10.

Adolf Hitler: 1889-1945

Adolf Hitler, undoubtedly the most
controversial name to appear on this list, but I
can assure you that his place on this list is well
deserved, so bear with me. In order to explain
his inclusion, we must go back to the
beginning, or near beginning. Hitler was a
veteran of the Great War who felt deeply let
down by his country leaders who, in the
opinion of many in the German army had
accepted a humiliating armistice agreement in
1918. As a result Germany became burdened
with reparations that were simply impossible to
pay, a staggering 269 Reichmarks or 11 billion
pounds.
Towards the end of the war, waves of workers
strikes crippled munitions factories across the
country. In Hitlers mind these strikes snatched
defeat from the jaws of certain victory. His
anger wasnt directed at the workers in general
but instead Socialist Jewish Marxists, whom
he believed were responsible for trying to
cripple Germany.
The aftermath of the Treaty of Versailles saw
Germany plunge into an unprecedented
economic depression, hyperinflation was rife with the now famous images of men
carrying home their pitiful wages in a wheelbarrow. The Weimar government that
presided over German affairs at the time was weak, many including Hitlers
fledgling Nazi party tried to overthrow the government. For his part Hitler was
thrown in jail, and it was during his time in captivity that his hatred of Jews and
Bolsheviks grew even more. He believed that Jewish bankers were responsible for
the rises in capitalist powers, through their money lending and pursuit of profit.
Eventually, Hitler became obsessed with the notion of restoring all life on earth to
some sort of supposed natural order. He attempted to re-create a supposed master
human race of blond hair and blue eyes that could eventually breed impure stock
out of existence. These ghastly ideas led to a second global war that stimulated the
advance of modern technology, especially nuclear energy and rocket technology.
You could say that Hitlers global war helped to speed up the onset of the space
race, and also the development of advanced computers, plus industrialised
agriculture which has simply transformed the world. Thats why hes on this list.
The Man With an Idea
Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto outlined an alternative to the way civilisation had
operated up until that point. | Source
9. Karl Marx: 1818-1883
Karl Marx, the Jewish German
philosopher and economic theorist,
who wrote a very famous Manifesto
during a time when successive
rebellions crippled Europe during the
mid 19th Century. The cause was
obvious to Marx; he stated that human
history was a continuous series of
struggles between rich and poor. As a
result of industrialisation, that struggle
was now being waged between
greedy capitalist businessmen and
impoverished factory workers. But the
capitalist ideology that fuelled the
growth of Europe and America was
now teetering precariously on the
brink. Marx confidently stated that
capitalism was close to collapse, the
aftermath would spawn the
development of a new social order
across the world, a world where the
masses were seen as equals and
afforded all the same freedoms as the
elite.
Marxs Communist Manifesto inspired revolutionary leaders right across the world,
from Lenin to Mao to Castro, and of course led to various ideological struggles
between modern civilisations. Even today, all of the debates we see and hear that
relate to globalisation, poverty, inequality, environmental damage, obsession with
consumerism all lead directly from a battle of ideas that dates from Karl Marx. On
the one hand you have the capitalists who still pursue naked profit, with little regard
to brutality and morality, and on the other you have the advocates or partial
advocates of ideas initially laid down by Karl Marx.
Read the Communist Manifesto in Full
The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels - Google Books
A Giant of Science

Charles Darwin at the age of

45. | Source
8. Charles Darwin: 1809-1882
Charles Darwin, one of the greatest
names in science, and a man who
forever changed the way that we
perceive ourselves and all other life on
Earth. For most of human history, when
trying to explain the history of the
world, wed mostly refer to religious
texts that told us plainly that we were
created by some supernatural being in
our present state. Up until a point of
course, Darwin was no different; he
was as devout a Christian as anybody
else.
But those beliefs began to crumble on
his famous voyage in the Beagle.
Darwin examined fossils of long dead
ground sloths in South America that
dispelled the myth that no kind of animal went extinct naturally. He observed the
rheas- huge flightless birds that showed rather superficial variations in plumage
and behaviour in accordance to where they lived. The most famous part of his
voyage was his stop off on the Galapagos Islands, where he observed the
incredible dozen or so species of Finch, each with a different bill suited to a
different task.
It took Darwin a further twenty or so years before he gained enough confidence to
publish his ideas, and that was only prompted by the news that his friend Alfred
Russell Wallace had effectively stumbled upon the same ideas as Darwin whilst in
the Asian jungle. The theory of evolution by natural selection suggested that
species become extinct frequently, and it also provided almost unquestionable
evidence that the Earth is billions of years old, and that every living thing was
descended from a common ancestor. Perhaps, more shockingly for a Victorian
society was the idea that man shared a common ancestry with Chimps, thus
dispelling the myth that humanity was somehow cut above the rest of nature. Now
we were just another kind of animal, an ape.
On The Origin of Species- Narrated by Donald Sutherland
Friedrich Wohler

A picture of the man who

discovered how to artificially
create a chemical of
nature | Source
7. Friedrich Wohler: 1800-
1882
In 1828, something quite
remarkable occurred. A
German scientist called
Friedrich Wohler discovered
that chemicals produced by
life itself could be recreated
artificially in a laboratory. He
did it while trying to concoct
the ammonia cyanate, but
quite by accident he managed
to synthesise something else
completely. Until then, people
had believed that some sort of
fundamental force separated
animate from inanimate
matter. The artificial creation
of a chemical of nature, such
as urea, out of inanimate
substances in a laboratory had been considered totally impossible.
Wohlers discovery spawned a second front in mans knowledge of how to use the
same materials as nature, but for his own means. Lifes modelling clay is
constructed using mainly carbon and hydrogen that can combine with traces of
other elements and oxygen in an almost infinite variety of chains, curls and rings to
produce the diverse stuff of living things. One of the richest sources of such is
crude oil. Wohlers amazing discovery now meant that it was now possible for
mankind to learn how to model with lifes clay too; of course we werent capable of
creating life yet. But we now had the ability to synthesise new, useful but wholly
unnatural materials.
The discovery ultimately led to the concept of organic chemistry, from which derive
almost everything that makes our modern world possible, everything from plastics,
synthesised drugs, explosives and artificial fertiliser.
The Man Who Kick-Started the Industrial Revolution

Richard Trevithick's steam

locomotives transformed humanity
into a true force of nature. By
relentlessly collecting natural raw
materials, we began competing with
the Earth itself. | Source
6. Richard Trevithick: 1771-1833
In 1801, Cornish inventor Richard
Trevithick turned up the pressure on
his Puffing Devil steam engine,
creating a high pressure steam. This
was a truly significant moment in
human history. For the first time
somebody had created a machine
that did not rely on any of the Earths
forces at all. The steam meant that
the engine could be mounted
sideways on a track and be made to
pull a wagon just by using energy rich
raw materials from the Earth itself (coal, oil and natural gas).
By simply burning wood or coal in the oxygenated atmosphere, water could be
heated in a high pressure kettle to produce a fully independent source of portable
power. From this moment on, human beings became a true force of nature,
competing with nature itself for the Earths finite resources. Though, while nature
used these resources to create, sustain, recycle and evolve. Humans now
exploited them to maintain a comfortable lifestyle and increase their numbers far
beyond natural limits.
One of the First Vehicles
Powered by the Earth

The London Steam Carriage

built by Trevithick in
1803. | Source
The Man Who Conquered
the Aztec Empire

Hernan Cortes' skill and

cunning helped the Spanish
to defeat an army that vastly outnumbered
them. | Source
5. Hernan Cortes: 1485-1547
In the spring of 1519, a Spanish
mercenary and conquistador called
Hernan Cortes landed on the Yucatan
Peninsula, Mexico with eleven ships,
carrying around 110 sailors, 530 soldiers,
a doctor, a carpenter, a few women and
some slaves. He was actually defying a
last minute order from the Spanish
governor of Cuba to abandon his mission.
The governor knew of Cortes ambitions and tried to revoke his commission shortly
before he was due to leave. But it failed and Cortes landed in the New World with
the ambition of conquest in the name of the Spanish King.
At the time of his arrival, the land that we now call Mexico was ruled by the Aztec
Empire which in turn was ruled by a king called Moctezuma, who was renowned for
his hospitality. His palace had more than 100 bedrooms, each with an en-suite
bath. His grounds contained zoos, elaborate botanical gardens and even an
aquarium. Within just 18 months though of Cortes arrival, the great city that was
the key to the entire Aztec Empire was in Spanish hands. Despite initially
welcoming the Spaniards as guests, the Aztec Emperor soon found himself a
captive inside his own palace. The Spanish quickly set about emptying the palace
of treasure and slaughtering hundreds, if not thousands of the local population.
Cortes himself took little part in the capture of the palace, as he was forced off to
fight off Spanish troops sent by the governor of Cuba to arrest him for his earlier
defiance. Cortes did manage to persuade many of the troops to switch sides by
regaling them with tales of riches and gold. But among the arresting party was an
African slave carrying smallpox. This highly infectious disease was all too familiar
to Europeans, but nothing like it had ever appeared in the Americas, thus the
Native Americans lacked the necessary immunity against it. Unsurprisingly, within a
year of its appearance, more than 40 per cent of the Aztecs were dead. Over the
coming centuries, the native population would crash by around 90 per cent from
the 500 million it had been just before the arrival of Columbus. The actions of
Hernan Cortes and contemporaries such as Francisco Pizarro, who wiped out the
Inca Empire, resulted in the most devastating conquest in all of human history.
The Guns, Germs and Steel Documentary
The Symbol of a Prophet

The common calligraphic

representation of
Mohammed's name. | Source
4. Mohammed: 570-632 AD
Mohammed is one of the
most instantly recognisble
names in all history. He was a
prophet and the founder of
Islam, a religion that has
helped change the course of
human and natural history.
Around 1400 years ago, this merchant who hailed from the Arabian city of Mecca
was seized by a series of visions in which he saw the Archangel Gabriel reveal the
true and final word of Allah. His family and followers then proceeded to write down
these revelations in a series of verses called the Koran. Today, there are more than
a billion Muslims in the world, making it the second most popular religion behind
Christianity.
During his lifetime Mohammed built up a loyal community of followers, although the
Jews stubbornly refused to part with their own traditions and texts, remaining highly
sceptical about the possibility of a non-Jewish prophet. Even so, it seemed as
though nothing would stem Islams growth, within a century of Mohammeds death
its simple and powerful message had penetrated the whole Middle East. By 651
AD, it had engulfed the previously strong Sassanid Empire of Persia and had
reached the north of what is now Pakistan. Further west, Muslim armies conquered
North Africa and Spain, and if not for a miraculous victory in 732 AD by the
Frankish ruler Charles Martel at Poitiers, they may have conquered Western
Europe. Islams greatest legacy was the rise and spread of political and trading
empires spread over vast swathes of Eurasia that ultimately helped to connect both
the Eastern and Western cultures.

Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ- the founder of Christianity who

sacrificed his life on the cross to guarantee the
salvation of humanity. | Source
3. Jesus Christ: 2 BC- 36 AD
From one religious giant to another; Jesus Christ was
the son of a Jewish carpenter, whose miraculous
powers helped to convince his followers that he was
the son of God. He was a highly charismatic man
who delivered a rather simple message, be peaceful.
Love your neighbour as yourself. If someone strikes
you on the cheek, dont hit back but offer them the
other. Dont worship false idols such as money or
material possessions, and above all, be humble for
one day the meek will inherit the Earth. Amazingly,
Jesus is only ever known to have lost his temper
once, in the Temple of Jerusalem, where markets had
been set up for traders to make a profit.
His followers saw him perform unbelievable miracles
and quickly came to regard him as the earthly
incarnation of God, which had been prophesied by
Isaiah and others in the Jewish Torah. However, this soon caused consternation
among the Jews as it was believed that the Israelites had been identified as Gods
people. Yet, here was a man, whose followers already claimed he was King of the
Jews; here was a man who offered eternal salvation to anyone and everyone
regardless of their colour, creed or race.
Eventually Jesus was given over to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate as a heretic
who condemned him to die by crucifixion like a common criminal. However, the act
of crucifying Jesus only served to strengthen his message and image. Three days
later, his body mysteriously vanished from the tomb hed been incarcerated in. His
followers wrote about these events, calling it the Resurrection and believed it was
their divine mission to spread the good news about the son of God coming down to
Earth and dying on a cross so that everybody who believed in him might have an
everlasting life.
The legacy of Jesus Christ was the development of Christianity as the worlds
biggest religion, with more than two billion claiming to practice it. Its spread wasnt
quite as fast as Islam, but within three centuries of his death, the Roman Empire
had adopted it as a state creed.
The First Ethical Ruler in History

Ashoka's stunning revelations

following the Battle of Kalinga
transformed his kingdom into a
Buddhist utopia | Source
2. Ashoka: 304-232 BC
Ashoka, a great Indian King started
out his reign as a typically ruthless
and violent ruler, controlling his
Empire through the threat of force.
Indeed his name means without
sorrow in Sanskrit. But in the
aftermath of one of the bloodiest
wars of the time, he underwent a
profound and complete conversion.
The Kalinga War ended with the
famous Battle of Kalinga which left
more than 100,000 dead on the
battlefield. A day later, Ashoka walked out across the city where, as far as his eye
could see, the only sights were burned out houses, dead horses and scattered
bodies. At that moment, he let out a cry, saying What have I done? over and over
again.
From that moment hence, Ashoka committed his life and his reign to non violence.
He became a devout Buddhist and over the next twenty years devoted himself to
spreading the message of this powerful religion. Prisoners were freed and given
their land back, the unnecessary slaughter of animals was forbidden as was
hunting for sport. Branding animals was also outlawed and vegetarianism was
encouraged as official policy. Ashoka built rest houses for travellers and pilgrims,
universities so people could become more educated and hospitals for people and
animals alike throughout India. Ashoka was the first ruler in history to put animal
and human rights on an equal footing.
A Look at one of the Pillars of Ashoka Still Standing Today
The Lawmaker

Hammurabi (standing) receiving his royal

insignia. He's holding his hand over his
face as a sign of prayer. | Source
1. Hammurabi: 1810-1750 BC
Hammurabi, the famous King of Babylon
set out a code of laws that helped transform
and stabilise his city into the most powerful
of all Mesopotamia. A copy of his code of
282 laws was prominently displayed on an
eight foot tall slab of stone in the centre of
the city, so that everyone could see it, thus
ignorance of the law was never accepted as
an excuse, this principle lives on in most
societies today. Hammurabi had the laws
chiselled on to stone so that they were
unchangeable; this is where we get the
phrase set in stone from to describe something permanent.
Hammurabis laws were copied by other civilisations and they set several important
principles that are still cornerstones of justice in many parts of the world. For
example, they established the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty.
But to maintain proper order, these laws were necessarily harsh, for example: If a
man put another mans eye out, his eye should be put also. Another one that
probably didnt give them the biggest incentive to study medicine was as follows: If
a patient dies in or after surgery, the doctors hand will be cut off.
Of course, the laws were useless if no one could read them. So for the rules to
gain effectiveness, a strong emphasis was placed on education. Most
Mesopotamian cities had public libraries. Both men and women were encouraged
to learn how to read and write. However, the golden age of Babylon wasnt to last,
the people soon learned that living life in a fixed place wasnt sustainable. After
many generations of intensive farming, the land became less and less fertile, until
finally all of the nourishment was exhausted. By 2000 BC, the land around the
mouth of the Euphrates and Tigris was as it is today, a barren desert. The once
great cities of Ur and Uruk fell into permanent decline.