Excerpt:
One century, 100 remarkable people. TIME has profiled those individuals who - for better or worse - most influenced the last 100 years. They are considered in five fields of endeavor, culminating with Person of the Century: Albert Einstein.
Annotation:
Time proposes the following to be the most important figures in science and thinking during the twentieth century: Leo Baekeland; Tim Berners-Lee; Rachel Carson; Francis Crick; James Watson; Albert Einstein; Philo Farnsworth; Enrico Fermi; Alexander Fleming; Sigmund Freud; Robert Goddard; Kurt Gödel; Edwin Hubble; John Maynard Keynes; Louis, Mary and Richard Leakey; Jean Piaget; Jonas Salk; William Shockley; Alan Turing; Ludwig Wittgenstein; and Wilbur and Orville Wright. They additionally identify twenty individuals as the twentieth century's most important Leaders and Revolutionaries; Artists and Entertainers; Builders and Titans; and Heroes and Icons. Each entry contains a biography and assessment of the individual's accomplishments, as well as links to related stories from Time's archives.