Which historical figure do you consider has made the biggest impact on you?
And which particular detail or incident about the figure made the deepest impression upon you?
Thank you with all my heart.
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9 Answers
Johannes Gutenberg.
Gave us the printed word, and thus easily replicated books.
I would not be who I am without books.
The Dark Lord, Satan. He freed my mind.
Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper, and Snorky. Without them I would not have developed my sense of humor to the extent and in the direction that made me what I am today.
Robin Hood, I like to hang around in the woods wearing tights.
I’m going with Louis Pasteur. With him, medicine turned the corner from being mostly nonsense to being something that actually worked. I figure that his work undoubtedly saved at least one of my ancestors somewhere along the way.
Without doubt, the inventor(s) of the typewriter.
I don’t know how much of an impact, rather than this example being one of my first serious looks into history, but Vlad the Impaler.
I was a fan of this historical figure as a teen, due to the movies about Dracula. But it was just a shock factor thing, as I believed everything they said about the real life Dracula. That he was a mindless tyrant who drank blood and shit. Eventually though I started reading about him for a couple of years and learned that yeah, he was not the nicest guy, but he really wasn’t like what entertainment says he is. The guy kept peace in his kingdom through fear, and had a very cruel and frightening view of the homeless, and the people in his rule who otherwise did not contribute to society.
In war, his methods were grisly and appalling, but these came from the mind of a fine tactician who used psychological warfare, rather than just being some crazy motherfucker. His methods were utilized because the guy had very few men at his disposition, and he did what proved to work, rather than engaging in some cruel fetish or amusement. The reason he made history is because without him, I don’t think Romania would even exist today. It’s not because of his impaling, (granted, the nickname obviously came from doing this to peeps) or anything, because those were violent times, and Vlad certainly wasn’t the only violent guy out there. In fact, most of his methods of torture were taken from the Turks. He merely revolutionized the methods. Lol. (although I’m not sure how many other people after him used rows of impaled folks to frighten and discourage opposing enemies)
Oh he’s still frightening and crazy, but he was a smart and conscious crazy scary guy. But all that crap just to say, that’s not what I imagined him to have been like at all, so after that, I became a lot more suspicious of what was said on many historical figures, and it compelled me to take history more seriously, and look into it myself whenever I heard something outrageous.
That said it doesn’t mean I also believe everything I hear, I mean historians are still arguing today on Vlad’s name, so…not a history expert at all, but this example served to make me look into things, anyway.
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