This is a list chosen by Michael H. Hart, from the book "The 100: A Ranking Of The Most Influential Persons In History". He chose people on a ranking of who had done the most to influence the world. I recommend reading the book as it offers an interesting insight into the influence of different individuals. As the author notes, ‘Influential’ does not include a judgement on whether they influenced the world for the better or worse.
Top 100 list:
I. Muhammad (PBUH)
2. Isaac Newton
3. Jesus Christ
4. Buddha
5. Confucius
6. St. Paul
7. Ts'ai Lun
8. Johann Gutenberg
9. Christopher Columbus
10. Albert Einstein
II. Louis Pasteur
12. Galileo Galilei
13. Aristotle
14. Euclid
15. Moses
16 . Charles Darwin
17. Shih Huang Ti
18. Augustus Caesar
19. Nicolaus Copernicus
20. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier
21. Constantine the Great
22. James Watt
23. Michael Faraday
24. James Clerk Maxwell
25. Martin Luther
26. George Washington
27. Karl Marx
28. Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright
29. Genghis Khan
30. Adam Smith
31. Edward de Vere (better known as "William Shakespeare")
32. John Dalton
33. Alexander the Great
34. Napoleon Bonaparte
35. Thomas Edison
36. Antony van Leeuwenhoek
37. William T. G. Morton
·38. Guglielmo Marconi
39. Adolf Hitler
40. Plato
41. Oliver Cromwell
42. Alexander Graham Bell
43. Alexander Fleming
44. John Locke
45. LudWig van Beethoven
46. Werner Heisenberg
47. Louis Daguerre
48. Simon Bolivar
49. Rene Descartes
50. Michelangelo
51. Pope V rban II
52. 'Vmar ibn al-Khattab
53. Asoka
54. St. Augustine
55. William Harvey
56. Ernest Rutherford
57. John Calvin
58. Gregor Mendel
59. Max Planck
60. Joseph Lister
6l. Nikolaus August Otto
62. Francisco Pizarro
63. Hernando Cortes
64. Thomas Jefferson
65. Queen Isabella I
66. Joseph Stalin
67. Julius Caesar
68. William the Conqueror
69. Sigmund Freud 348
70. Edward Jenner
7l. William Conrad Rontgen
72. Johann Sebastian Bach
73. Lao Tzu
74. Voltaire
75. Johannes Kepler
76. Enrico Fermi
77. Leonhard Euler
78. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
79. N iccolo Machiavelli
80. Thomas Malthus
8l. John F. Kennedy
82. Gregory Pincus
83. Mani
84. Lenin
85. Sui Wen Ti
86. Vasco da Gama
87. Cyrus the Great
88. Peter the Great
89. Mao Zedong
90. Francis Bacon
9l. Henry Ford
92. Mencius
93. Zoroaster
94. Queen Elizabeth I
95. Mikhail Gorbachev
96. Menes
97. Charlemagne
98. Homer
99. Justinian I
100. Mahavira
