Who influenced our all time history the most and why (exclude
religious people like Jesus, Muhammad etc.)?

Hi! Thanks for the question.

According to the book of Michael Hart the following are the 100 most
influential people in history and the reasons why they are on the
list. I will however exclude here the religious personalities.

Isaac Newton – theory of gravitation and laws of motion
Ts'ai Lun – inventor of paper
Johann Gutenberg - developed movable type; printed Bibles
Christopher Columbus – discovered America
Albert Einstein – theory of relativity
Louis Pasteur – pasteurization
Galileo Galilei - accurately described heliocentric solar system
Aristotle - influential Greek philosopher
Euclid - Euclidian geometry
Charles Darwin – theory of evolution
Shih Huang Ti - Chinese emperor
Augustus Caesar – ruler of Rome
Nicolaus Copernicus –astronomer
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier - father of modern chemistry
Constantine the Great - Roman emperor who made Christianity the state
religion
James Watt – invented steam engine
Michael Faraday - discovery of magneto-electricity
James Clerk Maxwell - electromagnetic spectrum
George Washington –first US President
Karl Marx – founded Communism
Orville and Wilbur Wright – invented the airplane
Genghis Khan - Mongol conqueror
Adam Smith – economists, capitalism
William Shakespeare – literature
John Dalton - atomic theory
Alexander the Great – conqueror
Napoleon Bonaparte – French conqueror
Thomas Edison – inventor of lightbulb
Antony van Leeuwenhoek - microscopes; studied microscopic life
William T.G. Morton - pioneer in anesthesiology
Guglielmo Marconi - inventor of radio
Adolf Hitler – German ruler in WWII
Plato – Greek Philosopher
Oliver Cromwell - British political and military leader
Alexander Graham Bell – invented the telephone
Alexander Fleming – penicillin
Ludwig van Beethoven – musician, composer
Werner Heisenberg - discovered the principle of uncertainty
Louis Daguerre – inventor of photography
Simon Bolivar - National hero of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru,
and Bolivia
Rene Descartes - Rationalist philosopher and mathematician
Michelangelo – artist whose works we still marvel at until today
William Harvey - discovered the circulation of the blood
Ernest Rutherford - pioneer of subatomic physics
Gregor Mendel - Mendelian genetics
Max Planck – developed thermodynamics
Joseph Lister - principal discoverer of antiseptics which greatly
reduced surgical mortality

Nikolaus August Otto - built first four-stroke internal combustion
engine
Francisco Pizarro - Spanish conqueror in South America
Hernando Cortes - conquered Mexico for Spain
Thomas Jefferson - 3rd president of United States
Queen Isabella I – ruler of Spain
Joseph Stalin - revolutionary and ruler of USSR
Julius Caesar - Roman emperor
William the Conqueror - laid foundation of modern England
Sigmund Freud – psychoanalysis
Edward Jenner – discovered vaccine for small pox
Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen – discovered the X-ray
Johann Sebastian Bach music composer
Voltaire – influential writer and philosopher
Johannes Kepler – analyzed planetary motions
Enrico Fermi - father of the atomic bomb
Leonhard Euler - differential and integral calculus and algebra
Jean-Jacques Rousseau - French deistic philosopher and author
Nicoli Machiavelli - wrote The Prince (influential political treatise)
Thomas Malthus - wrote Essay on the Principle of Population

John F. Kennedy – US President in the invasion of Cuba and the 13-day
stalemate
With the USSR regarding nuclear weapons which almost brough the world
to Word War III

Gregory Pincus - developed birth-control pill
Lenin – ruled Russia
Sui Wen Ti – unified China
Vasco da Gama - discovered route from Europe to India around Cape Hood
Cyrus the Great - founder of Persian empire
Peter the Great - forged Russia into a great European nation
Mao Zedong – founded communism in China
Francis Bacon - delineated inductive scientific method
Henry Ford – developed and mass produced the automobile
Queen Elizabeth I - restored Church of England to power after Queen
Mary
Mikhail Gorbachev – he ended communism in the USSR
Menes - unified Upper and Lower Egypt
Charlemagne - Holy Roman Empire created with his baptism in 800 AD
Homer - epic poet of Ancient Greece
Justinian I - Roman emperor; reconquered Mediterranean empire
Archimedes - father of experimental science
Charles Babbage - inventor of forerunner of computer
Cheops – Ruler of Egypt credited with the building of the Great
Pyramids
Marie Curie – for her work in radioactivity
Benjamin Franklin - American politician and inventor
Mohandas Gandhi – The great Indian ruler
Abraham Lincoln – US President of the Civil War
Ferdinand Magellan – the first one to circumnavigate the world
Leonardo da Vinci – inventor and painter

“Religious Affiliation of History's 100 Most Influential People”
http://www.adherents.com/adh_influ.html 

The next link meanwhile has biographies of the names listed above so
that you could have better coverage of their influence in world
affairs.

“The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History”
http://www.mind.net/dlmark/hundred.htm 

Search terms used: 
most influential people history

I hope these links would help you in your research. Before rating this
answer, please ask for a clarification if you have a question or if
you would need further information.

Thanks for visiting us.

Regards,
Easterangel-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by pinsch-ga on 21 Nov 2002 14:08 PST

I know the Michael Hart book. I'm looking for a different opinion.

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Clarification of Answer by easterangel-ga on 21 Nov 2002 16:26 PST

Thanks for asking a clarification before providing a rating. Please be
patient with me on this one. Since I will now have to dig for deeper
information. I will need more time. Thanks for your patience.

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Clarification of Answer by easterangel-ga on 21 Nov 2002 17:56 PST

Hi I'm back! I have found other sources for you which lists the most
influential people in history. Of course due to the popularity of
these people, the lists would have very familiar and similar names wth
only minor differences.

One was done by the New York Post at the end of the millenium.

"Top 25 Most Influential People of the Millenium"
http://www.nypost.com/millenium/mill_analysis1.htm

A great list plus biography is provided here by the A & E website.

"Biography of the Millennium"
http://www.falls.igs.net/~dphillips/biography3.htm

Time Magazine also provided a list with Albert Einstein as the "Person
of the Century"

The TIME 100
http://www.time.com/time/time100/

Another list is provided here:

"The World's 100 Greatest People Audio Biographies"
http://www.4iq.com/people1.htm#list 

In my own opinion the following people are influential although this
will show my inclinations in life.

1. Tim Berners Lee- He gave us the World Wide Web without it wouldn't
be possible for me answering your question at this moment.
2. Gutenberg - for his invention of books
3. Mother Teresa - for her unrelenting care for the poor 
4. Alan Greenspan - His pronouncements, policies and economic views
changed many fortunes in and outside of the US.
5. Christopher Columbus - for discovering America
6. George Washington - for being the first leader of what is now a
most influential nation
7. Muhammad Ali - He provided great influence in the sporting and
political scene as well by his views specially on the Vietnam War.
8. Winston Churchill - provided courage during World War II 
9. Mao Tse Tung - His influence in Chinese communism is still being
felt and used in China up to this day.
10. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs - As one since both provided the world
and marketed the first graphical user interface in computers which
made it easy to use even by ordinary people. Eventhough they did not
actually invent such graphical user interface and the mouse, they will
be credited for making the PC popular and a part of everyday life.

I hope that you would find value in the different lists I provided.
Thanks again for visiting us.

Best Regards,
Easterangel-ga

This is the type of question to stimulate lively debate at a
discussion board or a newsgroup, but is rather hard for anyone to
answer defnitively IMHO

I think Mr. Michael Hart is a pretty offtrack when it comes to history
of the Sub continent ...
 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi )a lawyer by profession,
was NOT a ruler of India ... he was a reformer and a thinker and he
played a major role in the Freedom movement of India against the
British .   He was accorded the title of "Mahatama"  " The great Soul"
 due to his ideas and ability to lead people to a common goal.

Regards
Rama