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There are a variety of lists that include different criteria (Greatest, Most influential, ...).
In the list below we've emphasized Michael Hart's criteria, which is influence on society. So people like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Elvis, Bill Gates, the current president of the United States, ... who may be more well known are not included.

All of history
1. (MH) Michael H. Hart. The 100: A Ranking Of The Most Influential Persons In History, 1978 , updated in 2000, is the most often referenced.
Hart says, "I must emphasize that this is a list of the most influential persons in history , not a list of the greatest. For example a heartless man like Stalin is in, but saintly Mother Cabrini is out. (see good people.) See merged lists below.
Neither fame, nor talent, nor nobility of character is the same as influence. Thus Benjamin Franklin, Martin Luther King, JR, Babe Ruth and even Leonardo Da Vinci are omitted.
He also states influence comes from talent and opportunity, and the lack of women and some ethnic groups is because of lack of opportunity over history.
He has 29 people before 1,000 A.D.
See Google Books

2. (MP) Michael Pollard. 100 Greatest Men, 1997 - See: 100 Greatest Men at adherents.com
It does not rank individuals within the list. It also includes a humanitarian category with people like Albert Schweitzer and Desmond Tutu.
He does not include ruthless dictators, Genghis Khan, Hitler, Stalin, Mao.
He has 21 people before 1,000 A.D.

2nd Millennium (1000-2000)
3. (TL) LIFE magazine list of the "Top" 100 People who had a major impact on the Second Millennium

4. (M100) The Millennium 100 from The Globe and Mail See list at adherants

5. (2M) Agnes Hooper Gottlieb, Henry Gottlieb, Barbar Bowers, Brent Bowers. 1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Second Millennium is the second most inclusive, but does not include explorers.

Other similar lists

Other lists include the 20th century only, The Millenium, Arts and Sciences only,
These lists are highly subjective as seen from the variation in rankings below.
Attempts to be objective like the Whitelaw's History Makers below, which uses google hits and the size of wikipedia pages ends up skewed toward show business with Elvis at #5.

ru - Runner Up (10), hm - Honorable Mention (A list of 100 people considered by Hart but not included in his top 100.)
MH - Michael Hart, MP- Michael Pollard, TL - Time LIFE, M100) M1 - The Millennium 100 from The Globe and Mail, 2M - 1,000 Years, 1,000 People

Rank						Person	Time	Occupation	Reason(s) for Being Placed on the List
	MH	MP	TL	M1	2M
1*	1	x				Muhammad	c.570-632	Secular and religious leader	Prophet of Islam; conqueror of Arabia; Wrote the Koran. *
2	2	x	6	5	6	Isaac Newton	1643-1727	Scientist	physicist; theory of universal gravitation; laws of motion
3	3	x				Jesus Christ	7-2 BC - AD 26-36	Prophet; Spiritual leader; God†	Founder of Christianity
4	4	x				Buddha	563-483 BC	Spiritual leader	Founder of Buddhism
5	5	x				Confucius	551-479 BC	Philosopher; Teacher	Created Confucianism
6	9	x	2	7	2	Christopher Columbus	1451-1506	Explorer	Discovery of the Americas led to world-wide exploration
7	25	x	3	2	3	Martin Luther	1483-1546	Religious Leader	Chiefly responsible for the beginning of the Reformation period; The start of Protestantism
19	31	x	11	3	5	William Shakespeare/ Edward de Vere ‡	1564-1616	writer	greatest literary genius; Wrote at least 36 plays (including Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Julius Caesar, and Othello), 154 sonnets, and a few longer poems
21	ru	x	5	13	9	Leonardo da Vinci	1452-1519	Scientist, artist	Renaissance man in art & science
8	8	x		8	1	Johannes Gutenberg	1398-1468	Inventor	Inventor of printing (printing press); developed movable type; printed Bibles
9	12	x	4	10	4	Galileo Galilei	1564-1642	Scientist	Developed the scientific method; Invented the telescope; accurately described heliocentric solar system
10	10	x	21	1	17	Albert Einstein	1879-1955	Scientist	Theory of relativity
11	16	x	9	9	7	Charles Darwin	1809-1882	Scientist	Originated the theory of organic evolution by means of natural selection
18	27	x	18	3	14	Karl Marx	1818-1883	Philosopher	Principal originator of "scientific socialism"; His writings form the theoretical basis of Communism
22	6					St. Paul the Apostle	5-67	Christian apostle	Proselytizer of Christianity. Thirteen epistles, or letters, in the New Testament of the Bible are attributed to Paul.
12	7	x				Ts'ai Lun [Zai Lun or Cai Lun]	50-121	Political official in China	Invented paper
13	11	x	8	18	26	Louis Pasteur	1822-1895	Chemist and biologist	Germ theory and preventive inoculation; pasteurization
14	13	x				Aristotle	384-322 BC	Philosopher and scientist	Wrote over 170 books on astronomy, zoology, geography, etc; Originated the study of formal logic
15	14	x				Euclid	c. 325-270 BC.	Teacher	Wrote Elements, greatest textbook on geometry
16	15	x				Moses	c. 1,500-1,400 BC	Prophet	Political figure who led the Hebrews in the Exodus from Egypt; Frequently credited with writing the first five books of the Bible (the Jewish Torah); Encouraged the belief of monotheism (belief in one god)
17	17	x				Qin Shi Huang Ti	259-210 BC	Chinese Emperor	United China by force of arms and instituted a set of sweeping reforms. Built the first version of the Great Wall of China.
20	35	x	1	12	28	Thomas Edison	1847-1931	Inventor	Developed over 1,000 inventions including the phonograph and the practical incandescent light bulb
23	34	x	12	13	16	Napoleon Bonaparte	1769-1821	General and Emperor	French conqueror; Authorized the sale of land to the USA (known as the Louisiana Purchase)
24	28	x	20	35, 49	24	Orville and Wilbur Wright	1871-1948 & 1867-1912	Inventors	Invented the first airplane
25	ru	x	22	11	12	Mahatma Gandhi	1869-1948	political activist	Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He also worked hard to preserve Hindu-Muslim relations. Apostle of non-violence
26	69	x	16	20	15	Sigmund Freud	1856-1939	Psychologist	Originator of psychoanalysis
27	19		19	19	18	Nicolaus Copernicus	1473-1543	Lawyer; Astronomer	Copernican Theory (First to assert the Earth revolves around the sun)
28	45	x	33	37	10	Ludwig van Beethoven	1770-1827	Composer	Wrote nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas, five piano concertos, ten sonatas for the piano and violin, a series of magnificent string quartets, vocal music, theater music, and much more
29	50	x	36	32	13	Michelangelo Buonarroti	1475-1564	Artist	His work (paintings, statues, drawings, etc.) profoundly influenced the development of European painting and sculpture
30	39		13	6	20	Adolf Hitler	1889-1945	Political leader	Leader of the Nazi party; Leader of Germany during WWII; Masterminded the Holocaust
31	26	x		42	22	George Washington	1732-1799	Political leader	Military leader and first president of the United States
32	42	x	31	15	74	Alexander Graham Bell	1847-1922	Inventor	Invented the telephone
33	44	x	47	63	11	John Locke	1632-1704	Philosopher	"First writer to put together a coherent form of the basic ideas of constitutional democracy; liberal theologian; Some theories reflected in the American Declaration of Independence
34	18					Augustus Caesar	63 BC-19 AD	Political leader	Founder of the Roman Empire
35	ru	x	35	29	32	Abraham Lincoln	1809-1865	Political leader	freed the slaves & preserved the Union
36	38	x	27	31	95	Guglielmo Marconi	1874-1937	Inventor	Invented the radio
37	78	x	52	51	19	Jean-Jacques Rousseau	1712-1778	Philosopher	"Major influence on educational theory; Important factor in the rise of Romanticism in literture; liberal and socialist theory; influenced the French Revolution
38	21					Constantine the Great	272-337	Political leader	Roman emperor who completely legalized Christianity, leading to its status as state religion. Convened the First Council of Nicaea that produced the Nicene Creed
39	33	x				Alexander the Great	356-323BC	Political leader and conqueror	Conquered and controlled vast amounts of land; Brought together Greek and Middle Eastern civilizations which resulted in cultural diffusion
40	48	x	25	81	48	Simon Bolivar	1783 -1830	Political leader	Given the title, The Liberator; He led the liberation of five S. American countries from Spanish rule
41	49		32	41	25	Rene Descartes	1596-1650	Philosopher, scientist, and mathematician	Invented analytic geometry; Rationalist philosopher
42	ru	x	7	66	42	Ferdinand Magellan	1480-1521	Explorer	navigator of the first ship around the world
43	91		15	16	51	Henry Ford	1863-1947	Industrialist	Introduced the theory of mass production into modern industry
44	72	x		27	35	Johann Sebastian Bach	1685-1750	Composer	Considered to be one of the two or three composers of all time; First man to successfully combine the differing national styles of music which existed in Western Europe
45	64		10	39	64	Thomas Jefferson	1743-1826	Political leader	Third president of the United States; Author of the Declaration of Independence
46	84		29	28	41	Vladimir Ilyich Lenin	1870-1924	Political leader	Leader principally responsible for the establishment of Communism in Russia
47	89		28	17	50	Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung)	1893-1976	Political leader	Led the Communist party in China; Vastly transformed China politically, economically, socially, and culturally; social programs such as Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution
48	ru		34	50	8	Thomas Aquinas	1225-1274	philosopher & theologian	Summa Theologica - A compilation of all of the main theological teachings of the time.
49	68		61	24	29	William the Conqueror	1027-1087	Monarch	Led the Norman conquest of England which resulted in the blend of the French and Anglo-Saxon cultures
50	88	x	77	62	27	Peter the Great	1672-1725	Political Leader	Generally acknowledged to be the most outstanding of the Russian czars (emperor); His policy of westernization was a major factor in the transformation of Russia into a great power
51	hm	x	30	44	56	Martin Luther King, Jr.	1929-1968	clergyman, social reformer	Champion of civil rights
52	40	x				Plato	428-348 BC	Philosopher	Wrote over 36 books (including the Republic); Considered one of the great fathers of Western thought
53	hm	x	49	38	66	Marco Polo	1254-1324	Explorer	world's most influential traveler
54	43	x		40	55	Alexander Fleming	1881-1955	Physician	Discovered penicillin
55	94		88	30	31	Queen Elizabeth I	1533-1603	Monarch	Her 45 year reign was marked by economic prosperity, a great literary flowering, and the rise of England to first rank among the world's naval powers
56	hm	x	50	91	30	Dante Alighieri	1265-1321	writer	poet who brought the divine to earth
57	53	x				Asoka	304-232 BC	Political leader	Third ruler of the Mauryan dynasty and considered the most important monarch in the history of India
58	29			22	43	Genghis Khan	1162-1227	Emperor	Mongol conqueror; Ruthless leader who eventually ruled the largest empire in all of history
59	23	x	70	75		Michael Faraday	1791-1867	Inventor	Invented the first electric motor; Discovered electromagnetic induction
60	79	x		66	40	Nicoli Machiavelli	1469-1527	writer and philosopher	Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was the first modern political scientist as secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence. He was a diplomat, political philosopher, musician, and a playwright. Wrote the Prince - a book often called the "handbook for dictators"
61	ru		75	26	75	Marie Curie	1867-1934	Scientist	A pioneer in the field of radioactivity and the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes[1]--in physics and chemistry.
62	22	x		23		James Watt	1736-1819	Inventor	Inventor of the first practical steam engine and key figure in the Industrial Revolution
63	hm	x		24	52	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart	1756-1791	Composer	prolific composer of joyous music
64	30		74	36		Adam Smith	1723-1790	Philosopher	Wrote The Wealth of Nations; Leading figure in the development of economic theory; expositor of capitalism
65	52					Umar ibn al-Khattab	586-644	Religious leader	After Muhammad, Umar was the principle figure in the spread of Islam
66	54					St. Augustine	354-430	Theologian	His writings profoundly influenced Christian doctrines and attitudes throughout the Middle Ages
67	57		40		69	John Calvin	1509-1564	Theologian	Influential Protestant leader who developed Calvinism (importance of the Bible, dedication to hard work, etc.)
68	ru		56	94	63	Louis XIV	1638-1715	Monarch	the "Sun King" who empowered himself
69	hm		54	48	83	Joan of Arc	1411-1431	military leader	heroic patron saint of France
70			26	81	45	Mary Wollstonecraft	1759-1797	political activist	Championed women's rights
71	hm		58	81	49	Immanuel Kant	1724-1804	Philosopher	metaphysician of the modern world
72	74			66	36	Voltaire	1694-1778	writer and philosopher	Wrote numerous books - most famous, Candide; Influenced political thought which ultimately resulted in the French Revolution
73	20		80		67	Antoine Laurent Lavoisier	1743-1794	Scientist	Organized the system of chemical theory
74	hm	x		71	37	Franklin Delano Roosevelt	1882-1945	Political leader	protector of the American way of life
75	58		46	73		Gregor Mendel	1822-1884	Monk and teacher	Discovered the basic principles of heredity
76	66			32	82	Joseph Stalin	1878-1953	Political leader	Ruthless dictator of the Soviet Union
77	60	x	43			Joseph Lister	1827-1912	Physician	Introduced the use of antiseptic measures in surgery
78	hm			21	38	Winston Churchill	1874-1965	Political leader	hero of England's finest hour
79	73	x				Lao Tzu [Lao Zi]	600-470 BC	Author	Wrote Tao Te Ching; This book is the basis for Taoism
80	hm	x	78	54		Pablo Picasso	1881-1973	Painters, Sculptors and Architects
81	ru			58	54	Benjamin Franklin	1706-1790	Political philosopher, writer, inventer	a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. the first American ambassador to France.
82	70			66	90	Edward Jenner	1749-1823	Physician	Developed and popularized the technique of vaccination as a preventive measure against smallpox
83	hm	x	23			Kublai Khan	1214-1294	Kings, Emperors and Politicians	Grandson of Genghis Khan, The fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in China.
84	95	x		74		Mikhail Gorbachev	1931- Present	Political leader	Soviet leader who led the decline and fall of the old Soviet regime and the democratization of the new Russia
85	55				47	William Harvey	1578-1657	Physician	Discovered the circulation of blood and the function of the heart
86	63		42			Hernando Cortes	1485-1547	Adventurer and conqueror	Conquered the Aztec Empire of Mexico
87	ru			52	100	Henry VIII	1491-1547	Kings, Emperors	England's first Protestant King
88	hm	x	39			Samuel Finley Breese Morse	1791-1872	Inventor	Improved telegraph to make it practical. The telgraph was patented in Morse's name. Co-inventor of the Morse code, and an accomplished painter.
89	hm	x		71, 76		James Watson and Francis Crick	1928-; 1916-	Scientists	Awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids (DNA) and its significance for information transfer in living material".
90	24		96			James Clerk Maxwell	1831-1879	Physicist	Developed a set of four equations that best express the basic laws of electricity and magnetism; electromagnetic spectrum
91	47		79			Louis Daguerre	1787-1851	Inventor	Developed the first practical method of photography
92	75				33	Johannes Kepler	1571-1630	Historian and philosopher	Discovered the laws of planetary motion
93	51				65	Pope Urban II	1035-1099	Religious leader	Gave the order to start the First Christian Crusades
94	67	x				Julius Caesar	100-44 BC	Military and political leader	Played a significant role in the downfall of the Roman Republic; Under his leadership, Roman troops conquered Gaul which provided security for the Roman Empire
95	86		37			Vasco da Gama	1460-1524	Explorer	Discovered the direct sea route from Europe to India by sailing around Africa
96		x	91	43		Nelson Mandela	1918-	Politician	Mandela served 27 years in prison for anti-apartheid activism in South Africa. Following his release from prison in 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to multi-racial democracy in 1994. He became president from 1994.
97		x		80	46	Rembrandt van Rijn	1606-1669	painter	master painter of chiaroscuro
98			38	100	71	Suleiman the Magnificent	1494-1566	Political leader	Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
99	93	x				Zoroaster	628-551 BC	Prophet	Founder of Zoroastrianism, a religion that has endured for over 2,500 years and still has followers today
100	98	x				Homer	850 BC (approx)	Author	Wrote the Iliad and Odyssey; Influenced Greek poets and playwrights
101			41	46		Florence Nightingale	1820-1910	medicine, nurse	She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers.
102	41			98		Oliver Cromwell	1599-1658	Military leader	Man most responsible for eventual establishment of parliamentary democracy as the English form of government
103		x		89	70	Charles Dickens	1812-1870	Writer	novelist of the industrial age
104	hm	x		78		Neil Armstrong	1930-	Explorers and Pioneers	Test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor, and United States Naval Aviator. He was the first person to set foot on the Moon.
105	hm		17			Richard Arkwright	1732-1792	Inventor	inventor of the industrial cotton spinning mill
106	hm		24			James Madison	1751-1836	politician	fourth President of the United States
107			93		34	Leo Tolstoy	1828-1910	Writer	the giant of Russian literature
108	61	x				Nikolaus August Otto	1832-1891	Inventor	Built the first four-stroke internal combustion engine
109			55		79	Frederick Douglass	1817-1895	social reformer	abolitionist leader
110				57	80	J. Robert Oppenheimer	1904-1967	Scientist	director of the first atomic bomb project
111				47	91	Queen Victoria	1819-1901	monarch	the mother of all monarchs
112		x		55		Alfred Nobel	1833-1896	Inventors	Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, armaments manufacturer and the inventor of dynamite. He used his enormous fortune to institute the Nobel Prizes.
113			64		78	Pope Innocent III	1160-1216	Religious Leader	champion of papal power
114	81			87		John F. Kennedy	1917-1963	Political leader	President of the United States; The person who was primarily responsible for instituting the Apollo Space Program
115			90	59		Walt Disney	1901-1966	Movie producer	an innovator in animation and theme park design
116	90				84	Francis Bacon	1561-1626	Politician and philosopher	The first great philosopher to realize that science and technology could transform the world, and an effective advocate of scientific investigation
117		x	69			Louis Armstrong	1898-1971	Musicians and Composers	An "inventive" cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence on jazz. An influential singer with his distinctive gravelly voice.
118	97	x				Charlemagne	742-814	Emperor	Medieval emperor was the king of Franks, conqueror of Saxony, founder of the Holy Roman Empire, and one of the foremost rulers in European history
119	ru	x				Archimedes	c. 287- 212 BC	Scientist	A Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer.
120	32					John Dalton	1766-1844	Scientist	Introduced the atomic hypothesis into the mainstream of science
121	36					Antony van Leeuwenhoek	1632-1723	Government worker	Discovered microbes
122	37					William T.G. Morton	1819-1868	Dentist	Introduced the use of anesthesia in surgery
123	46					Werner Heisenberg	1901-1976	Physicist	Played a significant role in the creation of quantum mechanics
124			81		94	Phineas T. Barnum	1810-1891		master showman of sales & advertising
125	56					Ernest Rutherford	1871-1937	Physicist	Originated the study of nuclear physics
126	59					Max Planck	1858-1947	Physicist	Generally considered to be the father of quantum mechanics (developed Planck's theory)
127	62					Francisco Pizarro	1476-1541	Adventurer and conqueror	Conquered the Inca Empire of Peru
128	65					Queen Isabella I	1451-1504	Political ruler	Financed Columbus's voyage across the Atlantic Ocean; Instituted the Spanish Inquistion
129	71					Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen	1845-1923	Scientist	Developed the use of X-rays
130	76					Enrico Fermi	1901-1954	Scientist	Designed the first nuclear reactor
131	77					Leonhard Euler	1707-1783	Mathematician and physicist	One of the most brilliant and prolific scientists of all time; Wrote 32 full length books concerning practical applications of laws of mechanics
132	80					Thomas Malthus	1766-1834	Parson (member of the clergy) and professor of history and political economy	First person to stress the overwhelming importance of the problem of overpopulation and to bring this problem to the attention of the intellectual world
133	82					Gregory Pincus	1903 -1967	Biologist	Led the way in the development of the oral contraceptive pill
134	83					Mani	216-276	Prophet	Founder of Manichaeism - a religion which, though extinct today, at its height had a very large number of follwers
135	85					Sui Wen Ti	541-604	Emperor	Reunified China after it had been badly divided for hundreds of years; As a result, China continues on the path of a powerful nation
136	87					Cyrus the Great	600-530 BC	Military and political leader	Founder of the Persian Empire (united most of the ancient Middle East into a single state stretching from India to the Mediterranean Sea)
137	92					Mencius	372 - 289 BC	Philosopher	Wrote, Book of Mencius; Immensely influential writer in China
138	96					Menes	3420-3345 BC	Monarch	Original king of the first Egyptian dynasty; First ruler to unite Egypt
139	99					Justinian I	483-565	Emperor	Emperor renowned for the great codification of Roman law that was carried out during his reign; Later formed the basis for the development of the law in many European countries
140	100					Mahavira	599-527 BC	Religious leader	Founder of Jainism
141	hm	x				Frank Lloyd Wright	1869-1959	Painters, Sculptors and Architects	American architect, interior designer, writer and educator.
142	hm	x				Socrates	469-399 B.C.	Thinkers and Philosophers	One of the founders of Western philosophy. Teacher of Plato.
143	hm	x				Hammurabi	c. 1792-1750 BC	King, Emperor	King of the Babylonian Empire. Known for the set of laws called Hammurabi's Code, one of the first written codes of law in recorded history.
144	hm		53			Niels Bohr	1885-1962	Scientist	A Danish physicist who made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922
145	hm				58	Frederick the Great	1712-1786	Political ruler	King of Prussia; The sword of German militarism
146	hm				59	Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel	1770-1831	Philosopher	philospher of history
147	hm			63		Henry the Navigator	1394-1460	Explorer	Portuguese prince. employ some cartographers to help him chart the coast of North Africa in the wake of voyages he sent there,
148	hm		83			Susan B. Anthony	1820-1906	social reformer	Played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States.
149	hm				87	Vladimir K. Zworykin	1889-1982		television pioneer
150	hm				88	Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz	1646-1716	Mathematician	inventor of calculus & symbolic logic
151	ru					Cheops (Khufu)	25??-2566 BC	Political leader	A Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom. He is generally accepted as being the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
152		x				Virgil	70-19 BC	Writer	One of Rome's greatest poets.
153	ru					Charles Babbage	1791-1871	Inventor	An English mathematician, philosopher, inventor, and mechanical engineer

* Hart recognized that ranking Muhammad first might be controversial, but felt that, from a secular historian's perspective, this was the correct choice because Muhammad is the only man to have been both a founder of a major world religion and a major military/political leader. He also states in his introduction that "Muhammad had a much greater personal influence on the formulation of the Muslim religion than Jesus had on the Christian religion." (The Gospel writers, St. Paul ranked #6 in Hart's list and Emperor Constantine #21 share some of the credit for the spread of Christianity. Ed.). "That does not imply that I think Muhammad was a greater man than Jesus."

† - Some teachers claim that Christ was the only founder of a religion who claimed to be a deity, but there is disagreement on this point.
See Christ Deity and the Trinity in religion.

‡ There is a controversy about the author of the Shakespeare plays. William Shakespeare of Stratford was an actor, Edward de Vere, was the Earl of Oxford.
The Oxford theory (anti-Stratfordians), proposes de Vere as the author because of parallels between his life and plots in the plays.
They also say that William Shakespeare lacked the education, aristocratic sensibility, or familiarity with the royal court that they say is apparent in the works.

Objections point out that de Vere was a patron of a competing theater company, so why would he contribute his plays the Stratford Theater.
Academic Shakespeareans and literary historians rely on documentary evidence in the form of title page attributions, government records, and contemporary testimony from poets, historians, and those players and playwrights who worked with him, as well as modern stylometric (linguistic style,) studies. All these converge to confirm William Shakespeare's authorship. The film Anonymous in 2011 has stirred up the debate.
See Shakespeare authorship question at Wikipedia

Runner up list (people in the top 50 of one other list):
Albert Schweitzer, Zheng He, Akbar, Mother Teresa, Zhu Xi, Desmond Tutu, Blaise Pascal, Ibn Battuta, King John, Osama Bin Laden , The Dalai Lama.

Number by category in Hart's list:

Scientists & Inventors	37		Religious Leaders	11
Political & Military Leaders	30		Artistic & Literary figures	6
Secular Philosophers	14		Explorers	2

Religious affiliations in Hart's list

Catholic	31%		pre-Nicene Christianity	3%
Anglican/Episcopalian	13%		Platonism	3%
Jewish	7%		Islam	2%
Atheist	6%		Hindu	2%
Greco-Roman paganism	6%		Buddhist	2%
Chinese traditional religion/Confucianism	5%		Presbyterian	2%
Lutheran	5%		Protestant (denomination unknown)	6%
Russian Orthodox	4%		Other	25%

Some changed religions so it adds up to more than 100%

Most popular names: 4 occurrences: James, John, Lewis, Thomas
3: Alexander, Charles, Henry, William

Others - 170 appearing in only one list or Harts honorable mention:

Abraham Jane Addams Aesop Howard H. Aiken Akbar Roald Amundsen Aristarchus of Samos Jalal Ad-Din Ar-Rumi Kemal Ataturk Babur John Baird Roger Bannister Frederick Banting Ibn Battuta The Beatles Simone De Beauvoir Antoine Henri Becquerel Jeremy Bentham Otto von Bismark Wernher von Braun Bertolt Brecht Louis de Broglie Filippo Brunelleschi Santiago Ramon Y Cajal Nicolas Sadi Carnot Rachel Carson Henri Cartier-Bresson Miguel de Cervantes Paul Cezanne Charlie Chaplin Charles V Geoffrey Chaucer Chu Hsi Chu Yuean-chang Winston Churchhill Karl von Clausewitz Rudolf Clausius James Cook Le Corbusier Gottlieb Daimler King David Democritus

Hanc Dongfang Fyodor Dostoyevsky John Eckert Mary Baker Eddy Sergei Eisenstein Elvis Presley Desiderius Erasmus Robert C. W. Ettinger George Fox Francis of Assisi Betty Friedan Yuri Gagarin Galen Bill Gates Karl Friedrich Gauss George Gershwin Vincent van Gogh Guido Of Arezzo Hammurabi John Harrison Georg W. F. Hegel Henry VIII Theodor Herzl Toyotomi Hideyoshi Hippocrates Thomas Hobbes Hokusai Katsushika Hokusai Edwin Hubble Alexander von Humboldt James Hutton Ibn-Khaldun Ibn-Sina Ikhnaton Isaiah William Le Baron Jenney King John Helen Keller John Maynard Keynes John M. Keynes Har Gobind Khorana Alfred C. Kinsey Gustav Kirchhoff

Fan Kuan The Dalai Lama Antony van Leeuwenhoek Etienne Lenoir Carolus Linnaeus Samuel Lister Ignatius Loyola Marsilius of Padua The Virgin Mary Hiram Maxim Catherine De Medicis Dmitri Mendeleev John Stuart Mill John Milton Moliere Montesquieu Maria Montessori Claudio Monteverdi Wolfgang Mozart Muawiya I John Von Neumann Kwame Nkrumah Gerard K. O'Neill Andrea Palladio Liu Pang Emmeline Pankhurst Blaise Pascal Linus Pauling Ivan Pavlov Pope John Paul II Pope John XXIII Ptolemy Pythagoras Raphael Ronald Reagan Jean Renoir Matteo Ricci Maximilien Robespierre John D. Rockefeller Franklin Roosevelt Saladin Jonas Salk

Margaret Sanger Sankara Erwin Schrodinger Murasaki Shikibu William B. Shockley Joseph Smith Sophocles Diana Spencer Steven Spielberg St. Thomas Aquinas Elizabeth Cady Stanton Chiune Sugihara William Henry Talbot Tamurlane Edward Teller Meijo Tenno Mother Teresa Nikola Tesla Henry David Thoreau Arturo Toscanini Charles H. Townes Harry S. Truman Alan Turing Joseph Mallord William Turner Desmond Tutu Mark Twain Virgil Alessandro Volta Richard Wagner Selman A. Waksman Raoul Wallenberg Robert Watson-Watt Orson Welles Christopher Wren Louis XIV Cao Xueqin Sun Yat-sen Boris Yeltsin Zheng He Zhu Xi Vladimir Zworykin

Some important minorities who were not in the lists:
Hart states that "Influence comes from talent and opportunity, and the lack of women and some ethnic groups is because of lack of opportunity over history.
Note: This list is not complete.
Desmond Tutu, Jackie Robinson, Jesse Owens, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, W. E. B. Du Bois, Harriet Tubman, Malcom X, Rosa Parks, Clarence Thomas, Condoleeza Rice, Carol Moseley Braun, Dred Scott, John Brown, Barack Obama, Haile Selassie.
Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, Hernando de Soto, César Chávez, Luis Walter Alvarez, Mario Molina, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Salvador Dalí, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Roberto Clemente, Sonia Sotomayor.
Famous Hispanics in the World and History
50 Most Important Hispanics in Technology & Business

50 Women Who Changed the World | Biography Online
Amazon.com: The 100 Most Influential Women of All Time: A Ranking Past and Present - list at adherents.com

Books and Lists Ranking People in Various Categories

Top 10
1	Jesus of Nazareth
2	Albert Einstein
3	Isaac Newton
4	Paul the Apostle
5	Moses
6	Muhammad
7	Cai Lun
8	Johannes Gutenberg
9	Christopher Columbus
10	Louis Pasteur

George Washington
William Wilberforce
Eric Liddell
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jackie Robinson
Pope John Paul II
Charles W. Colson

Ian Whitelaw and Julie Whitelaw. History Makers: 100 Most Influential People of the Twentieth Century, 2010
Used google hits and the length of Wikipedia articles to rank people in the 20th century. They discounted more recent entries to account for interest in current events, but it still came up weighted toward show business. The top ones were:
1. Einstein, 2. Henry Ford, 3. Pope John Paul II, 4. Walt Disney, 5. Elvis Presley, 6. Hitler, 7. John F. Kennedy, 8. Martin Luther King Jr., 9. Wright Brothers, 10. Freud, 11. Miles Davis, 12. Salvador Dalí, 13. Marilyn Monroe, 14. Michael Jackson, 15. James Dean

Charles Murray, from the book "Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 BC to 1950", computes scores by calculating the amount of space allocated to them in reference works, an area of research sometimes referred to as historiometry.
The 10 highest scores in order go to (See: list at wikipedia):
Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Leonhard Euler, James Watt, Thomas Edison, Galileo Galilei, Ernest Rutherford, Michael Faraday, Euclid, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Aristotle.
Murray points out that nearly all scientific progress, and all important scientific and artistic ideas, were made by white Europeans or their descendants. It is interesting that Darwin comes out about 40 in his list, just among scientists, where all other lists have Darwin between 7 and 16 in all disciplines. He also lists Pierre Curie above Marie Curie even though other lists have Marie first. Murray, whose 1994 book, "The Bell Curve", funded by the conservative American Enterprise Institute, sparked a debate about race, poverty and IQ.

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography/Core_biographies/Published_Lists references 6 lists.
Eight people were listed in 5 or 6 of the lists:
Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Galileo Galilei, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mao Zedong

23 people were in 4 lists:
Adam Smith, Adolf Hitler, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, Copernicus, Gregor Mendel, Guglielmo Marconi, Henry Ford, Johannes Kepler, John Calvin, Karl Marx, Lenin, Leo Tolstoy, Leonardo da Vinci, Louis Pasteur, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Marie Curie, Martin Luther, Michelangelo, Mohandas Gandhi, Rene Descartes, Thomas Edison, William Shakespeare, Wright Brothers

The Time 100 is an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world today.

Examples of web search hits (Millions)
We tried to remove related hits (e.g. "church of christ" and "christ's church" when searching for christ, but it is difficult to get accurate counts.) When we search for Darwin we get 51 million hits, "Charles Darwin" gives 5 million and Darwin and Evolution gives 14 million.
Buddah (120), Jesus Christ (100), Mohammed (87), Hitler (35), Einstein (29), Aristotle (17), Darwin (14), Martin Luther King (12), Gutenberg (7), John F. Kennedy (6), Alexander the Great (5.5), Giuseppe Verdi (5.4), Moses (4.5), Babe Ruth (4.8), T.S. Eliot (3.9), Martin Luther (not King) (3.7), Leonard Bernstein (3.7), Billy Graham (3.2), Aldous Huxley (3.2), Isaac Newton (3), Jean-Paul Sartre (2.7), Mother Teresa (2.5), Wolfgang von Goethe (2.1), Albert Schweitzer (2.0), Dwight D. Eisenhower (1.8), Mikhail Gorbachev (1.8), T. E. Lawrence (1.6), Harry Truman (1.3), Bill Gates (1.3), John D. Rockefeller (1.1), Dalai Lama (1.0),

The Book of Genus, by Buzan and Keen lists the smartest people:

1. Leonardo da Vinci
2. William Shakespeare
3. The Great Pyramid Builders
4. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
5. Michelangelo

6. Isaac Newton
7. Thomas Jefferson
8. Alexander the Great
9. Phidias (architect of Athens)
10. Einstein

Thales of Miletus, Greece [624 BC - 546 BC]

Greek philosopher. The father of Science. Thales attempted to explain natural phenomena without reference to mythology.

Pythagoras of Samos [569 BC - 475 BC]

Greek philosopher. Made important developments in mathematics, astronomy, and the theory of music. The theorem (right triangle a² + b² = c²) now known as Pythagoras's theorem was known to the Babylonians 1000 years earlier but he may have been the first to prove it.

Aristotle [384 BC - 322 BC]

His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.

Euclid [abt. 300 BC]

Greek mathematician. The father of Geometry.

Archimedes [287 BC - 212 BC]

Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Known primarily for his art, He made important discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had no direct influence on later science.

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

Polish Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a heliocentric model of the universe which placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center.

Galileo Galilei (1464-1642)

Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution.

Johannes Kepler [1571-1630]

Blaise Pascal [1623-1662]

Christiaan Huygens [1629-1695]

Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

English physicist and mathematician who is widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution.

Medicine

Hippocrates of Cos [460 BC - 377 BC]

Greek physician. The father of western medicine. Greatly advanced the systematic study of clinical medicine.

Sung dynasty, China [960-1280]

Used a procedure known as variolation, in which small amounts of the powdered crusts of smallpox pustules were inhaled or placed into a scratch made in the skin. Usually the resulting disease was mild, and a permanent immunity to smallpox resulted.

Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723)

Dutch drapery merchant and amateur scientist constructed a magnifying glass which allowed him to see microbes (bacteria and protozoa) in a drop of lake water.
In a letter to the Royal Society of London he descrived:
"...Very many little animalcules, whereof some were roundish, while others a bit bigger consisted of an oval. On these last, I saw two little legs near the head, and two little fins at the hind most end of the body. "

Mary Wortley Montagu [1717]

Wife of the British ambassador to Turkey, had their children immunized against smallpox by variolation and it became popular in Europe.

Louis Pasteur [1822-1895]

Discovered that there were germs in the air that caused liquids to go off. He went on to develop a process which he called 'pasteurisation', killing the germs by boiling. He used this discovery to help treat diseases and with the British doctor Edward Jenner he developed a process of vaccination against the killer disease, smallpox. Pasteur went on to discover vaccinations for chicken pox, cholera, diphtheria, anthrax and rabies. He recommended that surgical instruments be boiled before an operation to kill any germs on them, but most surgeons ignored this advice. This had to wait until aseptic surgery developed in the 20th century. Story

Samuel Morse [1791-1872]

Improved telegraph to make it practical. The telgraph was patented in Morse's name. Co-inventor of the Morse code, and an accomplished painter.

Edward Jenner [1840]

Country doctor in Gloucestershire. (Considered the father of vaccination although variolation had been used earlier; see above). Found smallpox "Vaccination" using less dangerous cowpox with help of research on germs from Louis Pasteur.

Wilhelm K. Roentgen [1901]

-Germany - X-ray

Marie Curie (1867 - 1934)

Discovered radium, a radioactive substance, in uranium oxide ore The research of Marie and Pierre Curie was crucial in the development of x-rays in surgery.

Sir Alexander Fleming [1928]

St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, London University. 1928 he discovered penicillin.

Maurice Ralph Hilleman [1941-84]

Dr. Hilleman created eight of the 14 most commonly used vaccines, including those for mumps, measles, chicken pox, pneumonia, meningitis, rubella and many other infectious diseases. He pioneered the development of vaccines against hepatitis A and hepatitis B and discovered the genetic changes that occur when the influenza virus mutates, known as shift and drift. He worked at E.R. Squibb & Sons, The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and Merck & Co.

Jonas Salk [1952]

polio vaccine

James Watson, Francis Crick, Roslynd Franklin. [1953]

Crick and Watson at Cambridge came up with the double helix, the model that resembles a twisted ladder, for wich they recieved the Nobel Prize. Their discovery was based on the x-ray diffraction images from Roslyn Franklin. Story.

Francis Collins

American physician-geneticist, noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes.
Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the NIH from 1993-2008. Director of NIH from 2009.

Craig Venter

An American biologist and entrepreneur, most famous for his role in being one of the first to sequence the human genome and for his role in creating the first cell with a synthetic genome in 2010.

Jacques Miller [1961]

Father of modern immunology. Melbourne University. In 1961 he discovered how the thymus produced t-cells, crucial to the immune system.

Kary Mullis [1993]

Mullis invented Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the process for amplifying nucleic acids, in 1993 while at Cetus Corporation. PCR has revolutionized the fields of microbiology, medical diagnostics, and forensics. It is used to discover faulty genes in hereditary diseases and diagnose viral and bacterial infections, including HIV.

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

Da Vinci is most famous now for his inventions: his bicycle, airplane, helicopter, and parachute were all some 500 years ahead of their time. Artwork includes the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and The Last Supper in Milan. Scientific work in his notebooks included geology, anatomy, flight, gravity and optics, but he never published it. Story

Carl Djerassi

"Father of the birth control pill"? Because millions of unwanted children were not produced, countless suffering has been abolished (including decreases in crime, child abuse, and ecological nightmares). With women gaining more control over their reproductive fate, society has changed. Reliable birth control became as easy as taking a pill, which some call the single greatest factor in helping women achieve equality.

2007 list of 25 most influential people at USA Today (As of Jan. 2011 I couldn't find a more recent list).

1	Bill Gates	software entrepreneur
2	Ronald Reagan	40th U.S. president
3	Oprah Winfrey	talk show host
4&5	Francis Collins & J. Craig Venter	mappers of the human genome
6	Osama bin Laden	terrorist
7	Stephen Hawking	physicist
8	Lance Armstrong	cyclist and cancer activist
9	Pope John Paul II	pontiff
10	Bono	rock musician and activist for Africa
11	Mikhail Gorbachev	Soviet leader
12&13	Sergey Brin & Larry Page	co-founders of Google
14	George W. Bush	43rd president
15	Sam Walton	retailing pionee
16	Deng Xiaoping	Chinese leader
17	Michael Jordan	basketball star
18	Howard Schultz	Starbucks entrepreneur
19	Nelson Mandela	anti-apartheid leader
20	J.K. Rowling	author
21&22	Bill & Hillary Clinton	42nd president & N.Y. senator
23	Russell Simmons	hip-hop pioneer
24	Ryan White	the face of AIDS
25	Homer Simpson	Everyman

Books:
The 100: A Ranking Of The Most Influential Persons In History, by Michael H. Hart, 2000

Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 BC to 1950 is a book by Charles Murray.
See: list at wikipedia

Breese, Dave. Seven Men Who Rule the World From the Grave. Chicago: Moody Press, 1990.

Keynes (1883-1946), Dewey (1859-1952), Freud (1856-1939), Wellhausen (1844-1918), Marx (1818-1883), Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Darwin (1809-1882)

Links:
100s; 100 Lists: Books and Listings Ranking Influential People at adherents.com
Famous People - Famous People in History, Famous People List & Biography
The Most Important Medical Events Of The 20th Century
Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography/Core_biographies/Published_Lists
The 50 Most Influential Christians of All Time at Brainz.org
BasicFamousPeople.com
Good People
Conservationists - Environmentalists
Famous Scots
Historic Figures at the BBC
TIME 100 - People of the Century
The 2011 TIME 100
U.S. President Ratings
Historic Figures at the BBC
Nobel Prize Winners at: nobelprize.org/, and The Nobel Prize Internet Archive

Philanthropy