Re: FW: TIME's Person of the Century .... HELP!!

["K. William Young" <will@bofh.ems.mindspring.net>]

> Honestly, I think that it is really too hard to evaluate one person as the
> primary influence on the entire globe for the entire century.  Sure, FDR had
> a lot of influence on the Western world and could be quite arguably the most
> influential American President of this century.  However, how influential
> was he to the rest of the Eastern world or for that matter, how influential
> in the lives of less developed countries?

Um, he, along with Stalin and Churchill won the second world war. He died
before the defeat of Japan, but the outcome of that war and the collapse
of the British Empire are inexerably related.

> No one has mentioned Carl Djerassi, the inventor of the birth control pill
> or Jonas Salk and Thomas Francis who helped create the first successful
> polio vaccine in their top ten.  Honestly, I rank them far above Madonna or
> Princess Diana.

Madonna and Princess Die Die Die! wouldn't mak my top 1000 list, much less
top 20. What about Alan Turing? He preactically invented computing as we
know it, and broke enigma, which was sina quo non for the defeat of
Germany in the air and sea.

> My point is that yes a lot of world leaders and even musical or movie icons
> have influence on us.  It is envitably hard to pin point what person was
> more of a world shaper than the other in the league of true cultural icons.
> Who was more influential in the American Civil Rights movement?  Was it
> Martin Luther King who publically lead a march or Rosa Parks who wouldn't
> move?  It takes all kinds of leaders including the ones who are less public
> about their actions and simply work behind the scenes to accomplish the true
> changes of our times.

Interesting.

-kwy