History's Best Conquerors


RobinReborn

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Agree with the laconic Reidy.

You might find Samuel de Champlain to be one of the 'cleaner' conquerors -- fewer mounds of skulls than any of the top ten.

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You are all too nice. It is a dumb question, as posed. Grammatically, it is sensible. What it lacks is context.

See "Malaria" in Wikipedia for the conquerors Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran Carlos Finlay, Josiah C. Nott, Sir Patrick Manson, Sir Ronald Ross, and William C. Gorgas.

Everyone knows that Sir Edmund Hillary was the first to conquer Mount Everest.

In 2012 Felicity Aston skied solo across the Antarctic. http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/05/travel/felicity-aston-antarctic-explorer/

See this list of Antarctic Firsts (including first skiing and first broken leg from skiing) http://www.antarctic-circle.org/firsts.htm

Lore Harp (with Bob Harp) and Clare Ely created the Vector Graphics computer company in 1977.

"In April 1977, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak rented a booth at … the First West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco. … Byte magazine's report on the conference mentioned Vector but spilled no ink on Apple… "

http://www.fastcompany.com/3047428/how-two-bored-1970s-housewives-helped-create-the-pc-industry

John Harrison conquered the problem of longitude.

Andrew Weyl conquered Fermat's Last Theorem.

William Smith (1769 – 1839) drew the first geological maps of England based on fossil evidence, 20 years before The Origin of Species was published. (On my blog here: http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-map-that-changed-world.html)

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You are all too nice. It is a dumb question, as posed. Grammatically, it is sensible. What it lacks is context.

See "Malaria" in Wikipedia for the conquerors Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran Carlos Finlay, Josiah C. Nott, Sir Patrick Manson, Sir Ronald Ross, and William C. Gorgas.

Everyone knows that Sir Edmund Hillary was the first to conquer Mount Everest.

In 2012 Felicity Aston skied solo across the Antarctic. http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/05/travel/felicity-aston-antarctic-explorer/

See this list of Antarctic Firsts (including first skiing and first broken leg from skiing) http://www.antarctic-circle.org/firsts.htm

Lore Harp (with Bob Harp) and Clare Ely created the Vector Graphics computer company in 1977.

"In April 1977, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak rented a booth at … the First West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco. … Byte magazine's report on the conference mentioned Vector but spilled no ink on Apple… "

http://www.fastcompany.com/3047428/how-two-bored-1970s-housewives-helped-create-the-pc-industry

John Harrison conquered the problem of longitude.

Andrew Weyl conquered Fermat's Last Theorem.

William Smith (1769 – 1839) drew the first geological maps of England based on fossil evidence, 20 years before The Origin of Species was published. (On my blog here: http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-map-that-changed-world.html)

I wonder if Fermat's Last Theorem really was solved. Fermat left a note saying he saw a solution but didn't have time to write it down. I doubt if it was Weyl's complicated and lengthy one. My bet is Fermat lied, but if he didn't, what did he see? And as for the purported solution--the longer the more doubtful.

--Brant

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I wonder if Fermat's Last Theorem really was solved. Fermat left a note saying he saw a solution but didn't have time to write it down. I doubt if it was Weyl's complicated and lengthy one. My bet is Fermat lied, but if he didn't, what did he see?

--Brant

Not lied. Fermat was mistaken.

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Was Alexander the Great moral? Was Cortez? What about Khan?

Which conquerors do you consider to be the most moral?

Definitely Khan...

(A large picture of their guest in on a screen)

KIRK: Name, Khan, as we know him today. (Spock changes the picture) Name, Khan Noonien Singh.

SPOCK: From 1992 through 1996, absolute ruler of more than a quarter of your world. From Asia through the Middle East.

MCCOY: The last of the tyrants to be overthrown.

SCOTT: I must confess, gentlemen. I've always held a sneaking admiration for this one.

KIRK: He was the best of the tyrants and the most dangerous. They were supermen, in a sense. Stronger, braver, certainly more ambitious, more daring.

SPOCK: Gentlemen, this romanticism about a ruthless dictator is

KIRK: Mister Spock, we humans have a streak of barbarism in us. Appalling, but there, nevertheless.

SCOTT: There were no massacres under his rule.

SPOCK: And as little freedom.

MCCOY: No wars until he was attacked.

SPOCK: Gentlemen.

KIRK: Mister Spock, you misunderstand us. We can be against him and admire him all at the same time.

SPOCK: Illogical.

KIRK: Totally. This is the Captain. Put a twenty four hour security on Mister Khan's quarters, effective immediately.

KHAN!!! KHAN!!!!!

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Europeans conquered the new world. A Randian view must include the fact that most of the conquered became freer with the demise of tribalism and totalitarian / religious dictatorships as occurred in Mexico, central and South America.

In that vein I would say the United States after our revolution conquered the western part of our continent and that was good though bad in the short run for the tribal Indians. Yet the whole reservation system proves we were attempting to be moral while expanding, and relocating primitive tribal people. Would we move out indigenous people today? Sure. Its called Trumpian eminent domain.

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The government generally followed the settlers, so much or a great deal of the objectionable things done were by the setters not the US, formally rendered. All the indigenous people had territories and conflicts sometimes conquering and/or displacing each other. Tribe vs tribe. Then arrived the tribe of all tribes and pushed back and out and over the indigenous peoples, who only started thinking of themselves as "Indians" when they understood the blanket concept handed over to them by the Whites which then became Whites vs. Indians. This was in a way unfortunate for as an Indian you could be a White Man victim in a way you might not allow yourself to be an an Apache or Sioux or Blackfoot--etc. This--I speculate--might make it easier to swallow the idea of being a victim without being shameful to your actual tribe and make it easier to swallow continued control and direction from Washington through welfare and the reservation system. Whatever else it is, victimhood is living in the past.

--Brant

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I think the big killer wasn't smallpox, but influenza, and not as in using it in warfare. The same thing seems to have happened in the South Pacific. The collision of the Europeans with the rest of the world caused a lot of physiological re-adjustments among native populations. And the white folks had to deal with syphilis. There wasn't any avoiding this kind of negative trading. That's a modern provenance, we hope. The last major assault by the little guys was the post WWI flu epidemic.

--Brant

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