Apolyton list: 25 greatest Americans

[Ned]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Wright bros. are overrated. Half a dozen other guys were working on the same **** concurrently, they just happened to beat them to the punch (and not by much).

Edison, on the other hand, certainly rocks.

I would have agreed with you about the Wright Bros. until I watched a special about them on the History Channel. They made so many critical inventions to make their machine work it is almost beyond comprehension. No one else was anywhere near close, and no one could make a plane thereafter without a patent license from the Wright Bros., until, that is, they were forced to license their patents.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

thomas jefferson
jimi hendrix
mark twain
martin luther king jr.
jesus christ

[Imran Siddiqui]

Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Alva Edison
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Henry Ford
Edgar Allen Poe

I tried not to list all politicians.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Ned
Come on guys. Let's hear it for the great inventors the US has produced. Edison and the Wright Bros. are clearly at the forefront. Bell may have been a Canadian. We also should consider Morse. We have one vote for Oppenheimer.

What about Samuel Colt?

don't forget Westinghouse. Him and his company provided the way for our advanced society we have today. none of this would be possible without electricity. Yeah it would have eventually been figured out by someone, but he sped up the process.

In fact, I'd take Westinghouse over Edison any day.

and yes- Westinghouse is a very important part of modernizing the U.S. navy with rotary steam turbines. While an englishman came up with the original patents, he bought them and made them work on a larger scale.

So some of the equipment I worked with in the navy was manufactured by Westinghouse. Very important stuff for naval propulsion and of course, civilian electrical production and distribution.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Ned


It is good to see the great racist Indian killer on the list, the man who told the Supreme Court to stuff it, the man who marched the Cherokee off their land, the man who routinely exceeded his orders as a commanding officer and who so alienated most Americans by his imperial style that he fractured the Democrat-Republican Party.

He's the quintessential achievement oriented American! He's like my ancestor, who in the 1830s having been told by the Quaker church that it was really, really, really time for him to obey the 1750 Quaker injunction against owning slaves declared himself a Methodist and moved his family and slaves from Virginia to land in Tennessee made available by some recently exiled Cherokees. Man, you just don't get more American than that!

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Locutus

http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/index.php/James_T._Kirk

that doesn't make him an American, that makes him a member of the godless communist federation of planets.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Ned
It is good to see the great racist Indian killer on the list, the man who told the Supreme Court to stuff it, the man who marched the Cherokee off their land, the man who routinely exceeded his orders as a commanding officer and who so alienated most Americans by his imperial style that he fractured the Democrat-Republican Party.

He had a key part in kicking the British's ass so that there'd still be an America, and preserving the Union later on against that same party's attempt to fracture it. As to the Supreme court, you seem to be forgetting that the original design was to have those bozos in Washington fighting each other and not us.

Originally posted by Ned
Come on guys. Let's hear it for the great inventors the US has produced. Edison and the Wright Bros. are clearly at the forefront. Bell may have been a Canadian. We also should consider Morse. We have one vote for Oppenheimer.

What about Samuel Colt?

Hey I put Tesla up there.

[reismark]

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Benjamin Franklin
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thomas Alva Edison
Jon Stewart

[Zopperoni]

Originally posted by Ned
Bell may have been a Canadian.

He was British (immigrant from Scotland).

What about Samuel Colt?

First mass production item Bad purpose though

[Dr Strangelove]

Well while we're at it don't forget Gatling. I think that Maxim was an American too, wasn't he?

[Ben Kenobi]

1. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Ronald Reagan
4. Alexander Hamilton
5. Helen Keller

[Ben Kenobi]

Jag and I both picked Hamilton.

[Riesstiu IV]

George W. Bush
Thomas DeLay
Nathan Bedford Forrest
Anne Coulter
Walker Texas Ranger

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
thomas jefferson
jimi hendrix
mark twain
martin luther king jr.
jesus christ

[OzzyKP]

Thomas Edison
Thomas Jefferson
Steve Jobs
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
John Holt