Who Is The Greatest Person From Your Country?

During 2002, the BBC ran a poll in which they asked the British public to name who they think their nation's greatest ever citizen was. They first released the top 90 first, whilst keeping the top 10 a secret and would then air a series of documentaries each with a different British celebrity singing their praises. Who won?

Winston Churchill!

Perhaps not too surprising, he is generally ranked as one of Britain's greatest ever Prime Minister, who led the United Kingdom and the allied forces during WWII. Of course, he can be a bit more controversial internationally, but within the United Kingdom he is very much revered as one of nation's greatest citizens.

If you're interested in viewing the wider top 10, then you can do so here. It gives you a lot of context as to the sorts of people who can end up on these lists!

And like many British shows, this captured the interests of many other countries who would then go on to run their own polls during the 2000s and 2010s!

So, the Americans ran their poll in 2005, who won that?
Ronald Reagan!

Of course Ronald Reagan is often revered as a great president by many for Americans, but I think this choice definitely shows this lists' age. Remember, this poll was ran in 2005 when Reagan had only died the year prior and that no doubt was a factor into this decision. I think this result is still intriguing to me, because it makes me wonder what the results would look like if a poll similar to this was ran today.

Next up, we have India. Seeing as India has a very obvious choice for their greatest citizen, Gandhi was excluded, with organizers feeling that Gandhi would dominate the polls and make it far less exciting, and another reason being that organizers wanted more of a focus on India's history post-independence, as they felt India is a nation that has changed a lot since it's independence in 1947.

With all this in mind, who did Indians vote as their greatest citizen?

Dr. Babasheb Ambedkar!

Ambedkar is most famous for drafting the Indian constitution and overall played a crucial role when it came to drafting the Constituion of India.

I'd be very interested to hear from Indians who are reading this blog, on whether they think this was a good choice or not.

Next up, we'll be taking a look at Ireland, who held their poll in 2010. So, who won that?

John Hume!

John Hume was a politician who is one of the founding members of the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland and was the leader of the party from 1979 until 2001. The SDLP party wanted Irish reunification and more devolution of power for Northern Ireland, the party was most popular during The Troubles. However, by the 1990s and 2000s, the SDLP party was overtaken in popularity with Sinn Féin. More on Hume though, in 1998 he won a Nobel Peace prize for being instrumental in the creation of the ''Good Friday'' agreement.

Let's move onto Brazil, whose poll was held in 2012. The winner?

Chico Xavier!

Xavier was a philanthropist and spiritist medium and, during his life would write close to 500 books which claimed to use a process called ''psychography'', which is a style of writing in which is a sort of psychic ability which allows a person to to write, but without conciously writing. And whilst writing, the writer allows supposed spirits to ''manipulate'' the writer's hand. He would go on to sell 50 million copies of his books, and all revenue would be donated to charity. But what I find most interesting, is that Xavier prophesied that he would die on a ''day of celebration'', so the grief would be overshadowed by a day of national happiness. And in fact, he would die on the exact day Brazil won the World Cup in 2002, passing away merely hours after the fact.

Next up is my own country! (Canada), with our poll being held in 2004. Who did Canadians vote as our greatest citizen?

Tommy Douglas!

Tommy Douglas was the first leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada and is recognized as the father of Canadian healthcare. During his time as premier of Saskatchewan, he would implement government-funded health insurance and would go onto be implemented in 1947. The success of this program would prompt the federal government to create a national plan.

France ran their poll in early 2005, and the winner?

Charle de Gaulle!

This one shouldn't need as much explanation - if you study World War II even just a little bit, then you've probably come across the guy. He led the Free French forces during the second world war, and was also president of France from 1958-1969.

Germany would hold it's poll in 2003, and unlike other countries, Germany had a sort of 'pre-determined' list. The most obvious reasoning to exclude controversial figures such as Adolf Hitler and due to complicated history, it can be hard to determine who is actually ''German''. Despite this, it still caused some controversy as the German poll makers included Nicolaus Copernicus, who is considered a national hero in Poland and Albert Einstein appeared at number 10 in the German version, whilst also appearing at number 14 in the American edition!

With that aside, who won the poll?

Konrad Adenauer

Adenauer is revered as someone who helped to re-build post-war Germany's international image, and is also considered one of Founding Fathers of the European Union.

Next up we have the Netherlands, who ran their poll in 2004. The winner?

Pim Fortuyn

So, who was he? Well, he was a fairly prominent right wing figure in Dutch politics through the 1990s, he would criticize the Netherlands' policies on things such as immigration, multiculturalism and Islam. In fact, he would go as far as calling Islam a ''backward culture''. He also supported reducing the Dutch financial contribution to the European Union. Whilst he is labelled as being ''far-right'', he did hold some left wings view as well, as he was openly gay and an advocate for gay rights. In March of 2002, his new political party, the ''LPF'' would become the largest party in his hometown of Rotterdam. However, by May of that year, during the Dutch presidential campaign, he would be assasinated which would mark the end of his brief, but controversial political career.

But, a bit like Reagan, this is a case of a choice aging the poll a lot, seeing as he was only assasinated two years before. I'd be very interested to hear from Dutch people on who they think would be the winner of this poll if it were to be ran today.

To round of this list, let's take a look at Portugal!

The Portuguese would run their poll in 2007. Who won?

António de Oliveira Salazar

Salazar served as the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932-1969, during his rule, he would do a lot of good (and bad) for the country. He had an authoritarian regime, which is marked by censorship, political repression and colonial wars. It can be argued that he brought political and financial stability to Portugal. On the other hand though, his regime is criticized for human rights abuses and lack of political freedom.

Rather humorously, the Portuguese also ran a poll for the worst Portuguese citizen, and Salazar won that poll too.

And there you have it! I hope you enjoyed reading through this as much as I enjoyed researching it! I don't have enough time to cover every single country, as we'd be here forever if I did since so many countries did this poll. But, if your country was not mentioned here, then don't worry, you may take a look here. And you can also take a look at other countries that I did not mention here.