How to be remembered forever: some career advice

Here's a little game to play.  Get out a sheet of paper (or open Word, or whatever), and down the side, number lines 1 to 17.

Now on each line, list 3 or 4 people from that century.  So for line number 1, list 3 people who lived anywhere within 100AD to 199AD.  (Yes, I know the 100s are the 2nd century; I'm avoiding ordinals to eliminate confusion)  For line 15, list anyone who lived during the 1500s, & etc.  Do this for all 17 lines.

I did this.  Here are my observations.  If you want to give it a try, stop reading and play the game now!

Some centuries are really hard!  Some are fairly easy.  I deliberately started at 1 because the century 0-99 is way too easy.  Anyone with even a slight knowledge of the Bible or the Roman Empire can whip off lots of names.  It gets trickier from 100AD onwards.  I stopped at 1799 because likewise, the period 1800 to the present is too recent to be a challenge.

I found with the tricky centuries that once I got one famous person located, I could pick off others.  So for example I happen to know Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas day, 800AD.  That instantly gave me the Sultan Haroun al-Rashid, who I know was his contemporary, and Roland his knight, of Song of Roland fame, and Carca, who withstood a siege from Charlemagne and gave her name to Carcasonne.

Have a look at your list.  I'd be willing to bet almost every name you wrote falls into one of these groups:

Is a national leader.
Is an artist.
Is a scientist.
Is a religious figure.
Is a military commander.

That's it!  If you're a chartered accountant, you're fresh out of luck in the fame stakes.  And for all but the popular centuries, such as the Renaissance, it's a struggle to recall more then a few names.

This makes me wonder who a thousand years from now will be remembered from the 20th century.  You might think lots and lots, because so much happened; but much happens in every century, and this little exercise shows the number of people destined for immortality is probably not more than a handful.

 Here are my own suggestions for 20th century immortality.  I've cut ruthlessly, keeping in mind the lesson of trying to name people from a thousand years ago.

Einstein.  The quintessential scientist.
Hitler.  An evil man, but he put his stamp on the century like no other political leader.
Lennon & McCartney. Easily the greatest artists, or if you don't like greatest, then best known.

Who do you think will be remembered from last century?