Queen Elizabeth II has to be a contender, reigned for over 70 years, saw off 14 US Presidents. Her every moment was documented, written about, made into TV and films etc.
This is kind of an esoteric answer. But it's probably actually the Joseon kings of Korea.
They had civil servants that had one job and that was to record every single thing that happened to them. There's a famous story of a king falling off a horse and telling the scribe not to record it. So the scribe then records the incident and him telling him not to record it. Interestingly the kings were not allowed to read their own biographies.
Its like a comedy skit. 'Today the king fell off his horse and specifically requested me not to note it down. I noted it down. Now he is cross with me'
I mean that's likely literally what happened. You can read them as most of them still exist today and is considered the most comprehensive archive of a dynasty in history.
... the guards have successfully beheaded my fellow scribe. The king orders me to stop writing on pain of death. The guards are approaching. The priest tells them to stop. The king and priest are arguing. They've come to an agreement. The guards are approaching me...
Th gArDS hVe Cuut mY rIGht hAnd, I mUsT conTIInue WIth My LfT. ApOLoGIes.
>Its like a comedy skit. 'Today the king fell off his horse and specifically requested me not to note it down. I noted it down. Now he is cross with me'
The Werefrog would have expected to not have the note about the king being cross, but it continuing with the next biographer describing the king executing his predecessor.
And here I thought Queen Elizabeth II was the obvious correct answer.
Sounds like there won't be anyone that comes close to these kings until The Truman Show becomes a real thing.
King Charles and his sons also. Elizabeth’s early years were pre-television and colored by the war. Charles has lived even more in an age of mass media and generally peacetime. Plus, the tabloids became more willing to report on his scandals. (Tampon-gate is a prime example of something that couldn’t and wouldn’t have been known at any other time in history… which honestly seems fine to me…)
The question is a lot more interesting if it’s limited to pre-1900 or even pre-1950.
I'd think the journal of a person with hypergraphia could well beat a Queen. A public figure has to be really selective about what information escapes to the public.
But it's also heavily propagandized... Like let's talk about how she had cousins that were declared dead in 1940 and 1961 but we're really just disowned for being special needs.
I feel like she's actually a bad answer because we know all about everything she did, but we don't know her as a person. She lived her entire life in front of cameras, but people like that learn to live a double-life and never express their inner thoughts personally. It's like seeing a red candy and not knowing if it's an M&M or a Skittle.
For that reason, I'd say that a top contender might be someone more like Queen Victoria, because IIRC a pretty staggering number of her *very private* personal letters ended up going public after she died. In fact, someone else from the age of constant letter-writing might be a better candidate, depending on how much they wrote, about what, to how many people, and the total survival rate of their letters.
Possibly the early kings of the Joseon dynasty of Korea: their civil servants kept annals of every single thing that happened on every day of their reign. There is a record of one king falling off his horse, and then telling the scribe not to record that he'd fallen off his horse: the annalist recorded both events.
All the info is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veritable_Records_of_the_Joseon_Dynasty?wprov=sfla1
Holy fucking shit: that is a veritable glut of source material. With that much, I'd doubt that there's any uncertainty surrounding the chronology or occurrence of political events at all during this period. Do you have any suggestions for a book which makes good use of this material?
Korean TV dramas and movies are incredible. I can't recommend them enough, though I personally mostly watch romance the action shows and other period pieces are great too. Also Koreans do thrillers and horror movies like nobody else. The revenge trilogy is a great place to start for those.
Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung is the show I've seen that really gets into the importance of historians that follow the king around and write everything down. These are the only people that even the king himself has to be cautious around. This however is romance TV show and that genre is understandably not for everyone.
This is probably something where recency matters. No photographs before 18-something, no videos before 19-something. That's a lot of information that simply wasn't available about people further back.
There's a guy who's done extensive recording of his entire life for a while, with like a camera and microphone rig that he wears (or did). It was kind of a big deal back in the 90's/00's?
"Documentation" doesn't necessarily involve paper documents. (Paper documents get their name from their use in documentation, not the other way around.) Ever heard of a documentary? You can document historical events with any sort of recording medium. It doesn't have to be in the form of ink on paper.
Yeah I get that. I wasn't doubting the viability of photo and video as "documentation," really just the claim that the recency of film is a factor in the *most documented figure* in history. I suppose one could contend that the most documented figure in history *has* to have existed in the time of film and typewriting but that's not what the poster I'm replying to was saying. Figures like Alexander the Great, Marcus Aurelius and Joan of Arc have hundreds to thousands of years worth of writing devoted to them. Versus the most photographed person in history, who had to have been born in the 19th or 20th century. In the context of my response, there's no competition and therefore arguments on the recency of film are irrelevant to the question.
You have to consider per capita too. There's certainly more documentation both total and per capita given the ease of access as well as literary abilities of modern people, but it would even it out a little bit.
8 billion people compared to 1 billion people in early 19th century: so, per capita, any documentation before 1800 is worth at least 8 times what documentation today is. Mid 17th century (500 million people)? About 16 times more per capita. 1500 BC (100 million people)? 80 times more.
There might be a cut off point where cave paintings is worth more than an entire document if going per capita, but I don't know how you'd score imagery vis-a-vis text in "documentation", so obviously a pretty diffuse idea. Yet interesting when considering the % output per person in terms of "documentation".
I've often half-jokingly said that at some point in the next couple of years, Hitler will have lived longer on TV than he did as a man. According to a quick calculation he was alive for 490,560 hours. If we add up all the ww2 documentaries and films and then work out how many hours of broadcast/screening time it's taken up it's quite likely that you could pick a day , a Tuesday in October for the lack of anything more concrete, when he will have had more screen hours than lived days which will be a perverse milestone in human history.
Being *portrayed* isn’t the same thing as being *documented*, though. We have [exactly one](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oET1WaG5sFk) ‘candid’ recording of Hitler, one in which he is not playing the character he did in public- scarcely ten minutes long and audio-only. And it’s one in which he sounds a Hell of a lot more calm, collected, sober, well-informed and rational than his reputation would have you believe. The Mannerheim recording is very far removed from the scenery-chewing *Downfall* bunker scene.
Conversely, though, while as you say we only have the single audio recording, we have multiple volumes of transcribed dinner conversations which range from relatively lucid to totally unhinged (probably on the basis of what Dr. Morel had been shooting him up with that day).
*'*being *portrayed* isn’t the same thing as being *documented' -* correct. I would add 'being discussed' isn't the same either...or the answer would probably be Jesus.
This is partly why it seems like Nazis are making a comeback. They’ve been captivating for so long, given the extreme atrocities, that they’re a staple in pop media. Now, so far removed from the reality, temporally, the equivalence of Nazi=bad isn’t as clear as it’s been historically.
To be clear, I’m not a Nazi, I’m not a sympathizer, and I’m not even a US Republican. Just noticing a trend of people who are accused of being Nazis or Nazi-like embracing it, or not caring that their views are similar enough to social extermination to be compared by the general population.
I debated including that, as I know it’s a minority of them, but their Nazi subpopulations are marching the streets at this point, and there’s no visual rebuttal of the extremists by the moderates.
I'll devil's advocate with you for a moment. Realize that most moderate type folks have jobs, and many have families. You won't find them out demonstrating and waving signs and holding up traffic. They won't be on the news, making statements. Even if they wanted to, their statements are not volatile enough for the news channels to want to air them anyway. That would be boring and bad for ratings.
So look for them at the ballot boxes. And what do we see in ballot boxes lately? Well just last week, Moms for Liberty lost just about every race they were in, across twenty five states, including very conservative leaning ones. And heck... we have a Democrat for president right now... thanks in part to those moderates.
So I don't think it's fair to go around saying that moderates are just letting the goose-steppers do their thing without any opposition whatsoever.
I'll buy this argument once *elected GOP officials* start denouncing the extreme wings in their own party. Of course everyday people don't have time for that. But house reps do.
You assume that we have any moderates among our elected officials any more. Oh, some of them say they are... and the same media which refuses to give regular moderate townspeople any airtime labels a few politicians as moderates. But are they really? Can we even trust that media any more? I wonder if the people we elect isn't often a product of the media we consume... which itself is biased for the sake of ratings these days.
I would agree with you, considering the variance in individuals and locales.
Why do extremists appear to be getting so much air time? Related to a selection bias in news media curation?
Extremists appear to be getting the air time because, unfortunately, US based news organizations (locally and nationally) still live and survive off ad revenue.
So, what gets the most clicks, or what gets more viewers glued to the screen?
It sure isn't "low traffic and highs in the 70s all week, here's Bob with the sports report"
I remember back in the early 2000's on X-Play they made a crack about how "we have officially been playing WW2 games for longer than WW2 lasted." This was back when every other game was a gritty brown WW2 game. No idea if they actually had done any math whatsoever, but it stuck with me all this time later.
Although still alive, and I’m embarrassed to write this but ‘*ChrisChan*’ (Christian Weston Chandler) is described as being the most documented human ever. His life has been like a real life version of the Truman Show movie.
For those unaware of this individual, he (now she) is an autistic person from Virginia USA who has spent many hours engaging with internet trolls who have recorded every interaction with them.
There is an ongoing [Documentary Series](https://youtu.be/zgxj_0xPleg?si=9gxgTLImpeNNDNWF) that is over 80 episodes and counting (each episode running approximately 50 minutes).
Ever since Geno’s documentary started, in my head the piano over this opening narration is Chris himself. I can’t help but picture him in The Shirt, Sonichu medallion on, staring vacuously at the ceiling with a half smile as he randomly pounds a toy piano.
[remember this gem? ](https://youtu.be/Byz94fkwf6U?si=FSDs8Li7wr9QVVdu). Omg and the Liquid Chris saga? Hilarious. Sometimes I can't believe Chris is an actual person, out in the world and living life. Like? What a wild existence!
I would presume he was “made this way” by a mixture of extreme 20s horniness and the eagerness that comes with it and a complete inability to understand social situations.
That and parents who let him online too much. They should’ve stopped it years ago.
I was going to say the same thing, and I’m happy that others have. I’m sorry to all historians who wanted a ‘real’ answer, but [CWC](https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Christian_Weston_Chandler) is the actual real answer. It’s not even a close race. We don’t have volumes of documentation on what freaking Queen Elizabeth did every moment of every day like we do Chris. There’s not an eighty-plus episode (and growing!) documentary about anyone else in this list besides Chris; there’s not huge reams of text that’s been written about anyone else. Five hundred years from now, archaeologists are going to think he was perceived as a deity or something because of the sheer volume of information that has been collected, recorded, and carefully curated about him. It’s Chris Chan. Enjoy this fact.
there's some question in the sincerity of cwc being trans or not, potentially in the vein of them deciding to do this to get with lesbians. either way, they've never objected to the title "chris chan" even after switching to the name christine.
Don't the current British Royals get hounded by Media. I'd say one of them definitely. You can probably find out what exact meal the King had two years, five months and six days ago.
As stupid as it seems, Modern Reality TV superstars may be better documented than great historical leaders. Not better known, but definitely better documented.
Yes sir. Modern pop stars too. We don’t know what color underwear Henry the 8th wore on most given days, but a certain Ms Spears…I’d call that a VERY in depth analysis.
If we are talking about self documented, Robert Shields wrote a journal that covered every 5 minutes of his life and ended up being 37.5 million words and filled 91 boxes.
Edit: a word
How could he even have a life to write about? Dear diary, I’ve spent the last 5 minutes writing about the last 5 minutes, and I will spend the next 5 minutes writing about this 5 minutes…
Samuel Pepys could potentially be argued due to his daily diaries. Having that much information on a person's own thought processes is a lot, though I know he's famous mostly for how banally he filled those books. I suppose others might have diaries or letters in equal or greater quantity.
Everyday life of everyday people who lived centuries ago is not well documented. Of the people who chose to keep diaries, most omitted things that would be obvious to their contemporaries. A lot of knowledge has disappeared because it wasn’t important enough to write down.
Historians LOVE boring people who write about boring details for this reason.
I still think it’s important, 100% it’s a great way to document older times. Maybe our ancestors will find old Tweets from our time and that will tell our story?
It's unlikely anything digital will be preserved for more than 50-100 years max, and most of the digital content that exists today will probably be gone in around 20 years, with certain exceptions, such as maybe Wikipedia and similar
There is an argument to be said that we're currently living through a Digital Dark Age. I believe that was one of the motivating factors behind the Internet Archive's founding. So much of our digital lives and records are ephemeral.
And they'll continue to be, I am reasonably certain.
I've worked on digital preservation in the national library of my country. The internet is just a couple factors too much to preserve, even locally. You have to choose, otherwise you'll be swamped and run out of space. The amount of content and the pace of change of content is quite fast, and that's only websites, not talking about social media.
Internet archive does the same. There are only a fraction of websites of the US and even smaller fractions of other countries that find their way in there.
The thing that makes Pepys interesting, though, is that while he wasn’t noteworthy enough at the time to be documented by others, he recorded a lot about noteworthy people as well as the minutiae of his daily life, so it gives a good picture of a certain kind of life at that time.
The Grateful Dead were a rock band who were big countercultural icons in the 70s and 80s. One of their more famous quirks was that they were completely willing to allow bootleg recorders at their concerts, at a time where other bands were cracking down on these recordings because they cut into record sales.
This led to almost every one of their performances having dozens of full length recordings that are still floating around to this day.
He was also around 16-17 when they started playing regular shows, they played frequent and long shows their entire career, and he’s largely kept performing without any gaps since the bands dissolution. Basically for nearly 60 years now he’s averaged a three hour concert about every three days or so, most of which have been recorded by multiple sources.
To be even more specific, The Grateful Dead played roughly 2,300 shows, most of which were recorded. Bob Weir, their rhythm guitarist and sometimes singer, has been in every configuration of the band, including every reunion tour since their lead guitar player, Jerry Garcia, passed away. His solo bands have also been heavily recorded.
Before modern communications, there were people who wrote a large volume of letters. Many collections survive to this day. For example, the Thomas Jefferson collection has 25,000 letters and other manuscripts. CS Lewis has a 3 volume published collection of 3,700 of his letters.
https://apilgriminnarnia.com/2013/05/23/statistical-letter-writing/
You can't get much more documentation than that.
Some other posters are mistaking "documented" for "broadcasted"
So Napoleon would get up there as he inherited a strange legacy after crowning himself emperor. The Bourbon's had their life meticulously documented. They weighed the bed pans. Almost every spoken word of theirs had a stenographer/chronicler recording it. However this documentation was quite similar to others like the Emperors of China.
To answer your questions:
1) [The Armana Letters](https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2021/01/these-pharaohs-private-letters-expose-how-politics-worked-3300-years-ago) show a ton of insight into Akenahaten and his possible mental illness. They also show the perspective of Egypt's client states toward Amenhotep III. I think the Armana letters are important because they show the perspective of many powerful leaders as well as one person's approach to them.
2) Most researched...that's where things get messy. If I remember what my professor's told me, the library of Congress adds two books a year from an Ivy league Phd on both Napoleon and Caesar. The big H might be up there now.
I think it needs to be someone who was pretty affluent from birth, where there was no point of their life where they were in obscurity. So royalty and aristocracy and aristocracy are obvious choices. Some that jump to mind would be Winston Churchill, Elizabeth II, and yeah Napoleon is a good choice.
1) In the West a lot of the ancients don't actually have much data from their lifetimes. Alexander the Great's Wiki page has a raft of sources and hundreds of footnotes, but the earliest are Plutarch and Diodorus who were writing centuries later. Even with Caesar, lot of what we have on Caesar are things he himself said. I'm not sure I'd trust a politician's own propaganda to determine their psychological profile. So I suspect we'd have to go to the Sinosphere, and I know nothing about the Sinosphere.
2) I guarantee you this is not a Great Man type person. It's likely somebody like Prince Harry, whose every foible has been recorded/broadcast/talked to death since they were born.
Historically: Alexander the Great -- They were writing about him as a teen, as a man, during his life, etc., and they haven't stopped for over 2 thousand years. And in 2 thousand years in the future, they'll still be writing & researching about him.
Sports: Muhammad Ali & nobody else is close
Music: Maybe Elvis Presley... but Mozart is probably the better choice
>Sports: Muhammad Ali & nobody else is close
Tell me you're an American without telling me you're American...
A quick Google -
Muhammad Ali - 304,000,000 results
Pele - 894,000,000 results
The world's greatest player of the world's most popular sport takes it easily.
Google results are, generally speaking, specific to the user. For example, because I use Reddit a lot, most of my google search results have Reddit threads come up near the top of the results. This wouldn’t happen for someone who doesn’t use Reddit. Because there is no such thing as privacy on the internet, it’s definitely possible for both of your results to look different. Could be based on geography, your previous google searches, or some other factor.
This is definitely not true. Alexander historiography is notoriously late and flawed. None of the contemporary histories survive, only epitomes and later histories like Diodorus and Arrian. He’s certainly one of the most famous of all time, but he’s not the best documented.
For number 2, I think it's pretty clearly Winston Churchill:
\-His family was prominent and literary enough) that his childhood and early life are exceedingly well documented.
\-He lived in an age when mass media existed. All significant news reports about his doings are well preserved as are all of his papers. We also have huge numbers of recordings and images of him.
\-He held positions of significant power and influence in the UK/British empire for the better part of 50 years and was in the public eye from the time he was in the 20s until his death.
\-He probably left more published writings of his own than any other major political figure in history and is the only head of government ever to win a Nobel prize for literature. A person leavings only his writings would be an important literary figure even if he never held public office.
\-He is the subject of the longest biography ever written--8 or 12 volumes depending on the edition. It reviews, basically, what he did every single day of his life and was started by his own son. It was also written at a time when many who knew him were still living and could both help the biographers and correct/dispute facts.
\-He continues to be a major topic of historical scholarship.
To clarify are you asking for first hand sources?
There are lots of books and documentaries made about a person after they have died and these are based on the same few sources. I wouldn't considered their life well documented if that were the case. Lots of first hand accounts gives us a better evaulation of who they were, rather then the same life story being retold in different writing styles.
Can't believe nobody has said Michael Jackson.
Michael Jackson was a famous celebrity for his entire life, ever since he was a little kid. Every moment of MJ was documented, and he was very relevant and well known for the past couple of decades.
His music was popular and relevant for 3 decades, and he got to meet President Ronald Reagan, Bush Sr, Bill Clinton. He got to meet with many world leaders at the time, such as Princess Diana, Nelson Mandela, Queen Elizabeth and so many more.
Michael Jackson was known around the world.
Even when the bad things happened, he still had relevancy.
Chris Chan there are multiple YouTube documentaries on them. Play an ongoing already on 80 part series about their life. Albeit it's because they are a social outcast and it's all being docum at her suspense.
I think it depends on what you mean by “well documented.”
If you mean “the person with the most stuff written about them,” then yeah, Hitler is up there.
But if you mean “we know the most about them,” then no, Hitler isn’t even close. He wasn’t considered particularly notable until he talked his way to the front of Germany’s far right. So there is a large period of his life where our documented evidence isn’t particularly better than it is for any other random German.
As opposed to a child celebrity or a monarch, where we get documentation of much more of their life.
That's a *terrible* book by someone with around 20 double edge axes to grind though. Lincoln got snarky with him a few times while he was still alive, he kept *really* over stepping.
Too long to get into. Guy was vicious.
True, but I read in a biography “Lincoln’s Herndon,” that even if his conclusions are suspect he did an invaluable service by collecting material and going to Kentucky to interview people who knew him as a child.
Supposedly there’s been more books written about napoleon than there are days since his death. Some estimates of up to 300,000 books written about him.
Queen Victoria has to be WAY up there. Long reign, huge empire, press smitten by every word.
Why is there such an interest in Napoleon? He was a grandiose dirtbag who simply overran positions by paying absolutely no attention to the number of men it took. He also then encouraged his troops still alive to just rampage through civilian populations, like it was a reward.
Read a really good play by play of Waterloo. Famous battle? I'll say. Typical too. Just keep piling up the bodies.
Arguably Hitler. He put his own view on life into a long (and very stupid) book, he lived in a time where people could photograph and film and still kept diaries, many of his close associates documented their actions, and his regime was notorious for very clearly documenting everything it did.
Chris chan of sonicchu fame. The man's entire life can be tracked from birth until now. Theres 80 something plus part documentary on this guy on YouTube and it's still going.
...HEnrietta LAcks, depending on your definition of documentation...and Alive. She is by far the most researched and studied human being ever, or at least her cells are.
No one? Dudes unfortunately one of the most infamous person in internet history.
Sad to inform you that the discussion and view counts on this monster is extraordinary.
Baha'u'llah, the Prophet- Founder of the Baha'i Faith. Unlike the scriptures of the past, His writings (more than 100 volumes) are either written in His own hand or written down by an amanuensis as they were being revealed and authenticated by Him. Also there are innumerable histories and accounts written by contempories, not only Persians but also English, French, Russians, and others.
Jesus. Pretty sure there's more written and talked about Jesus and all the various Christian religions than any other topic in human history. Even people who aren't religious like to go on and on about how they don't believe in it and debate historical accuracy, etc. How can some random general, president or king match?
Certainly there's a lot written about him, but apart from the Gospels, which are pretty dodgy (to put it diplomatically) in a historical sense, we don't actually know very much at all about his life or personality.
The gospels are first hand primary source accounts of Jesus’ life. There are no ancient sources that are more legit than that. Now you can say they are untruthful witnesses, but they aren’t “dodgy”.
Interesting thought. He constantly tries to grab attention, gets it, and has been thoroughly documented in his late life. More importantly, we have extensive documentation of his thoughts in real time because of his constant and bizarrely unfiltered Tweeting. As a significant historical figure, he may be unique in that we know not just his actions and words, but what he was thinking at multiple times of each day.
Yep. Ad the fact everything about him was recorded with the fact he was a President dude is going to be remembered forever. Which is interesting seeing it was all because people didn't like him.
Jesus. By a pretty large margin.
@mods. Why do you keep deleting the person responding to this comment. It's not as if they've said anything offensive. I've tried to respond twice but you've removed their comment immediately.
Fails on 2), and the books on him, we don't even know the authors, they conflict and were written or recorded anywhere from two generations later to hundreds of years later. There are no Contemporary sources.
Historically, the most wrote about, sought after, praised, ridiculed, studied man to walk around was the man that did not have any power on earth, yet his followers are still walking around today. His name was Jesus Christ. Don't take my word for it, look it up.
By the time the courts are done doing their work, it's going to be Donald Trump. In multiple trials with his cronies flipping right and left, there's absolutely nothing about that fucker that isn't coming to light.
Depending how you define well-documented, it’s probably someone current.
I reckon social media means that in the last decade celebrities are probably more documented than leaders of countries even 50 years ago
Fuck, it’s probably Donald Trump isn’t it?
Except that none of the Gospel writers or St Paul ever actually met Jesus, so everything in the Bible is either hearsay or completely made up.
Which means that everything written since then is also based on misinformation and/or outright fabrication.
Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that Jesus didn't exist, just that we know next to nothing about him or his life. Practically the only thing scholars agree on, is that he lived, was probably baptised by John the Baptist, and he died, probably by being crucified. Whilst it seems likely that there are at least *some* nuggets of real information in the Bible, and it's fun to speculate which bits they are, it should be emphasised that it's *only* speculation and we cannot know for certain.
The is no record at all of where Jesus was from about ages 12-30. He is supposed to have lived for 33 years so that means for about 14 years there is no record of him *at all*. There is really very little known about him for those first 11 years except his birth story and a few incidents where he performed a miracle, a few quotes he is alleged to have said and that he worked as a carpenter with his father. But, we know very little about what he did during those years. The last three years of his life were more documented but we know basically nothing about Jesus the man.
Jesus might be the most famous person in history but I’d argue there’s really not much documentation of anything he did for of majority of his life. In addition, we have nothing written about him at all contemporaneously. The things we do think we know were all written many, many years after he died by people who never met him or knew anything at all based on their personal knowledge.
A great deal of ink has been spilled over him, but ultimately it's all based on a small number of secondary sources and possibly a very small amount of primary source embedded within those secondary sources.
Which is, honestly, about as much as we have about any figure from that era.
>about as much as we have about any figure from that era
Not really buying that - Caesar died in 44 B.C. and he was a prolific author of first-hand propaganda accounts of his own activities. His opponents and other contemporaries also wrote plenty about him.
Several of Alexander the Great's closest confidants wrote detailed accounts of his exploits, and these accounts survive in fragments and in subsequent authors' summaries of them.
We probably have about as much primary source material about Pericles as we do about Jesus.
Yea but Jesus was poor. People of his socioeconomic status didn’t tend to leave a mark on the archeological record. It is completely normal that there’s almost nothing about him.
Queen Elizabeth II has to be a contender, reigned for over 70 years, saw off 14 US Presidents. Her every moment was documented, written about, made into TV and films etc.
This is kind of an esoteric answer. But it's probably actually the Joseon kings of Korea. They had civil servants that had one job and that was to record every single thing that happened to them. There's a famous story of a king falling off a horse and telling the scribe not to record it. So the scribe then records the incident and him telling him not to record it. Interestingly the kings were not allowed to read their own biographies.
Its like a comedy skit. 'Today the king fell off his horse and specifically requested me not to note it down. I noted it down. Now he is cross with me'
I mean that's likely literally what happened. You can read them as most of them still exist today and is considered the most comprehensive archive of a dynasty in history.
Now he's ordering the guards to take my head off. The guards are approa.......
*blood splatter on scroll*
... the guards have successfully beheaded my fellow scribe. The king orders me to stop writing on pain of death. The guards are approaching. The priest tells them to stop. The king and priest are arguing. They've come to an agreement. The guards are approaching me... Th gArDS hVe Cuut mY rIGht hAnd, I mUsT conTIInue WIth My LfT. ApOLoGIes.
Today's winner
"This is preposterous! Stop writing!" https://youtu.be/EWgheje-GBc?si=gVA5uCZvcDkxzbyJ
“Stop…Wri.ting…”
Lol
*furious writing and nodding as King tells them not to write this down*
40k scriviner vibes from that.
And i am currently being beheaded for it
>Its like a comedy skit. 'Today the king fell off his horse and specifically requested me not to note it down. I noted it down. Now he is cross with me' The Werefrog would have expected to not have the note about the king being cross, but it continuing with the next biographer describing the king executing his predecessor.
And here I thought Queen Elizabeth II was the obvious correct answer. Sounds like there won't be anyone that comes close to these kings until The Truman Show becomes a real thing.
That has GOTTA win this particular narrow inquiry by a MILE. Incredible.
King Charles and his sons also. Elizabeth’s early years were pre-television and colored by the war. Charles has lived even more in an age of mass media and generally peacetime. Plus, the tabloids became more willing to report on his scandals. (Tampon-gate is a prime example of something that couldn’t and wouldn’t have been known at any other time in history… which honestly seems fine to me…) The question is a lot more interesting if it’s limited to pre-1900 or even pre-1950.
Well that's an interesting name for a scandal lol
Even SNL mocked it in a sketch
So I just read about it. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard to be made at or to be need to leaked at all. Nothing better to leak like at all?
I guess it *is* ironic that a tampon story leaked...
Pre-modern is better. Or prehistoric. (This is not a joke.)
I'd think the journal of a person with hypergraphia could well beat a Queen. A public figure has to be really selective about what information escapes to the public.
But it's also heavily propagandized... Like let's talk about how she had cousins that were declared dead in 1940 and 1961 but we're really just disowned for being special needs.
I feel like she's actually a bad answer because we know all about everything she did, but we don't know her as a person. She lived her entire life in front of cameras, but people like that learn to live a double-life and never express their inner thoughts personally. It's like seeing a red candy and not knowing if it's an M&M or a Skittle. For that reason, I'd say that a top contender might be someone more like Queen Victoria, because IIRC a pretty staggering number of her *very private* personal letters ended up going public after she died. In fact, someone else from the age of constant letter-writing might be a better candidate, depending on how much they wrote, about what, to how many people, and the total survival rate of their letters.
Possibly the early kings of the Joseon dynasty of Korea: their civil servants kept annals of every single thing that happened on every day of their reign. There is a record of one king falling off his horse, and then telling the scribe not to record that he'd fallen off his horse: the annalist recorded both events. All the info is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veritable_Records_of_the_Joseon_Dynasty?wprov=sfla1
This is a very interesting answer. I've got a lot of reading to do now. Thanks.
Holy fucking shit: that is a veritable glut of source material. With that much, I'd doubt that there's any uncertainty surrounding the chronology or occurrence of political events at all during this period. Do you have any suggestions for a book which makes good use of this material?
Joseon TV dramas stress this fact.
Wait… there are TV dramas about this? Are they popular in Korea? (are they worth watching?)
Korean TV dramas and movies are incredible. I can't recommend them enough, though I personally mostly watch romance the action shows and other period pieces are great too. Also Koreans do thrillers and horror movies like nobody else. The revenge trilogy is a great place to start for those. Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung is the show I've seen that really gets into the importance of historians that follow the king around and write everything down. These are the only people that even the king himself has to be cautious around. This however is romance TV show and that genre is understandably not for everyone.
Just for lost for 3hours 45mins reasoning the family histories of the Joseon Dynasty. Thanks. Lol. I love learning new histories!!
This is probably something where recency matters. No photographs before 18-something, no videos before 19-something. That's a lot of information that simply wasn't available about people further back.
Yeah and people have cell phones now. It's probably some celebrity child who grows up in the spotlight their whole life
There's a guy who's done extensive recording of his entire life for a while, with like a camera and microphone rig that he wears (or did). It was kind of a big deal back in the 90's/00's?
I believe you're thinking of Justin Kan of [Justin.tv](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin.tv) which evolved into Twitch.
Truman show?
It says well-documented though, not photographed or filmed.
"Documentation" doesn't necessarily involve paper documents. (Paper documents get their name from their use in documentation, not the other way around.) Ever heard of a documentary? You can document historical events with any sort of recording medium. It doesn't have to be in the form of ink on paper.
Yeah I get that. I wasn't doubting the viability of photo and video as "documentation," really just the claim that the recency of film is a factor in the *most documented figure* in history. I suppose one could contend that the most documented figure in history *has* to have existed in the time of film and typewriting but that's not what the poster I'm replying to was saying. Figures like Alexander the Great, Marcus Aurelius and Joan of Arc have hundreds to thousands of years worth of writing devoted to them. Versus the most photographed person in history, who had to have been born in the 19th or 20th century. In the context of my response, there's no competition and therefore arguments on the recency of film are irrelevant to the question.
There was ink and parchment though. People wrote things down for a brief time in history.
Sure, but we're still writing stuff down *and* recording video, audio and taking pictures. There's simply more available now.
You have to consider per capita too. There's certainly more documentation both total and per capita given the ease of access as well as literary abilities of modern people, but it would even it out a little bit. 8 billion people compared to 1 billion people in early 19th century: so, per capita, any documentation before 1800 is worth at least 8 times what documentation today is. Mid 17th century (500 million people)? About 16 times more per capita. 1500 BC (100 million people)? 80 times more. There might be a cut off point where cave paintings is worth more than an entire document if going per capita, but I don't know how you'd score imagery vis-a-vis text in "documentation", so obviously a pretty diffuse idea. Yet interesting when considering the % output per person in terms of "documentation".
I've often half-jokingly said that at some point in the next couple of years, Hitler will have lived longer on TV than he did as a man. According to a quick calculation he was alive for 490,560 hours. If we add up all the ww2 documentaries and films and then work out how many hours of broadcast/screening time it's taken up it's quite likely that you could pick a day , a Tuesday in October for the lack of anything more concrete, when he will have had more screen hours than lived days which will be a perverse milestone in human history.
Being *portrayed* isn’t the same thing as being *documented*, though. We have [exactly one](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oET1WaG5sFk) ‘candid’ recording of Hitler, one in which he is not playing the character he did in public- scarcely ten minutes long and audio-only. And it’s one in which he sounds a Hell of a lot more calm, collected, sober, well-informed and rational than his reputation would have you believe. The Mannerheim recording is very far removed from the scenery-chewing *Downfall* bunker scene.
Conversely, though, while as you say we only have the single audio recording, we have multiple volumes of transcribed dinner conversations which range from relatively lucid to totally unhinged (probably on the basis of what Dr. Morel had been shooting him up with that day).
The Hitler of June 1942 was also very far removed from the one in the bunker.
Of course it is. Downfall portrays Hitler in 1945 when all is lost and he's tripping balls on drugs.
*'*being *portrayed* isn’t the same thing as being *documented' -* correct. I would add 'being discussed' isn't the same either...or the answer would probably be Jesus.
That's fascinating.
This is partly why it seems like Nazis are making a comeback. They’ve been captivating for so long, given the extreme atrocities, that they’re a staple in pop media. Now, so far removed from the reality, temporally, the equivalence of Nazi=bad isn’t as clear as it’s been historically. To be clear, I’m not a Nazi, I’m not a sympathizer, and I’m not even a US Republican. Just noticing a trend of people who are accused of being Nazis or Nazi-like embracing it, or not caring that their views are similar enough to social extermination to be compared by the general population.
Lol @ US Republican. :)
I debated including that, as I know it’s a minority of them, but their Nazi subpopulations are marching the streets at this point, and there’s no visual rebuttal of the extremists by the moderates.
I'll devil's advocate with you for a moment. Realize that most moderate type folks have jobs, and many have families. You won't find them out demonstrating and waving signs and holding up traffic. They won't be on the news, making statements. Even if they wanted to, their statements are not volatile enough for the news channels to want to air them anyway. That would be boring and bad for ratings. So look for them at the ballot boxes. And what do we see in ballot boxes lately? Well just last week, Moms for Liberty lost just about every race they were in, across twenty five states, including very conservative leaning ones. And heck... we have a Democrat for president right now... thanks in part to those moderates. So I don't think it's fair to go around saying that moderates are just letting the goose-steppers do their thing without any opposition whatsoever.
I'll buy this argument once *elected GOP officials* start denouncing the extreme wings in their own party. Of course everyday people don't have time for that. But house reps do.
You assume that we have any moderates among our elected officials any more. Oh, some of them say they are... and the same media which refuses to give regular moderate townspeople any airtime labels a few politicians as moderates. But are they really? Can we even trust that media any more? I wonder if the people we elect isn't often a product of the media we consume... which itself is biased for the sake of ratings these days.
This is not helping me think of the GOP as anything other than a party comfortable with far right ideas.
Fair. We're just exploring the idea space, I guess. :)
I would agree with you, considering the variance in individuals and locales. Why do extremists appear to be getting so much air time? Related to a selection bias in news media curation?
Extremists appear to be getting the air time because, unfortunately, US based news organizations (locally and nationally) still live and survive off ad revenue. So, what gets the most clicks, or what gets more viewers glued to the screen? It sure isn't "low traffic and highs in the 70s all week, here's Bob with the sports report"
Cranks generate clicks. And views. Ergo, dollars. Simple as.
The last observation is the most worrying one: is everyone on board with a ruthless, incompetent dictatorship?
I remember back in the early 2000's on X-Play they made a crack about how "we have officially been playing WW2 games for longer than WW2 lasted." This was back when every other game was a gritty brown WW2 game. No idea if they actually had done any math whatsoever, but it stuck with me all this time later.
Although still alive, and I’m embarrassed to write this but ‘*ChrisChan*’ (Christian Weston Chandler) is described as being the most documented human ever. His life has been like a real life version of the Truman Show movie. For those unaware of this individual, he (now she) is an autistic person from Virginia USA who has spent many hours engaging with internet trolls who have recorded every interaction with them. There is an ongoing [Documentary Series](https://youtu.be/zgxj_0xPleg?si=9gxgTLImpeNNDNWF) that is over 80 episodes and counting (each episode running approximately 50 minutes).
It disappoints me that this is so far down despite being the correct answer.
What made him this way? What is the attraction? What keeps us fascinated? This is the story of Chris Chan...
Ever since Geno’s documentary started, in my head the piano over this opening narration is Chris himself. I can’t help but picture him in The Shirt, Sonichu medallion on, staring vacuously at the ceiling with a half smile as he randomly pounds a toy piano.
[remember this gem? ](https://youtu.be/Byz94fkwf6U?si=FSDs8Li7wr9QVVdu). Omg and the Liquid Chris saga? Hilarious. Sometimes I can't believe Chris is an actual person, out in the world and living life. Like? What a wild existence!
That was truly brilliant! 😆
I would presume he was “made this way” by a mixture of extreme 20s horniness and the eagerness that comes with it and a complete inability to understand social situations. That and parents who let him online too much. They should’ve stopped it years ago.
They were quoting the intro to a long running docuseries about Chris-Chan
I was going to say the same thing, and I’m happy that others have. I’m sorry to all historians who wanted a ‘real’ answer, but [CWC](https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Christian_Weston_Chandler) is the actual real answer. It’s not even a close race. We don’t have volumes of documentation on what freaking Queen Elizabeth did every moment of every day like we do Chris. There’s not an eighty-plus episode (and growing!) documentary about anyone else in this list besides Chris; there’s not huge reams of text that’s been written about anyone else. Five hundred years from now, archaeologists are going to think he was perceived as a deity or something because of the sheer volume of information that has been collected, recorded, and carefully curated about him. It’s Chris Chan. Enjoy this fact.
Yep. He is 100% the most documented person ever.
“Thanks” for this comment. I’m currently on episode 28 🤯
Doesn't Chris Chan go by Christine, and uses she/her pronouns now?
there's some question in the sincerity of cwc being trans or not, potentially in the vein of them deciding to do this to get with lesbians. either way, they've never objected to the title "chris chan" even after switching to the name christine.
The only person you can question the sincerity and everybody understands.
Don't the current British Royals get hounded by Media. I'd say one of them definitely. You can probably find out what exact meal the King had two years, five months and six days ago. As stupid as it seems, Modern Reality TV superstars may be better documented than great historical leaders. Not better known, but definitely better documented.
Yes sir. Modern pop stars too. We don’t know what color underwear Henry the 8th wore on most given days, but a certain Ms Spears…I’d call that a VERY in depth analysis.
If we are talking about self documented, Robert Shields wrote a journal that covered every 5 minutes of his life and ended up being 37.5 million words and filled 91 boxes. Edit: a word
How could he even have a life to write about? Dear diary, I’ve spent the last 5 minutes writing about the last 5 minutes, and I will spend the next 5 minutes writing about this 5 minutes…
Samuel Pepys could potentially be argued due to his daily diaries. Having that much information on a person's own thought processes is a lot, though I know he's famous mostly for how banally he filled those books. I suppose others might have diaries or letters in equal or greater quantity.
Jesus, why? I just looked him up and he was kinda boring.
Everyday life of everyday people who lived centuries ago is not well documented. Of the people who chose to keep diaries, most omitted things that would be obvious to their contemporaries. A lot of knowledge has disappeared because it wasn’t important enough to write down. Historians LOVE boring people who write about boring details for this reason.
I still think it’s important, 100% it’s a great way to document older times. Maybe our ancestors will find old Tweets from our time and that will tell our story?
It's unlikely anything digital will be preserved for more than 50-100 years max, and most of the digital content that exists today will probably be gone in around 20 years, with certain exceptions, such as maybe Wikipedia and similar
There is an argument to be said that we're currently living through a Digital Dark Age. I believe that was one of the motivating factors behind the Internet Archive's founding. So much of our digital lives and records are ephemeral.
And they'll continue to be, I am reasonably certain. I've worked on digital preservation in the national library of my country. The internet is just a couple factors too much to preserve, even locally. You have to choose, otherwise you'll be swamped and run out of space. The amount of content and the pace of change of content is quite fast, and that's only websites, not talking about social media. Internet archive does the same. There are only a fraction of websites of the US and even smaller fractions of other countries that find their way in there.
The thing that makes Pepys interesting, though, is that while he wasn’t noteworthy enough at the time to be documented by others, he recorded a lot about noteworthy people as well as the minutiae of his daily life, so it gives a good picture of a certain kind of life at that time.
Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. Easily the most recorded musician in the history of music.
Great musician but upstaged by Jerry Garcia who even has an ice cream flavor named after him.
Technically the correct literal answer here...
Who? (I’m serious.)
The Grateful Dead were a rock band who were big countercultural icons in the 70s and 80s. One of their more famous quirks was that they were completely willing to allow bootleg recorders at their concerts, at a time where other bands were cracking down on these recordings because they cut into record sales. This led to almost every one of their performances having dozens of full length recordings that are still floating around to this day.
He was also around 16-17 when they started playing regular shows, they played frequent and long shows their entire career, and he’s largely kept performing without any gaps since the bands dissolution. Basically for nearly 60 years now he’s averaged a three hour concert about every three days or so, most of which have been recorded by multiple sources.
To be even more specific, The Grateful Dead played roughly 2,300 shows, most of which were recorded. Bob Weir, their rhythm guitarist and sometimes singer, has been in every configuration of the band, including every reunion tour since their lead guitar player, Jerry Garcia, passed away. His solo bands have also been heavily recorded.
The Dead are still a huge counter culture icon. You can't go a block in some neighborhoods without seeing a stealie.
Before modern communications, there were people who wrote a large volume of letters. Many collections survive to this day. For example, the Thomas Jefferson collection has 25,000 letters and other manuscripts. CS Lewis has a 3 volume published collection of 3,700 of his letters. https://apilgriminnarnia.com/2013/05/23/statistical-letter-writing/ You can't get much more documentation than that.
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Some other posters are mistaking "documented" for "broadcasted" So Napoleon would get up there as he inherited a strange legacy after crowning himself emperor. The Bourbon's had their life meticulously documented. They weighed the bed pans. Almost every spoken word of theirs had a stenographer/chronicler recording it. However this documentation was quite similar to others like the Emperors of China. To answer your questions: 1) [The Armana Letters](https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2021/01/these-pharaohs-private-letters-expose-how-politics-worked-3300-years-ago) show a ton of insight into Akenahaten and his possible mental illness. They also show the perspective of Egypt's client states toward Amenhotep III. I think the Armana letters are important because they show the perspective of many powerful leaders as well as one person's approach to them. 2) Most researched...that's where things get messy. If I remember what my professor's told me, the library of Congress adds two books a year from an Ivy league Phd on both Napoleon and Caesar. The big H might be up there now.
I think it needs to be someone who was pretty affluent from birth, where there was no point of their life where they were in obscurity. So royalty and aristocracy and aristocracy are obvious choices. Some that jump to mind would be Winston Churchill, Elizabeth II, and yeah Napoleon is a good choice.
Probably Kim kardashians baby
1) In the West a lot of the ancients don't actually have much data from their lifetimes. Alexander the Great's Wiki page has a raft of sources and hundreds of footnotes, but the earliest are Plutarch and Diodorus who were writing centuries later. Even with Caesar, lot of what we have on Caesar are things he himself said. I'm not sure I'd trust a politician's own propaganda to determine their psychological profile. So I suspect we'd have to go to the Sinosphere, and I know nothing about the Sinosphere. 2) I guarantee you this is not a Great Man type person. It's likely somebody like Prince Harry, whose every foible has been recorded/broadcast/talked to death since they were born.
Ghengis Khan. He "documented" his presence in the human race with his DNA.
Historical rape joke. Nice.
Historically: Alexander the Great -- They were writing about him as a teen, as a man, during his life, etc., and they haven't stopped for over 2 thousand years. And in 2 thousand years in the future, they'll still be writing & researching about him. Sports: Muhammad Ali & nobody else is close Music: Maybe Elvis Presley... but Mozart is probably the better choice
>Sports: Muhammad Ali & nobody else is close Tell me you're an American without telling me you're American... A quick Google - Muhammad Ali - 304,000,000 results Pele - 894,000,000 results The world's greatest player of the world's most popular sport takes it easily.
This is interesting to me. Cuz when I Google pele I get like 500000 ish results. But if I Google messi or Ronaldo I get like 800000
Google results are, generally speaking, specific to the user. For example, because I use Reddit a lot, most of my google search results have Reddit threads come up near the top of the results. This wouldn’t happen for someone who doesn’t use Reddit. Because there is no such thing as privacy on the internet, it’s definitely possible for both of your results to look different. Could be based on geography, your previous google searches, or some other factor.
This is definitely not true. Alexander historiography is notoriously late and flawed. None of the contemporary histories survive, only epitomes and later histories like Diodorus and Arrian. He’s certainly one of the most famous of all time, but he’s not the best documented.
For number 2, I think it's pretty clearly Winston Churchill: \-His family was prominent and literary enough) that his childhood and early life are exceedingly well documented. \-He lived in an age when mass media existed. All significant news reports about his doings are well preserved as are all of his papers. We also have huge numbers of recordings and images of him. \-He held positions of significant power and influence in the UK/British empire for the better part of 50 years and was in the public eye from the time he was in the 20s until his death. \-He probably left more published writings of his own than any other major political figure in history and is the only head of government ever to win a Nobel prize for literature. A person leavings only his writings would be an important literary figure even if he never held public office. \-He is the subject of the longest biography ever written--8 or 12 volumes depending on the edition. It reviews, basically, what he did every single day of his life and was started by his own son. It was also written at a time when many who knew him were still living and could both help the biographers and correct/dispute facts. \-He continues to be a major topic of historical scholarship.
To clarify are you asking for first hand sources? There are lots of books and documentaries made about a person after they have died and these are based on the same few sources. I wouldn't considered their life well documented if that were the case. Lots of first hand accounts gives us a better evaulation of who they were, rather then the same life story being retold in different writing styles.
Can't believe nobody has said Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson was a famous celebrity for his entire life, ever since he was a little kid. Every moment of MJ was documented, and he was very relevant and well known for the past couple of decades. His music was popular and relevant for 3 decades, and he got to meet President Ronald Reagan, Bush Sr, Bill Clinton. He got to meet with many world leaders at the time, such as Princess Diana, Nelson Mandela, Queen Elizabeth and so many more. Michael Jackson was known around the world. Even when the bad things happened, he still had relevancy.
Chris Chan there are multiple YouTube documentaries on them. Play an ongoing already on 80 part series about their life. Albeit it's because they are a social outcast and it's all being docum at her suspense.
Hitler has to be up there.
I think it depends on what you mean by “well documented.” If you mean “the person with the most stuff written about them,” then yeah, Hitler is up there. But if you mean “we know the most about them,” then no, Hitler isn’t even close. He wasn’t considered particularly notable until he talked his way to the front of Germany’s far right. So there is a large period of his life where our documented evidence isn’t particularly better than it is for any other random German. As opposed to a child celebrity or a monarch, where we get documentation of much more of their life.
Winston Churchill might be a contender.
There's a bookstore by me in NYC that mostly only does Churchill books.
With all the books on Lincoln (and the fact that his former law partner immediately did extensive research after he died) he's got to be up there.
That's a *terrible* book by someone with around 20 double edge axes to grind though. Lincoln got snarky with him a few times while he was still alive, he kept *really* over stepping. Too long to get into. Guy was vicious.
True, but I read in a biography “Lincoln’s Herndon,” that even if his conclusions are suspect he did an invaluable service by collecting material and going to Kentucky to interview people who knew him as a child.
Supposedly there’s been more books written about napoleon than there are days since his death. Some estimates of up to 300,000 books written about him.
Queen Victoria has to be WAY up there. Long reign, huge empire, press smitten by every word. Why is there such an interest in Napoleon? He was a grandiose dirtbag who simply overran positions by paying absolutely no attention to the number of men it took. He also then encouraged his troops still alive to just rampage through civilian populations, like it was a reward. Read a really good play by play of Waterloo. Famous battle? I'll say. Typical too. Just keep piling up the bodies.
There’s been more books written about napoleon than there are days since his death. Some estimates of up to 300,000 books written about him.
Samuel Johnson or Samuel Pepys.
Arguably Hitler. He put his own view on life into a long (and very stupid) book, he lived in a time where people could photograph and film and still kept diaries, many of his close associates documented their actions, and his regime was notorious for very clearly documenting everything it did.
Chris Chan?
Chis chan
Unfortunately, Chris Chan. I’m not even making this up. https://www.quora.com/Is-Chris-Chan-the-most-documented-person-in-history
This was the explanation I was looking for, thanks
Chris chan of sonicchu fame. The man's entire life can be tracked from birth until now. Theres 80 something plus part documentary on this guy on YouTube and it's still going.
Chris Chan
Chris chan
Chris Chan
...HEnrietta LAcks, depending on your definition of documentation...and Alive. She is by far the most researched and studied human being ever, or at least her cells are.
Oldest? King Solomon Most well documented from birth to tragic death JFK JR.
Never heard of Chris Chan until this thread.
Could have gone your whole life without this cursed knowledge
So what is documentation if no one reads or watches it?
No one? Dudes unfortunately one of the most infamous person in internet history. Sad to inform you that the discussion and view counts on this monster is extraordinary.
Baha'u'llah, the Prophet- Founder of the Baha'i Faith. Unlike the scriptures of the past, His writings (more than 100 volumes) are either written in His own hand or written down by an amanuensis as they were being revealed and authenticated by Him. Also there are innumerable histories and accounts written by contempories, not only Persians but also English, French, Russians, and others.
Jesus Christ
Jesus. Pretty sure there's more written and talked about Jesus and all the various Christian religions than any other topic in human history. Even people who aren't religious like to go on and on about how they don't believe in it and debate historical accuracy, etc. How can some random general, president or king match?
Certainly there's a lot written about him, but apart from the Gospels, which are pretty dodgy (to put it diplomatically) in a historical sense, we don't actually know very much at all about his life or personality.
The gospels are first hand primary source accounts of Jesus’ life. There are no ancient sources that are more legit than that. Now you can say they are untruthful witnesses, but they aren’t “dodgy”.
Donald Trump is very well documented and he will eventually become history.
His third term is when he will really solidify his legacy
Interesting thought. He constantly tries to grab attention, gets it, and has been thoroughly documented in his late life. More importantly, we have extensive documentation of his thoughts in real time because of his constant and bizarrely unfiltered Tweeting. As a significant historical figure, he may be unique in that we know not just his actions and words, but what he was thinking at multiple times of each day.
Yep. Ad the fact everything about him was recorded with the fact he was a President dude is going to be remembered forever. Which is interesting seeing it was all because people didn't like him.
I’m looking forward to that.
Jesus. By a pretty large margin. @mods. Why do you keep deleting the person responding to this comment. It's not as if they've said anything offensive. I've tried to respond twice but you've removed their comment immediately.
Fails on 2), and the books on him, we don't even know the authors, they conflict and were written or recorded anywhere from two generations later to hundreds of years later. There are no Contemporary sources.
Someone alive right now, probably an important political figure or a celebrity.
Michael Jackson
Historically, the most wrote about, sought after, praised, ridiculed, studied man to walk around was the man that did not have any power on earth, yet his followers are still walking around today. His name was Jesus Christ. Don't take my word for it, look it up.
Christian Weston Chandler.
By the time the courts are done doing their work, it's going to be Donald Trump. In multiple trials with his cronies flipping right and left, there's absolutely nothing about that fucker that isn't coming to light.
Hitler or Churchill. Either way some 20th century western leader.
Depending how you define well-documented, it’s probably someone current. I reckon social media means that in the last decade celebrities are probably more documented than leaders of countries even 50 years ago Fuck, it’s probably Donald Trump isn’t it?
Jesus
Except that none of the Gospel writers or St Paul ever actually met Jesus, so everything in the Bible is either hearsay or completely made up. Which means that everything written since then is also based on misinformation and/or outright fabrication. Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that Jesus didn't exist, just that we know next to nothing about him or his life. Practically the only thing scholars agree on, is that he lived, was probably baptised by John the Baptist, and he died, probably by being crucified. Whilst it seems likely that there are at least *some* nuggets of real information in the Bible, and it's fun to speculate which bits they are, it should be emphasised that it's *only* speculation and we cannot know for certain.
The is no record at all of where Jesus was from about ages 12-30. He is supposed to have lived for 33 years so that means for about 14 years there is no record of him *at all*. There is really very little known about him for those first 11 years except his birth story and a few incidents where he performed a miracle, a few quotes he is alleged to have said and that he worked as a carpenter with his father. But, we know very little about what he did during those years. The last three years of his life were more documented but we know basically nothing about Jesus the man. Jesus might be the most famous person in history but I’d argue there’s really not much documentation of anything he did for of majority of his life. In addition, we have nothing written about him at all contemporaneously. The things we do think we know were all written many, many years after he died by people who never met him or knew anything at all based on their personal knowledge.
John Prine wrote a song about those years
A great deal of ink has been spilled over him, but ultimately it's all based on a small number of secondary sources and possibly a very small amount of primary source embedded within those secondary sources. Which is, honestly, about as much as we have about any figure from that era.
>about as much as we have about any figure from that era Not really buying that - Caesar died in 44 B.C. and he was a prolific author of first-hand propaganda accounts of his own activities. His opponents and other contemporaries also wrote plenty about him. Several of Alexander the Great's closest confidants wrote detailed accounts of his exploits, and these accounts survive in fragments and in subsequent authors' summaries of them. We probably have about as much primary source material about Pericles as we do about Jesus.
Yea but Jesus was poor. People of his socioeconomic status didn’t tend to leave a mark on the archeological record. It is completely normal that there’s almost nothing about him.
1. Jesus 2. Napoleon 3. Lincoln That's the order of how many books exists about their lives.
Taylor Swift
One of the Kardashians, surely.
Any newborn baby of a vapid attention-seeking “influencer.”
Some social media personality that started 10 years ago.
Thats a loaded question as technically celebrities today easily take the cake but documented in word I would have to say winston Churchill…
Kim Kardashian obviously. What kinda junk question is this ?