Monday, December 16, 2013

The 100 Most Significant Figures In History

Who’s Biggest? The 100 Most Significant Figures In History -- Time

A data-driven ranking. Plus, have former TIME People of the Year been predictive?

Who’s bigger: Washington or Lincoln? Hitler or Napoleon? Charles Dickens or Jane Austen? That depends on how you look at it.

When we set out to rank the significance of historical figures, we decided to not approach the project the way historians might, through a principled assessment of their individual achievements. Instead, we evaluated each person by aggregating millions of traces of opinions into a computational data-centric analysis. We ranked historical figures just as Google ranks web pages, by integrating a diverse set of measurements about their reputation into a single consensus value.

Read more ....

My Comment: I would rank Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed .... and in that order. For military leaders I would rank Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Caesar.

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