People Who Should Be More Famous

Jonathan Goldsmith. American actor who has made guest appearances in more than 45 TV series ranging from Knight Rider to Magnum P.I. to Dallas. His longest run was on Dallas where he was in 13 episodes. Although you probably know him better as "The Most Interesting Man in the World" or the Dos Equis guy.
 
My nominees are:
1. Henry Knox. The "fat man" gets no respect. However, this self taught Boston book seller had the idea to drag the guns of Ticonderoga over the montains in the dead of winter and led the expedition there and back, sited the guns on Dorchester Heights so the British had to evacuate Boston, kept his guns in the thick of the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Monmouth and Yorktown, proposed a military academy at West Point, kept the concept of a U.S. army alive during the Confederation period as Secretary of War, adminstered the start of a real U.S. Army and Navy as Washington's Secretary of War and had remarkably enlightened views (at least by 18th and 19th Century standards) about Native Americans. Plus, by all acounts, he was a nice guy.
2. John Jay. Member of the Continental and Confederation Congresses. President of the Continental Congress. Minister to Spain and one of the negotiator of the Treaty of Paris. Secretary of Foreign Affairs during the Confederation. First Chief Justice. Special envoy to GB and negotiator of the Jay Treaty which postponed a war with GB that the U.S. could only lose, then and later in 1812. Governor of New York. Founder of abolition and manumission societies. Perhaps if he did not look like Ichabod Crane and lacked a sense of humor he would be famous for his integrity and service.
3. Charles Evans Hughes. Crusading progressive Governor of New York. GOP candidate for President in 1916 who would have made a much President than his opponent. Defender of Socialists elected to the NY State Assembly who were denied thier seats because of the Red Scare. Secretary of State. Chief Justice and defender of the Court against FDR's court packing plan who lead the court in upholding most (but not all) of the New Deal. No man looked more like a Chief Justice (or perhaps even the Lord Almighty).
4. Julius Rosenwald. Dick Sears wrote great advertising copy and came up with the idea of a catalog, but it was his partner, Julius, who made the mail order business work efficiently and expanded the company into retail stores. After making untold millions of dollars for himself and Sears employees through stock option plans and helping to create a national consumer culture, Julius gave a substantial portion of his fortune to build schools for Afracan American children all through the South.
5. Andrew Mellon. The first great American venture capitalist. His investments helped start industries such as aluminium, speciality chemicals, railroad sleeping cars and electricity which powered the American economy of the 20th Century. As Harding's Secretary of the Treasury his low tax and debt reduction policies helped get the U.S. out of the post war recesssion but he stayed on too long and he could not, or would not, realize that the crisis of 1929-1930 was different and much greater so he became the symbol of an uncaring government. However, his greatest contribution may have been his gift to the nation of his unmatched art collection and the money to build a museum for it which is now the magnificent National Gallery in Washington D..C. The gift and the building of the museum occurred at the same time that FDR was forcing a tax evasion prosecution case against him which finally resulted in Mellon being completely exonerated.
6. Elihu Root. The Secretary of War, Secretary of State, Senator and Noble Peace Prize winner that no one has ever heard of. He championed the modernization and rationalization of the Army, promoted international arbitration and fair treatment of Latin America. He supervised America's colonial empire with a goal of involving the native peoples in the government. He was the model of the Wall Street lawyer/public official that Stimson, Acheson, McCloy, Dulles, Vance etc, etc. would follow.
 
Fridtjof Nansen - Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian, Nobel Peace Prize winner and all around badass.
 
I'll start with a few seconds:
Belisarius is a good call, and deserves mentioning on any short list of generals

Diocletian - the Catholic Church's districts are still named after the guy, and yet he's pretty obscure.

Stansilav Petrov - without him, we wouldn't be here, nor would butterflied versions of us be here. We'd be on an ex-planet.

Liu Pang - Special thanks to Larry Gonick and the cartoon history of the universe for plugging him in the books.

And I'll add:

James Wilson - on the quiet side for a Founding Father, at least in the history books, but he had a lot of the big ideas in the Constitution.

Justinian - yeah, YOU ALL know who he is, but the Byzantine Empire is probably not recognizable as a polity to the majority of Americans, much less its influential emperor.

Christopher Marlowe - He was Shakespeare before Shakespeare. And he might have been Shakespeare.

Mansa Musa - Moved enough gold across the world to throw the whole economy out of wack.

Charles V - Can't even get into Civilization, but he ruled more territory than most kings I could name. And like Justinian, YOU GUYS all know him well, but that doesn't mean he's famous. At least in the USA.
 
I like Otto Lilienthal. Pioneer of human flight who's famous last words were, "Kleine Opfer müssen gebracht werden!" Small sacrifices must be made.
 
James Wilkinson - Senior officer of the US Army; 1st Governor of Louisiana; implicated in the conspiracy to replace George Washington with Horatio Gates and the Burr Conspiracy; served in the American Revolution, the Northwest Indian War, the Quasi-War, and the War of 1812; paid spy for the Spanish.

Montgomery Meigs - Quartermaster General for the Union during the American Civil War, engineer whose many projects included the US Capitol Building, the man who decided to turn Robert E Lee's home into Arlington National Cemetary,

Samuel Baker - Author, colonial administrator, engineer, explorer. Though knighted, he wasn't fully accepted by society of the time, in part due to spending several years exploring Africa with a woman half his age before finally making her his second wife.
 
I was a kid in the 70s and grew up on Schoolhouse Rock (basically Saturday morning TV - cartoons and such with some educational bent), and so by the age of 10, I knew of Ben Franklin, George Washington, T. Jefferson, and some of our other founding fathers. Of course I knew of Abraham Lincoln, Robert E Lee, and US Grant. I had even heard of several American inventors like Edison, the Wright Brothers, AG Bell, and Robert Morse, and American business ticoons like JD Rockefeller, C Vanderbilt, Henry Ford and Carnegie. The usual famous people of American history.

When I think of people from American history, who should be more famous, its guys like Nikola Tesla, who I should have learned about as a kid, but who I never heard of until college.

I also think of today's youth who know more about some Kardashian than they do about most of our important historical figures. They know who Paris Hilton is, but have never heard of her great grandfather Conrad Hilton. Sigh.
 
Julius Lilienfield.
The first to theorize the behaviour of a MOS transistor (35 years before it was built).
Without him we would not not be writing this thread
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
I would say that the people involved in the early days of the United Nations deserve to be better known. Brian Urquhart, Ralph Bunche, and especially Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold should all be much better known.
 
Cao Cao, one of the greatest leaders to walk the earth. United North China, and almost united China under his rule to bring it out of chaos. He failed, but still a valiant campaign and life.

Jack Churchill- Fought in WW2 with a goddamn claymore, and while his unit fell around him to silly things such as death, he fought the germans until he was sent to a concentration camp. He walked out because he was bored, but was captured. He walked out AGAIN and fought his way back to France where he was sent back to Britain. He was MAD that America had came into the war, because if they hadn't, "It would have continued for 10 more years!" :eek:
 
Oh yeah what About Alexius I Kommenos he deserves huge respect, he started the Kommenian restoration and was a brilliant military and diplomatic genius.
 
Baldwin IV of Jerusalem: In the theme of crippled conquerers, Baldwin IV is an excellent example. King during the Muslim reconquest of the Levant, Baldwin was the ONLY ruler to stand against Saladin and win. Even if you hate the Crusades, Baldwin was apparently a fair, just, and kind leader, and if he wasn't stricken with leprosy, probably would have lead Jerusalem into a golden age. The Kingdom of Heaven movie is probably were most people know him from, and that's a shame.

That, and Edward Norton portrayed him in the movie Kingdom of Heaven. I wish Ed Norton would portray me...
 
Sygarius: He more or less held the last remaining piece of the old Western Roman Empire that was in Gaul and disconnected from the rest of the empire by the various barbarian kingdoms that risen. He was a more or less independent leader though he recognized the various emperors that existed in the West. He would've set the stone for an early birth of a Gallo-Roman state had things not gone south for him and the Franks came and took his domain away, sending spiraling to a path that led to his murder.
 
Queen Boudica came close to driving the Romans out of Brittian during the height of the Roman Empire...

Grace O'Malley Female Irish Chieftain of THREE clans, if power were decided purely on geographical area one ruled over, she would have been one of the top five most powerful people in Ireland in her time... She waged warfare against the Brittish rule of Ireland, and was brazen enough to commit piracy against ships personally owned by Elizabeth I of England. When her son was taken by the English to be raised in the ways of the English nobles, she sailed into London and walked unarmed in to the Palace to request the return of her son. (Elizbeth had declared that if she Grace O'Mally ever set foot in England, she would be hung and her head would be put on a pike on the Tower of London.) After recieving a private audiance with the queen, she recieved a full pardon and her son was restored to her.
 
Paul Robeson-Famed singer, actor, athlete, and civil rights activist. Lost his career because of his opposition to U.S. hostility towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Robert Smalls-Born a slave in South Carolina he gained his freedom by stealing a Confederate military transport and taking it past Union lines. He became a heroe in the North and became the first black captain of a Union Naval vessel. During Reconstruction, he was a member of the South Carolina legislature and as a U.S. congressmen.

Hypatia-One of the few female philosophers of the Ancient World, Hypatia was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher and a teacher of mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy. She was killed by a mob of Christian monks who blamed her for religious disturbances. They just came out with a movie about her called Agora, starring Kate Winslet.
 
Afonso de Albuquerque, I know smash and grab colonialists are not in fashion but as an example of imperialism this guy was amazing. He and many other Portuguese were out connecting the world before the British/dutch knew how to swim.
 
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