Here is the list of some of the most influential people who have a great contribution to the world that we are living in:
1. Muhammad
The founder of the global religion of Islam, Muhammad ibn Abdullah, had been an Arab leader in politics, society, and religion and one of the most influential people. In Islam, people consider him to be the Prophets’ Seal. Only with the Quran, his teachings, and his practices serving as the cornerstone of Islamic religious belief, did Muhammad unites Arabia together into a single Muslim government.
He became ill and passed away in 632, just a few months after returning on the Farewell Pilgrimage. The majority of the Arabian Peninsula had adopted Islam by the time of his passing. Muslims believe the verses of the Quran as the verbatim “Word of God” on which their faith is based. Muhammad claimed to have received revelations (each known as a “Sign [of God]”) up until his death.
2. Isaac Newton
English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and novelist Sir Isaac Newton was one of the most influential people. Newton developed the principles of motion and universal gravitation in the Principia, which until the theory of relativity took its place as the preeminent scientific perspective. He showed that the same concepts could be used to explain the motion of objects on Earth and heavenly bodies.
Based on his discovery that a prism divides white light into the visible spectrum’s colors, Newton constructed the first useful reflecting telescope and created the theory of color. His very famous book Opticks, published in 1704, summarized his work on light. After receiving his knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705, he spent the next thirty years of his life in London where he held the positions of Warden, Master of the Royal Mint, and President of the Royal Society also as one of the most influential people.
3. Jesus
Jesus, commonly known as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ, was a Jewish preacher and religious figure in the first century. He is the center of the largest religion in the world, Christianity. Most Christians think he is the promised messiah (the Christ) of the Hebrew Bible and the incarnate of God the Son and also one of the most influential people.
Christian doctrine holds that Jesus was the child of a virgin called Mary, conceived by the Holy Spirit, displayed miracles, founded the Christian Church, perished on the cross as a punishment for sin, rose from the dead, and ascension into Heaven, through where he would return. Every year on December 25th, Christians celebrate Christmas in honor of Jesus’ birth.
4. Gautama Buddha
Ancient Indian monk and spiritual guide Gautama Buddha lived in the sixth or fifth century BCE as one of the most influential people. Buddhists venerate him as the creator of Buddhism and an entirely enlightened man who revealed the way to Nirvana—a state of liberation from ignorance, craving, rebirth, and misery. The Shakya clan’s highborn parents gave birth to the Buddha in Lumbini, which is now Nepal, but he later left home to live as a roaming ascetic.
He spent his life begging, practicing asceticism, and practicing meditation before becoming enlightened in Bodh Gaya. The Buddha’s teachings were collected by the Buddhist community within Vinaya, as his rules for monastic conduct, and the Suttas, literature based on his lectures, several centuries later his demise.
5. Confucius
Confucius one of the most influential people, who lived in ancient China between the Autumn and Spring epochs, is regarded as the prototype of all Chinese sages. His philosophies, known as Confucianism, placed a strong emphasis on morality on both a personal and a societal level as well as the propriety of interpersonal interactions. Confucianism evolved into a philosophy known in the West as Neo-Confucianism and subsequently as New Confucianism during the Tang and Song dynasties.
With filial piety, he promoted strong family ties, reverence for ancestors, respect for parents by their children, including respect for husbands from their wives, and advocating for the family as the foundation for the ideal form of governance. He advocated the well-known Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have done unto you” as one of the most influential people in the world ever known.
6. Paul the Apostle
Paul, also referred to as Saint Paul and Paul the Apostle, was a Christian apostle who promoted Jesus’ teachings in first-century society. He established several Christian communities in Asia Minor and Europe between the middle of the 40s and the middle of the 50s AD and is generally recognized as one of the most significant personalities of the Apostolic Age. Paul was Pharisee and was also one of the most influential people.
After receiving his baptism, Paul started announcing that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the Jewish messiah as well as the Son of God also as one of the most influential people. In both the Latin and Protestant traditions of the West and the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox traditions of the East, Paul’s epistles continued to be fundamental sources of theology, worship, and pastoral activity.
7. Cai Lun
Chinese court official Cai Lun, also known as Ts’ai Lun, served in the Eastern Han period. He is widely recognized as the creator of paper and the contemporary papermaking technique. Because of the addition of pulp made from tree bark and hemp ends, which led to the widespread production of paper on a big scale, he holds a significant position in the history of paper.
Cai is credited for inventing the compass, gunpowder, papermaking, & printing, four of China’s Four Great Inventions, which are thought to have had a significant impact on human history. Despite being honored in ancestor worship in China, being deified as the deity of papermaking, and appearing in Chinese folklore, he has been mostly unheard of beyond East Asia.
8. Johannes Gutenberg
With his mechanical movable-type printing machine, German inventor, printer, and publisher, the goldsmith Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg popularised printing throughout Europe and was also one of the most influential people. It helped shape the Scientific Revolution, Age of Enlightenment, Renaissance, and Reformation and laid the groundwork for the current knowledge-based economy and the broad dissemination of knowledge.
Tradition holds that a type of metal alloy and an unmolded casting type were part of Gutenberg’s method for creating a kind. The alloy, a combination of lead, tin, plus antimony, cast well, melted at a relatively low temperature enabling quicker and more cost-effective casting, and produced a robust type.
9. Christopher Columbus
Italian explorer & navigator Christopher Columbus was one of the most influential people who successfully performed four Spanish-based expeditions across the Atlantic Ocean that were funded by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, paving the way for later broad European exploration and colonization of the Americas. Most academics concur that Columbus had born in the Republic of Genoa and that his native tongue was a Ligurian dialect.
The exploration, conquering, and colonization that began with Columbus’ expeditions continued for centuries and contributed to the development of the modern Western world. Upon his death, Columbus was greatly lauded, but as researchers have paid more attention to the wrongs done under his rule, popular opinion has soured in the twenty-first century.
10. Albert Einstein
Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein one of the most influential people, who was born in Germany, is usually regarded as one of the most important and influential scientists of all time. Einstein is most famous for the theory of relativity, although he also made significant contributions to the theory of quantum mechanics. His writing is also renowned for its impact on scientific thought.
For his contributions to theoretical physics, particularly his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, which was a crucial step in the development of quantum theory, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921. He signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the eve of World War II warning him of the likely existence of a German nuclear weapons program and urging the US to start doing similar research. Although he backed the Allies, Einstein as one of the most influential people largely opposed the idea of nuclear weapons.
Also read:
