Most Famous Person of the 20th Century

Ok, here's a parlor game you can play the next time all of the stations on your car radio are playing commercials and NPR is airing Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

The game is to answer the question, Who will be the best known person of the 20th century in 5000 years? It's somewhat like asking who will win the Super Bowl in 2050, but better. The famous person question relies on principles that are probably pretty constant over time. The principles that make someone famous today probably made them famous 5000 years ago and will do so 5000 years from now. The object of the game is to figure out what those principles are and, to answer this particular question, who will benefit from them most.

Today the most famous person from the 20th century is probably Hitler, Pele, Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali. Their name recognition is above 90% around the globe. But in the year 7003 no more than a fraction of a percentile will know who these athletes were, and there will probably be many more horrific and brutal people to dilute Hitler's infamy. (I'm not confident we'll be able to keep powerful weapons out of the hands of evil men forever -- especially not for 5000 years. The man responsible for leveling London will be famous for a long, long time.) Hitler's fame also rests largely on the fact that he's not truly history yet -- so many people now living witnessed him and his horrors. That living link gives him salience that will erode over the next thousand years. And as soon as there's a more resonant placeholder for the proposition that evil really does exist in the world, Hitler's role in the popular imagination will wither away.

It's possible that the winner is a sleeper -- someone who's scarcely above the noise now. The fame of Muhammad and Van Gogh has grown exponentially over time. Who knows, maybe Glenn Reynolds's star is just rising.

My best answer for the question is a person who today might be known by 50% of the world. Maybe a lot more or a lot less. I'm sure he's not known by 98%, like Muhammad Ali supposedly is, but he's not a dark horse, either. But in 5000 years I suspect he'll still be known by a significant number of people, and he'll certainly be better known than Einstein, Churchill, FDR, Pope John Paul II or any living athlete or entertainer.

I'll give my answer in the Shout Outs, as soon as they're working. In the mean time, think of someone with staying power.