Who is the most influential person in the history of being

[Trascoli]

It must be a person, not a plant, animal or organism.

[DonCoquixote]

1. whoever invented a means to hold fire

It ios somethign no animal has ever done.

[napoleon_in_rags]

2. Gutenberg.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg

He started the information age, which is going to redefine everything... This is only the beginning.

[Squinch]

27. Or before that the Phoenecian guy who decided we needed an alphabet and writing.

But I'm with you that this is the most influential vein of technology.

[Kurovski]

3. Jackie Gleason.

No really, I'm the wrong person to ask.

[madokie]

20. Gleason would be my pick too

His performance in Smokey and the Bandit is the best I've seen by any actor or actress ever

I know this answer doesn't fit with what the question at hand is but HEY.
Ask me a ______ question and you'll likely get a ______ answer (-:

[Kurovski]

46. That Gleason,

He makes Meryl Streep look like a piker.

[msongs]

4. the cave person who invented the first diaper nt

[Control-Z]

7. Whoever invented the tampon.

Even better than the diaper.

[graham4anything]

5. Bing Crosby. He famously said "Everybody has an angle",like Ralph Nader taking the $$$$$

note-his character said it in White Christmas.

And sure as anything, every single person has an angle they play.
From good to bad, better to worse, every single person does indeed have an angle they play.

Especially in politics and on political boards.
Especially those that profess not to have one.
They do.

Anyone who says "Both parties are the same" in actuality does not want the Democratic candidate to win and would rather keep the whine flowing, than have the democratic candidate winning (ala Ralph Nader).

So maybe Ralph himself is the most influential.
After all, he was able to make those that see blind.
After all, he was able to part the electoral college vote.
After all, he made the walls of New Hampshire crumble.
And after all, he took the money and ran, he ran so far away (from his ideals, by playing his angle).

But I think it's Bing Crosby.
Without Bing, there would in effect, no recorded music performances and evertying would have been lost to being live.

And everybody indeed has an angle, especially those professing to be better than those with an angle. Never forget and never let them fool you.

NEVER AGAIN has never been more contemporarily relevant than after the year 2000.
When Ralphie played his angle and ran all the way to the bank.

[Warpy]

6. The first anonymous women who played with grass and a stick

and discovered how to spin twine.

From that, the bow method of making fire arose.

Stone heads could be firmly affixed to shafts for arrows for bows strung with twine rather than sinew, meaning larger prey could be killed and diet improved as twine was cheap enough that the loss of a few arrows would not be tragic. Spear heads were similarly affixed.

People could move out of dank caves into tents, either woven or of animal skins held on sticks stabilized by grass twine.

Twine was used for primitive foot bridges across streams, increasing territory. Sinew had been neither long nor strong enough.

And this just barely scratches the surface of what spinning and textile arts have done to improve human life. Peoples who discovered spinning tended to progress technologically while those who didn't did not.

[patricia92243]

30. Best answer! I had never thought of it that way. I would have said "fire," but as you point out

it took the string to help make the fire.

Good Post.

[RedCappedBandit]

8. Whoever threw the first stone

or made the first water container.

[LittleBlue]

9. Muhammad

Drastically changed the culture of a huge chunk of the planet, which completely reshaped history.

[Gravitycollapse]

17. My giant book called "The 100" ranks Muhammad as #1.

With Isaac Newton coming in second and Jesus Christ third.

[sigmasix]

10. Hitler?

you gotta admit; he sure influenced a lot of the 20th century.
Plus he gave us pejoritive name to call a politician that is bad.
Not to mention all the modern aryan power groups and hate-driven bigots.

Or maybe Mel Brooks is the most influencial; Young Frankenstien is an amazing movie!

[Niceguy1]

11. Alexander Flemming

Who invented Pencillin.

And Jesus , too.

[olddots]

12. Mavis Staples

n.t

[Cicada]

13. NORMAN BORLAUG

The man who saved a billion lives

[LeftishBrit]

14. Perhaps the person or people who invented the wheel.

[BainsBane]

15. not going to be a popular answer

but I'll say Jesus of Nazareth because of the influence of Christianity on the development of Western civilization, empire, global trade, and the eventual development of capitalism.

[mainer]

33. I'm an atheist, and I agree with you.

Surprising that your answer hasn't been mentioned by anyone else.

[elehhhhna]

40. yep. I'm reading a bio of Charlemagne now

Jesus name was and is major currency in western civilization

[Gravitycollapse]

16. Isaac Newton.

[DavidDvorkin]

38. Yep. That's my vote, too.

[Paulie]

42. I agree too!

[LuvNewcastle]

18. Alexander Fleming

[Orrex]

19. Dale Carnegie

Wrote the book on it!

[UBEEDelusional]

21. Influential in what way?

Should it be a real or fictional person?

Some have already posted fictional characters which should be excluded IMHO.

Should the person have provided a positive or negative influence on society?

Some good ones already, the inventor(s) of the wheel, the inventor(s) of weaving, the person who harnessed fire, Guttenberg…

Einstein would be a good choice for a more modern influence but I would have to nominate the inventor(s) of writing, modern civilization would not exist if the written word was never developed.

[VOX]

22. Muhammad Ali...and he says so himself.

"I am the greatest of all time. All time."

Back when a pro boxer could be deemed heroic, Ali was once (and may still be) the most-recognizable person worldwide ...if you showed his photo to people in France, Kenya, Guam, Argentina, Nepal, etc., they would all recognize Ali.

He was the consummate showman, and his exploits are known the globe over. His personae comprise many images: fierce professional competitor; political animal; sly entertainer; courage in the face of degenerative disease...are all known well across the globe.

[undeterred]

23. Descartes

[ananda]

24. Descartes and the rise of mechanism.

That meme of mechanism defines our entire cultural assumptions and the way we deal with the world and ourselves.

[Comrade_McKenzie]

25. Tim Berners-Lee. nt

[Make7]

39. I think Robert Noyce had a far greater impact on how technology is used today. ( n/t )

[Newest Reality]

26. Aristotle ...

Simply because we are still living in and thinking with, what was once, a revolutionary way of thinking and that has now trapped us in streams of manipulative dichotomies where we sacrifice a rich and wide spectrum of potentials and choices for well-crafted dilemmas.

[jessie04]

28. Einstein

nt

[alcibiades_mystery]

29. Aristotle, without question

[KG]

31. Elvis

[talkingmime]

32. Socrates

[MineralMan]

34. Whoever was in charge of assembling the Biblical Canon.

The spread of Christianity in the West is probably the most significant historical story.

I'd say it was the guy people call Jesus (not his real name), but without the folks who put together the Canon, he'd be forgotten.

[LWolf]

35. I don't think there is one "most" influential person.

There are many, many, many influential people, having influenced in many different ways.

There are plenty of influential people whose names and words and deeds have been lost in time, and aren't part of any historical record.

What kind of influence are you looking for?

[1-Old-Man]

36. Edward Bernays - and not to our betterment either

[warrior1]

37. I would say

anyone of their mothers.

[bluedigger]

41. Alexander the Great.

Proved you don't have to be "straight" to conquer the known world.

[Tikki]

43. Charles Darwin....

Tikki

[ThoughtCriminal]

44. Moon-Watcher

Yes, in the book he had a "name".

"He is now master of the world, he is unsure of what to do next—but he will think of something."

[Ron Obvious]

45. I'm going to cheat and mention an animal anyway

The horse that threw Drusus Germanicus which lead to his death 2000 years ago. Had he lived, it's quite likely that Rome would have conquered Germany like they did Gaul.

Just imagine how different the world would have been today if that had happened. We might never have had WW1, WW2, or for that matter a space race. Hell, I wouldn't even be alive.

The threads of history are fascinating.

[cthulu2016]

47. 1) Napoleon 2) Darwin 3) Some Chinese guy I have never heard of

[Douglas Carpenter]

48. perhaps St. Paul -he pretty much built, systematized the Christian religion and created its theology

[Douglas Carpenter]

49. in the modern world -probably Marx and Freud -they fundamentally changed how people think about both

the individual and the world around them. Their particular ideology aside - they essentially established the concept of trying to understand what makes society tick and what makes the individual tick. It would be hard to imagine a modern world without the concept of social science and behavioral science that they largely invented.