Pop quiz: what do all of these people have in common?

[ciroccoj]

Also: at which name did you figure it out?

1. Marcus Cicero, 106 B.C-43 B.C., Roman
   
2. Marcus Quintillian, 35-100, Roman
   
3. St. Thomas More, 1478-1535, English
   
4. Sir Francis Bacon, 1561-1626, English
   
5. Gottfried Leibniz, 1646-1716, German
   
6. Sir William Blackstone, 1723-1780, English
   
7. John Adams, 1735-1826, American
   
8. Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, American
   
9. Johann W. Goethe, 1749-1832, German
   
10. Andrew Jackson, 1767-1845, American
    
11. Daniel Webster, 1782-1852, American
    
12. Simon Bolivar, 1783-1820, Venezuelan
    
13. Thomas C. Haliburton, 1796-1865, Canadian
    
14. Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, American
    
15. Sir John A. Macdonald, 1815-1891, Canadian
    
16. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, 1841-1919, Canadian
    
17. Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1841-1935, American
    
18. Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-1894, English
    
19. Leon Bourgeois, 1851-1925, French (Nobel Peace Prize)
    
20. Woodrow Wilson, 1856-1924, American
    
21. Frank Kellogg, 1856-1937, American (Nobel Peace Prize)
    
22. Clarence Darrow, 1857-1938, American
    
23. Lloyd George, 1863-1945, English
    
24. Mohandas Gandhi, 1869-1948, Indian
    
25. Vladimir Lenin, 1870-1924, Russian
    
26. Benjamin Cardozo, 1870-1938, American
    
27. Roscoe Pound, 1870-1964, American
    
28. Franz Kafka, 1883-1935, German
    
29. Clement Attlee, 1883-1967, English
    
30. Erle Stanley Gardner, 1889-1970, American
    
31. Earl Warren, 1891-1874, American
    
32. Samuel Leibowitz, 1893-1973, American
    
33. John Diefenbaker, 1895-1979, Canadian
    
34. Lord Denning, 1899-1999, English
    
35. Morley Callaghan, 1903-1990, Canadian
    
36. Melvin Belli, 1907-1996, American
    
37. Thurgood Marshall, 1908-1993, American
    
38. Bora Laskin, 1912-1984, Canadian
    
39. Menachem Begin, 1913-1992, Israel (Nobel Peace Prize)
    
40. Nelson Mandela, 1918-, South African
    
41. William Kunstler, 1919-1995, American
    
42. Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1919-2000, Canadian
    
43. Bella Abzug, 1920-1998, American
    
44. Learned Hand, 1924-1961, American
    
45. Margaret Thatcher, 1925-, British
    
46. Robert Kennedy, 1925-1968, American
    
47. Fidel Castro, 1926-, Cuban
    
48. Sandra Day O'Connor, 1930, American
    
49. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 1933-, American
    
50. Paul Martin, 1934-, Canadian
    
51. Geraldine Ferraro, 1935-, American
    
52. Elizabeth Dole, 1936-, American
    
53. Johnnie Cochran, 1937-2005, American
    
54. Jean Chretien, 1938, Canadian
    
55. Janet Reno, 1938-, American
    
56. Joseph Biden, 1942-, American
    
57. Hilary Clinton, 1947-, American
    
58. Kim Campbell, 1947-, Canadian
    
59. Elizabeth Edwards, 1949-2010, American
    
60. Marcia Clark, 1953-, American
    
61. Sonya Sotomayor, 1954-, American
    
62. Anita Hill, 1956-, American
    
63. Caroline Kennedy, 1957-, American
    
64. Barack Obama, 1961-, American
    
65. Michelle Obama, 1964-, American

Comments

[13oct.livejournal.com]

I have no clue and I'm really curious now. Do tell!!

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

Lawyers! All lawyers. Make way for the lawyer jokes :D :D :D

[mynuet.livejournal.com]

They're all politicians, and to some extent can be considered revolutionary, although with the last few it's more debatable. I think they might also all be lawyers, but I'm not 100% sure of that.

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

They're lawyers :D :D :D

And yeah, some real revolutionaries in there. The list was originally from a book and/or article called "One Hundred Lawyers Who Changed the World." I decided to just post the names of all the lawyers who might be recognizable to many people, not necessarily just to lawyers, and added in a few more lawyers who are currently famous but have not yet had a chance to "change the world".

Then I realized that there was not one single woman on the list. Added in names who appeared on various lists of "Famous Women Lawyers," but as they were mostly within very recent history, most of them have also not had a chance to show whether they will be considered "revolutionary" by history or not. And they're almost all Americans. And mostly famous for being connected to famous men.

Except for the Iron Lady, who really should be in a class all on her own ;)

[mynuet.livejournal.com]

Dame Maggie, ftw.

[daf9.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna guess they're all authors. My first guess until I came to #43 was that they were all men.

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

Nope! Though I see there are quite a few famous writers among them.

They're all lawyers. And yeah, up to #43 they're all men... I had to go hunting to find women to put on the list, and many of them were really only famous because they were connected to men :(

[linaelyn.livejournal.com]

They're all lawyers. :-) As for when I knew: before the cut, guessing the answer to the question, "what list of people would she post?" For everyone I *know* on this list, I know they have a law background.

My dad is a lawyer, btw. :-)

[daf9.livejournal.com]

LOL! I think you're right. It was a trick question to which the answer should have been obvious with the first name i.e. ciroccoj

[bast2.livejournal.com]

Technically, Kafka wasn't a lawyer.

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

He was on a list of "100 Lawyers Who Changed the World", which I did not make up. And after researching in that fount of all accurate wisdom (Wikipedia), I see that he did one obligatory year as law clerk. Which, yeah, maybe technically that may be considered lawyering, but it's definitely reaching ;)