BBC Two has been running a great programme over several weeks where viewers were asked to vote for the 'most important and influential person of the 20th Century' and the Finalists came down to Alan Turing, Nelson Mandela, Ernest Shackleton, David Bowie, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Muhammad Ali, and Pablo Picasso.
The words 'most important and influential' makes for some easy dismissing and i don't think anyone could argue that Bowie and Picasso were 'more important' than the remaining five.
Shackleton may have been a great explorer but i can't put him above Turing, Mandela, King or Ali who all had a greater influence on the 20th Century.
Dr Martin Luther King Jr gave his life for his beliefs and although he was mainly influencing Americans, his influence on race relations worldwide was immense while Nelson Mandela's refusal to accept his countryman's fate ended apartheid in his country although it cost him 27 years of his life which were spent in a prison cell and then in magnanimous brilliance, refused to show bitterness towards his captors.
Ali's pacifism cost him the World Boxing Title and the best years of his career but for most important and influential i would have to go with Turing whose mathematical genius led to modern computers which dominate our lives today.
That he was treated so atrociously by the British Government for being homosexual after doing so much to win the Second World War that he ended taking his own life is shameful and it doesn't even begin to make up for it that the British Public agreed and voted him first.
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