Who was the most interesting man in the world ?

[Narwhal]

So, I guess we all know "the most interesting man in the world" from Dos Equis

refresher :

So, in history - who was the most interesting man in the world ?

The moost interesting man in the world needs to have achievement in totally different fields (and not all military - I know you guys & gals), be well travelled, and obviously having an high ratio of success.

I would put as contender :
- Francisco de Miranda : Served in the Spanish army in North Africa, then in the Pensacola expedition, then moved to United States where he met everyone that counted there, then travelled in most courts of Europe from London to Moscow wooing women and impressing men while being a writer and journalist, than officer in the Revolutionary armies of France, then moved back to fight for Venezuelan independence and became President of the short-lived republic.

- Garibaldi, a more famous example, but maybe too "military".

Who else ?

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Jimmy Stewart.

Academy award winning actor who flew during major bombing campaigns during WW II, and was promoted multiple times for performance of duty. Legendary ranconteur.



Kris Kristofferson.

Started out as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. Joining the US Army he rose to the rank of captain, completed Ranger school, and flew attack helicopters in Germany during the Cold War. Rather than join West POint as an instructor in English Literature, Kristofferson left the army to focus on his music career. Acted in major Hollywood films, recorded music with Willie Nelson and the boys. Banged an awful lot of quality tail. The ultimate Sixties Rennaisance Man.

 

[Captain Frakas]

There isn't a definable most interesting man in the world. But I presume that men like Pythagoras, Plato, Epicure, Aristotle or Jesus (if he had existed) are among the top few. I presume that they validate Narwhal's criteria.

 

[Avernite]

Leonardo Da Vinci and Marco Polo (and men like them) should feature highly. One travelled the whole known world, the other travelled all the known Sciences/Arts.

 

[AegonVLLI]

I am
But I'm not history yet.

 

[diegosimeone]

I'd say objectively it has to be someone like Leonardo da Vinci and the rarity of people similar to him that's not survived the history books or did not have the same hype (a few ancient Greek philosophers come to mind that are either famous for one thing and not everything or just not famous at all).

It also depends on what everyone finds interesting I guess. I mean I find Machiavelli very interesting as well. There's also Diogenes but wouldn't really call him interesting but just peculiar. And there's probably a very fine line between the two terms when it comes to historical people.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

Tycho Brahe or Sokrates in my opinion. Cant decide

 

[DarthJF]

Ibn Battuta is a good contender. His travels put Marco Polo in shame.

 

[keynes2.0]

Elon Musk. And we are fortunate enough to be alive in the first century of his life so we will get to live through many of his accomplishments. Some of us will even have the chance to date his clones.

 

[AegonVLLI]

Elon Musk. And we are fortunate enough to be alive in the first century of his life so we will get to live through many of his accomplishments. Some of us will even have the chance to date his clones.

 

[cpreston5]

I always think Ludwig Wittgenstein would have been interesting to speak to. I'd probably ask him to try and summarise his ideas in a way I can understand and be met with a nervous rant in Latin about architecture.

 

[LuNaCy]

Ivan the Terrible

 

[DukeDayve]

You can all pretend it's someone else...

...but we all know it's a guy from the 20th century with a mustache.

 

[Pyoro]

I'd personally be interested in Gottfried Leibniz. da Vinci was already mentioned; they are kinda similar in what makes them interesting, but Leibniz was later, which in this case I think makes him actually more interesting (also, he has greater hair).

Otherwise, but that's mostly a personal obsession, in some weird way Sei Shonagon, author of the Pillow Book. She otherwise didn't do all that many noteworthy things (heck, we don't even know her actual name), but the way she seems so perfectly ordinary yet also completely alien and how her Pillow Book manages to be both simply fascinates me. I'd really like to know what kind of person she was. ^^;

 

[thedarkendstar]

You can all pretend it's someone else...
Which of the 2.....

...but we all know it's a guy from the 20th century with a mustache.

Which of the two.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

You can all pretend it's someone else...

...but we all know it's a guy from the 20th century with a mustache.

19th Century you mean - Richard F. Burton, explorer, scholar, moustachioed supremo.

 

[Eusebio]

I don't know what 'interesting' means in a person exactly. Alexander the Great? Napoleon? Or someone like Socrates, Montaigne, Goethe? Byron? Newton, Tesla, Archimedes...Michelangelo...Muhammad Ali...or Muhammad?

I'm tempted to say Byron, but I find him a revolting human being. I would most enjoy a conversation with Montaigne, but I don't think his life is interesting per-se in the way the criteria was outlined in the OP. Napoleon lead probably the most fascinating life out of anyone I can think of, but I don't want to reward a butcher. I'll stick with Montaigne I guess.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

Which of the two.

Tojo

 

[Fire_Unionist]

Barack Obama

 

[DukeDayve]

It really depends on how you define interesting. For most people it's someone who either:

Does really good things
Does really bad things
Changes the world in a massive way

Human beings have a tendency to be drawn to bad/evil things, so bad/evil people tend to be more interesting to us. Imagine two newspapers for sale - one is 50 pages of good news, the other is 50 pages of bad news. Which newspaper is gonna sell more copies? The bad news newspaper is. Especially if the bad news newspaper claims it has a 4-page spread in the middle containing newly released transcripts, never before seen, of a private phone call Hitler made in 1944. Because everybody wants to decipher that man's mind.

Jesus would probably make the top 5 as well, with his crazy new ideas about getting along with your neighbour and not being at war all the time. His ideas took a few thousand years to really be adopted by anybody, but they were revolutionary ideas that changed the world.

Barack Obama

Nah... Obama figured out he had better approval ratings and reputation the LESS people saw and heard of him. Trump can generate worldwide fascination (usually in the form of outrage) by just saying the most basic thing. The world is definitely more fascinated with one of those two men.

I have an idea - why not compare how many books have been written (and how many have been purchased) on each "Most interesting person" candidate? More books & book sales = more fascination with the person.

This would exclude religious figured like Jesus and Mohammed though, as their book sales would outweigh the others by outrageous amounts. People buy those because it's their faith and they have an obligation to learn about it, but because they are genuinely interested in them.