Who do you think the greatest american is?How about for other nationalities (user search)
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  Who do you think the greatest american is?How about for other nationalities (search mode)
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Author Topic: Who do you think the greatest american is?How about for other nationalities  (Read 2070 times)
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Hashemite
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Colombia


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« on: January 05, 2021, 03:13:05 PM »

The spinoff show in France was held in 2005 on France 2. The winner, fairly unsurprisingly, was Charles de Gaulle and the overall ranking was kind of dominated by more recent (often living) figures at the expense of older figures, who were often of undoubtedly greater significance and value than the contemporary people they were outranked by. The top 10 was:

1. Charles de Gaulle
2. Louis Pasteur
3. Abbé Pierre
4. Marie Curie
5. Coluche
6. Victor Hugo
7. Bourvil
8. Molière
9. Jacques-Yves Cousteau
10. Édith Piaf

Napoleon only finished sixteenth, which everybody seems to kind of agree is too low, and was outranked by 20th century cultural icons like Marcel Pagnol, Georges Brassens and Fernandel. Joan of Arc finished 31st, below Zidane, while Voltaire only ranked one spot ahead of Johnny Hallyday (...) while Louis XIV, in 50th, was only one spot ahead of then-judoka David Douillet (who later became a useless and untalented right-wing politician).

The Colombian edition was held later than the main craze, in 2013, on History Channel and the top 10 were selected by users voting online, with the turnout reported as 1.1 million. If you know anything about Colombian politics, particularly at that time, you can sort of guess the (very stupid) result:

1. Álvaro Uribe (president 2002-2010) 30.3%
2. Jaime Garzón (comedian and activist murdered in 1999) 17.5%
3. Manuel Elkin Patarroyo (immunologist who developed unsuccessful malaria vaccine) 4.9%
4. Gabriel García Márquez (Nobel Prize winning author) 4.8%
5. Antonio Nariño (independence hero) 4.7%
6. Policarpa Salavarrieta (independence heroine) 4.1%
7. Simón Bolívar (independence hero) 4%
8. Rodolfo Llinás (neuroscientist) 3.9%
9. Jorge Eliécer Gaitán (politician assassinated in 1948) 3.8%
10. Luis Carlos Galán (presidential candidate assassinated in 1989) 3.7%

Uribe, in 2013, was still extremely popular and widely regarded as a recent national saviour and great president. His image and reputation has significantly worsened since then, but if a similar contest were held today, Uribe could still realistically place first (probably by a less crushing margin) thanks to the continuing uribista cult of personality. As in other countries, the ranking was dominated by contemporary figures at the expense of older figures, like independence heroes. In Colombia, I guess that could be, in part, a reflection of the very poor levels of historical knowledge among the general public (the government, in the 1990s, famously kind of abolished history classes in school).

The 11th-20th place ranking also shows the dominance of recent figures, particularly pop culture stars, at the expense of undoubtedly more significant and worthy historical figures: footballer Radamel Falcao was eleventh, Juanes and Shakira were 12th and 13th, BMX Olympic gold medallist Mariana Pajón (at the time she was only Colombia's second ever Olympic gold medallist, from 2012) in 14th and footballer 'El Pibe' Valderrama in 15th. They also placed ahead of, most notably, Francisco de Paula Santander, Rafael Núñez and Fernando Botero.
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