Who is the most significant individual of the 19th century?

Who is the most significant individual of the 19th century?

Significant in what way?

Any?

If so, I'd say Napoleon Bonaparte.

Hegel or Napoleon
But if you think about it, the starting and ending of centuries is completely arbitrary and that means that a person who was important in 1803 is far more influential than someone important in 1899.

probably napoleon. honestly, I'd put lincoln forward, just because he held the states together. that sort of set the stage for US becoming a superpower. or maybe TR. I'd be interested in figures from other countries that did similar things.

Bismarck

Queen Victoria. Most of the century is named for her.

Milton Hershey

Lincoln.

Aside from being the most brutal war criminal since Genghis Khan, he crushed the spirit of freedom forever, heralding the mass industrialization of the West and the rise of authoritarianism in the 20th century.

The Confederates were very, very authoritarian, and I'm not just talking about slavery.

Authoritarianism hardly arose in the 20th Century anyway, it was continually existed for thousands of years. What *did* rise in the 20th Century was totalitarianism, and that arose largely to fill the vacuum created by the deposition of monarchs.

In the Anglosphere

I can't think of one part of the Earth unaffected by Great Britain in the 19th century.

Are you considering Queen Victoria as synonymous with Great Britain?

In the 19th century? Absolutely. Are you not?

In a way I do, but that is strictly because of monarchist sympathies.

I'll take commonwealth nations for 200, Alex.

She was head of the commonwealth from 1837 to 1901.

Who was Queen Victoria?

She was, but are saying most of the influence of Great Britain would not have occurred without her?

Marx obviously.

It's clearly Napoleon.

Jesus

Probably Charles Darwin, just as Isaac Newton, Antoine Lavoisier and Albert Einstein are the most significant people of their respective centuries.

People who pieced together the basics for branches of hard science have had by far the most significant impact on humanity in the long run of things. All of these political and military historical figures fall flat when they don't have the technology or understanding to implement their ideas.

einstein