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-   -   Who is history's most well-known individual? (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?t=59184)

Julius Caesar 04-13-19 01:14 PM

Who is history's most well-known individual?
 
Before you go "well, that's easy", the question disregards religious figures. The all-too-evident answer would be Jesus, then Muhammad, then Buddha etc.

I was asked this by my wife yesterday, to be exact: If you took every human that has ever lived throughout history and the people they have known of, which single person would most people have known of, not counting religious figures?

I'm an Ancient Rome type of guy, so I'll always endorse the likes of Augustus, Caesar and Cleopatra. But what do you folks reckon? Would you say it's more likely it's someone from Ancient Greece, such as Alexander, Aristotle, Plato or Socrates? Could it be someone more recent like Columbus, Da Vinci, Galilei, Lincoln, Mozart, Napoleon, Newton, Shakespeare, Washington? Or even Einstein, Elvis, Hitler?

Citizen Rules 04-13-19 01:23 PM

Re: Who is history's most well-known individual?
 
Easy, it's Adolph Hitler. The most notorius person in recent history, hell probably in all of history, though there have been some truly evil leaders in the past. I swear his image or name comes up all the time...on the internet during discussion, in debates and even on Star Trek. I mean think about it Hitler made it onto Star Trek.

lenslady 04-13-19 04:21 PM

Re: Who is history's most well-known individual?
 
A thought provoking question -

I think it's Lincoln.

I don't think everyone would cite the ancient Greeks, but Lincoln was known and admired not just for what he did, but for having what we consider as a kind, honest countenance. And Lincoln was in Star Trek too CR!


If not Lincoln, then I'd say it ties between:
Columbus
Einstein
Washington
and for Europeans: Churchill

Of course if you only ask me personally, I'd name
Bob Dylan :)

Steve Freeling 04-13-19 04:33 PM

Re: Who is history's most well-known individual?
 
^I was just about to say Lincoln.

ahwell 04-13-19 04:53 PM

Re: Who is history's most well-known individual?
 
I’d probably go Hitler too, although I think Mozart is pretty damn well known too.

gbgoodies 04-13-19 11:32 PM

Originally Posted by Citizen Rules (Post 2003946)
Easy, it's Adolph Hitler. The most notorius person in recent history, hell probably in all of history, though there have been some truly evil leaders in the past. I swear his image or name comes up all the time...on the internet during discussion, in debates and even on Star Trek. I mean think about it Hitler made it onto Star Trek.
Originally Posted by ahwell (Post 2004012)
I’d probably go Hitler too, although I think Mozart is pretty damn well known too.

I'll third Adolph Hitler. He was the first person that I thought of when I read the title of this thread.

Citizen Rules 04-13-19 11:39 PM

Originally Posted by gbgoodies (Post 2004082)
I'll third Adolph Hitler. He was the first person that I thought of when I read the title of this thread.
Maybe a good trivia question for the Star Trek thread, How many times is Hitler shown or mentioned in Star Trek? I don't really know myself. But I know the Enterprise and Nazis are always crossing paths, even in ST Enterprise, Voyager too.

gbgoodies 04-13-19 11:48 PM

Originally Posted by Citizen Rules (Post 2004085)
Maybe a good trivia question for the Star Trek thread, How many times is Hitler shown or mentioned in Star Trek? I don't really know myself. But I know the Enterprise and Nazis are always crossing paths, even in ST Enterprise, Voyager too.

I remember the TOS episode "Patterns of Force" about the Nazis, and he was mentioned in the episode "City on the Edge of Forever", and I think "Lord Garth" mentioned him as a leader in the episode "Whom Gods Destroy", but I don't remember the other series as well, so I'd have to think about that one.

Reodor 04-14-19 04:12 AM

Most are saying Hitler who has only existed for a little over 100 years. People from Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome have existed for 2000+ years and there were some really famous people from those civilizations like OP mentioned. Surely some of those have Hitler beat.

The more correct answer to this question is one of the great philosophers Aristotle, Plato or Socrates and then Caesar/Cleopatra followed by some more recent people like the mentioned Da Vinci, Mozart, Napoleon. Check out TIME's research on this where they tried to answer the question focusing on significance and including religious figures. They put Napoleon on 2nd only behind Jesus which is pretty interesting.

Hitler is constantly talked about today and brought up in discussions everywhere, so he could be the most famous name of the last 100 years. But in all of history? No.

average joe 04-14-19 09:58 AM

Re: Who is history's most well-known individual?
 
Sorry, Reodor (and Time), if you put aside religious figures, it's Hitler. Nearly every country in the world was involved in World War II, which guarantees him international fame (for the wrong reasons, of course). Maybe people should know the Greek philosophers but many do not. Now, an interesting question might be what pre-20th Century person is most famous?

ashdoc 04-14-19 11:01 AM

Re: Who is history's most well-known individual?
 
I think Hitler . Many people in India call dominating people with dictatorial tendencies as Hitler . The others mentioned by others here are too western centric . I am sure that in Asia and Africa people have other well known personalities . For example a Mongolian is likely to replace Hitler with Genghis Khan who is called Chhingis Khan in that country .

ahwell 04-14-19 11:51 AM

Re: Who is history's most well-known individual?
 
I'll stick with Hitler, but a couple runner-ups that I think are nearly as famous:
Einstein
Lincoln
MLK Jr.
Napolean

gandalf26 04-14-19 12:09 PM

Hitler last century. Lots of big hitters though, Mao, Stalin, Churchill, FDR, Macarthur very famous in the east aswell as West.

Probably Napoleon 19th century.

This century would be a tough one, Putin, maybe Trump combining celebrity and Presidency.

JoaoRodrigues 04-14-19 12:32 PM

I think it depends on what you mean by: most well-known, you mean relevance? You mean right now or ever?
The individuals you named, I could ask my mom right now and she would not know them. I'm almost sure.
I could ask my sister that is in college studying business management and accounting and she wouldn't know.
Nowadays the people more well known, are not those in history books are those being targeted for propaganda.
I'll say Hitler. And yes, I said Hitler is a target of a propaganda machine nowadays. Call me antisemitic.

GulfportDoc 04-14-19 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by average joe (Post 2004129)
Sorry, Reodor (and Time), if you put aside religious figures, it's Hitler. Nearly every country in the world was involved in World War II, which guarantees him international fame (for the wrong reasons, of course). Maybe people should know the Greek philosophers but many do not. Now, an interesting question might be what pre-20th Century person is most famous?
That's a key point, AJ. As time goes on, the world's population increases substantially, so there are more people to have heard of fairly contemporary individuals.

Pre-20th Century names would certainly include Napoleon, Shakespeare, and George Washington. Yet expanded to the 20th and 21st Centuries, names such as Marilyn Monroe, JFK, Churchill, Trump, and Muhammad Ali rise to the top.

But at the present time one could make a case for Donald Trump and M. Ali as being the names most people in the world have heard of.

~Doc

Reodor 04-14-19 01:18 PM

Re: Who is history's most well-known individual?
 
The shockingly many of you that think Hitler is the most well-known person in all of human history:

The widely accepted estimate for people who have lived since the days of Christ, year zero, 2000 years ago, is roughly 50 billion people. Since Hitler became well-known to masses around year 1930, under 10 billion people have lived. In other words, since year zero, over 40 billion people never had a chance to know who Hitler was, because they didn't exist yet.

This means that with your Aristotles and Caesars who existed before Christ, there is a pool of 50 billion people. With Hitler, there is a pool of 10 billion people. Now I can agree that of those 10 billion people, there is a very good chance Hitler is the most well-known of all. But consider that of the remaining 40 billion people, billions of people will have known who your Aristotles and Caesars were --- and none of them will have known of Hitler.

average joe 04-14-19 09:50 PM

But you're not asking everyone who ever lived who is most well known. You're asking people living today who is most well known, at least I think you were.
For example, last Christmas I was telling someone that Bing Crosby was once as famous as Madonna, with top-selling records, movies and his own radio show (the equivalent of TV then), but now many people know him for his Christmas music.
Fame can shift from generation to generation and vary from culture to culture.

Citizen Rules 04-14-19 09:52 PM

Re: Who is history's most well-known individual?
 
For today's generation the most famous name is Lady Gaga. Gawd that's a stupid name:cool:

Captain Steel 04-14-19 09:59 PM

Re: Who is history's most well-known individual?
 
Jussie Smollett! ;)

Only because a few months ago he was relatively unknown (- but so easily identified on the streets of Chicago at 2:00 am, while wearing a hoodie, in sub-zero temperatures, outside a Subway sandwich shop, by random Red-hat-wearing white-racist attackers out looking specifically for a gay black TV actor to commit a hate against using a noose and bleach!)

average joe 04-14-19 10:37 PM

Re: Who is history's most well-known individual?
 
I reread the question posted by Caesar (not Reodor. My apologies to both parties.) and it occurred to me that J.C. may have been asking us to consider the opinions of people past and present. But if I'm right, it's an unfair question because the fame of a person can not be rated among people who died before he/she was born. Even if you chose to compare the fame of people within their respective eras, those in the 20th Century have an advantage because of mass media. Not only do people in the 20th Century know who Hitler was. They know what he looked like. That can't be said of all celebrities before the 20th Century, even in their lifetimes.

Cap, do you know how the Smollett story played out?


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