Who is the most influential person to have walked this earth??

[Richie Benauds Love Child]

Deep inside Rachaels earlier post theres a valid point trying to fight its way out.

"my impression has long been that in different circumstances, either Hitler or Stalin could have become eminently respectable world leaders."

This isnt as daft as it sounds. Prior and during WW2, Stalin was not averse to sending thousands of his comrades to gulags or just death. BUT, he's at war with hitler he's OK in churchills and Rooservelts eyes, despite the fact he's a communist as well. Stalin, in theory, was a far greater "natural" enmey of the west than hitler was, and after the war, thats how it panned out. Basically the old adage "the enemey of my enemy is my friend" rings true in this case.

Any way fast forward 30 odd years, a certain Mr Saddam Hussein cheats and murders his to become head honcho in Iraq. First job ? Why, drag out opposition party members from parliment (televised of course) and torture/ kill them. All of a sudden the country come to heal. Cutting a long story short, he "westernised" Iraq sells oil to Americans and embraces capitilsm. Now in the eyes of america and his other customers, Saddam is a pretty OK guy, even better once he starts war with Iran, who back terrorsts and dont like the US at all. Now obviously he's killing his own citizen in there thousands, gassing minorities like the Kurds for no other reason than they're Kurds. Not that this doesnt stop Donald rumsvelt selling him more WMD. No, Saddam in the eyes of the world, is a "eminently respectable world leader" fighting islamic extremism.

Obviously the first Gulf war put paid to that reputaion, and the rest is history. On the other side of the coin, canny old fox Gadafi, who also supported terrorism (lockabie, training the IRA), no doubt did away with hundredsof opposition party members, but since has given up hji nuclear programme and become buddies with GWB. All of a sudden he's gone all respectable.

Ah politics, it truely is a beautiful thing.

[Oliver]

It depends what you exactly want to say...

Tim Berners-Lee - inventor of the World Wide Web... has been fairly influential of late.
My first choice would have been Caesar Augustus whose Roman Principate lasted from 27 B.C. to A.D. 14... from 29 B.C. the Republic had failed and the Empire moreorless came into being when Octavian (Augustus) finally arrived in Rome from Egypt.

The Roman Empire then stretched from Lusitania (Portugal) in the West to Thrace (Turkey) and Armenia in the East and Britannia (England, Wales, Lowland Scotland) and Germania (Belgium and Western Germany) in the North and Mauretania (Morocco) Numidia and Cyrenaica (Egypt) in the South... Augustus was determined to restore the Republic, but his descendants were not keen to give up the power...

Nevertheless any language student can tell you of the influence of Latin... the Indo-European branch of languages stretches a long way round the world and could not have done so without that early one thousand year domination.

The Emperor Vespasian A.D. 69 - 79 might have something to say regarding his own influence:

Dr. J. Wells: A Short History of the Roman Empire "It was the glory of Vespasian that he so repaired the ruins of civil strife, and so reorganized the sound elements, military and civil, of the Roman people, that the year of disaster (A.D.69) proved not the beginning of the end, but rather the beginning of the best period of government which Western Europe has ever known."

J.S.Bach 1685-1750 to whom we owe our current note system and our understanding thereof.
Popular music would sound rather different today, if we'd taken up some of the other systems that were around in his time.

Attila the Hun (circa 406-453) the first recorded warrior to wear underpants.

Very important.