June 06, 2005

Honorable mention:

J.P. Morgan
Andrew Carnegie
Howard Hughes

Whatever flaws they had, they were giants. Don't make them like they used to.

In a very twisted, oblique and strange way, John F. Kennedy is, at least, an honorable mention. Flawed man he was, but he was still the last Democrat POTUS who exhibited a set of balls, and wanted the United States to be THE big dawg.

Acidman, you NEED to visit, if you haven't, the Henry Ford Museum and the Edison Institute.
Dearborn Michigan. Very nice, Get a flight in and spend a couple days walking around the museum, a couple walking around the village. All of edison's best work, and Ford's as well. You would like it, I guaranfriggingtee.

Damn good list Rob.

Alexander Hamilton
Orville and Wilbur Wright
William Tecumseh Sherman
William B. Travis

Torchpraise beat me to Hamilton, next to Washington, my favorite founder. He really epitomizes the American dream. I've been to both Nevis and St. Croix, where Hamilton was born and where he was raised; it's amazing where a positive attitude and hard work will get you. I've read several bios of Andrew Jackson, one tough guy, who didn't take any crap off of anyone. Very ambitious and loved his country.

Being a glass artist, of course LaFarge and Tiffiny are also personal heros. It's incredible the work that these men produced, especially LCT. To this day, unduplicatable and highly sought after. Pictures hardly do their art justice. Standing in front of some of the panels is awe inspiring to me. I've been doing this 35 years and I still can't wait to get out into my studio every morning and get to it because of how their work has motivated me.

I always thought Batman was pretty cool too.

My father was a loser, didn't teach me shit, except how not to live a life, and got kicked out of our home when I was 6.

Patton - Tough guy and the best General

U.S.Grant - Stogie smoking General that did win

Ike - Great General, decent President

Abe Lincoln - The best president bar none.

And my dad was a great man too.

Don't even MENTION the name of William T. Sherman around me. Them's fightin' words.

Yep. And if Lincoln was to pull the crap today that he pulled during the civil war the liberal press would hang him on a cross and build a fire under it. He may be a hero to some people but he suspended the constitution for about three years.

Well, yer mostly listin' men...I like the list, but I keep thinkin' how heroic it was that Pat Nixon stood by her man, stoicly, as he was going down. God, what we women put up with till death do us part. And, then, there was Eleanor Roosevelt - she kinda dismissed men all together, fools that they can be. I liked her style.

I hate Jimmy Carter, too, but in all fairness, he never said "malaise." That was Clark Clifford, another film of scum.

No Sherman, no U.S. victories in World Wars I & II.
He was the originator of the strategy and tactics that the sot Grant still gets the credit for.

I'm a Southerner, too, but it was really stupid to try to kick the country apart. Most Southerners know that, too: they are the most patriotic of Americans today.

He was also the best writer of all the civil war memoirists.

Yes to Andrew Jackson being on the list. Without his perseverance, many Americans would be unable to vote. Prior to his term of office, you had to own property to vote.
Revisionists historians may say otherwise, but that extension of suffrage dramatically changed America.

Rob, I never met your daddy - no doubt he was a fine man. I have met MY pop, and he's still kicking around at 82 - he's MY personal number 1 - which, for both of us, is as it should be, right?

Anyway, how could you possibly leave Robert Heinlein off the list? He influenced more space-mad freaks like me than you would believe. You do know, of course, that in his lifetime, Heinlein addressed the graduating class at Annapolis, testified before Congress (by invitation, not subpoena), and advised Presidents?

AND, he made a damned good living writing SciFi, AND kept me entertained at the same time?

Better writer than any of the current crop of "novelists".

Joy, I do not doubt that our freedoms would not have been so eroded as they have in the last 100 years if the property qualifications (which were minimal) had been maintained.

Martin Luther King
Compare Nikola Tesla to Edison and tell me which YOU think had a greater impact on history.
Frederick Douglass
John Paul Jones (that was a set of balls)
re Andrew Jackson (Trail of Tears)

Martin Luther King may barely make the top 500 of greatest men of all time. It's just a token deal that he has the holiday - affirmative action, if you will.

Edison had much more of an effect on the world than Tesla. If you're going to get into theoretical guys, you should put Timoshenko up there on the list (father of solid mechanics, basically) and lots of others.

Also, if John Paul Jones is on the list, how bout a better bassist like Geddy Lee or Sting?
(ha, ha !)

Lincoln wouldn't make my top 100, and Sherman might make the bottom 100.

The only person missing is my grandaddy. He left me 2 years ago at 77. He was a bombader in WW2 and a grunt on the ground in Korea. He was the greatest man I ever knew. Worked his entire life until Alzheimers slowly stole his brain away from him day by day.

I wish I could remember Reagan as President. I love the list.

Og is right, however you can accomplish such a visit with a much shorter trip.

Head down to Ft. Myers when you get the chance. You will find the Winter homes of both Ford and Edison, sitting side by side. It was also the home of Edison's winter laboratory and I can't even begin to tell you the feeling you get just walking around the place.

Henry Ford's ford sitting in his driveway.

One of Edison's original bulbs burning in the lab.

No doubt, two men that forever changed the world.

Acidman, we figured we'd get you upset with Sherman; so how 'bout we include Nathan Bedford Forrest?

We'd say that the two best civil war commanders were Sherman and Forrest. One Yankee, one Reb.

Fair 'nough?

don't forget longstreet, yank.

I'm suprised no one mentioned the good Roosevelt president

I agree with Kukulkan on Nikola Tesla.
He was flamboyant, eccentric (the definition has his picture) and a bad manager but he managed to invent a few things we all use today:

Radio
Fluorescent Lights
The Alternating Current Motor
The 60 Cycle / Multi-Phase system of power distribution (50 Hz in other countries but still multiphase)

#10 on your list tops em all as far as i am concerned. I had a dad but he was too busy leading hisown life to worry much about mine so I envy the respect and honor you pay your Father and I have tried to be that kind of father to my sons..

I war raised during the fifties amidst the madness of the cold war at its worse. People were building bomb shelters and movies showing what could happen during a nuke war were popular. It was enough to scare the hell out of a kid.

My hero taught me how to live through the turmoil. His name was Alfred E. Neuman whose motto was "What, Me Worry?" I hope many of you remember this fictional character who was both funny but important to a lot of teenagers of the 1950's.

1) Thomas Paine - whose Common Sense galvanized the colonies to independence.
2) Thomas Jefferson - who wrote the Declaration with human rights in mind for the first time in history
3) George Washington - who walked away from the Presidency after 8 years.
4) Alexander Hamilton - whose financial system provided the basis for future business and industrialization.
5) John Brown - who forced abolition into the bloody open.
6) Abraham Lincoln - who navigated the fight to maintain the union into a revolutionary struggle against slavery.
7) Nickolai Tesla - who invented the AC power sysytem
8) Thomas Edison - Light bulb, movies, recordings
9) Henry Ford - who mass produced automobiles.
10) Mark Twain - best commentator on American life.

More?

Sherman is the greatest general of the civil war. He was the only one with the balls to do what was neessary to win.

And #4 was a pedophile. Nice to see that on your list. Where is Bundy?

Rob, bad call on Edison.

DAVEH, good list on Tesla. But there's more, yet.

Remote control by radio

Tesla Coil, who's properties are still used in the ignition systems of gasoline engines and the high voltage supply in CRT displays, hell, even in the xenon flash circuit in a camera.

A steam turbine so efficient there is no metalurgy that can handle it to this day.

He prophecied, lasers, radar and a world wide communications system.

I have to disagree with Rob on Edison. He was a obnoxious prick who stole many of his ideas from people that worked for him. What did he give us? The lightbulb, record player, and "talkies" two already outdated technologies and one soon to be due to DVDs. Teslas are still going strong.

He was a major flake, though. Too bad he wasn't able to apply his genious to managing his ventures and his life. From what I've read, he died bankrupt, but also happy in his senility.

sherman was not the best general of the civil war. longstreet was a better commander than sherman. lee was the best.

everyone freaks out on ford inventing the auto. his biggest invention was the assembly line concept. it pervades every aspect of industry.

stephen decatur beats john paul jones. my opinion. lord nelson wrote about the respect the ships under decatur's command demanded.

i like acidman's inclusion of his dad. it's easy to sit back and think about presidents, industrialists, war heros. but the unsung guy. doing what it takes every day...... that's real heroism.

JFK had balls?
read Decision for Disaster by Grayston Lynch, our CIA man there.

JFK should not be on a top 50 list the same for MLK. I see no one mentioned Bob Hope. He was always there for all our fighting men. Tesla was far ahead of his time, and that may have cost him his life. Something strange here. Edison belongs on or near the top and the same for Reagan. My father was a hard working man that died at age 36. I was 13 at the time. He was my world. No one can leave out John Wayne when America is mentioned. There is more to Watergate than the press is printing. History will someday prove that Nixon was railroaded. I rate him over JFK.