Alright folks, buckle up ’cause today got messy. Started simple enough – wanted to bang out a quick “cool people in history” list for the blog. Just ten slots, shouldn’t be hard, right? Famous names, done and dusted. Famous last words.
The Spark and the Sudden Quicksand
Grabbed my laptop, cracked open a cold one, and typed “Coolest People in History” into the search bar. Big mistake. Instant rabbit hole. Every page I clicked spat out a different answer. Alexander the Great? Okay, cool. But then this site screams “Ada Lovelace, first programmer!” Another one shouts “Mansa Musa, richest dude EVER!” My eyebrows hit my hairline. Who? Started clicking like a maniac. Two hours later, browser tabs look like a rainbow explosion, notes app is screaming, and I’m drowning.
My neat little list idea? Total garbage fire. Suddenly needing ten felt impossible. Had this sinking feeling like I was gonna miss someone epic everyone else forgot. Panic setting in.
Triage and Caffeine Overdose
Okay. Deep breath. Needed rules. Ground rules to survive this mess. Dumped coffee down my throat and scribbled:
- No Obvious Royals/Kings: Enough Henry VIII overload. Wanted people who did wild, unexpected things.
- “Cool Factor” = Did Something Insane: Invented stuff way before its time, trekked impossible distances, basically blew minds.
- Mixed Bag: Needed a spread – not just warriors or scientists. Art, science, pure chaos.
- Personal Gut Check: Did their story make me go “Whoa. Seriously?!”
Armed with this (and a pounding caffeine headache), dove back in. It was like archeology, digging through layers of “also famous” to find the truly weird or awesome.
Fistfights with History
This is where it got ugly. Trying to pick just ten felt like picking kids. Started arguing with myself out loud. Found Ibn Battuta – guy traveled further than Marco Polo, knew the actual facts? Way less famous. Slammed him onto the list. Then stumbled on Hypatia of Alexandria – philosopher, astronomer, ran the library, got literally murdered by angry mobs? Way too metal. Added. Hedy Lamarr – Hollywood star and helped invent tech crucial for Wi-Fi?! Get in there!
And oh man, the arguments! Tesla vs Edison? Forget it, didn’t even open that can of worms. Almost kicked Cleopatra off – too mainstream? But her political maneuvering was next-level savage. Kept her, grudgingly. Some dudes I thought were shoe-ins got the axe because, honestly, after reading up, others felt way more surprising or impactful in a less obvious way. Left a mess.
The Final Survivors (And The Lingering Guilt)
Hours later, bleary-eyed, I hit save on a doc titled “Top 10 – FINAL (Probably)”. Coffee cups littered the desk like fallen soldiers. Here’s the dirty laundry list of who made the cut after the bloodbath:
- Hedy Lamarr: Movie star + tech whiz. Mind-blowing.
- Mansa Musa: Threw literal gold into the streets on his trip. Billionaire rockstar energy.
- Ada Lovelace: Saw computer potential a century early. Visionary.
- Ching Shih: Pirate queen commanding tens of thousands. Utterly ruthless legend.
- That one unexpected entry (Nikola Tesla? Joan of Arc in a different light?): The final slot was agony. Probably changed it three times.
(… and so on, listing 4-5 more like Ibn Battuta, Hypatia…)
The headache wasn’t just from caffeine. Left out so many awesome people! Felt bad about ditching Genghis Khan’s organizational genius, or someone like Mary Anning finding dinosaurs. Kept muttering “Maybe a ‘Part 2’…” as I finally uploaded the post. Exhausted, slightly guilty, but weirdly pumped.
Lessons learned? History is packed with way cooler people than the boring textbooks told you about. And making top ten lists is brutal. Time for more coffee… and maybe some aspirin.
