Pre-Millenial Me
In my role as the Pre-Millenial Me, I offer up these grandiose sweeping lists. Take them for the wisdom they are. I recommend printing this page out large, large paper and wallpapering your house with them.
Most Influential People, Places, and Things of the 20th Century:
(Not necessarily in the order listed. I retract that... Definitely not in the order listed.)
People: Sigmund Freud, Einstein, Ford, Bell, James Joyce, Wright Brothers, Lenin, Picasso, Gavrilo Princip, Charlie Chaplin, Philo Farnsworth, Margaret Sanger, Watson & Crick, Charles Lindbergh, Hitler, Carver, Jesse Owens, Louis Armstrong, Neil Armstrong, Walt Disney, Borges, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Churchill, Mao Tse Tsung, Elvis, Mohammad Ali, Kruschev, Martin Luther King, Fermi, Hitchcock, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Aretha, King Hussein of Jordan, Kahn & Cerf, Gorbachev, Reagan, Salk.
Places: United Nations, Sarajevo, the Moon, The "Evil Empire" USSR, America, China, The Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall, isolated Pacific islands, Selma, Beijing, Washington, Moscow, Berlin, London, Paris, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Pearl Harbor, Yalta, Vietnam, Korea, European Union, Tokyo, the Atmosphere, India, Mt. Everest, the Deep Blue Sea
Things: Rabbit warrens of National Alliances, Television, the Internet, Space Travel, Genocide, Public Relations, Flight, Atomic & Nuclear technology, the Emphasis on Science, the Rise of the Celebrity, World Wars, Independence, Civil Rights, Women's Rights, Communism, Organized Espionage, Puritanism & Hedonism, Moving Pictures, Music Industry, Globalization, Mass Production, Suburbia, Entertainment's Penetration into Just About Everything, the Holocaust
(quite the American skew there, isn't there?)
Cheez-Whiz comes in a close runner-up.
(Oh, and I fully realize there's another year until the millenium turns, but why should I be bothered with facts when the hysteria rages unabated?)
