1000 Most Famous People In History (MIT’s Pantheon)
DirectionsName the 1000 Most Famous People in History According to MIT’s Pantheon Project.
Society
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I’m not quite sure how Janis Joplin ranks ahead of John Lennon, with Mick Jagger not even making the cut. Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, and Babe Ruth didn’t make the top 1,000 – but a soccer player who was born in the 1920s made it.
Maybe people search for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones instead of the musicians. Brady and Ruth are not known outside USA.
I was thinking the same, most of the musicians/singers who make the list seem to be either solo artists or had bands named after them, with a few notable exceptions. Similar with sports, football is genuinely universal so not surprising it is the only sport represented. I remember Lance Armstrong used to make the cut in an earlier iteration but that’s about it.
FYI I’ve updated this today with a newer more current run from MIT Pantheon. Some new faces!
I don’t get the critieria for this quiz. Famous means well known, not necessarily important or historically significant. Therer are a lot of people on this list that most people have no idea who they are. This wouldn’t bother me if the quiz was most important people in history. But since it’s most famous and Stallone is on the list, then why not Madonna or Beyonce, Depp or DiCaprio. Hillary Clinton and Al Gore, but nor Bill Clinton. Biden, Trump and both Bushs, but not Obama. Makes no sense.
You’d have to go to the MIT Pantheon website to see the criteria.
I see they’ve updated the list. Bill Clinton made it this time. Still don’t get how these MIT Pantheon people determine who’s on the list though. In what universe is Martin Van Buren more famous than Reagan, JFK and George Washington? Love the quiz though.
Where is Obama and Bin Laden?
A politician born in 1962????
Yes, hilarious to find him here
By my reckoning the third most famous of their country of all time after a couple of painters. Hahaha
another update with newer updated data today.
how is david attenborough not in here disgraceful
George Harrison is missing OK, but in the history of mankind I think people like Mary Wollstonecraft, or Jonas Salk are little bit more important than a 3rd Beatle.
Also they dropped half of the Beatles and left only Lennon and McCartney. I don’t recall George and Ringo having gotten less famous in the last decade or whatever it’s been, but who knows. If anything George’s legacy has improved over time.
Bizarre update. Almost no English language poets. Not even Chaucer. But still tons of French poets and literary people generally, esp Russians, French, etc. How would any of all the rest survive but not Yeats, Chaucer, Eliot, Wordsworth, Milton? Yes, Milton didn’t even make it. Shakespeare and just him. He wrote all English language poetry all by himself.