NationStates Jolt Archive

I was recently assigned a project that requires me to find other peoples opinions on both the top five underrated and overrated people/events in WORLD history. If you could answer honestly and if you are willing, your reason why you choose those specific people/events, it would be extremely helpful. Thank you in advance for anyone who does answer this.

Well look at it this way NS, if your not going to be useful, you might as well help us all out with homework. :D

Im underrated

(one of the) Most Overated Event(s): The Emancipation Proclamation

Face it, the thing didn't free a single slave. It did not affect the North, didn't affect the border states, and the Confederacy ignored it...

(one of the) Most Underated Event(s): The institution of that little diagram in electronic devices that shows you which way the batteries should be facing when you put them in. Is that thing handy, or what?

Hate to say it about an African brother but Kofi Annan is overrated.

I was recently assigned a project that requires me to find other peoples opinions on both the top five underrated and overrated people/events in WORLD history. If you could answer honestly and if you are willing, your reason why you choose those specific people/events, it would be extremely helpful. Thank you in advance for anyone who does answer this.
I don't know if this answers your question or not, but I always thought that World War II was a subject way overtaught in public school. It seems to me that whenever a World War II movie/play/book comes out, it's successful. I think that would make it overrated.

bump

Hitler = overrated. Compared to Stalin and Mao Zedong, the deaths he caused were nothing.

Overrated: George Washington, the nation could have been forged without him

Underrated: Father Charles Coughlin, he wielded more influence than any history book will mention

Overrated: George Washington, the nation could have been forged without him

Underrated: Father Charles Coughlin, he wielded more influence than any history book will mention

A Roman Catholic Priest with anti-Semetic overtones and an appreciation for Facism is underrated? :confused:

Overrated: George Washington, the nation could have been forged without him

Underrated: Father Charles Coughlin, he wielded more influence than any history book will mention
Huey!

I don't think WWII is overrated. It re-shaped the political and economic structure of the world.
Most underrated event? The eviction of French-Canadian from British Canada by governor Charles Lawrence in 1755. He expelled them from the colony, seized their property, split up families and shipped the off to various locations in France and the American colonies.

And in the history of dictators, no-one remembers Pol Pot.

Overrated: Mike King (a.k.a. Martin Luther King, Jr.), Franklin Roosevelt, Karl Marx, Malcolm X, Bill Clinton

Underrated: Booker T. Washington, Lt. Col. Ron Reid-Daly, John Birch, Henri Guisan, Draza Mihailovich.

Hitler = overrated. Compared to Stalin and Mao Zedong, the deaths he caused were nothing.
Actually, every person Hitler contributed to killing ended up just as dead as the people Stalian and Mao had a hand in killing.

Maybe twenty million people in eastern Europe died between 1941 and 1945. That figure is hardly nothing. Or are you billing some of them to Stalin's account?

Under rated - Development of germ theory: Has improved the lives of, well, everybody.

Underrated -- Samuel Rutherford

He wrote Lex Rex (The law is King), which stated that the king is under the law jsut like everyone else. John Locke essentially copied his work, but without the theological overtones. The ideas championed by both were the principles upon which essentially every liberal democracy, including the US and Europe, are based on.

Overrated:

1. Woodrow Wilson / World War I (read Walter Karp's The Politics of War)
2. Spanish-American War
3. The Crusades
4. Christopher Columbus
5. King Wenceslas

Underrated:

1. Niccola Tesla (AC better than DC, Edison still far better known)
2. Bolivia's resistance to privatization (and the IMF/World Bank)
3. Post-Colonial Africa (esp. Rwanda, Congo)
4. Boxer Rebellion (China)
5. 9/11...1973, the assassination by the CIA of Salvador Allende in Chile

EDIT: I thought about including Pol Pot, but as much as people should know about the 3,314,768 (est.) of the Khmer Rouge, I don't like the idea of listing the "worst killers" of all time when it comes to being over- or underrated.

Richard Hadlee Underrated
General George Patton Overrated
Martin Donelly Underrated

Adolf Hitler Overrated Stalin Killed More said Hitler killed some
Said Jews In Death Camps were Russians when previously had been denounced all to increase Russian Hatred against Germany
V2
Lance Armstrong
Your Momma!

Adolf Hitler Overrated

I don't get this. If you said Stalin and Mao were underrated, okay.

But how do you overrate Hitler? I mean, just how bad do you think someone has to be to actually deserve his rep? Just what would they have to do? I don't even wanna think about it!

I don't get this. If you said Stalin and Mao were underrated, okay.

But how do you overrate Hitler? I mean, just how bad do you think someone has to be to actually deserve his rep? Just what would they have to do? I don't even wanna think about it!
Little Secret Hitler never signed off on The Final Solution! :eek:

Seriously there should be more HAtred towards Mao and Stalin than what Hitler gets!
The Victors get to rewrite History and The USSR wanted to play a Nice Game!

Did you know Britain forbade Polish Soldiers who fought for the British in WWII from participating in the Victory Marches of '47 for fear of Insulting Russia!

Britain rescued 300K Poles after the seperation between Germany and Russia in '39 and after the War these people largely refused to return to Poland to be under the rule of that Monkey Commie Pole Government!

I think Saladin is highly underrated.

I think Ronald Reagan is extremely overrated.

Other than that, well, nuts to all of you. :p

I think Saladin is highly underrated.

I think Ronald Reagan is extremely overrated.

Other than that, well, nuts to all of you. :p

Good call, both times. Makes me wanna redact my list. But no, I'll stick with my first impulse.

Little Secret Hitler never signed off on The Final Solution!

Really? But I thought he was the leader of Nazi Germany?

Overrated:

General Patton
America being 'The greatest nation in the world'
Eisenhower
De Gaulle
Guns N Roses
Foo Fighters


Underated:
Franco (In the sense he was an vile bastard like Hitler and Stalin but is ignored and never put in the same context as them.

The involvement and sacrifice of The Soviet Union and it's people in WWII.

Million Dead (A great band)

Overrated
French Resistance ~ Still couldn't fight out of a paper bag
Micheal Moore ~ Just propanganda now
Che Guevera ~ Vicious Little Commie
American Army. ~ Numbers are King
UN ~ Need America for it to work as shoddy as it does

Underrated
Stan 'Tookie' WIlliams ~ Most inspiring person I have heard of exc. Dalai Lama
Australians in Wars ~ Most feared troops in the world exc. maybe Gurkhas
Dalai Lama ~ Greatest man alive today
Abraham Lincoln ~ Washington does not have shit on him
Alfred Nobel ~ Created dynamite and the Nobel Prize,
Dozens of technologies and billions of people owe him

bump

Over rated...Colombus and Churchill, never have two men achieved so little yet recieved so much praise.

Robert E. Lee, the best commander America has ever seen, also a genuis. Was against slavery and was a Whig but because of his loyalty to virginia he led the southern army in virginia to many astounding victorys

"Abraham Lincoln ~ Washington does not have shit on him"

aberham lincoln was a week fool who could not keep the country together as I am sure many other presidents (including Washington) could have done.

Underrated: The conflict in Rawanda between the Hutus and Tutsis
Underrated: The Korean War-didn't really learn too much about that one in history class....(because we lost?)

Underrated: The conflict in Rawanda between the Hutus and Tutsis
Underrated: The Korean War-didn't really learn too much about that one in history class....(because we lost?)

Obviously didn't learn anything about the Korean War.

There's a thing called "books" that we used to learn from.

You can buy the best Korean War history here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1574882597/103-5457000-7864609?v=glance

Of course, you should read others if you can get a hold of them.

Remember, they're called "books". And you don't have to wait for the teacher to assign them in order to read them.

Over-rated: American/British efforts in WW2.
Under-rated: Russian efforts in WW2.

/me awaits for a reaction..

Obviously didn't learn anything about the Korean War.

There's a thing called "books" that we used to learn from.

You can buy the best Korean War history here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1574882597/103-5457000-7864609?v=glance

Of course, you should read others if you can get a hold of them.

Remember, they're called "books". And you don't have to wait for the teacher to assign them in order to read them.

wow-thanks for the tip...seems there is a whole world out there that I've been missing by not reading these "books" you speak of.
I didn't ask about information on the Korean war, I just felt that it was underrepresented at my school.

Obviously didn't learn anything about the Korean War.

There's a thing called "books" that we used to learn from.

You can buy the best Korean War history here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1574882597/103-5457000-7864609?v=glance

Of course, you should read others if you can get a hold of them.

Remember, they're called "books". And you don't have to wait for the teacher to assign them in order to read them.

Wow. That's arrogant. Should I start calling you a dumbass for every topic that I know more than you about?

Over-rated (by the visiting aliens of the outer Pleiades): The Dogon people of western Africa. (They sat on the news of our planet having been visited for centuries).

Overrated: Second World War

Underrated: First World War

Overrated: Declaration of Independence (it didn't do anything at all)

Underrated: The failed ERA

Overrated: Abortion, gay marriage

Underrated: Establishment Clause vs. George Bush

Overrated: European civilization development in the 500s-1500s

Underrated: African & Asian civilization development in the 500s-1500s

Severely Underrated: The Supreme Ruler of the Universe, yours truly

~Czardas, (you guessed it) Supreme Ruler of the Universe

Overrated: Mike King (a.k.a. Martin Luther King, Jr.), Franklin Roosevelt, Karl Marx, Malcolm X, Bill Clinton

Underrated: Booker T. Washington, Lt. Col. Ron Reid-Daly, John Birch, Henri Guisan, Draza Mihailovich.
:(

Overrated: Family Guy

Underrated: Futurama

Overrated... probably Ronald Reagan.

Underrated... staling I suppose, people trivialize his crimes, which were arguably worse than hitler's.

Overrated: Family Guy

Underrated: Futurama

Agreed!

"Captain, may I have a word with you?"

"No."

"It's an emergency, sir."

"Come back when it's a catastrophe."

*crash*

"Oh, very well...."

Overrated:

Ben Franklin
Ayn Rand
St. Augustine
Abraham Lincoln (but only in the sense that he's not the superhero he's made out to be and was certainly more ruthless than he's commonly portrayed. He still made a decent lemonade out of a hell of a lot of lemons).
Richard I

Underrated:

Khalid and Yarmuck
David Hume
Aristotle
Battle of Moscow-1941
John Rawls

Under-rated: Soviet Genocides
Over-rated: "Germany's" Genocide

The Soviet Union slaughtered around 54,769,000 civilians (http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.CHAP.1.HTM), while in every single history class I've been in, it is never mentioned. All they do is go on and on about the much smaller genocide commited by an Austrian named Hitler, and blame "the Germans" for it (it's fine to teach it too, but at least have priorities!). The stupid teachers constanting go on about how Russia's so great and terrific for taking down genocidal German, and NEVER even mentioned Stalin lead an evil genocidal Dictatorship that killed millions more civilians than Hilter (sources very, but http://www.ukemonde.com/genocide/margolisholocaust.html gives a good idea of the number of civilians tortured and/or killed). The man getting away with everything annoys the heck out of me! Even Puttin thinks the Soviets were "great liberators"!

Russia never prosecuted any of its mass murderers, as Germany did.

We know all about the crimes of Nazis Adolf Eichmann and Heinrich Himmler; about Babi Yar and Auschwitz.

But who remembers Soviet mass murderers Dzerzhinsky, Kaganovitch, Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria? Were it not for writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, we might never know of Soviet death camps like Magadan, Kolyma and Vorkuta. Movie after movie appears about Nazi evil, while the evil of the Soviet era vanishes from view or dissolves into nostalgia.

The souls of Stalin's millions of victims still cry out for justice.

WW1 is way underrated considering it led to all the great wars of the 21st century

The pilgrims are exremely overrated. they were absorbed into massachusets bay.

On the other hand the Quakers are very underrated and where much ahead of their time.

WW1 is way underrated considering it led to all the great wars of the 21st century

The pilgrims are exremely overrated. they were absorbed into massachusets bay.

On the other hand the Quakers are very underrated and where much ahead of their time.

Agreed. But please don't say WWII's overated. Danke.

Underrated: The conflict in Rawanda between the Hutus and Tutsis
Underrated: The Korean War-didn't really learn too much about that one in history class....(because we lost?)

I agree with Rewanda lack of UN or world involvement sad and still not learning from it.

And we sure as hell didn't lose in Korea- the UN did but the US didn't. Macarther is a crazy bastard and over rated.

Adolf Hitler Overrated

He almost single handedly created Israel which has influenced world politics for the last half century how can this be just thrown under the rug.
Also i agree the stalin was a horrible man and soviet atrocities seem to be just plain out ignored but don't tell me hitler was overrated he started WWII and he created israel which is the single most important positive to happen to jews since i have no idea jewish history has been we became slaves in egypt and its all been downhill since then.

The Soviet Union slaughtered around 54,769,000 civilians

That's a neat trick. That's close to half the civilian population of the USSR at its greatest extent. And the world "slaughtered" implies direct death by violence, so that's quite a large figure. Sounds a bit inflated to me. And the trouble with inflated figures like this is that there are certain people who want to rewrite history and they might seize upon the fact that there is a dispute about numbers and use it to support their idea that very few were killed, or perhaps no one at all.

Underrated: The Battle of Tours, 732

Underrated: The Battle of Tours, 732

That, and the 1529 siege of Vienna, are extremely underrated.

Over rated event: The moon landings, whoopee we got non stick frying pans out of that one.

Over rated person: Sigmund Freud. Not a trace of science in his work, but still thought of by many as a scientist. I have no idea how he managed that.

Under rated event: The invention of the transistor. Who knows the names of the people who invented one of the most essential devices for the modern world

Under rated person: Niels Bohr. Without him we would not have any idea of quantum mechanics.

Finding out people opinions about world history is overrated.

underrated;
Nikola Tesla, what didn't he invent?
Lao Tzu, wisest man who ever 'maybee' exhisted.
Leonard Euler, founded the bulk of modern mathematical notation and a bunch of other sweet stuff.
Mikhail Bakunin, who? exactly.
the invention of arabic numerals, The ease of use of arabic numerals facilitated most of the rest of mathematics. Can you add in roman numerals, ok how about calculus?

Overrated;
Thomas Eddison, major leage a-hole, tried to stop ac power.
The Buddha(the god), a wise dude, but still just a dude.
Karl Marx, marxism isnt even a good idea in theory.
The (european)middle ages, wow nights and stuff woo hoo!
Ancient Greece, not much metter than your average ancient culture

Most Ignored:

Pol Pot: worse than Stalin, worse than Hitler.

During the vietnam war, Nixon sent troops into cambodia to rout out some of the Viet Cong. Cambodia, who had been our allies up till then, fell under the leadership of the Khmer Rouge, in a sudden bout of anti-westernism.

The Pol Pot wanted to 'purify' Cambodia, and bring them back to the stone age, eliminating all traces of western influence and technology. he marched into Phnom Penh, and rounded up every single person.

Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers, Mechanics, and anybody who knew anything about technology were shot on the spot.

If you knew French, English, or any other Western Language, you were shot on the spot.

Everyone else (the uneducated ones) were ordered to take off their shoes, and were marched out to the Rice Paddies, to live off the land as their ancestors did.

There are still walls made of skulls, simply piled on top of eachother of the civilians who died in the 'Killing Fields,' worked till they died of malnutrition or disease.

I'm not certain on the numbers, but when you get that high, does it really matter what the numbers were?

Killing People is bad enough.

Wanting to bring us back to the stone age makes it worse.

Over rated person: Sigmund Freud. Not a trace of science in his work, but still thought of by many as a scientist. I have no idea how he managed that.
He spent his life talking about cock, that's how he got so famous.

Australian Soldiers being the Most Feared-Anzacs! ;) Dont you forget it!
North Sea Convoys-Saved Russias Arse!