jimboston wrote:Wow, Napoleon lived to the age of 252! If for no other reason THAT might qualify him as the greatest man to ever live.
1) “Today”… the use of this word implies the present day. The title means that some who was was living up until yesterday, who also happens to be the Greatest Man to walk the Face of the Earth, just died. Today. You can’t use this word to mean some past date. It just DOES NOT mean that. Please learn how to use the English language properly.
The proper phrase should be “On this day in History”… or “Today is the Anniversary of..”
2) I think you really need to define what qualifies someone (in your mind) as the “Greatest”.
Obviously Napoleon is well know, both in his own time and today… and clearly it’s possible to make an argument that he might be one of the “Greatest Military Leaders” of all time. You have to ignore a lot of negative shit to call him just straight out “the Greatest Man to ever Walk the Face of the Earth”. I mean… first you have to exclude all humans who existed prior to the in e and widespread use of writing, cause live there were literally trillions of humans who lived in pre-history or early history of whom we know nothing. Then you have to emphasize a few possibilities and some early decisions and actions… and weigh them against a lot of other stuff… for example
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon#Criticism.
I seriously doubt there were
literally trillions of humans who lived in pre-history or early history
Billions perhaps, but NOT Trillions
By simply looking at the graph we can see that the population of the world grew by less in the first 11,900 years, than it has in the past fifty years. As we can see, growth until the year 1900 was very slow and steady compared to now, only reaching the first 100 million somewhere in the second millennium BCE, and the first billion in the early nineteenth century. To put that into perspective, the population grew by roughly one billion people every twelve years, between 1975 and 2011 (reaching four, five and six billion at each interval).
The old balance
The reason for this incredible change is due to the rapid decrease in infant and child mortality. Prior to then nineteenth century, the average life expectancy was at around 30, but without an explanation this number is very misleading. Before 1800, women had an average of six children in their lifetime, however four of these six children did not make it into adulthood, meaning that each mother had an average of (slightly more than) two children who would go on to reproduce, creating a balance in population growth. Before the nineteenth century, the life expectancy of somebody who reached adulthood was approximately fifty or sixty years.
see the graph at:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1006502/global-population-ten-thousand-bc-to-2050/As far as your main point, I would agree with you, JimB, and say that there are many others who could qualify as the
GREATEST MAN TO WALK THE FACE OF THE EARTH
I do not see Napoleon as THE overwhelming favorite for this title. If we look at his historical impact, I would say that he did influence World History. The overall trend was that the British was winning their Duel for World Supremacy (after the Decline of Spain). England (Britain) and France fought for World Supremacy for some 400 years and France lost most of the key "Battles" during that LONG WAR. Napoleon did conquer many nations, but, as HitRed said, he
couldn't win the peace.
Napoleon was The key figure in the long story of the end of the French Monarchy, but not the ONLY significant person in its demise. Napoleon certainly has an impact on Military organization and on the game of Risk.
Here is one of the Key Battles in this struggle:
The Battle of the Plains of Abraham, also known as the Battle of Quebec (French: Bataille des Plaines d'Abraham, Première bataille de Québec), was a pivotal battle in the Seven Years' War (referred to as the French and Indian War to describe the North American theatre). The battle, which began on 13 September 1759, was fought on a plateau by the British Army and Royal Navy against the French Army, just outside the walls of Quebec City on land that was originally owned by a farmer named Abraham Martin, hence the name of the battle. The battle involved fewer than 10,000 troops in total, but proved to be a deciding moment in the conflict between France and Britain over the fate of New France, influencing the later creation of Canada.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Plains_of_Abraham
