founder of statistical mechanics
25th	Martin Luther	Theologian, central to the Reformation and Protestantism
26th	George Washington	First President of the United States of America
27	Karl Marx	Philosopher, co-founder of the theory of socialism and communism , critic of religion and critic of civil society
28	Wright Brothers	Pioneers of Aviation
29	Genghis Khan	Unification of the Mongolian tribes and conquest of large parts of Central Asia and Northern China as the Great Khan of the Mongols
30th	Adam Smith	Philosopher and enlightener , founder of classical economics
31	William Shakespeare	Playwright , poet and actor , important poet of world literature
32	John Dalton	Chemistry pioneer through investigations into atomic theory
33	Alexander the Great	King of Macedon , extension of his empire to India and Egypt
34	Napoleon Bonaparte	Conquest of large parts of continental Europe , shaping of modern civil law through the Code Civil
35	Thomas Alva Edison	Inventor in the field of electricity , fundamental inventions of electrical consumer products ( telecommunications , electric light)
36	Antoni van Leeuwenhoek	Naturalist, builder of light microscopes
37	William Thomas Green Morton	Dentist, pioneer of anesthesia and founder of modern anesthesia
38	Guglielmo Marconi	Radio pioneer, practical work on radio telegraphy
39	Adolf Hitler	Dictator of the German Empire , trigger of the Second World War
40	Plato	Philosopher , significantly influenced, among other things, epistemology , ethics , state theory , cosmology and metaphysics
41	Oliver Cromwell	Lord Protector of England , Scotland and Ireland , ended attempts to transform England into an absolutist state by executing Charles I.
42	Alexander Graham Bell	Big entrepreneur , marketing the idea of ​​the phone
43	Alexander Fleming	Physician and bacteriologist , discoverer of the antibiotic penicillin
44	John Locke	Philosopher , pioneer of the Enlightenment and pioneer of liberalism
45	Ludwig van Beethoven	Composer and pianist , pioneer of romantic music , led the Viennese classic to its climax
46	Werner Heisenberg	Physicist , formulated Heisenberg's uncertainty principle
47	Louis Daguerre	Pioneer of photography, inventor of the daguerreotype
48	Simón Bolívar	Independence fighter, instrumental in the liberation of South American countries from Spanish colonial rule
49	René Descartes	Philosopher, mathematician and scientist, founder of early modern modern rationalism and that of analytical geometry
50	Michelangelo	Painter , sculptor , architect and poet , one of the most important artists of the Italian High Renaissance

See also

• Our best

Web links

• Complete list

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michael Hart: The 100. New York 1978, p. 33.
2. ^ Based on the revised edition from 1992
3. ^ Religious Affiliation of History's 100 Most Influential People