Since between wikipedia and Bill Wall, we know who on this list were likely chess players, I though to add just a little more depth to that area by first, making a small page on Voltaire, the chess player (with a painting of Voltaire playing chess) http://batgirl.atspace.com/voltaire...

and by giving three games supposedly played by Josef Stalin (but I can't vouch for their autheticity)

[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "?"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Jansen"]
[Black "Stalin"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Be2 g6 7. Be3 Bg7 8. O-O O-O 9. Nb3 Bd7 10. f4 Ne8 11. Qd2 f5 12. Bc4+ Kh8 13. Rad1 Nf6 14. e5 dxe5 15. Nc5 exf4 16. Rxf4 Bc8 17. Qe2 Qc7 18. Nb5 Qb8 19. Rh4 b6 20. Nd3 a6 21. Bf4 Qb7 22. Nc7 g5 23. Rh3 gxf4 24. Nxf4 h6 25. Ng6+ Kh7 26. Nxf8+ Bxf8 27. Nxa8 b5 28. Bd5 Nxd5 29. Rxd5 Qxa8 30. Qh5 Qa7+ 31. Kh1 e6 32. Rg3 Bg7 33. Qg6+ Kh8 34. Rc5 Qd7 35. h3 Bb7 36. Rd3 Qe7 37. b4 Ne5 38. Rxe5 Bxe5 39. Qxh6+ Kg8 40. Qg6+ Kf8 41. Qh6+ Bg7 42. Qh5 Be4 43. Rd2 Bd5 44. Rxd5 exd5 45. Qxf5+ Qf7 46. Qc8+ Qe8 47. Qc5+ Qe7 48. Qc8+ Qe8 49. Qc5+ Drawn 1/2-1/2

[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "?.?.?"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Stalin"]
[Black "P.Jorissen"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. Nf3 Nd7 7. Bf4 Ngf6 8. Bc4 e6 9. O-O Be7 10. Re1 O-O 11. c3 Nh5 12. Qd2 Nxf4 13. Qxf4 Nb6 14. Bb3 Bd6 15. Ne5 Nd7 16. Rad1 Qc7 17. Ne4 Nxe5 18. Nxd6 Nd3 19. Rxd3 Bxd3 20. Qf3 Bg6 21. Nc4 Qd8 22. Ne5 Qg5 23. Re3 Qf5 24. Nxg6 hxg6 25. Qd1 Rfd8 26. Qe1 Rd6 27. Rf3 Qg5 28. Rg3 Qe7 29. Qe4 f5 30. Qe5 Kf7 31. f4 Rad8 32. Qe2 b5 33. Re3 a5 34. a3 a4 35. Ba2 Re8 36. g4 Qh4 37. gxf5 gxf5 38. Rg3 Qxf4 39. Qh5+ Ke7 40. Rxg7+ Kd8
♗lack resigns 1-0

[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1926.?.?"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Stalin"]
[Black "Jeschow"]
[Result "1-0"]

When Mendel published his peas and genes results in 1866, he was greated with a deafening silence. His work was "rediscovered" in 1900 by Correns, Tschermak and De Vries. These three, working independently, performed breeding experiments that led them to the same conclusions as Mendel.

Mendel was elected abbott of his monastery and eventually abandoned his experiments because he became too busy with his official duties. He died, unrecognized, in 1884.

His experiments are cited today because they not only were the first of their type, but because they are more elegant and easily grasped than those of his rediscoverers.

However, had Mendel choked to death on a pea in 1860, his "rules" of genetics would have been figured out around 1900 anyway. It could thus be argued that his "influence" upon science was nil.

We just would have had to come up with a different story to tell schoolchildren about the discovery of genetics.

I agree with <percyblakeney> that Bill Gates must be on such a list. Ghandi should be also but not as emphatically. Leif Ericson is also conspicuously missing as well as the guy who invented pizza.

I would like to take a moment to address the most controversial of the proposed additions to the list: <SBC>'s suggestion that the inventor of pizza should be considered for inclusion....

Now, we all agree on the importance of pizza in the broader sweep of Human History, but the problem lies in determining who the Inventor of Pizza was. There are two major theories on this:

1) Pizza was invented by the great Italian explorer Pizzaro, who was as adventurous in the kitchen as he was on the High Seas. Proponents of this view maintain that "Pizzaro discovered a New World of culinary delight which would provide a jump in happiness for all of future humanity." (Sadly, the place in history of this noble Italian innovator has been obscured by the greater visibility of his better-known cousin, the Spanish Conquistador Francisco Pizaro. The younger Francisco is said to have dropped one 'z' from the family name for fear of being regarded as "a mere cook" in the wake of his cousin's popular and savoury creation.)

2) Pizza was actually invented much earlier by the celebrated ancient Greek mathematician and mystic Pythagoras. Pythagoras originally offered three styles of what would much later come to be known as pizza: one that was octagonal (called a "Pythagoras Eight"), one that was square (called a "Pythagoras Four"), and one that was circular (called a "Pythagoras Pi", after the famous mathematical constant that describes the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference). Over time, the circular "Pythagoras Pi" became so immensely popular that the other two versions were discontinued.

As centuries passed, the popularity of Pythagoras's delicious creation increased. However, just as surely as the passage of time will result in Greek sculptures having their arms snapped off, over the centuries the name of this wonderful dish was truncated (as so often happens to long words): what had been called a "Pythagoras Pi" became a "Pytha Pi", and the association with its inventor was lost.

Through the filtering of many languages and many centuries, "Pytha Pi" was ultimately Anglicized into "Pizza Pie", the name by which we know it today.

So which theory is correct?

Notwithstanding the etymological evidence in favour of the Pythagorean origin of what we now call "Pizza", and in spite of what appears to be an authentic reference to the dish's Greek origin by the 9th century Arabic historian al-Anchovy ("This ambrosia of Hellas is a delight to both Sultan and Djinn"), I regard Pizzaro as the most likely inventor (for reasons I shall not elaborate here.)

Even so, pizza is not entirely without representation in the list: though he was not the inventor, Henry Ford was certainly responsible for some of the great popularity and convenience of this modern delight!

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)

I was thinking about people without whose existance the world might be a much different place yet whose names aren't on the list - unless, I'm mistaken. Among these might be Osama Bin Laden, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Charles Martel.

<I was thinking about people without whose existance the world might be a much different place yet whose names aren't on the list...>

Your thought reminded me of the distinction the philosopher Sidney Hook makes (in his book "The Hero in History" and elsewhere) between "eventful" and "event-making" persons in human history.

An "eventful" person for Hook is a person who played a role in history that would likely have been played by someone else had they not played it. That is to say, the world would probably not be all that different if that person had avoided the role for which we know them.

An "event-making" person is one who has affected the world in such a way that, had they not lived or played the role they did, the world would be different in some significant way.

In theory, the list of 100 persons we are considering is a list of event-making people. But are they all really event-making?

I seem to recall reading that the day after Alexander Graham Bell (#42 on our list) applied for a patent on the telephone, another patent application for a device nearly identical to the telephone was filed. If this is true, it would favour placing Mr. Bell in the category of merely "eventful": had he been a farmer instead of an inventor, the implementation of global telephony might not have been delayed very long.

Yet, had #4, the historical Buddha, not been born, I think a significant part of the world would be very different (and probably not for the better). Perhaps the insights this sublime thinker had would have been thought by some other great thinker, or perhaps they would have been "discovered" piecemeal by many philosophers over the years, but their form and propagation would have been very different, I think.

I think the most event-making figure we know of in the world of Chess is Paul Morphy . Would the insights Morphy had have been seen without him? Probably, but most likely over a much longer time and not in such a sudden flash. I can't think of one person that we know of (I'm excluding the long history of Chess that is lost for all time) who so profoundly affected the way the strongest players play the game.

Strangely, I think #2 on our list, Sir Isaac Newton, played both an event-making and an eventful role! (Of course, anyone who plays ANY event-making role is considered, by defintion, an event-making person.)

As I understand it, Newton delayed publication of his world-shaping " Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" for over ten years after he had written it. And we have no evidence that anything like it was "waiting in the wings" to be published: clearly an "event-making" achievement.

Yet on the subject of the Calculus (which Newton referred to as a system of "Fluxions"), it is disputed to this day whether Newton or Leibniz was the true discoverer. They clearly discovered and systematized it at nearly the same time. In this role, I think Newton was merely "eventful", though very impressively so.

(Some historians of mathematics maitain that Rene Descartes (#49 on our list) was stunningly close to discovering the Calculus decades before it was discovered. Had that happened, he would not only be considered the father of modern western philosophy, but the father of modern mathematics! (Of course, his Cartesian coordinate system was a huge leap forward.))

According to many of my friends, Italy also has the best of many other foods in the world! :)

Eg: South America. Columbus, Cortez, Pizarro--these were Euro colonists. Where is Simon Bolivar? Being rid of colonialism was quite 'eventful'.

Rearviewmirroritis: Where's Dan Carlson or Maseru Emoto. Is their eventful history part of the future?

Newton's "Principia Mathematica" is based on Shao Yung's book which preceded him by about 600 years. A few years earlier Shao Yung's school smuggled the roots of binary calculus, like this computer uses, to Liebnitz who shared 'calculus' with Newton.

Likewise Paracelsus, after studying medicine in China, brought the whole idea of bacteria back to Europe.

Freud is largely discreditted; but CJ Jung is today enormously influential.

<percyblakeney>
Gandhi ♗

<SBC>
Timur Lenk (Tamerlane)
Leonardo da Vinci ♗
Gandhi ♗
Leif Ericson

<azaris>
Carl Friedrich Gauss ♗

<TheSlid>
Pythagoras ♗

<percyblakeney>
Gandhi

<Poulsen>
Neils Bohr ♗
Kublai Khan
Benz
Daimler
Jeltsin (Yeltsin)

<keypusher>
(suggests Homer and Euclid switching places)

<Willem Wallekers>
Louis XIV ♗
Semmelweiss
Spinoza

<Gregor Samsa Mendel> (suggests replacing his namesake with Robert Koch)

<iron maiden>
Hammurabi ♗
da Vinci
Magellan

Michael H. Hart's own list of "Runners-Up" (visible at the bottom of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100 ):

St. Thomas Aquinas
Archimedes
Charles Babbage ♗
Cheops
Marie Curie
Benjamin Franklin
Mohandas Gandhi ♗
Abraham Lincoln
Ferdinand Magellan
Leonardo da Vinci ♗

I may elaborate on some of these suggestions later. Thank you all for your contributions!

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)

Nihil obstat.

Dan Carlson
Maseru Emoto
Shao Yung ♗
(suggest removing Freud?) ♗
(C. G. Jung?)

Thank you, <IMlday>!

♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗

P.S. Simon Bolivar is actually on the list (at #48), and I fully agree with Mr. Hart and yourself on his inclusion. (As we saw earlier, it is easy to miss names on the list!)

<I will summarize some names that were put forward for thought...by the Chessgames.com community.>

Bill Gates had been mentioned twice but you overlooked him. Was this on purpose, accidental or was it freudian, I mean jungian?

<Through the filtering of many languages and many centuries, "Pytha Pi" was ultimately Anglicized into "Pizza Pie", the name by which we know it today.>

My mistake, <SBC>! I herewith present him, sans ♗:

Bill Gates

Seriously, though, I admire Mr. Gates for his contributions to the world. For three items in particular I praise him (in no special order): 1) MS-Excel: one of the greatest "killer aps" ever written (whether or it was stolen or "borrowed" from Lotus 1-2-3, and whether that application was stolen or "borrowed" from VisiCalc is a separate question!), 2) the Windows operating systems: yes, the early versions were clunky and unreliable, but in my experience, Windows is now a stable, excellent operating system which provides the power of computing to the masses of humanity, 3) the Windows programming environments (Visual Basic, Visual C++, etc.). His triumph over IBM is one of the great David-and-Goliath stories of American industry. And yes, I do regard him as an "event-making man": had he not lived, the widespread use of personal computers would have been significantly slowed, in my opinion.

But the reason I would not consider him for the list is the same reason I would not consider the inventor of television for the list: because there IS no inventor of television! Television was the product of too many hands to be credited to one person. The amazing phenomenon of personal computing and the internet (which are still in their earliest stages -- we're here at the Revolution, folks!) has had many prominent contributors whose innovations have been, in my opinion, on a par with those of Mr. Gates: the two Steves (Jobs & Wozniak), Tim Berners-Lee (of the World Wide Web), Linus Torvalds (of Linux fame), the creator of the original Netscape browser (I've forgotten both its name and its inventor's at the moment), the creators of Yahoo, Google, Amazon.com, Ebay, and many of the other wonderful sites shown at http://www.100bestwebsites.org/ , and so many others! The broth is truly savoury, but many chefs created it!

<That might would explain my seemingly inexplicable cravings always for 3.1416 pieces.> Yes, the .1416 is the little bit of cheese that gets stuck to the pizza tray, with a few olives and onions if you're lucky!! I always covet that portion, but I'm polite enough to wait until nobody is looking to take it!

Brett,

My thoughts on Bill Gates weren't directed at him as an inventor but as a visionary. I don't think computers in themselves have had as profound an effect as did the proliferation of computers (and by extension, the internet) and that the effect measured in technical terms is dwarfed by the change measured in social terms. So, I feel his contribution was in making computers palatable, affordable and desirable enough that the average person went out and bought one and all this despite the general feeling that Apple was a more innovative and surperior product than the PC.

In the same light, I think, Henry Ford made the list because he was a visionary and not because he was an inventor. He didn't invent the automobile nor the assembly line nor the concept of interchangeable parts, but rather he fused them into a system that made the automobile an affordable, desirable and palatable commodity... and changed the world in the process.

Who they are: Dan Carlson studied the effects of vibration (sound) on plant life. Some vibes open the plant pores on leaves. He tested various nutrients that could be applied to the leaves while the music had opened their receptors. His 'test plant' was a purple passion that grew to Guiness record size. Its picture is in the Guiness Book of Records. Daftly the university (midwest US) was not interested in researching this big clue to human survival. They didn't see an 'application'..big house plant, so what? Carlson's second demonstration was a vegetable garden grown for Navaho in the arid SW US desert. It seems that even though there is little water in the soil, the opened pores of the leaves allow H2O to be absorbed from the air itself. The third major demonstration was for a government: Indonesia. They tried Carlson's formula on national food supply plants, producing 16-foot tall corn plants for example. The Carlson formula multiplies Yield Per Acre (YPA) without environmental damage. The future will discover his prominent role in history.

While I have my mind on vegetables,
allow me to solve the 'origin of pizza' case. Let's just add one fact to the situation: that tomatoes were unknown in Europe before conquistadores sent them back as treasure from Central and South America. The popularity of tomatoes made US law early: although tomatoes grow above ground lawyers overruled botanists and legally made tomatoes a vegetable rather than a fruit. One had tarriffs and one not. Tomatoes took a while to reach Northern Europe as they had an 'old wive's tale' attached: that most red berries created stomach aches.

However, the point is that pizza can not be created without tomato sauce, which wisely heats the tomato which creates anti-oxidants, nutritious/protective for humans whose organs likewise do not wish to oxidize/burn out.

my top three might include...