What does it mean to be famous? Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, III,
made it to second place on Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2009,
and all for the single act of crash landing a plane without killing
anyone. If you’re American, chances are you still remember his name.
He made global headlines, so there’s a good chance people abroad from
the US remember him. But he didn’t make the Google “top ten most
searched for people of 2009.” Michael Jackson did. He still generates
11 million+ monthly searches. But compared to the following entries,
Jackson doesn’t come close in terms of number of books written about
him. He hasn’t had enough time. Here are the 10 most famous (or
infamous), well known people in human history, ranked according to
Google searches and approximate number of books written about them. If
you travel to Bouvet Island, the most remote land mass in the whole
world, how likely is the first person you meet going to know of the
following 10 people?
10
Sir Isaac Newton
1642–1727
Google searches: 1 million+ per month
Number of books written about this person: c. 400,000
The discoverer of the calculus just edged out Albert Einstein for the
10th spot. Google searches alone would have netted Einstein a place on
the list, at 6.1 million searches per month, but many more books have
been written about Newton. Einstein is on track to break his record in
far fewer than 286 years, but even then, Einstein would have had no
foundation on which to base his theories of Relativity had Newton not
existed. 95% of all classical mechanics is built on Isaac Newton alone.
He generalized the binomial theorem, invented the reflecting
telescope, coined the word “gravity” and gave the Roman Catholic
Church’s self-important hegemony over geocentrism its final knockout
blow. Copernicus and Galileo had to face inquisitions, but no one ever
attempted to reproach Newton’s Principia Mathematica. Perhaps arguing
against someone else’s observations is inane enough, but arguing against
math itself was in Newton’s case, impossible. He proved the former
two’s theories on heliocentrism, and explained why and how every single
macroscopic object in the entire Universe moves as it does. He did all
this by himself and still had time to investigate elements and
principles of optics, and invent the pet door, although he was too busy
ever to have sex. He died a virgin at 84.
9
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
1452–1519
Google searches: 4 million+ per month
Number of books: c. 600,000
Google searches can be inaccurate, which is why they are only half
the criteria for judgment. If you search “leonardo,” you’ll get a lot
of pages about ninja turtles and people who drowned on Titanic. But if
you type da Vinci’s full name, you’ll quickly see why he is world
renowned. He could do anything. He has possibly the greatest resume in
history. Imagine if you could put the following on yours and then make
good on all of it at an interview:
Engineer, inventor, anatomist, architect, mathematician, geologist,
musician, cartographer, botanist, writer, sculptor. You name it, da
Vinci was into it. He invented the sniper rifle, although it was not
rifled: he just bolted one of his refracting telescopes onto a wheellock
musket and shot people from 1,000 yards. He probably invented the
wheellock musket, too. He invented the parachute about 300 years before
Louis-Sebastien Lenormand claimed the honor in the late 1700s. Da
Vinci’s design is not known to have been tested until 2000. It worked
perfectly. he invented the hang glider about 400 years before it really
took off. His design was based on a bird’s wings. He gave the
helicopter quite the college try, but couldn’t figure out a sufficiently
powerful method for getting it airborne. He was the first to
understand the concept of spinning helical blades tilted at just the
right angle pulling an object up into the air.
He invented the tank, which was propelled via men turning a
crankshaft inside and fired cannon in all directions. He invented the
mitrailleuse about 400 years before the French. It is a precursor to
what we consider a machine gun, with multiple barrels firing all at
once. Da Vinci invented the pivoting scissors by bolting two knives
together for shearing cloth.
His sculptures are not as well known as those of Michelangelo, but da
Vinci envisioned a gigantic horse sculpted out of poured bronze, which
was impossible to make with the technology of his day (the sculpture
would have broken apart under its own weight). But it was completed in
1998 and there are three models of it around the world, one in Milan,
Italy, one in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, and one based in Florence,
Italy that is shipped around the world for display. They are 24 feet
high and the largest horse statues ever constructed.
Da Vinci was also a pretty good painter.
8
William Shakespeare
1564–1616
Google searches: 7.4 million+ per month
Number of books: c. 1 million
The man with the lion’s share of the percentage of votes for greatest
writer in English or any language in human history is sure to be the
source for quite a few words and phrases now common in his native
language. A good 50% of common English phrases come from the King James
Bible, and possibly 30% of the rest come from the Bard. If you’ve ever
said, “It’s all Greek to me;” “food for the gods;” “all that glitters
is not gold;” “a sorry sight;” “dead as a doornail;” “come what may;”
“with one fell swoop;” or “all’s well that ends well;” then “by Jove”
you’re quoting Shakespeare.
Egil Aarvik, of the Committee for the Nobel Prize, once said that
Shakespeare would have been the only person in history to win more than
one prize for his literature. There is no rule against this, and had he
lived into the 20th Century, his plays would have certainly deserved
one, but his sonnets alone are worth the bodies of work for which other
laureates have been honored. What is the most famous quote in all of
English literature? Probably “to be or not to be.”
What’s most impressive about his fame is that we know very little at
all about Shakespeare himself, the man and his life. He only had a
grammar school education and worked as an actor before becoming a
playwright. What makes Shakespeare so great is his seamless blend of
the finest poetry, profound, multifaceted philosophy, and a lively wit.
Do it one time and you’ll win quite a few awards and be thought a great
writer. Shakespeare did it 37 times, and that doesn’t account for his
154 sonnets, the bulk of the English repertory. Hamlet and King Lear
are universally acclaimed masterpieces, benchmarks against which all
other drama, before and after, is judged.
Google searches: 6.1 million+ per month
Number of books: c. 175,000
We have covered Hitler many times on Listverse, but rarely from a
somewhat historiometric perspective. We all know that he remains the
primary cause of WWII. He instigated it to suit two profound desires:
to become the most powerful person on Earth, preferably in history, if
not to rule the whole world; and, for his own enjoyment, to cause as
much pain as possible against all those he deemed responsible for
Germany’s humiliating and miserable defeat in WWI, and its squalid
poverty between the wars. Germany was forced to pay every other
nation’s wartime expenses after the First World War, and this utterly
destroyed Germany’s economy. The Deutschmark became so worthless that
children burned millions of them at once to keep warm in the streets.
The Jews, meanwhile, largely kept their money in gold and jewelry,
safe in international banks. Gold and diamonds do not depreciate, and
Hitler seized on his own hatred of the Jews’ prosperity in the
Interbellum to sway as many people to his side as possible. Add to this
a supreme mastery of oratory, and history is about to suffer a severe
catastrophe. WWII resulted in more deaths than any other war, up to 71
million, and Hitler is the most to blame. He knew and was not ashamed.
He was despised and happy about it.
He is routinely listed alongside the following names on lists of the
most evil people, real or fictitious, in history, especially those of
public polls: “the Devil;” “Satan;” “Lucifer;” “Stalin.” The current US
President (whoever it is) is usually next, although recently elected
popes can unseat him. It can be argued that Hitler shaped the 20th
Century more than any other person, except possibly Einstein, and Hitler
is the only person of the 20th or 21st Century on this list. Quite an
impressive ranking to have been dead for only 68 years.
6
Paul the Apostle of Tarsus
c. 5–c. A.D. 67
Google searches: 3.35 million+ per month
Number of books: c. 7 million
Paul is quite possibly more responsible for the dissemination of
Christianity, its ideals, theology, and principles, than anyone else.
He is venerated in all branches, as a saint in many, or at least as a
profoundly respected teacher, preacher, and the chief Christian
apologist. And he did all this via 13 letters to various churches and
people throughout Asia Minor.
He was the first person to write anything that was later canonized
into what we call the New Testament. He probably wrote his first
epistle, to the churches in Galatia, in about A.D. 50, give or take 5
years. Mark wrote his Gospel 5 to 10 years later. Paul’s theological
thesis throughout his 13 or so Epistles is a more detailed statement of
Jesus’s philosophy of ethics and salvation given in the Gospels. Paul’s
central point is that all you have to do is believe that Jesus is the
Son of God, Savior of the world, rose again from the dead and ascended
into Heaven, and you will not die. Your transition may be painful, but
you’ll go to Heaven.
If that’s all you have to do, as most people have accepted his
teaching, it’s obvious why Paul’s brand of evangelism caught on so
quickly, firmly, and widely. He is far more immediately known than any
of the Twelve Apostles, only rivaled, through the fame of the popes, by
Peter. By his death, he permanently cemented his legacy for the ages:
he was arrested in Rome for inciting political discord and beheaded
south of the city center, at what is now San Paolo alle Tre Fontane, or
the basilica of Saint Paul at the Three Fountains.
5
Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)
c. 563–c. 483 B.C.
Google searches: 4 million+ per month
Number of books: c. 7 million
You might be surprised to know that most of the people who google
Buddha are not Buddhists. In the Western Hemisphere and throughout
Europe, Buddhism is not as well understood as the three major
monotheisms. A few clarifications:
Gautama was probably born in Kapilavastu or Lumbini, Nepal in about
563 B.C., about 24 years after Babylon sacked Jerusalem. Gautama was a
mortal man who attained Nirvana, or spiritual awakening and peace of
mind, at the age of 35, while seated under a Pipal tree, now referred to
as the Bodhi tree, in Bodh Gaya, India. The tree growing there now was
planted in 288 B.C. from a seed of the original. Buddha sat in
meditation for 49 days until he attained the knowledge of how to
thoroughly end suffering for all people on Earth. The people do have to
follow his teaching in order to free themselves from the various griefs
of life.
This is called the Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right intention,
right concentration, right speech, right action, right livelihood,
right effort, and right mindfulness. If you hold to all these, you will
be able to put away all worries and you will be truly happy and
unaffected by anything. Buddha rejected the notion of any literature
being infallible, and argued that truth must be experienced to be known.
Gautama, the Supreme Buddha, is worshipped in Hinduism as well, as
one of the ten representations of Vishnu, who is the god above all
others. Baha’i also venerates Gautama as a mortal manifestation of God,
who descended to teach mankind to love one another and how to be happy.
Gautama is traditionally said to have died in about 411 B.C., at the
age of 150 or so. Modern scholars place his death at about 483, at the
age of 80.
4
Moses
c. 1300–c. 1180 B.C.
Google searches: 2.7 million+ per month
Number of books: c. 8 million
Moses is revered but not worshipped by all three major monotheisms,
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as Baha’i. He is regarded as
the greatest prophet of the Old Testament; the liberator of the Jewish
people from slavery in Egypt; their leader into Canaan, the Promised
Land; and their lawgiver, who relayed God’s commandments to the Jews,
and founded much of Jewish life and tradition.
The Pharaoh’s daughter, usually named Bithiah, found the infant Moses
in a basket floating in the Nile and took him as her own son. She
named him after the Hebrew verb “to draw,” since she drew him out of the
river. No information is given on Moses’s life, except that he was
raised in the Egyptian noble household, and that one day he saw an
Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave and saved the Hebrew by killing the
Egyptian. He then hid in the wilderness, and met Jethro, who was a
follower of the precursor faith to Islam.
Jethro gave him Zipporah, his daughter, to be his wife, and Moses met
God for the first time, who showed himself in the form of a burning
bush. Moses then bravely returned to Egypt and, with God’s help, forced
the Pharaoh to let his people go. Moses was about 80 years old when
this Exodus began. They wandered the desert wilds for 40 more years,
received God’s law through Moses, built an ark into which the law was
placed, and finally reached a land flowing with milk and honey, which
God promised them. Moses, however, had acted arrogantly when he struck
the stone from which water sprang for the Israelites, and so God refused
to allow him entrance into Canaan. Moses died at 120 years and God
buried him in the Moab valley opposite Mount Nebo. There is a memorial
to him there today.
3
Abraham
c. 1812–c. 1637 B.C.
Google searches: 9.1 million+ per month
Number of books: c. 2 million
The google searches for Abraham the Old Testament prophet are not as
reliable as those for Moses or Adolf Hitler, since quite a few famous
historical or fictitious people have been named Abraham. The top three
most famous are Abraham of the Bible, Abraham Lincoln, and Abraham van
Helsing. But if you were to go, say, the Philippines, and ask the first
passerby who Abraham Lincoln was, they might actually not know. Among
well over 99% of the world’s cultures and societies, you will not have
that problem when asking about the prophet called Abraham.
He is revered by all three monotheisms, as well as Baha’i, as a
prophet, and one of the first, if not the first, persons of the Middle
East to believe in a single God. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are
referred to as “the Abrahamic religions.” In the Bible, God makes a
covenant with Abraham because of his devout, unswerving faith in God,
while everyone around him follows the newest god to take everyone’s
fancy. This covenant is marked by circumcision. God then tests the
conviction of Abraham’s faith in him by demanding that he kill his
firstborn son, Isaac, to glorify God. Abraham does not hesitate, but
takes Isaac up to the top of a mountain and is about to kill him when an
angel arrives and tells him to stop. God is immensely impressed and
blesses Abraham with fruitfulness: he will be the father of many
nations.
Today, Abraham is precisely that. Muslims believe that it was not
Isaac, but Ishmael, his other son, whom God told Abraham to sacrifice,
and Muslims believe that Ishmael’s lineage led to the next entry. The
site of the near sacrifice is traditionally deemed to be where the Dome
of the Rock sits today. This shrine is sacred to all three Abrahamic
religions.
2
Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh
c. A.D. 570–632
Google searches: 13.6 million+ per month
Number of books: incalculable
To non-Muslims, Muhammad founded Islam. To Muslims, he did not found
anything, because the religion, called Islam, was already there, and
had to be restored to its proper maintenance. Muslims believe that
Muhammad restored the religion and unified it under the philosophies God
imparted to him in revelations he wrote down. These became the Q’uran.
Islam is the Arabic noun for “a surrendering,” or “a yielding,” in
this case to the will of Allah. Muhammad was born about A.D. 570 in
Makkah (Mecca), Saudi Arabia. He had 13 wives, which is acceptable and
encouraged in Muslim cultures.
Muhammad’s status as second most famous person in history is
especially remarkable given that it is illegal according to Islamic law
to depict Muhammad in any way (which is why you don’t see him in the
above picture). That law dictates that Muhammad is the last prophet to
have been sent by God to teach mankind the ways of peace and
righteousness, and that he is too holy to be viewed by our sinful eyes.
For this reason, very few films have been made about him. The most
notable was The Message (1977), the premiere of which incited suicide
bombings throughout the Middle East and protests around the world, until
everyone realized that Muhammad is not actually depicted; rather, the
camera’s point of view represents him: the film is seen through his
eyes.
If you’d like to know, there is nothing in the Q’uran that states,
“To kill Americans, both civil and military, is the duty of every Muslim
who is able.” That nonsense was concocted by various Middle Eastern
leaders over the years, mostly in the last half of the 20th Century and
beyond. These leaders know full well that knowledge is power and have
done their level best to hoard literacy education from the public. The
literacy rate in Yemen is currently about 70%, which is terrible
compared to “more civilized” countries like the USA, England, Germany,
and Japan. And because the Middle Eastern Muslim public largely cannot
read the Q’uran, the governments disseminate anti-American, anti-Western
lies to indoctrinate them into hatred.
Muhammad died on 8 June A.D. 632 in Medina, Saudi Arabia, having
united the whole of the Middle East under a single God, whose name is
Allah. There are many spellings of Muhammad, including Mohammed,
Moammar, Mehmet, Mahomet, and others. Because of him, Muhammad is the
most common given name in the world, with about 200 million carriers.
“Muhammad” means “praised.”
If you anticipated Muhammad, you probably anticipated the next entry.
1
Jesus of Nazareth
c. 5 B.C.–c. A.D. 28
Google searches: 24.9 million+ per month
Number of books: incalculable
There’s really no need to explain just what the four Gospels say
Jesus did to become famous, but in the interest of fairness, here are
the claims: he was born to a virgin, died at about the age of 33
sometime around the year A.D. 33 (plus or minus 5), the most famous
victim of crucifixion, and rose from the dead on his own power 3 days
later, ascended into Heaven and now sits at the right hand of God the
Father as a manifestation of that God’s only offspring. You can look up
the various miracles attributed to him. There are just over 7 billion
people on Earth as of this list, and just about one-third precisely,
33.32%, of them, worship Jesus as “the Christ of God.” We may fairly
say that these 2.33 billion people know very well who he was/is, and
specifics about his life.
It is also indisputable that those followers of Islam and Judaism
both know perfectly well who he was. There are some 1.75 billion
Muslims on Earth today, or 25% of the global population, and since Jesus
is venerated as a very important prophet of their religion, to whom
they say Muhammad spoke when he sprang to Heaven on a horse, Jesus is
certainly not unknown to them. There are about 1.3 billion atheists the
world over, and at least 98% of those people certainly know all about
Jesus. It is highly possible that the only people on Earth who have no
idea who he was, or anything about him, are those people who belong to
the 100 or so primitive, uncontacted tribes remaining around the world,
the most well known across the Internet of which are the Envira people
of the Brazilian-Peruvian border area, deep in the Amazon Jungle. They
have been photographed from helicopter. It is doubtful they know of
Jesus, or Muhammad, or anyone else on this list, as they are 100%
isolated from the rest of the world’s societies.
Google claims that 129,864,880 books have been written and bound
throughout human history and which still survive in book form in some
library in the world. That is not as high a number as you might have
expected, but we are speaking of different volumes, so only one of the
25 million copies of the Bible printed every single year counts toward
this total. Out of these c. 130 million books, it is estimated that 40%
are about Jesus. This percentage includes books about Christianity in
general, whether evangelical (or anti-evangelical) or historical.
Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion focuses on God in general, but pays
special attention to Christianity, as any atheist apology must, since
Christianity is the most popular religion, and thus Dawkins’s book
counts as 1 book about Jesus, as it counts as 1 book about Muhammad. So
there are some 52 million different books circulating the world right
now that are in some way concerned with Jesus, the man who may have
lived, who may have walked on water, and risen from the dead. The
Gospel of John, one of the 52 million books written about Jesus, ends
with this passage: “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of
them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not
have room for the books that would be written.”
Just missed the cut (many): Confucius,
Napoleon Bonaparte, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Michael Jackson,
Elvis Presley, Jack the Ripper, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, and more.
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