40 Historical People that Everyone Should Know

I feel like this list should be bigger, I mean no Benjamin Franklin come on..

Shouldn't "man on the moon" be in quotes too?

Why? That makes 0 sense.

In the interests of being very pedantic, you should maybe allow Goebbels for the German leader, as he was Chancellor for a couple of days near the end of the war, but then admittedly you end up with a load of problems with Donitz being President etc. Good quiz though- and that's probably going to be the more controversial statement by the looks of things.

infreaking deed. Don't know how many times he has to come up on a quiz for me to remember, but I never do. Resort to typing a few simple Chinese names (Wang, Wong, Tang, etc.) before thinking "I know I've had/done this before and it never works"

Sorry, but edison did definitely not discover the lightbulb, by any definition. His workers did, he just patented it.

whether or not this is true, the take-away here for me is... you believe that Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world and defeated the Persian Empire by himself? Wow. No wonder he was called Great. Also, you think that Mao Tse Tung killed 30 million people directly, in person, perhaps bare handed? His social calendar must have been even busier than Wilt Chamberlain's.

The first electric light was made in 1800 by Humphrey Davy, an English scientist. He experimented with electricity and invented an electric battery. When he connected wires to his battery and a piece of carbon, the carbon glowed, producing light. This is called an electric arc. Much later, in 1860, the English physicist Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914) devised a practical, long-lasting electric light. He found that a carbon paper filament worked well, but burned up quickly. In 1878, he demonstrated his new electric lamps in Newcastle, England. The inventor Thomas Alva Edison and his employees (in the USA) experimented with thousands of different filaments to find just the right materials to glow well and be long-lasting.

^ right. Thus inventing the common, modern, practical lightbulb.

I'd call it "Improving" rather than 'Inventing.'

The common, modern, practical lightbulb did not exist before Edison and his employees invented one. But I know what you're trying to say.

The clue doesn't say 'Inventor of the first common, modern, practical lightbulb'. We'd all be happy if it did, I think.

It was one hell of a belly flop. You should have seen it.

Nikola Tesla

And what about Tesla? :)

Yuri Gagarin - The first man in space and Chamberlain was also the british PM for the first couple of years of WWII, and not Stalin? Castro? Abraham (the old testament and the leader of the monotheism religion before Jesus and Mohammed was born) ? ...

Hannibal was born in Carthage which is now located in Tunisia (Africa).

Because that's his first name, all you need is Mao.

Darwin received a joint credit for the theory of evolution along with Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace should be an acceptable answer for this question.

The clue is perhaps a little ambiguous...

No, I understood it perfectly. I suppose it is something Americans don't know very well. I don't suppose they learn about the English Civil Wars...

Darwin did not discover evolution, what he discovered was "evolution through natural selection". Before Darwin, there were other scientists who were working on evolution, like Lamarck.

The ideas regarding natural selection and evolution were surfacing throughout science during that time. However, the theories were not well supported. Darwin and Wallace were the first to present direct and observable evidence.

Edison borrowed, stole, or bought patents from a lot of other inventors - Joseph Swan invented a light bulb several months before Edison (it just didn't catch on because it was less efficient)

Keller, Earhart and Thatcher are definitely not someone that everyone should know about. The effect of their deeds and popularity is mostly limited to their respective countries. I'd say that the rest are reasonably famous historical figures, although as usual, the choice is very skewed (Cook but not Magellan or Vasco da Gama. Dickens, Austen or Twain but not Dante, Moliere or Ghoethe. Elisabeth I but not Louis XIV or Catherine the Great). It's very telling that out of those 40 historical people, only 19 did not have English as their language. The World is bigger than that. four writers in English, four US Presidents, two UK Prime Ministers,... . I'd say that Dante, Moliere, or Ghoethe would have made for a more diverse setup. It would also have been nice to include figures such as here are four presidents from the UK and two prime ministers of the UK.

It doesn't say anywhere that these are the only 40 people you should know.

Keller was an important person in history because of what she contributed to the millions of people with ailments. Personally, I think helping millions of blind and deaf people is a decent thing to do, and might deserve a bit of recognition.

That's not the point. It means he was the leader of Germany, not that he was German. But even at that, he still was German. He was born in Austria, yes, but in case you did not know, people can become citizens of other countries. Which he did.

and German can also be an ethnicity.

and ethnicity and naturalization aside, it doesn't matter, because the clue could just as easily be read to mean "leader of Germany" as "leader who was German."

^exactly. It's such a common source of errors that people just assume that these fabricated divisions like nationality, race, or contemporary nation states existed forever and go back for all time. They certainly did not.

But I mean, you should know who led the Germans through WWII. That's the whole point of the quiz...

He was born in Austria. But you can become a citizen of another country, and Austria is german, so it doesn't really matter.

Ever heard of Anschluss?

mandela*

The only reason I know Laozi is because of an Epic Rap Battles of History

Roosevelt is on the list. The rest of them are playing poker in Heaven's smoking room.

Haha

I don't think the list is claiming completeness - Its '40 people everyone should know' NOT 'The ONLY 40 people everyone should know'

I think they're all dead.

Missed one. That was Laozi

The Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years but history is pretty much the accomplishments of a few American and British men in the last 300 years. We're really living right at the start of history relatively speaking.

However, humans weren't civilised if you like until about 10000 years ago and no 'history' really begins until the Roman time, just before and after 0 A.D.

There's no such date. What you call 0 A.D. is actually 1 B.C.

Would you accept Triceratops?

who are the 9% who didnt get george washington and the 12% who didnt get hitler?

People who don't know anything about history. Simple

Surprised to see no Harriet Tubman

Are you asking why February is the shortest month, or why the shortest month was chosen for Black history month? For the first question, you can blame the Romans. For the second, it's because a black historian named Carter G. Woodson picked a week in February to be "Negro History Week," (he picked that week to be near the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass) and it was later expanded to the whole month.

I got 31 first try. I missed 3 I SHOULD HAVE GOT! Great quiz though

That is why the quotation marks are there, bud.

Ah, so, by that reasoning, shouldn't Edison's "inventor"-status then also be in quotation marks? (see other discussions around here)

I'm pretty sure all the people already living here knew about it as well.

My knowledge of tao te ching is pretty laozi

I got Laozi but missed Martin Luther King Jr. ???????

Everyone learns about Rosa Parks at school in New Zealand. My kids know who she is.

So wouldn't Abel Tasman be on there instead of James Cook

The lamest quiz ever! Hitler is there, but Nelson Mandela is not. Terrible! (just to mention ONE example)

Mandela was a typical freedom fighter of the era. If South Africa didn't have white people then Mandela's cause would have been lost in history books as one of several African conflicts.

You mention Hitler's inclusion like it's a mistake. Is there any one person who had a bigger influence on the 20th century? I don't think there was.

jmellor13: Mao, Gavrillo Princip (started WWI leading to WWII), Lenin, Stalin, FDR and his work with the depression, Truman for dropping the bombs... Hitler had an impact be it's debatable to say he had the biggest impact

Pedantry I know but Soviet is a bit dodgy as demonym for USSR; first Soviet leader made me think of the Petrograd Soviet first. Perhaps Bolshevik or USSR leader might be better.

I mostly agree with this list but not having Aristotle, Plato and Stalin on this list is a mistake. I have to disagree with having Hannibal and Nelson on this list. Great generals but Hannibal didn't conquer Rome and Nelson, well why?? He is a footnote in history if you are not from the UK. Aristotle and Plato's influence on our modern ideas of politics and science can still be seen. Stalin rapidly transformed an agrarian county into a industrial world superpower. Omitting them is foolish.

This quiz is not entitled "the only 40 people everyone should know" or even "the 40 most relevent people in history." You look foolish.

Hannibal's achievements helped push the Roman Republic to become the Roman Empire. That change is absolutely significant as the Empire would conquer the Mediterranean area and more, exist for about a thousand years and influence Western civilization to this day. As for Nelson, his achievements enabled the British navy to replace the Spanish as the greatest navy in the world. This resulted in the expansion of the British Empire. And just like the Romans, the British Empire has had a large influence on the history of the world. Using this type of historical influence, I wonder why Genghis Khan is not included.

Everyone needs to quit being so disrespectful to the people on this list. Just because someone wasn't as great of an influence to you, doesn't mean they weren't to someone else.

Surely you can't mean that is true of everyone on the list?

Shouldn't Jefferson Davis be added as an option for Civil War President?

please accept shakespear

Shakespear is not correct though.

That's right, we should spell "Shakspeare" the same way that Shakspere himself spelled it: "Shaksper."

I have 27 General Knowledge quizzes in jetpunk and none of them get the comments like this and many others. Maybe my questions are too factual and not as controversial and contentious as these.

I saw his corpse in Moscow. He looked great for having been married to Yoko Ono.

That was harder than i thought

Someone tell me why I should be expected to know who Helen Keller is. The others I can just about see why they're on the list, but not her

Well, for starters, she helped raise awareness for millions of people with natural ailments. So, unless you have something against the blind and deaf, I personally think helping millions of people around the world would be a decent thing to do, wouldn't it?

Given the title, I concur completely with the number of athletes that appear on this quiz.

i only guessed Leonerdo da Vinci... But Cool Quiz!

I made a quiz similar to this. If you enjoyed this quiz, please check mine out.

Darn, forgot about Lenin. I just did a WWII quiz and all I could think about was Stalin.

Not everyonez should know but americans... USA is not center of the world. Rosa Parks isnt very know outside.

Only one-fourth of the people named here are Americans. Who are the ten people you would replace them with on your own quiz? (Which you are quite welcome to make.)

Basically 50% England and english people, historical people nobody should know.

You're right. Nobody should know the name of the man who started WW2 and committed a genocide of Jews. No one should know the first leader of the most powerful nation in the world. Not a single human should know the "father" of the soon to be most populous nation in the world. Discoverer of huge scientific theory? Nah.

Can Nikola Tesla be an acceptable answer for inventor of the lightbulb?

Wow, no Nelson Mandela? Also, Koreans invented the movable metal type hundreds of years before Gutenberg...

The authors of the Tao Te Ching and Great Expectations are also included. FDR is considered by many to be the greatest of all American presidents, except maybe Lincoln and Washington (both included), and was the American counterpoint to Hitler, who, along with Churchill (also included), steered America through World War II. Washington was not just the first president. He is considered the father of the United States. You mean to tell me that the founding figure of the most influential country in the world is not important enough to make this list? The first presidents or prime ministers of countries like France, the UK, Australia, Argentina, etc. are not as significant because their countries existed before they did. Great Britain was a sovereign state long before Sir Walpole came along. This is not an exhaustive list. It's just a list of 40 very famous people. Get over it.

Some countries fell into the Great Depression because they depended to heavily on our economy's success. When FDR brought relief to the U.S., he brought a little relief to other countries as well. Also, U.S. citizens are this site's number one demographic, so it is highly probable that the author of this quiz is a U.S. resident.

Fair guess, but fairly short odds; it is a US site after all.

Only 88% got Jesus

Indeed and still Greek.

no

60 years later and Claudette would have been given her own MTV reality TV show. She was ahead of her time in more ways than one.

You are correct, but the crime is not that Rosa Parks gets credit. It's that Claudette Colvin does not *also* get credit. What Rosa Parks did took a lot of courage, even if she wasn't the first person to do it, and she deserves recognition. But you're right that Claudette Colvin deserves recognition too.

Why Colvin but not Bayard Rustin?

I am pretty sure Buddha is a lot more important than some people here.

I mean, considering I'm twelve and haven't learnt most of these in school yet, I'm pretty proud of the 16 I got

I thought Odeysseus wrote the iiliad

Odysseus is a character in the Iliad, and is also the main character in the Odyssey (hence the name and the origin of the word). Both were written by Homer.

Yea exactly and especially some who lived in paleolithic times.

I'm not religious, but I'm marginally concerned about Jesus being called "Christian Messiah" while Muhammad is called "Founder of Islam". My suggestion is to change Jesus' description to "Founder of Christianity", because that is a title that is literally true, while it cannot be proven that Jesus was actually a messiah, let alone THE messiah.

It used to say "founder of Christianity," which is actually less accurate. Jesus, if he was a real person, did not found Christianity. Jesus was Jewish. So were his followers. According to Christian tradition, Jesus and his followers believed him to be the messiah. To Christians- he is the messiah. Therefore it's accurate to say he's the Christian messiah. He's definitely not the founder of Christianity. The man most directly responsible for founding the religion of Christianity, as distinct and separate from Judaism, is probably Paul.

A similar argument could be made for Muhammad, and it would probably be more accurate to call Muhammad the "last Muslim prophet" rather than the founder of Islam; even putting aside whether he was or was not a legitimate prophet, and the fact that Islamic tradition holds he had more to do with founding a religion than Jesus did. The Quran supposedly came straight from Muhammad's mouth. Jesus did not write the Bible.

yeah yeah yeah... Muslims say the same thing when they argue that Adam was the first Muslim, you know? Now, back to reality...

Look up the definition for messiah. It doesn't even necessarily have to have any supernatural or religious overtones.

Looked it up. Says "Not a very naughty boy"

The Jewish messiah was supposed to be a great king and conquering warrior who would defeat and slaughter all the enemies of the Jews ushering in a Jewish kingdom that would rule the world.

Jesus, by contrast (if he was a real person and according to what we know from the gospels), was the hippy leader of a tiny Jewish apocalypse cult who made a bunch of prophecies that never came true, got arrested for treason, accused of blasphemy, and then was humiliated and tortured before his public execution.

Is it any wonder that early Christians had such a hard time converting Jews with this story and instead turned to trying to convince gentiles?

...and then later his most lasting contribution became that he served as inspiration for another religion that came to persecute and villify the Jewish people like no other. Quite a poor Jewish messiah, on balance!

If you wanted to add more women, you could have added famous and significant women like Maria Curie, Eva Peron, Florence Nightingale, Catherine the Great, Cleopatra, Dolores Ibarruri... Helen Keller, Jane Austen and Amelia Earhart, with all due respect, absolutely don't belong in this list. Not to mention Rosa Parks, nobody outside US knows who she is, or should even care.

What an absolutely ridiculous final comment

I am outside the USA and I know who Rosa Parks is. There is nothing wrong with learning the history of a country other than your own, particularly such an influential country as the USA.

Perhaps. But the list isn't supposed to be comprehensive or to contain exactly the top 40 most influential people. The quiz is fine the way it is and there is a lot of knowledge to be gained by knowing about the Civil Rights movement in the USA, and Rosa Parks was someone particularly famous in the movement.

"absolutely don't belong on this list"? I think the Quizmaster did a good job.

Nobody wanted to add more women.

One I didn't know altogether—Oliver Cromwell—and one I could only come up with the first name for—Horatio Nelson. But other than that, I guess I know my important historical figures!

Why is it when someone goes to the trouble of making a little quiz for jetpunkers many people try and pick fault or choose alternatives for the quiz. Make your own quizzes and then we can all pick holes in yours.

Interesting that you have incontrovertible proof of this, going back a few years where records are shady and claims are exaggerated. "Supposedly" is not denying it, so don't be so offended; it's merely implying that it isn't proven and some uncertainty exists. I don't think merely stating this as fact using capital letters will change many minds

Very american-centered

Helen Keller was a prolific author, and speaker in over 40 countries, advocating for people with disabilities, and also women's rights.

Can you accept 'Zedong' instead of having to type his full name?

I have always felt that although what Rosa Parks did was brave and nobel, never was really that important. The civil rights movement would have happened without her, and a man like MLK was really who pushe the movement. Did her act affect the movement? Absolutley, but there have been thousands of people who have had a bigger affect on the world.

You missed that one? Really?

Then why have you heard of him?

and I suppose you've got nothing against the inclusion of Charles Dickens

Don't include Jesus in something HISTORICAL!!!!!

Two more exclamation marks and I think we would have all been convinced.

Hold up, quiz is called historical people that everyone should know, therefore my concern is why isn't Cyrus The Great on the list? Wrote the first human bill of rights, which is incorporated in the Constitution of the USA. He freed the Jews and his name is mentioned in the Bible, Torah and the Quran.

That quiz is way too much US-oriented. Neil Armstrong but not Yuri Gagarin, the freaking first man is space ?

One man becoming space would definitely be an incredible feat. I'm sure he'd be on the quiz if he actually pulled it off.

You can invent something that was previously invented somewhere else.

There are many different spellings for the name of the inventor of Islam. I tried several, but still didn`t get it right.

You must have been using some pretty weird ones.

Didn't Galileo "discover" gravity before Newton? I believe he ran experiments with dropping objects from the Tower of Pisa, right?

how is rosa parks in any way comparable to people like muhammed and hitler in historical terms

They all appear on this quiz.

Hadn't even heard of 9 of these, like never

I thought Laozi was called Lao-Tze and according to Wikipedia this is an acceptable alternative spelling (as is Lao Tzu). Didn't try Laozi!

“ wrote hamlet”- oops I haven’t heard of hamlet before. RIP chances of getting that one. Lol

US-American is not a demonym, worldwidely is not a word, your sentence is not a sentence, your ignorance isn't representative of everyone who takes this quiz, and your point is incorrect if I'm going to describe it as generously as possible.

Neither Charles Dickens nor Jane Austen are American, by the way.

This isn't a top 40 list. QM took a crack at doing a most important people in history quiz, but that's on a different page. Should direct your complaints there.

Why does Zedong not work for Mao???

Is someone not worth knowing if someone else did something similar in some other place?