The Greatest Americans Of All-Time

The Discovery Channel is doing a show on the 100 greatest Americans and is allowing people to vote on their selections.

At this point, they’ve weened it down to 25 choices, and quite frankly, a lot of the selections are just godawful. I mean we’re talking about a list that includes Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton, and Bob Hope (among other lousy choices), but not James Madison, Tom Paine, or Teddy Roosevelt. That tells you all you need to know about how well America’s public schools teach history.

What’s that? You say since I’m talking trash about the Discovery Channel list, I should put my own list out there? Sounds fair enough. Here is my unranked list of the 20 greatest Americans:

John Adams
Thomas Edison
Albert Einstein
Henry Ford
Ben Franklin
Alexander Hamilton
Andrew Jackson
Thomas Jefferson
Martin Luther King
Abe Lincoln
Douglas MacArthur
James Madison
Tom Paine
George S. Patton
Ronald Reagan
Teddy Roosevelt
Jonas Salk
William Tecumseh Sherman
George Washington
Orville And Wilbur Wright

Now, if that’s enough for you, you can take a look who the blogosphere thought were the greatest Americans back in 2003, on the right & the left.

Furthermore, as an extra added bonus, if there are any bloggers out there who’d like to post their own lists, link back to this post, and then let me know about it in the comment section, via email, or via trackback, — I’ll link to your list.

*** Update #1 ***: Just for the fun of it, here’s my next 20, also unranked:

Susan B. Anthony
Alexander Graham Bell
Andrew Carnegie
Vinton Cerf & Robet Kahn
Francis Crick & James Watson
Frederick Douglass
Dwight Eisenhower
Tommy Franks
Bill Gates
Ulysses S. Grant
John Hancock
Patrick Henry
Sam Houston
Lewis & Clark
George Marshall
James Monroe
“Black Jack” Pershing
James Polk
Harry Truman
Mark Twain

*** Update #2: Other blogs that have done their own lists include…

Betsy’s Page
Res et Rationes
Conservative Response
This Blog Is Full Of Crap
Don Singleton
Iowa Voice
Right Wing Nuthouse
Isaac Schrödinger
John In Carolina
Bookworm Room
Villainous Company
The Daily Blitz

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