<p>Even for American, I think it’s hard to choose just one…</p>
<p>what about, say, 5? o.o</p>
<p>I mean, there’s been so much history, in various time periods, so it’s kinda hard to pick one…like Washington was the very first president and helped America become America, so if it wasn’t for him, maybe no America. But then there’s also all of the Industrial Revolution people, who completely changed the economy and everything in that aspect, so…</p>
<p>John Marshall vs Earl Warren?</p>
<p>In American history, in terms of the greatest impact on history, Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf are some of the most important and most beneficial, even though both are still alive. [History</a> is accelerating](<a href=“http://singularity.com/images/charts/thumb_ParadigmShiftFor15Lists.jpg]History”>http://singularity.com/images/charts/thumb_ParadigmShiftFor15Lists.jpg), meaning events are taking less time to become historic; furthermore, responsibility for a paradigm shift that accelerates history is the biggest factor that can make someone an important historical figure. That’s a tautology.</p>
![http://singularity.com/images/charts/thumb_ParadigmShiftFor15Lists.jpg]History](http://singularity.com/images/charts/thumb_ParadigmShiftFor15Lists.jpg%5DHistory){kind=link}
<p>Ideas outlive their thinkers. Creations outlive their creators. Adding to public knowledge is the greatest thing anyone can do for history.</p>
<p>Caligula :p</p>
<p>Halogen, the internet has a huge impact, but they are most not the most historical figures in American history.</p>
<p>There are different ways of determining how historically important someone is. I determine someone’s historical importance by how profoundly he changed the world as it is observed today. I haven’t heard of a human achievement that changed the world more profoundly than the internet did, but I’m interested in different perspectives.</p>
<p>I also realize the internet was not created only by those two people, but they wrote the protocol stack that is the language of the internet and they contributed some fundamental design elements. “Pioneering the internet” is the biggest category of historical accomplishments.</p>
<p>But it could be argued that the internet would not have come about had it not been for various other achievements and advancements, thus those are more important than the internet. I agree that the internet has had a huge impact, but I don’t think that it’s the biggest thing.</p>
<p>That could be argued. In that regard, the most important historical development achieved by humans was the development of language.</p>
<p>Or the development of agriculture which allowed us to stop living nomadic lives and therefore start to build/develop/learn</p>