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[stocks]

Mahatma Gandhi never existed while Britain's wartime Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill was a fictional character. Don't fret. This is only what most Britons think about the great leaders.

According to a survey carried out in Britain, many believe that Mahatma Gandhi and Churchill are just mythical figures like Florence Nightingale, popularly known as the 'Lady with the Lamp'.

In fact, almost a quarter of the population have the popular notion that Churchill, "the greatest Briton of all time", was made up.

Moreover, despite his celebrated military reputation, 47 per cent of respondents feel the 12th-century English King Richard the Lionheart is fictional, according to the survey of 3,000 British teens.

In contrast, a number of fictitious characters like Sherlock Holmes, King Arthur and Eleanor Rigby were given real life status.

http://timesofindia....how/2756095.cms

Ask teenagers, and they overwhelmingly choose African-Americans and women, a study shows. It suggests that the "cultural curriculum" that most kids — and by extension, their parents — experience in school increasingly emphasizes the stories of Americans who are not necessarily dead, white or male.


1. Martin Luther King Jr.: 67%

2. Rosa Parks: 60%

3. Harriet Tubman: 44%

4. Susan B. Anthony: 34%

5.Benjamin Franklin: 29%

6. Amelia Earhart: 25%

7. Oprah Winfrey: 22%

8. Marilyn Monroe: 19%

9. Thomas Edison: 18%

10. Albert Einstein: 16%


http://www.usatoday....ns_N.htm?csp=34

In contrast, here's The Atlantic Monthly's recent list of "100 Most Influential Americans," as chosen by various experts in a survey overseen, I believe, by Ross Douthat. The top Americans who weren't Presidents on The Atlantic's list were:

5 Alexander Hamilton
6 Benjamin Franklin
7 John Marshall
8 Martin Luther King Jr.
9 Thomas Edison
11 John D. Rockefeller
14 Henry Ford
16 Mark Twain
19 Thomas Paine
20 Andrew Carnegie