Can you name the Time Magazine most important people of the 20th Century?

created by davidr

Enter a person (last names acceptable) in the box below
Correctly named persons will show up below
Answers do not have to be guessed in order
Source: Time.com
Also try: 20th Century by Image

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Leaders and Revolutionaries

Artists and Entertainers

Builders and Titans

Scientists and Thinkers

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Time 20th Century People Quiz

Rating:	Report a mistake
Created by: davidr -
Published: August 14th, 2009
Category: History
Plays: 82,123

Tags: 20th, century, important, 20th Century, magazine, Time Magazine

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	luxx:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 04:53 GMT	7 points
	Loved this quiz! Really got me thinking.

	Supernuke:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 04:53 GMT	11 points
	It's Lech Walesa not Lech Walensa. Needs to be fixed!

	JohnJF:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 04:55 GMT	72 points
	Must say Time has an interesting perspective on what a "person" is. The Kennedys are not a "person", though I did at least manage it by just typing Kennedy. Nor are "The Beatles." Though I must credit the inclusion of Bart Simpson, who broke down barriers for yellow children everywhere with his dramatic television performances.

	Kazbar:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 04:56 GMT	81 points
	No Elvis?

	BryMan:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 04:58 GMT	65 points
	i don't know how Babe Ruth and Elvis were left off this list.

	Kicking222:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:04 GMT	4 points
	The first two people I put in were my two favorites on the list: Bart Simpson and the Unknown Rebel. One is just an hilarious inclusion; the Unknown Rebel, on the other hand, is one of the single-most brave people who ever lived.

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	DerKomissar:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:07 GMT	0 points
	@Kicking222: I agree. I hope that one day we will find out his name.

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pete:

Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:08 GMT

22 points

the We Didn't Start The Fire sporcle trained me well for this one.

	Gordo:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:08 GMT	47 points
	This list is too earth-centric.

	Pyrophorus:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:10 GMT	42 points
	A lot of important people, but a lot left off as well. No Stalin, no Elvis, no Gagarin (or Armstrong, or any astronauts), no Planck, Heisenberg, or Schrodinger, no Haber. Also sort of odd to see Shockley but not Bardeen or Brattain.

	quiztaker:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:11 GMT	28 points
	Nothing against Time, but where are Pershing, Stalin and Eisenhower?

	starfish:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:12 GMT	0 points
	It's interesting how they broke it down into 20 for each of the five categories. Had they allowed for different categories to contain more than others, names like Elvis and Babe Ruth may have made the list. Though I still question whether Elvis and Babe Ruth are less important to the 20th century than the father of modern air conditioning (Willis Carrier) and the guy whose father's company is responsible for the Hoover Dam (Stephen Bechtel).

	Robert_Seth:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:19 GMT	21 points
	This quiz was both fun, as the name all the important people quizzes always are, and completely ridiculous. I would like to see an essay proving Lech Walesa was more important to the 20th century than Stalin.

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	shakescene:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:22 GMT	31 points
	Dumb. Just like the one for the "greatest people" of the Millennium. Reagan, Sakharov, Gorbachev and Lech Walesa, but not Stalin? Give me a break. No Duke Ellington or Elvis Presley? No Orwell? No Proust or Sartre? Bechtel but not Henry Kaiser or Robert Moses? John Paul II but not John XXIII? Ché but not Castro? Stravinsky but not Shostakovich or Aaron Copland? Bill Gates but not Jobs or Wozniak or Marc Andreesen?

	TeganX7:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:27 GMT	9 points
	@Robert Seth: While I (sadly) agree that Stalin left a bigger mark on the century, at the century's end, a democratic Poland was there, and the USSR was not. That's a glib response to your question (which I actually agree with), but chalk it up to "the last ideology standing". I think Walesa became a rallying point for people showing it was possible to stand up to a repressive regime, survive, and win concessions. I'm not saying he "won" the Cold War .... but he had his role to play.

	bean:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:28 GMT	43 points
	Guess I'm an idiot for guessing Stalin. After all he only kept up the Iron Curtain for a few odd years and took part in the largest nuclear arms race known to man. Among other unspeakable things.

	Jaspers:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:33 GMT	49 points
	Did Time know there was a first world war, also?

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	sevorak:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:38 GMT	17 points
	Can you accept Tank Man for the Unknown Rebel?

	cottb128:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:40 GMT	9 points
	Too 20th Century-centric, Sporclers ages 9 and under are going to be confused and lost.

	xeju:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:41 GMT	3 points
	This is a really interesting quiz... I'm gonna need to research the 50% I've never heard of... (and whack myself on the head for the 25% I didn't think of) 25/100

	Haunter:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:43 GMT	-2 points
	Ok, Is Rachel Carson really more important than Elvis Presley?

	CharlieBrown:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:45 GMT	12 points
	Rachel Carson is more important that Presley in terms of the category Carson was in.

Heroes and Icons

	Haunter:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:51 GMT	16 points
	Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring," which every textbook says is important but in reality no one reads. J. Robert Oppenheimer is nicknamed "The Father of the Atomic Bomb." I leave it up to you to decide who belongs on this list.

	Henry Moomaw:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:55 GMT	1 point
	How can Jesse Owens, Michael Jordan, Joe Louis, and Tiger Woods not make this list in the heroes and icons section? And if Pete Rozelle can make it as a "builder/titan" for his NFL leadership, where is Branch Rickey in the same category? Without him, the color barrier would not have been broken in baseball for possibly several more years, and likely by not as great a person who could handle the extreme stress as Jackie Robinson.

	juviejay:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 05:55 GMT	40 points
	I typed in Armstrong, expecting to get Neil Armstrong, but got Louie instead. Guess trumpet playing is more important than walking on the moon.

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	nhrafan:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 06:08 GMT	4 points
	Well, those were some interesting choices. The people at Time must've either been wearing blinders or drawing some random names. Definitely room for a reader's choice list so we can see some of the omissions, but, unfortunately, that will never happen.

	MRL:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 06:09 GMT	24 points
	I was very surprised that Alfred Hitchcock didn't make the list of entertainers.

	AStue:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 06:16 GMT	12 points
	I was shocked that bob hope was not on here. He was an influential person who was actually alive for nearly all of this century

	boknowsmovies:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 06:36 GMT	5 points
	AStue, I was just about to mention Bob Hope. To me, he's the most important celebrity of all time. He was one of the first people who used his celebrity status to do good things. Entertaining the troops is still one of the coolest things entertainers do, and Bob Hope had as big an influence on those programs than anybody.

	Ephraim:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 06:44 GMT	3 points
	Ah, another one of those stupid, pointless lists that a couple of editors cook up now and then. These things are annoying, as they are so subjective and prone to media-distorted ideas of what makes someone "important".

	davidr:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 07:52 GMT	4 points
	@shakescene: Well all lists like these are dumb but I'd like to defend this one against a couple of the suggestions you make. First off, though, I agree that Stalin is a huge omission and I can only assume that the list's compilers somehow thought they couldn't have three Soviet leaders (even though they have four US presidents plus two of their wives — buh?). But I think Che over Castro is a reasonable choice: Che is an icon and was an inspiration to a whole movement; Castro's `just' the leader of Cuba. Speaking as a big fan of Shostakovich, I have to say that Stravinsky is the more worthy addition to this list. He had a massive influence on C20th `classical' music and is fairly widely-known to the public, whereas Shostakovich was, essentially, continuing the C19th tradition and his experimental music was pretty dire (second symphony, anyone?) and had little lasting influence. As for Gates vs Jobs, look at the number of people who use Windows versus the number who use Macs. Remember that this is way pre-iPod so you can't count that as a Jobs achievement for the purposes of this quiz.

	davidr:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 07:55 GMT	3 points
	@david: To be honest, I doubt Holst would make a list of the 20 most important composers of the 20th Century, let alone this sub-list of the 20 most important figures in the arts and entertainment. Sure, he got lucky and wrote a well-known piece but his output was very small and his lasting influence was essentially nil.

	yes:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 08:14 GMT	3 points
	The list's biggest problem is that it divides things into categories, allowing the inclusion of people who would otherwise be drowned out by leaders, revolutionaries and scientists. Princess Diana is probably the most glaring example.

	y2jdilemma:	Aug 14th, 2009 at 08:29 GMT	2 points
	So I start typing "Walesa" and get Princess Diana. Strange.