h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So I'm trying to make a list of people that I find admirable for one reason or another. Trouble is that I'm having difficulty thinking of new people to add to the list even though I'm 100% sure they exist. So I'm asking h2g2 for help. Anybody you can think of who's worthy of emulation for any reason, please add them to the list.

Here's who I have so far, in no particular order:


George Washington
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Franklin
Alexander Hamilton
Abraham Lincoln
Theodore Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Ronald Reagan
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Will Smith
Monty Oum
Burnie Burns
Isoroku Yamamoto
Claus von Stauffenberg
The White Rose Society
Scipio Africanus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Caesar Augustus
Leonidas
Socrates
Plato
Aristotle
Sophocles
Aristophanes
Vassili Zaitsev
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Booker T. Washington
Samuel Jackson
Michael Jordan
Peter Dinklage
Kevin Kline
William Shakespeare
Leonardo Da Vinci
Friedrich Nietzsche
Sun Tzu
Albert Einstein
Charles Darwin
Vladimir Lenin
Erwin Rommel
Yakov Pavlov
Claudia Black
Elvis Presley
Frederick Douglass
J.K. Rowling
Muhammad Ali
Johnny Cash
Bruce Lee
Jackie Chan
Malcolm X
Karl Urban
Johnny Depp
Keira Knightley
Jennifer Lawrence
Bill Gates
Jon Stewart
Stephen Colbert
John Oliver
Aasif Mandvi
Thomas Paine
Mahatma Ghandi
Nelson Mandela
Matt Stone
Trey Parker
Sylvester Stallone
Stephen Sommers
Joss Whedon
Mel Brooks
Jules Verne
William Goldman
H.G. Welles
Anthony Hopkins
Antonio Banderas
James Earl Jones
Harrison Ford
Henry Ford
Robert E. Lee
Ulysses S. Grant
Alexander the Great
Diogenes
Gautama Buddha
Confucius
Herodotus
Cicero
Themistocles
William Wallace


P.S. And yes, I'm aware that this list includes a bunch of people who were also racists, slave-owners, imperialists, and possessing of various generally disagreeable traits.

That isn't the point of the list.

So I beg you, please, let's not go on and on about the character failings of somebody on the list. If you think they've done something that deserves inclusion, then put them up and let that be the end of it.



P.P.S. Unless they're Nazis. To hell with those guys.

Thomas Edison
Luther Burbank
George Washington Carver

...first three to come to mind I didn't see on your list...

"George Washington Carver"

I thought I had him...



Nikola Tesla

Florence Nightingale
Douglas Adams

You appear to be short of girls

Rosa Parks
Caroline Herschel
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Seacole
Marie Curie
Rosalind Franklin

I'm sure there will be more

Malala...

Thomas Cromwell
Thomas Moore
Thomas a Becket
Tom Stoppard
Tom Jones
Thomas Aquinas
Dylan Thomas

Gloria Steinem
Simone de Beauvoir (sp?)
Martha Graham
Ayn Rand (!)

Isaac Newton
Mahatma Gandhi
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Leonard Cheshire
Kris Akabusi

robert falcon scott
kristin scott-thomas
ridley scott

Mary Seacole
Nelson
JFK
Wellington
I Newton
R Bacon

Boudicia (or however we spell it)

Grace Darling

Erika Roe
Guido Fawkes
Winston Churchill
Frank Whittle

(going for the mad diversity prize here)

you were the one who drew my attention to the lack of women and still there are very few...

Joan of Arc
Elizabeth 1
Catherine de Medici

Thor Heyerdahl
Berry Gordy
Pocahontas
Janet Street Porter
Neil Razor Ruddock

I counted Erika twice!

Amy Johnson
Elizabeth II
Cilla Black
Mother Theresa
Angela Rippon
Charlotte Bronte
Emily Pankhurst
Sylvia Plath

Haile Selassie
Lembit Opik
Nellie Melba
Charlemagne
Harper Beckham

Notable or notorious

Drake
Frobisher
Hood
Collingwood
Peter The Great
Raleigh
Columbus
General Gordon
Genghis Kahn
Napolian

Keira Knightley is in the same list as all those people?

Werner von Braun and Charles Lindberg, just to bring in some nazis.

Athanasius Kirchener
Troels Kløvedal

Hermann Oberth
Robert Goddard
Gerard K. O'Neill