Who’s Biggest? The 100 Most Significant Figures in History
A data-driven ranking. Plus, have former TIME People of the Year been predictive?
Who’s bigger: Washington or Lincoln? Hitler or Napoleon? Charles Dickens or Jane Austen? That depends on how you look at it.
When we set out to rank the significance of historical figures, we decided to not
approach the project the way historians might, through a principled
assessment of their individual achievements. Instead, we evaluated each
person by aggregating millions of traces of opinions into a
computational data-centric analysis. We ranked historical figures just
as Google ranks web pages, by integrating a diverse set of measurements about their reputation into a single consensus value.
Significance is related to fame but measures something different.
Forgotten U.S. President Chester A. Arthur (who we rank as the 499th
most significant person in history) is more historically significant
than young pop singer Justin Bieber (currently ranked 8633), even though
he may have a less devoted following and lower contemporary name
recognition. Historically significant figures leave statistical evidence
of their presence behind, if one knows where to look for it, and we
used several data sources to fuel our ranking algorithms, including Wikipedia, scanned books and Google n-grams.
To fairly compare contemporary figures like Britney Spears against
the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, we adjusted for the fact that
today’s stars will fade from living memory over the next several
generations. Intuitively it is clear that Britney Spears’ mindshare will
decline substantially over the next 100 years, as people who grew up
hearing her are replaced by new generations. But Aristotle’s reputation
will be much more stable because this transition occurred long ago. The
reputation he has now is presumably destined to endure. By analyzing
traces left in millions of scanned books, we can measure just how fast
this decay occurs, and correct for it.
Each year since 1927, TIME Magazine has selected an official
Person of the Year, recognizing an individual who “has done the most to
influence the events of the year.” Our rankings provide a way to see how
well these selections have stood up over time. Adolf Hitler [7] proves
to be the most significant Person of the Year ever. Albert Einstein [19] was the most significant modern individual never selected for the annual honor, though TIME
did name him Person of the Century in 1999. Elvis Presley [69] is the
highest ranked figure that has been completely dissed: no author or
artist has ever so been honored.
The least significant Person of the Year proves to be Harlow Curtice
[224326], the president of General Motors for five years during the
1950s who increased capital spending in a time of recession, which
helped spur a recovery of the American economy. Other obscure selections
include Hugh Samuel “Iron Pants” Johnson [32927], who Franklin
Roosevelt appointed to head the depression-era National Recovery
Administration, and fired less than a year later. John Sirica [47053]
was the District Court Judge who ordered President Nixon to turn over
tape recordings in the Watergate Scandal. David Ho [66267] is credited
with developing the combination therapy that provided the first
effective treatment for AIDS. His contributions to human health arguably
deserve a better significance rank than our algorithms gave him here.
The 100 Most Significant Figures in History
1 Jesus
2 Napoleon
3 Muhammad
4 William Shakespeare
5 Abraham Lincoln
6 George Washington
7 Adolf Hitler
8 Aristotle
9 Alexander the Great
10 Thomas Jefferson
11 Henry VIII of England
12 Charles Darwin
13 Elizabeth I of England
14 Karl Marx
15 Julius Caesar
16 Queen Victoria
17 Martin Luther
18 Joseph Stalin
19 Albert Einstein
20 Christopher Columbus
21 Isaac Newton
22 Charlemagne
23 Theodore Roosevelt
24 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
25 Plato
26 Louis XIV of France
27 Ludwig van Beethoven
28 Ulysses S. Grant
29 Leonardo da Vinci
30 Augustus
31 Carl Linnaeus
32 Ronald Reagan
33 Charles Dickens
34 Paul the Apostle
35 Benjamin Franklin
36 George W. Bush
37 Winston Churchill
38 Genghis Khan
39 Charles I of England
40 Thomas Edison
41 James I of England
42 Friedrich Nietzsche
43 Franklin D. Roosevelt
44 Sigmund Freud
45 Alexander Hamilton
46 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
47 Woodrow Wilson
48 Johann Sebastian Bach
49 Galileo Galilei
50 Oliver Cromwell
51 James Madison
52 Gautama Buddha
53 Mark Twain
54 Edgar Allan Poe
55 Joseph Smith, Jr.
56 Adam Smith
57 David, King of Israel
58 George III of the United Kingdom
59 Immanuel Kant
60 James Cook
61 John Adams
62 Richard Wagner
63 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
64 Voltaire
65 Saint Peter
66 Andrew Jackson
67 Constantine the Great
68 Socrates
69 Elvis Presley
70 William the Conqueror
71 John F. Kennedy
72 Augustine of Hippo
73 Vincent van Gogh
74 Nicolaus Copernicus
75 Vladimir Lenin
76 Robert E. Lee
77 Oscar Wilde
78 Charles II of England
79 Cicero
80 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
81 Francis Bacon
82 Richard Nixon
83 Louis XVI of France
84 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
85 King Arthur
86 Michelangelo
87 Philip II of Spain
88 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
89 Ali, founder of Sufism
90 Thomas Aquinas
91 Pope John Paul II
92 René Descartes
93 Nikola Tesla
94 Harry S. Truman
95 Joan of Arc
96 Dante Alighieri
97 Otto von Bismarck
98 Grover Cleveland
99 John Calvin
100 John Locke
Steven Skiena and Charles B. Ward are the authors of Who’s Bigger? Where Historical Figures Really Rank, Cambridge University Press, 2013. The views expressed are solely their own.
2 comments:
1001 Theary Seng
102 Jendhamuni
Seriously, Nimrod, the Rebel should be among the ranking; because he started the rebellion after a fresh start on life on this side of the World Wide Flood in Genesis account. God wiped clean the slate of humanity wickedness, yet we read of Nimrod picking up the baton of rebellion brought humanity into a state of rebellion against her Creator by worshiping other gods.
The course of human atrocities could be traced back to this rebellion at the Tower of Babel,(confusion). Yes, when man decide for his future without God in it, confusion ensues.
Today, rebellion and confusion seem to be the norm of society.
Democrazy
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