Mohandas Gandhi
Out of the Indian independence movement arose a figure few will ever forget: Mohandas 'Mahatma' Gandhi. While working as a lawyer in South Africa, he pioneered the concept of satyagraha, or, civil disobedience in response to tyranny, helping Indians there campaign for civil rights. His peaceful acts of protest abroad and his anti-poverty campaigns at home helped him become the spiritual heart of the Indian independence struggle. Working with Jawaharlal Nehru, the nation's future prime minister, Gandhi led the country in peaceful protest against foreign domination, exemplified by the 1930 Salt March in protest to a British salt tax. His rise paved the way for India's independence in 1947. Though the country was later divided (and Gandhi himself assassinated), his role in the bloodless revolution earned him the title "Father of India" and paved the way for other social movements, including America's struggle for civil rights.
Alexander the Great
The world knows no more precocious or proud a conqueror than Alexander the Great. According to legend — and legends are legion about this fellow — the young Macedonian prince carried the blood of the Olympian god Zeus in his veins and overcame a bullying father and cloying mother to lead a triumphant army across the Bosporus to the near ends of the earth. He defeated the mighty Persian Empire, ever the scourge of the Greeks, razed its once mighty capital of Persepolis to the ground and tried to stitch together an incredible cosmopolitan empire from the Indus to the Hellespont — all while he was in his 20s. He died from an arrow wound at the tender age of 32, still harboring dreams of finding greater shores and nations to bring under his yoke. His imperial project proved too great for his followers, who soon set about warring with each other soon after Alexander's death.
Mao Zedong
As the leader of the People's Republic of China for the better part of 25 years, Mao Zedong is one of the most influential figures in history and was named by TIME as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. Building on Marxism and Leninism, Mao put his own spin on Communist political theory in what is now known as Maoism. But his legacy remains a complicated one. In China, where his portrait still hangs in Tiananmen Square, he is regarded as a revolutionary mastermind whose ideas provided the foundation for advancements that helped the nation grow from an agrarian society into a world power. But much of China's current success came with great hardship. Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution are blamed for the deaths of tens of millions, largely due to famine.
Winston Churchill
It's difficult to imagine 20th century Britain without Sir Winston Churchill. Through two world wars and beyond, he played a pivotal role in the nation's foreign affairs, first as the lord of the admirality at the start of World War I and then as prime minister during World War II. But while he, along with the other Allied leaders, helped save Britain from Axis conquest, he also ruled as the once-mighty British Empire completed its retreat from the world stage. The scorn and outright racism he felt for many of Britain's former colonial subjects are a facet of his past historians have only recently started to acknowledge.
In 1939, on the day Britain declared war on Germany, he again became head of the British navy. But it was soon clear that only Churchill could unite the country in the face of Nazi aggression, and he eventually replaced the acquiescent Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Churchill's stirring oratory and ever-present confidence (just think of his regular flashing of the V for victory sign) galvanized the British people and carried them through five years of European conflict. But he was a wartime leader, not a true politician, and lost his job in July 1945. Churchill remained a force throughout the 1950s, though, regaining his position as prime minister in 1951 and warning of the growing strength of the Soviet Union and its Iron Curtain.
Genghis Khan
Few figures in world history inspire the awe — and terror — that Genghis, or Chengiz, Khan does. Through canny politicking and force of will, the 13th century Mongol warlord banded together a confederation of nomadic tribes in his remote homeland of endless steppe. Then he unleashed his horde upon the rest of the world, his rapid horse archers serving as a kind of medieval-era blitzkrieg. His own campaigns focused mostly on parts of China and Central Asia, but his descendants would go on to create a vast empire that spanned from the fringes of Siberia into the river valleys of Eastern Europe.
Genghis is largely remembered as the brutal, devastating marauder he once was, but that doesn't mean he's not loved. Mongolia has embraced their most famous potentate and images of Genghis Khan adorn myriad buildings and products, not least a popular brand of vodka. An hour's drive outside the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar, an over-12-storey steel statue of the horse-lord looms over the horizon, brooding over the empty steppe.
Nelson Mandela
Over his 27 years in jail, Nelson Mandela became the symbol of an entire people's struggle against injustice. And as his time behind bars grew so did the anti-apartheid movement he helped spur on. Mandela began his journey in 1944 when he joined the African National Congress (ANC) and became part of the resistance movement against the largely white, ethnic Afrikaner National Party's policies of segregation. His actions resulted in arrest and imprisonment, the majority of which was served at the infamous Robben Island prison. Upon his release in 1990, Mandela became head of the ANC and worked hand-in-hand with then-president F.W. de Klerk to end the country's long-held policies of racial segregation and apartheid. They were awarded the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for their work. In 1994, he won the nation's first multiracial elections, becoming South Africa's first black president. Though he has since retired from politics, Mandela continues to embody the struggle for peace, reconciliation and social justice worldwide.
Abraham Lincoln
Stories about Abraham Lincoln have attained the status of myth: he was born in a log cabin, he was a legendary debater, he freed the slaves, he saved the Union. The 16th U.S. president did come along at precisely the right moment for a nation wounded by its great flaw — slavery. Lincoln laid out his vision for the United States when he proclaimed during his 1858 U.S. Senate campaign that a "house divided cannot stand." When he was elected president in 1860, becoming the first Republican elected to the executive branch, Lincoln realized that in order to save the Constitution he had to save the Union, even if it led to bloodshed. (More than 600,000 soldiers were killed during the Civil War.)
His 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the Union's successful prosecution of the war meant that Lincoln was practically an iconic figure even before his assassination just days after the conflict's end in 1865. He became even more iconic in the scores of years since. Prior to the Gettysburg Address, a man spoke, delivering a lengthy two-hour speech. Then Lincoln emerged to give his moving address, which lasted a mere two minutes. The other man and his speech are largely forgotten to history. The Gettysburg Address is for the ages.
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler is possibly the most reviled man in the history of human existence, a universal symbol for evil. Yet his presence pervades our culture in film, in an endless stream of World War II literature and historical texts, and even in our own political rhetoric. Hitler's fervent nationalism — which eventually led to the most horrific displays of inhumanity ever witnessed — initially stirred a tired and hungry German people who fell in line with his National Socialism party following their devastating loss of territory and prestige in World War I. Once firmly in power, the Third Reich quickly suppressed all political opponents and oppressed anyone who was not from the German fatherland. Hitler's terror swept through Europe as Germany gobbled up European neighbors and joined forces with other fascist and militaristic regimes in Italy and Japan. But once Hitler's forces were finally defeated by the Allies in World War II, Germany quickly moved to conceal its terrible history. While there have been recent moves in Germany to confront its tragic past, the reign of the Third Reich remains a naturally fraught subject.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara
He set out to do more than just upend the world's economic system — he wanted to change what it means to be a human being. Ernesto Guevara's hombre nuevo, new man, was endowed with the ability to permanently prioritize the "other" over the "self." The embrace of the nickname "Che" fit perfectly into his everyman philosophy; the interjection, which has no English equivalent, comes from Guevara's homeland of Argentina and is used as a salutatory title with no consideration for rank or gender.
The portrait of a rugged, beret-wearing Guevara hangs on the walls of both Latin American kitchens, U.S. college dorm rooms and over Havana's Revolutionary Square because Che was the embodiment of a man true to his word who never backs down. That Guevara would by all modern definitions be judged a war criminal only serves to amplify his icon. As he joined Fidel Castro's march through Cuba in the 1950's, Guevara never wavered on the principle that you were either for the revolution or you weren't. It was Guevara who orchestrated extrajudicial killings on the mere suspicion of disloyalty. Che could only become the familiar mugshot on t-shirts if he was willing to pay the ultimate price. After Guevara was captured fomenting revolution in Bolivia in 1967, he said, "Go ahead and kill me, I am just a man."
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan once said the 11th commandment was "thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican." But if that were to be an amendment to the American political covenant, then the very first commandment would have to be, "thou shalt not speak ill of Ronald Reagan." That the Gipper holds a special place in America's political universe has been made plain with rhetoric from across the aisle. In just one debate in the 2008 Republican primaries, which took place 20 years after Reagan left office, the candidates evoked his name 53 times. The Reagan-love became so pronounced it prompted his daughter, Patti Davis, never a great fan of her father's political platform, to publicly scold the candidates, "You're no Ronald Reagan." And during that same primary season Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama noted that his role model for political leadership was in fact Reagan, because he "changed the trajectory of America in a way... that Bill Clinton did not."
Reagan's status as a political King Midas is all the more impressive when considering that on his trademark issue — shrinking government — he actually came up short. According to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), federal spending grew 22 percent under Reagan. But Reagan's genius lay in his understanding that stage presence can go a long way in helping to cement an agenda in the permanent national culture. As he promoted his worldview of the individual patriot fighting against the constraints of big government, Reagan presented himself as the horse-riding, cowboy-hat wearing frontiersman. That robust image was certainly reinforced by a host of biographical anecdotes; as a lifeguard, Reagan once saved 77 people from drowning.
Cleopatra
The Egyptian Queen Cleopatra is remembered for the luxuries of her fabled kingdom, her dazzling beauty and, above all, her death. Immortalized by Shakespeare, her alleged suicide was the stuff of romantic legend — despairing after the defeat in battle of her lover, Marc Antony, she succumbed to the venomous bite of an asp rather than be taken captive by the victorious Roman Octavian, nephew of Julius Caesar, another one of her many paramours. Over the centuries, Cleopatra has become synonymous with seduction, her feminine wiles aligned alongside an image of the East as decadent, debauched and ready to be taken.
Recent scholarship, though, has done much to bring the real Cleopatra into the light, showing how the ancient monarch was a shrewd politico bent on defending the land her family's dynasty had governed for some two centuries, while expanding her influence into the Roman world. Scholars still puzzle over the true extent of beauty and debate her racial origins — some say she was more African, others point to the decidedly Greek character of dynastic line. Most recently, Egypt's archaeologist in chief, the controversial, flamboyant Zawi Hawass, unveiled an extensive mission to unveil her and Antony's supposed tomb, a find that could shed more light on the tragic couple's last moments. But, thus far, the search has gone cold and the legendary queen remains still ensconced in myth.
Franklin Roosevelt
The reverence for which America reserved for Franklin Roosevelt over the course of his presidency would simply be impossible to replicate in the America of 2011. During the 12 years of his presidency, FDR was credited with not just personally saving the global economy, but also facing down the worst thug the world has ever known. As such, he was spoken of as either a family member or as a handyman neighbor who could swing by to solve problems on demand. Roosevelt's standing as a national guardian of sorts was strengthened by his famous fireside chats, during which Roosevelt referred to his countrymen as "friends." In those chats Roosevelt also chose to deliberately speak in a slow cadence to create a sense of calm in spite of the chaos he discussed.
Aware of his unique hold on the nation, Roosevelt couldn't resist the temptation to try and maximize his political capital. While he was rebuffed on his plan to pack the Supreme Court with New Deal sympathizers, he was swiftly reelected to unprecedented third and fourth terms, the latter of which when he was plainly not physically up to the job. Indeed, Roosevelt was the beneficiary of an organic grassroots cult of personality not unlike the one autocrats often aim to force upon their unwitting subjects. Photos of Roosevelt were plastered throughout American homes and public spaces including barber shops. The press even respected his disability, and only photographed him from the waist up. When Roosevelt was clearly dying in office in 1945, the idea his vice president might actually take over was so inconceivable that Harry Truman wasn't even briefed on the plan to develop the atomic bomb until after he took office.
Dalai Lama
To countless Tibetans, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a spiritual leader and a head of state in absentia. But to people around the world, Tenzin Gyatso is not only the greatest and most public advocate for Tibetan rights and the virtues of Tibetan Buddhism, but for interfaith tolerance and peace as well. For decades — and from exile since 1959 — he has worked to resolve tensions between Tibet and the People's Republic of China. And like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. before him, the Dalai Lama done so in a manner defined by nonviolence and tolerance. In 1989, he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
The Dalai Lama's humility has endeared him to presidents and religious leaders of several countries, affording him the opportunity to raise awareness and drum up support for Tibet on a global scale. His 1998 book, The Art of Happiness, sold more than 1.5 million copies in the U.S. and made him a New York Times bestselling author for nearly two years. Yet little the 14th Dalai Lama can do seems to endear him to the authorities in Beijing, who have rebuffed his overtures, label him a "wolf in monk's robes," and seem intent on waiting for the iconic figure to die. For all the global compassion and sympathy the Dalai Lama has won, his lasting legacy may be one of sad, crestfallen failure.
Queen Victoria
Great Britain expanded in nearly every way during Queen Victoria's 64 years and seven months on the throne. It is her name with which we now associate the country's 19th century cultural, social, economic, political, scientific, industrial, technological, military and colonial dominance. During the Victorian Era, the United Kingdom saw its power and influence spread to the far reaches of the Earth, including to its colonial-crown jewel, India (which gave the queen an additional title — the Empress of India). Though her power faded as Britain increasingly shifted power to elected officials, the Queen's influence in society remained high. Today she is remembered most as the embodiment of an era of strict standards, rigid morals and prudishness.
Benito Mussolini
Thirsting for power and dreaming of empire, a young Benito Mussolini left his socialist roots to become one of the key figures in the creation of fascism. After the Italian government collapsed in 1922, he became the nation's youngest prime minister and worked to established fascism as the majority party, thus beginning his reign as Il Duce, or "the leader." In the beginning, Mussolini gathered widespread popular support for his efforts to restore order and introduce public works improvements. But what began as a promising reign was derailed when he aligned himself with Germany during World War II. He was forced from his seat only to be rescued from prison by the Nazis and put in charge of Hitler's puppet-government in Northern Italy. When Germany's defenses collapsed in 1945, Mussolini was captured and executed by Italian partisans as he tried to escape to Austria. Despite Mussolini's obvious crimes, he is not universally hated like his compatriot, Hitler. In fact, his granddaughter, Alessandra, once served as an Italian parliamentarian.
Akbar the Great
If ever a leader merited a tautology, it was the Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great (literally, "Great the Great"). Under Akbar, a fragile collection of fiefs around Delhi grew into the great Mughal Empire, a diverse and sprawling kingdom across northern India. While Christians staggered haltingly toward achieving what we now know as the Renaissance, Akbar presided over a flourishing of the arts, sponsoring artisans, poets, engineers and philosophers. He was a canny warlord whose conquests gave rise to one of the early modern world's wealthiest states. Moreover, while a Muslim, Akbar was spiritually curious and hosted religious scholars from Hindu gurus to Jesuits at his vast, diverse court. At his capital city of Fatehpur Sikri, which he built according to astronomical coordinates, he championed a melding of Hinduism and Islam known as the din-i-ilahi or the "divine faith." While the creed no longer lingers, the ethos of pluralism and tolerance that defined Akbar's age underlies the values of the modern republic of India.
Lenin
After peasant uprisings toppled Tsar Nicolas II, Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from exile in 1917 to stage the greatest coup of the 20th century. Inspired by the writings of Marx and Engels and a desire to be at the "vanguard of the proletariat," Lenin spearheaded the Bolshevik Revolution, ousting the Provisional Government that had replaced the monarchy to establish what would eventually become the Soviet Union — the progenitor of modern day Communist states. By the end of his rule, Lenin had become the ruthless leader he'd once detested, ignoring starving, impoverished workers and crushing any political opposition. In 1921, faced with the same kind of peasant revolt that brought him to power, Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy, ending requisitioning and allowing workers to sell their grain in an open market. Lenin didn't seek to just remake Russia, however, but spread his communist transformation to all the far corners of the earth. And while he never saw those dreams come to fruition in his lifetime, Lenin's political theories were evoked by generations of rebels and guerrillas. For decades, Marxist-Leninist rebellions shook the world while Lenin's embalmed corpse lay in repose in the Red Square.
Margaret Thatcher
A woman with high standards and a short temper, Margaret Thatcher was not known as Britain's Iron Lady for nothing. After working as both a chemist and a barrister and having two children, Thatcher saw her long-held political ambitions realized in 1959 when she became a Member of Parliament in the Conservative Party. Twenty years later, she found herself Prime Minister. Serving from 1979 to 1990, she was Europe's first female Prime Minister and the only British Prime Minister to serve three consecutive terms. During her 11 years in the position, she worked — against a fair amount of resistance — to turn Britain into a more entrepreneurial free-market economy. Thatcher advocated for the privatization of state industries, pressed for lower taxes, faced trade unions head-on and reduced social expenditures across the board. Along with Ronald Reagan, her conservative partner across the Atlantic, she is also credited with helping to hasten the demise of the Soviet Union.
Simón Bolívar
South of the Río Grande, he's known simply as El Libertador — "The Liberator." Streets are so commonly emblazoned with that title, statues of Simón Bolívar on horse are so widely on display in Latin America for the simple reason Bolívar directly led the independence movements of five South American countries. One of them, Bolivia, even named itself after him. The narrative of an unstinting soldier — Bolívar was ejected from Venezuela four times — freeing the oppressed has proved politically irresistible to all subsequent Latin leaders seeking to couch their leadership as a defense of the masses.
Hugo Chávez isn't the first head of state to exploit Bolívar's life story, but the Venezuelan president has taken the strategy to new heights. Chávez has coined his platform as the "21st Century Bolivarian Revolution," in which today's Spanish Empire is the U.S.-led global capitalist order. And when Chávez appears on his weekly-televised program, Aló, Presidente, a huge portrait of Bolívar often appears in the background. Chávez has even dug up Bolívar's remains to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death. Bolívar's last days were also the subject of Gabriel García Márquez's book, The General in his Labyrinth. In his day, Bolívar was said to be honored by being thought of as "The George Washington of South America," save one gripe he had with the American Revolution — the protection it provided for slavery.
Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang was just a young 13-year-old when he became King of the Qin state. But his rule would mark the first time China unified her warring states, in 221 B.C., with Qin as the nation's first Emperor. Beyond joining territory to create a common nation, Qin instituted standardized structure to much of Chinese society at the time, including measuring and monetary units, laws and written script, which would remain a part of Chinese society years after his death. Qin also imposed legalism on his citizens, a totalitarian philosophy that suited his sometimes brutal leadership style perfectly. Some of China's most significant cultural landmarks, among them the Great Wall, Terracotta Army museum, and Qin's own mausoleum began during his rule. He is hailed as the iconic unifier of a nation and culture. But his reign was responsible for one of China's greatest cultural tragedies, too. To keep history on his side, Qin set fire to all books not related to medicine, agriculture, certain sciences and the story of his own dynasty, and burned scholars alive for owning forbidden texts.
Kim Il-Sung
Kim Il-Sung, the father of communist North Korea, began his political life by fleeing Japanese rule of his homeland. After some Soviet training and membership in a local communist party, Kim returned to Korea during World War II and established a communist government in 1948. For the next half-decade, Kim ruled North Korea with a brutal iron fist. While promising great wealth for his country, Kim suppressed his people and fashioned a militaristic society. In 1950, he instigated the Korean War following an attempt to reunify the peninsula. (He was rebuffed by U.S. and UN forces.) After the war, the state-run economy, based on Kim's philosophy of "self-reliance," grew fairly rapidly but stagnated in the 1990s. When Kim Il-Sung died in 1994, his son Kim Jong-Il naturally succeeded him, continuing many of his father's heavy-handed policies. Today, the country is now desperately poor and heavily reliant on aid from China. While Kim Il-Sung's presence is still widely felt some two decades after his death, he is also still seen. Some say that the presumptive heir to lead North Korea, Kim Jong-un, looks eerily like his grandfather.
Charles de Gaulle
The father of modern France was a relatively unknown general when he became the face of French resistance against Nazi Germany during World War II. In his now historic Appeal of June 18, de Gaulle decried his country's proposed armistice with Germany and delivered a passionate plea for continued opposition against the Nazi Army in a 1940 radio address broadcast by the BBC. Nearly two decades later, de Gaulle saw his country through another period of conflict, the Algerian War, when he defied some of his most loyal supporters and helped Algeria gain independence. A fervent nationalist, De Gaulle was the architect of a new constitution that bolstered executive power and founded France's Fifth Republic, for which he became the first president in 1959. As leader of his country, he revalued the nation's currency with the introduction of a new Franc, expanded industry and gave women the right to vote. De Gaulle staunchly advocated an independent French arms arsenal, twice blocked Britain's entry into the European Common Market, removed French forces from NATO and condemned America's war with Vietnam, a move that set the tone for the frosty Franco-U.S. relations still present today. Ultimately, his name became synonymous with a uniquely French political system whose legacy is being both preserved and grappled with by current President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Louis XIV
Hailed by Napoleon as "the only King of France worthy of the name," Louis XIV sat on the French throne for more than 72 years, the longest known reign of any such Europe royal. He is best remembered as the Sun King, a name that symbolizes his famously absolutist style of governance. For more than half a century, he guided the French state to the height of its influence in the early 18th century. He fought 3 wars and pioneered a kind of "soft power," seeing French proliferate as the language of sophisticates, the nobility and diplomacy across Europe. His patronage of the arts brought to light luminaries like Moliere — and his absolutist rule spurred angry political philosophers like Montesquieu. The most famous quote attributed to him is probably apocryphal: L'etat, c'est moi, I am the State. Nevertheless, it fits.
Haile Selassie
King of Kings, Conquering Lion of Judah, Elect of God. All were used to describe Haile Selassie, who ruled as Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974 and is venerated still as the Divine incarnate by adherents of the Rastafari faith. That he was ultimately deposed by a military discontented with his regime should not eclipse his contribution to African solidarity. Selassie gave Ethiopia its first constitution and convened the earliest meeting of the Organization of African Unity.
But he is perhaps most widely remembered for the speech he gave before the League of Nations in 1933 as the legions of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini stormed his ill-equipped nation. The League did little to prevent Ethiopia's defeat, but Selassie's appeal, uttered movingly in his native Amharic, would serve as a pillar in the struggles against colonialism and Fascism. With a firm internationalist bent, the last Ethiopian monarch eventually saw his country become a charter member of the United Nations. A TIME "Man of the Year" who claimed descendance from the biblical King Solomon, he ushered the continent he had unified into a distinctly African modernity.
King Richard the Lionheart & Saladin
In tales like those of Robin Hood, King Richard the Lionheart is remembered charitably as a benevolent erstwhile monarch, lost to the Crusades in the Orient while his dastardly brother Prince John steals from the poor of England to give to the rich. Richard's return in the stories, though, always marks some proud English nationalist turning of the tide. In truth, Richard probably didn't care much for England at all, spoke mostly French, and spent the bulk of his adult life pursuing wealth and plunder with various armies abroad. The popular myth about his piety and love of England is ironically a product of his complete absence from what was a damp, musty isle at the edge of the world.
Instead, Richard found himself in the forefront of the Third Crusade of 1189 to retake Jerusalem, a city that had fallen two years before to an accomplished Muslim general named Salah ad-Din, or, as he would be remembered by European chroniclers, Saladin. For a brief time, Saladin, an ethnic Kurd, ruled over much of the Levant, Mesopotamia, the holy cities of Arabia and Egypt — lands whose wealth and civilization would have bewildered Richard and many of gold-seeking Crusaders. In short, the Third Crusade failed in seizing Jerusalem, though Richard's forces did score a small victory against Saladin at Arsuf in 1191. Sources from the time paint the rapport between Richard I and Saladin in high chivalric times, noting how Saladin dispatched his doctors to Richard when he heard the English was ill and two horses when Richard's one proved lame. Saladin is remembered in Europe still as this noble, chivalrous general from the east. But, as more recent historians argue, both he and Richard were brutal warriors, with little need or time for the pleasantries that have gone on to burnish their legend for centuries.
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