What does it mean to be famous? Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, III, made it to second place on Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2009, and all for the single act of crash landing a plane without killing anyone. If you’re American, chances are you still remember his name. He made global headlines, so there’s a good chance people abroad from the US remember him. But he didn’t make the Google “top ten most searched for people of 2009.” Michael Jackson did. He still generates 11 million+ monthly searches. But compared to the following entries, Jackson doesn’t come close in terms of number of books written about him. He hasn’t had enough time. Here are the 10 most famous (or infamous), well known people in human history, ranked according to Google searches and approximate number of books written about them. If you travel to Bouvet Island, the most remote land mass in the whole world, how likely is the first person you meet going to know of the following 10 people?
10
Sir Isaac Newton
1642–1727
Google searches: 1 million+ per month
Number of books written about this person: c. 400,000
The discoverer of the calculus just edged out Albert Einstein for the 10th spot. Google searches alone would have netted Einstein a place on the list, at 6.1 million searches per month, but many more books have been written about Newton. Einstein is on track to break his record in far fewer than 286 years, but even then, Einstein would have had no foundation on which to base his theories of Relativity had Newton not existed. 95% of all classical mechanics is built on Isaac Newton alone.
He generalized the binomial theorem, invented the reflecting telescope, coined the word “gravity” and gave the Roman Catholic Church’s self-important hegemony over geocentrism its final knockout blow. Copernicus and Galileo had to face inquisitions, but no one ever attempted to reproach Newton’s Principia Mathematica. Perhaps arguing against someone else’s observations is inane enough, but arguing against math itself was in Newton’s case, impossible. He proved the former two’s theories on heliocentrism, and explained why and how every single macroscopic object in the entire Universe moves as it does. He did all this by himself and still had time to investigate elements and principles of optics, and invent the pet door, although he was too busy ever to have sex. He died a virgin at 84.
9
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
1452–1519
Google searches: 4 million+ per month
Number of books: c. 600,000
Google searches can be inaccurate, which is why they are only half the criteria for judgment. If you search “leonardo,” you’ll get a lot of pages about ninja turtles and people who drowned on Titanic. But if you type da Vinci’s full name, you’ll quickly see why he is world renowned. He could do anything. He has possibly the greatest resume in history. Imagine if you could put the following on yours and then make good on all of it at an interview:
Engineer, inventor, anatomist, architect, mathematician, geologist, musician, cartographer, botanist, writer, sculptor. You name it, da Vinci was into it. He invented the sniper rifle, although it was not rifled: he just bolted one of his refracting telescopes onto a wheellock musket and shot people from 1,000 yards. He probably invented the wheellock musket, too. He invented the parachute about 300 years before Louis-Sebastien Lenormand claimed the honor in the late 1700s. Da Vinci’s design is not known to have been tested until 2000. It worked perfectly. he invented the hang glider about 400 years before it really took off. His design was based on a bird’s wings. He gave the helicopter quite the college try, but couldn’t figure out a sufficiently powerful method for getting it airborne. He was the first to understand the concept of spinning helical blades tilted at just the right angle pulling an object up into the air.
He invented the tank, which was propelled via men turning a crankshaft inside and fired cannon in all directions. He invented the mitrailleuse about 400 years before the French. It is a precursor to what we consider a machine gun, with multiple barrels firing all at once. Da Vinci invented the pivoting scissors by bolting two knives together for shearing cloth.
His sculptures are not as well known as those of Michelangelo, but da Vinci envisioned a gigantic horse sculpted out of poured bronze, which was impossible to make with the technology of his day (the sculpture would have broken apart under its own weight). But it was completed in 1998 and there are three models of it around the world, one in Milan, Italy, one in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, and one based in Florence, Italy that is shipped around the world for display. They are 24 feet high and the largest horse statues ever constructed.
Da Vinci was also a pretty good painter.
8
William Shakespeare
1564–1616
Google searches: 7.4 million+ per month
Number of books: c. 1 million
The man with the lion’s share of the percentage of votes for greatest writer in English or any language in human history is sure to be the source for quite a few words and phrases now common in his native language. A good 50% of common English phrases come from the King James Bible, and possibly 30% of the rest come from the Bard. If you’ve ever said, “It’s all Greek to me;” “food for the gods;” “all that glitters is not gold;” “a sorry sight;” “dead as a doornail;” “come what may;” “with one fell swoop;” or “all’s well that ends well;” then “by Jove” you’re quoting Shakespeare.
Egil Aarvik, of the Committee for the Nobel Prize, once said that Shakespeare would have been the only person in history to win more than one prize for his literature. There is no rule against this, and had he lived into the 20th Century, his plays would have certainly deserved one, but his sonnets alone are worth the bodies of work for which other laureates have been honored. What is the most famous quote in all of English literature? Probably “to be or not to be.”
What’s most impressive about his fame is that we know very little at all about Shakespeare himself, the man and his life. He only had a grammar school education and worked as an actor before becoming a playwright. What makes Shakespeare so great is his seamless blend of the finest poetry, profound, multifaceted philosophy, and a lively wit. Do it one time and you’ll win quite a few awards and be thought a great writer. Shakespeare did it 37 times, and that doesn’t account for his 154 sonnets, the bulk of the English repertory. Hamlet and King Lear are universally acclaimed masterpieces, benchmarks against which all other drama, before and after, is judged.
7
Adolf Hitler
1889–1945
Google searches: 6.1 million+ per month
Number of books: c. 175,000
We have covered Hitler many times on Listverse, but rarely from a somewhat historiometric perspective. We all know that he remains the primary cause of WWII. He instigated it to suit two profound desires: to become the most powerful person on Earth, preferably in history, if not to rule the whole world; and, for his own enjoyment, to cause as much pain as possible against all those he deemed responsible for Germany’s humiliating and miserable defeat in WWI, and its squalid poverty between the wars. Germany was forced to pay every other nation’s wartime expenses after the First World War, and this utterly destroyed Germany’s economy. The Deutschmark became so worthless that children burned millions of them at once to keep warm in the streets.
The Jews, meanwhile, largely kept their money in gold and jewelry, safe in international banks. Gold and diamonds do not depreciate, and Hitler seized on his own hatred of the Jews’ prosperity in the Interbellum to sway as many people to his side as possible. Add to this a supreme mastery of oratory, and history is about to suffer a severe catastrophe. WWII resulted in more deaths than any other war, up to 71 million, and Hitler is the most to blame. He knew and was not ashamed. He was despised and happy about it.
He is routinely listed alongside the following names on lists of the most evil people, real or fictitious, in history, especially those of public polls: “the Devil;” “Satan;” “Lucifer;” “Stalin.” The current US President (whoever it is) is usually next, although recently elected popes can unseat him. It can be argued that Hitler shaped the 20th Century more than any other person, except possibly Einstein, and Hitler is the only person of the 20th or 21st Century on this list. Quite an impressive ranking to have been dead for only 68 years.
6
Paul the Apostle of Tarsus
c. 5–c. A.D. 67
Google searches: 3.35 million+ per month
Number of books: c. 7 million
Paul is quite possibly more responsible for the dissemination of Christianity, its ideals, theology, and principles, than anyone else. He is venerated in all branches, as a saint in many, or at least as a profoundly respected teacher, preacher, and the chief Christian apologist. And he did all this via 13 letters to various churches and people throughout Asia Minor.
He was the first person to write anything that was later canonized into what we call the New Testament. He probably wrote his first epistle, to the churches in Galatia, in about A.D. 50, give or take 5 years. Mark wrote his Gospel 5 to 10 years later. Paul’s theological thesis throughout his 13 or so Epistles is a more detailed statement of Jesus’s philosophy of ethics and salvation given in the Gospels. Paul’s central point is that all you have to do is believe that Jesus is the Son of God, Savior of the world, rose again from the dead and ascended into Heaven, and you will not die. Your transition may be painful, but you’ll go to Heaven.
If that’s all you have to do, as most people have accepted his teaching, it’s obvious why Paul’s brand of evangelism caught on so quickly, firmly, and widely. He is far more immediately known than any of the Twelve Apostles, only rivaled, through the fame of the popes, by Peter. By his death, he permanently cemented his legacy for the ages: he was arrested in Rome for inciting political discord and beheaded south of the city center, at what is now San Paolo alle Tre Fontane, or the basilica of Saint Paul at the Three Fountains.
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