Most controversial person in history

[West Leas Oros 2]

Barack “scandal-free administration” Obama.

Imagine specifically hating Obama when every President alive today is an obvious war criminal.

[Libertalonia]

Erm,

I would pick winston churchill, Vladmir lenin, Oppenheimer, Ronald regan and george washington

[Major-Tom]

Barack “scandal-free administration” Obama.

Imagine specifically hating Obama when every President alive today is an obvious war criminal.

My daddy is a truck and my mother is a flag, and you will not talk about OUR 45th president like that.

[The Archregimancy]

More people have heard of Gavrilo Princip more than the third consul of Rome.

You'd be surprised. On the British game show Pointless only about 3 out of 100 people knew who assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and started WW1...

Whereas everyone remembers that Publius Valerius Poplicola was the third consul of the Roman Republic.

Though the consuls served in pairs, Valerius was elected to serve out the remainder of the term of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus (one of the first pair of consuls alongside Lucius Junius Brutus) once Collatinus was forced to resign over his connections to the recently exiled royal family.

Or so the traditional story goes, anyway.

[Punished UMN]

You'd be surprised. On the British game show Pointless only about 3 out of 100 people knew who assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and started WW1...

Whereas everyone remembers that Publius Valerius Poplicola was the third consul of the Roman Republic.

Though the consuls served in pairs, Valerius was elected to serve out the remainder of the term of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus (one of the first pair of consuls alongside Lucius Junius Brutus) once Collatinus was forced to resign over his connections to the recently exiled royal family.

Or so the traditional story goes, anyway.

IIRC it's ironic because Collatinus was the husband of Lucretia, and actually helped overthrow the monarchy.

[Mathuvan Union]

You'd be surprised. On the British game show Pointless only about 3 out of 100 people knew who assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and started WW1...

Whereas everyone remembers that Publius Valerius Poplicola was the third consul of the Roman Republic.

Though the consuls served in pairs, Valerius was elected to serve out the remainder of the term of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus (one of the first pair of consuls alongside Lucius Junius Brutus) once Collatinus was forced to resign over his connections to the recently exiled royal family.

Or so the traditional story goes, anyway.

I guess I'm hypocritical because I was thinking of the wrong person.

[The New California Republic]

You'd be surprised. On the British game show Pointless only about 3 out of 100 people knew who assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and started WW1...

Whereas everyone remembers that Publius Valerius Poplicola was the third consul of the Roman Republic.

Though the consuls served in pairs, Valerius was elected to serve out the remainder of the term of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus (one of the first pair of consuls alongside Lucius Junius Brutus) once Collatinus was forced to resign over his connections to the recently exiled royal family.

Or so the traditional story goes, anyway.

Tbh I've been very surprised at some of the things the 100 people have known on Pointless and yet they don't know something that I'd say is common knowledge, so it wouldn't shock me in the least if more of them knew the third consul than Gavrilo...

[The Archregimancy]

Honorable mention for the hero who finally shot Hitler.

Hitler shot Hitler.

5000 years of recorded history to choose from, and there's only 3 nominations so far (when I started writing this post) from before the 15th century AD (excluding God). That leaves you 3500 years of history to play with.

Octavian/Augustus, Mohammed, and Genghis Khan aren't bad as pre-modern nominations go, but you could do so much better if you tried.

Khufu, Sargon of Akkad, Akhenaten, Alexander the Great, Qin Shi Huang, Constantine the Great, Khusrau II, Wu Zetian ... there's so much material to work with here if you put just a bit of effort in.

Wu Zetian wasn't more terrible than any contemporary. She was just smeared for being a female Emperor.

True enough; and indeed we can argue that she was an extraordinarily successful ruler whose successful rule helped usher in the Tang golden age of Xuanzong. But the question isn't about whether or not the controversy was justified; merely over whether a historical figure is - or was - controversial. And, rightly or wrongly, Wu Zetian remains controversial due to her status as China's only female emperor in her own right.

[Mathuvan Union]

Honorable mention for the hero who finally shot Hitler.

Hitler shot Hitler.

Wu Zetian wasn't more terrible than any contemporary. She was just smeared for being a female Emperor.

True enough; and indeed we can argue that she was an extraordinarily successful ruler whose successful rule helped usher in the Tang golden age of Xuanzong. But the question isn't about whether or not the controversy was justified; merely over whether a historical figure is - or was - controversial. And, rightly or wrongly, Wu Zetian remains controversial due to her status as China's only female emperor in her own right.

wait so Hitler gets a honourable mention for shooting himself? Do the Italian Partisans who executed Mussolini get one, too?

[Mathuvan Union]

What? When? How?

Mathuvan's using a bit of hyperbole. Close to 300,000 people died, not millions.

a bit? I am hyperbole-ing my hyperbole

[Glorious Hong Kong]

Karl Marx: Inadvertently inspired an ideology that has directly resulted in the deaths of tens, possibly hundreds, of millions of people due to misguided policies, but also indirectly inspired more moderate offshoots such as social democracy and social liberalism in direct response to the excesses of the millenarian communist project, giving the world public holidays and millions of people universal healthcare and a social safety net.

Emperor Napoleon: Waged an epic war of conquest and subjugation across Europe, but also seeded a degree of republicanism and political modernity at the same time.

Christopher Columbus: "Discovered" the Americas, paving the way for the European colonization of the Western Hemisphere and the rise of the United States of America, but also enslaved the natives and introduced a whole profusion of deadly diseases to which the natives had no immunity.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: Implemented the New Deal and defeated Imperial Japan and, with the aid of its Soviet and Western European allies, Nazi Germany, consequently reviving America's battered economy to pre-Wall Street Crash levels and transforming a former Third World shithole (by today's standards) into the richest and most powerful country in the world and a beacon of freedom and democracy for millions of people around the world to this very day, but also detained Japanese-Americans in internment camps throughout the duration of the Japanese-American Pacific War (1941-45), attempted to pack the Supreme Court with yes-men, and birthed a realist, interventionist, Cold War-era foreign policy that consisted of toppling democratically-elected governments and propping up authoritarian capitalist dictatorships.

Chiang Kai-shek: Fascist, later conservative dictator who brutally crushed all opposition to his rule and lost the Chinese Civil War to the fucking CCP of all people, but subsequently paved the way for a more democratic and independent Taiwan upon his death in 1975. And he did fight against communism and Japanese imperialism.

Jesus Christ: Like Marx, he gave rise to a religion that, like Islam and communism, is directly responsible for the deaths of millions of people. Didn't mean it. Also inadvertently left behind a rich and lasting cultural legacy that persists to this very day in the form of churches, cathedrals, the Holy Bible, and other cultural artifacts both tangible and intangible. Partly responsible for Christmas (although much of it was appropriated from pagan traditions).

Numerous controversial world leaders:

Mohammed Ali Jinnah
David Ben-Gurion
Lee Kuan Yew
Sun Yat-sen
Winston Churchill
Sukarno
John F. Kennedy
Barack Obama
Donald Trump
Narendra Modi

VERDICT:

Most controversial person in history: I'm divided between Karl Marx and Jesus Christ. Communism and social democracy have had a far greater impact in modern times, but Christianity has existed for nearly two millennia.

Most controversial person alive today: Donald Trump. Not the kindest person in existence, but a means to an end.

[Kowani]

Honorable mention for the hero who finally shot Hitler.

Hitler shot Hitler.

thatsthejoke.jpg

[The Archregimancy]

Whereas everyone remembers that Publius Valerius Poplicola was the third consul of the Roman Republic.

Though the consuls served in pairs, Valerius was elected to serve out the remainder of the term of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus (one of the first pair of consuls alongside Lucius Junius Brutus) once Collatinus was forced to resign over his connections to the recently exiled royal family.

Or so the traditional story goes, anyway.

IIRC it's ironic because Collatinus was the husband of Lucretia, and actually helped overthrow the monarchy.

You do recall correctly; Dr Archregimancy is mildly impressed.

It's even more ironic in that Brutus, his colleague as consul (and, indeed, cousin) was even closer to the royal house. Brutus was the grandson of the fifth king Tarquin the Elder, and the nephew of the sixth and final king Tarquinius Superbus. Collatinus was merely the great-nephew of Tarquin the Elder. So when Brutus called for Collatinus's resignation on the basis of the latter's links to the royal family, it came as a bit of a shock; according to Livy it was only when Lucretia's father Spurius Lucretius Tricipitinus also called on Collatinus to resign that he stepped down.

The odd disconnect between Collatinus resigning because of his royal links even though Brutus was more closely related to the last king is often explained by Collatinus having 'Tarquinius' in his names, and that this reminded the resentful people of Rome of their hated king; Brutus, in contrast, didn't - he was born to Tarquin II's sister, so avoided the hated family name.

But realistically, all of these events are semi-legendary; they make a nice story, though.

[Nuroblav]

Anybody mentioned Gavrilo Princip yet? That would probably be up there.

EDIT: Looks like it got mentioned.

[Mathuvan Union]

IIRC it's ironic because Collatinus was the husband of Lucretia, and actually helped overthrow the monarchy.

You do recall correctly; Dr Archregimancy is mildly impressed.

It's even more ironic in that Brutus, his colleague as consul (and, indeed, cousin) was even closer to the royal house. Brutus was the grandson of the fifth king Tarquin the Elder, and the nephew of the sixth and final king Tarquinius Superbus. Collatinus was merely the great-nephew of Tarquin the Elder. So when Brutus called for Collatinus's resignation on the basis of the latter's links to the royal family, it came as a bit of a shock; according to Livy it was only when Lucretia's father Spurius Lucretius Tricipitinus also called on Collatinus to resign that he stepped down.

The odd disconnect between Collatinus resigning because of his royal links even though Brutus was more closely related to the last king is often explained by Collatinus having 'Tarquinius' in his names, and that this reminded the resentful people of Rome of their hated king; Brutus, in contrast, didn't - he was born to Tarquin II's sister, so avoided the hated family name.

But realistically, all of these events are semi-legendary; they make a nice story, though.

But didn't brutus help kill Caesar, which was ironic because he was related to people who overthrew the monarchy?

[The Archregimancy]

Hitler shot Hitler.

thatsthejoke.jpg

In these threads you can never be quite sure, can you?

I mean, the "History" Channel did get three seasons out of Hunting Hitler.

[Haja-Mishu]

yo mama is the most controversial person in history

[Lower Nubia]

Muhammad.

[Mathuvan Union]

thatsthejoke.jpg

In these threads you can never be quite sure, can you?

I mean, the "History" Channel did get three seasons out of Hunting Hitler.

I loved that, but when they decided Swamp people were history I quit.

[Kowani]

thatsthejoke.jpg

In these threads you can never be quite sure, can you?

I mean, the "History" Channel did get three seasons out of Hunting Hitler.

...What is tha-

you know what? I don't want to know.

[Nuroblav]

In these threads you can never be quite sure, can you?

I mean, the "History" Channel did get three seasons out of Hunting Hitler.

Sometimes I have absolutely no idea what goes on with History Channel sometimes.

This sums things up fairly well.

[The Archregimancy]

You do recall correctly; Dr Archregimancy is mildly impressed.

It's even more ironic in that Brutus, his colleague as consul (and, indeed, cousin) was even closer to the royal house. Brutus was the grandson of the fifth king Tarquin the Elder, and the nephew of the sixth and final king Tarquinius Superbus. Collatinus was merely the great-nephew of Tarquin the Elder. So when Brutus called for Collatinus's resignation on the basis of the latter's links to the royal family, it came as a bit of a shock; according to Livy it was only when Lucretia's father Spurius Lucretius Tricipitinus also called on Collatinus to resign that he stepped down.

The odd disconnect between Collatinus resigning because of his royal links even though Brutus was more closely related to the last king is often explained by Collatinus having 'Tarquinius' in his names, and that this reminded the resentful people of Rome of their hated king; Brutus, in contrast, didn't - he was born to Tarquin II's sister, so avoided the hated family name.

But realistically, all of these events are semi-legendary; they make a nice story, though.

But didn't brutus help kill Caesar, which was ironic because he was related to people who overthrew the monarchy?

Different Brutus.

Lucius Junius Brutus was the co-first consul who helped overthrow the Roman monarchy in 509 BC.

Marcus Junius Brutus was one of the assassins of Julius Caesar in 44 BC.

However, Marcus was a direct descendant of Lucius according to the traditional family genealogy.

[Ethel mermania]

thatsthejoke.jpg

In these threads you can never be quite sure, can you?

I mean, the "History" Channel did get three seasons out of Hunting Hitler.

A hefty prophet was made all around.

[Punished UMN]

IIRC it's ironic because Collatinus was the husband of Lucretia, and actually helped overthrow the monarchy.

You do recall correctly; Dr Archregimancy is mildly impressed.

It's even more ironic in that Brutus, his colleague as consul (and, indeed, cousin) was even closer to the royal house. Brutus was the grandson of the fifth king Tarquin the Elder, and the nephew of the sixth and final king Tarquinius Superbus. Collatinus was merely the great-nephew of Tarquin the Elder. So when Brutus called for Collatinus's resignation on the basis of the latter's links to the royal family, it came as a bit of a shock; according to Livy it was only when Lucretia's father Spurius Lucretius Tricipitinus also called on Collatinus to resign that he stepped down.

The odd disconnect between Collatinus resigning because of his royal links even though Brutus was more closely related to the last king is often explained by Collatinus having 'Tarquinius' in his names, and that this reminded the resentful people of Rome of their hated king; Brutus, in contrast, didn't - he was born to Tarquin II's sister, so avoided the hated family name.

But realistically, all of these events are semi-legendary; they make a nice story, though.

I guess I learned something from my Roman history class and from spending my senior year with a classics major.

[Mathuvan Union]

But didn't brutus help kill Caesar, which was ironic because he was related to people who overthrew the monarchy?

Different Brutus.

Lucius Junius Brutus was the co-first consul who helped overthrow the Roman monarchy in 509 BC.

Marcus Junius Brutus was one of the assassins of Julius Caesar in 44 BC.

However, Marcus was a direct descendant of Lucius according to the traditional family genealogy.

I have failed Dr. Archregimancy...
they have awfully similar names.