What's Cathay? It sounds like the name of a hot woman.

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

Gutenburg only invented the printing press in the west.  The earliest printed book was found in China, a copy of the Diamond Sutra.  It was printed in 868.

Choosing ten people is pretty difficult.  Most of these lists are incredibly Western.  Even if you only look at Western history, 10 is still pretty hard.

I'd definitely include Jesus.  Newton would be there as the foundation of modern physics (and calculus).  I'd probably include Martin Luther (where is he in y'all's lists!?), too.  In terms of the East, I'd look at Confucius, Mao Zedong, and Laozi.  I really don't know who I'd pick to fill the other six spots.  We were tasked with picking the 25 most influential people in Western history since 1400 in my AP European History class last year, and that was difficult enough.

Chairman-Mao said:
Off the top of my head (not necessarily in order)

1. Winston Churchill - Amazing leader. Stood his ground against the nazis unlike that pisshead Chamberlain whose plan to appease the Germans failed miserably.

I wasn't so great. He was a openly racist man and believe it or not, he didn't attack Germany because Poland got invaded, it was because they were a threat to his empire. He agreed with many ideologies of Hitler, if Hitler had have been English he would have followed him and his beliefs. He could have acted sooner, but didn't want to attempt to stop Hitler from attacking Russia. Weak leadership led to the opening of the doors to the commonwealth countries into Britain, yes he claimed it worked at first to boost the economy, but he later said it was a mistake and wished he never did.

* I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes.
* I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia... by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race... has come in and taken its place.

If he was in polotics today, he certainly wouldn't be in any of the mainstream parties, he himself a faccist.

2. Harry S. Truman - Had the balls to drop a big fucking bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki winning the war in the Pacific for the USA.

3. Honest Abe Lincoln - Freed the slaves. Also won the civil war and sent those good old boys back to the deep south where they belong.

4. Josef Stalin - This guy didn't fuck around. He was a cold hearted bastard who called his son a failure because he couldn't even kill himself when he tried to. Also without Russia you'd all be eating sauerkraut and schnitzels. On the downside he was a communist piece of shit.

5. Adolf Shitler..er, I mean Hitler - He was a complete asshole, but on the bright side he hated communists and fixed Germany's economy. Killed himself like a little bitch after getting his ass kicked by USA, Britain and Russia.

6. The Beatles - The greatest rock band and probably one of the most influential ever.

7. Karl Marx - A communist piece of shit motherfucker who wants the world to be a fairytale where everyone lives out in a forest alongside the deer and there's rainbows everywhere and we all share and hold hands. Man up you piece of shit.

8. Henry Ford - He didn't invent cars, but he was one of the first to mass produce them and make them affordable. If it wasn't for him...well someone else would have done it a couple years later. At least he was a capitalist and not a pussy ass bitch commie red scumbag motherfucker.

9. Kim Campbell (joke entry) - The worst prime minister in Canadian history. She wasn't elected she only got in because Mulroney was a piece of shit and had to leave office. When she ran for re-election the conservatives lost the election by the largest margin in history for their party.

10. Ben Franklin - Electricity.