Yay! Someone else who knows that Columbus was really looking for Cathay, or Mongolia.
1. Jesus. No other individual is still so directly involved in people's lives, considering that about 1/3 of people on earth at least claim to be Christian.
2. Gutenberg. The foundation of the modern world is knowledge through literature, which we would have without him.
3. Edison. He created the demand for electricity with his introduction of consumer goods that used it (lightbulb), and the electrical delivery systems.
4. Mohammed. Same thing as Jesus, just with fewer people.
5. King John and the Chartists: they laid the foundation for constitutional government in England, which would become the foundation for the rule of law pretty much around the world.
6. Ghengis Khan. His empire brought together the great civilizations of the world at the time (East Asia, Middle East, Europe), and the exchange of information created much of the world, and his legacy changed the course of world history entirely.
7. Columbus. Because putting two continents on the map is kinda hard to replicate
8. John Smith. He created capitalism, which has endured as an economic system to this day
9. Marx. His ideas did kind of burn out, but still changed the world remarkably. The 20th century pretty much turned on his ideas.
10. Cardinal Richileu. At the end of the 30-years-war, he helped craft what is the modern notion of the sovereign state that endures to this day
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.