Caleb, I think you might be a little harsh saying a lot of the not-so-famous did not do much. I'm sure they did heaps but are just the people who history has not paid much attention to. Newton said

'if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants'

While it may have been meant as an insult to Robert Hooke (who had deformed back that made him small) it has been taken as saying that his achievements are [partially] due to what his predecessors had done.

I think this is true in many other fields as well. With Classical music, you might hear a Beethoven Piano Sonata & think certain effects are Beethovian and very original. But then you hear a composition by Clementi and hear the same effect in a piece written before Beethoven wrote his.

(now one of the lesser known composers but in his day a famous pianist, composer and music business (sold pianos).

Our notion of history is often that of great men - modern physics could be seen as pre-Newtonian, Newtonian, Einstenean (special & general relativity) & then quantum mechanical (Bohr, Heisenberg etc.). But in reality there are many other physists also contributing (ie., the experimental physicists providing the data that supports the theoretical physicists referred to above.

So may be many of the people in your list didn't do much of the right thing to be rememebered by most of us, but they all prob. did significantly much more than 99.9% of the population ot be remembered at all - & their achievements have prob. laid some of the foundations for something that is historically super-significant.

A great list Bob /Alex ? There's been some comments about not so famous people filling up lists but with your list there's only one name afte 1586 I haven't heard of - John Horsley. Are you interested in music - Haydn's a major composer but Schein is a little less known?

Do you think you can extend your list back. One trick would be to find someone who was born in a year someone in Christopher Jury's list died.
Then find someone else who died in the year the earliest person in Christopher's list was born. I'm not too sure Christopher would appreciate it but it seems a neat trick - I'm sure there's lots of parasitic behaviour like that in nature (which Darwin would have known about).

Do we need an evolution challenge on this webpage? It's one of the greatest & msot exciting concepts around in my opinion.

I'll set up a 'challenge' where anyone can post a comment on anything

Bob are you from the holiday seminars? Have I had you in one of my serminars? Do you have any ideas for an evolution challenge?

wait & find out