Greatest [insert your nationality] Person

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Jaguar
I don't think we have that many great artists, especially in proportion to our size. We're certainly not like Spain or Italy or France.

In terms of painters and the like, I have to agree. In fact, the only American painter I can think of is Andy Warhol, but I'm not sure if he'd actually rate as one of the greatest Americans ever.

There are lots of great writers though: Hemingway, Cummings, Whitman, Poe, Miller, Asimov, etc, etc.

And if you include popular musicians, actors and other pop artists then the list is endless. Many of them are amongst the most famous people who ever lived, world wide. But of course, it's very much an open question if they deserve to be in a top 10 of Greatest Americans...

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Pekka
Jorma Alakyrö (inventor of the idea of the internet that later on became reality with arpanet and all that.)

clearly the internet is an American invention, thought up by Al Gore

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Locutus
There are lots of great writers though: Hemingway, Cummings, Whitman, Poe, Miller, Asimov, etc, etc.

American literature is the suckiest literature of all time. Asimov gets a "B", and he's the least sucky on that list.

[Jaguar]

British literature is awesome.

[Kuciwalker]

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
American literature is the suckiest literature of all time.

If you truly believe that, you should try some Dutch literature You'll change your mind faster than you can say 'WWII trauma'...

[Kuciwalker]

I can't read Dutch

[DanS]

George Washington (general, politician)
Benjamin Franklin (businessman, scientist, politician)
Albert Einstein (emigre scientist)
Thomas Edison (inventor)
Nikola Telsa (emigre scientist)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (orator, civil rights campaigner)
Andrew Carnegie (businessman, philanthropist)
Henry Ford (businessman)
Thomas Jefferson (writer, politician)
Louis Armstrong (musician)
Abraham Lincoln (orator, politician)

Lots of scientists and inventors involved with electricity for us...

[Kuciwalker]

Bill Gates?

[Jaguar]

Bill Gates

[DanS]

Bill Gates is a good guy, but what is he "greatest" in? Andrew Carnegie already created the precedent of Americans giving their huge fortunes away to charity.

[Kuciwalker]

Bill Gates is much richer than Carnegie was.

[DanS]

There's lots of richest men in American history.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Actually there was a similar poll on the television to this in the UK...I think the winner came out as Isambard Kingdom Brunel...I can't remember the others, but needless to say, f**king Princess Di ended up in there somewhere

BBC UK Poll:
1. Churchill
2. Brunel
3. Diana
4. Darwin
5. Shakespeare
6. Newton
7. Lennon
8. Elizabeth I
9. Nelson
10. Cromwell

BBC World poll:
1. Sir Isaac Newton
2. Sir Winston Churchill
3. Diana, Princess of Wales
4. William Shakespeare
5. Charles Darwin


That list isn't too bad really. I think I'd take out the royals and stick in Wellington or Chaucer, or Turing, or Drake or Raleigh or something. And it's majorly lacking in Scots: Burns, Stevenson, Fleming, Napier.

[Nubclear]

Lenin!