...which is why this list is deeply unserious. The Great Man of History isn't real because history is driven by systems, people within those systems, and through advancement in how humans perform labor.

So when Eli Whitney rediscovered interchangeable parts (they were discovered much, much earlier by Carthage, then lost), it allowed for rapid industrialization. And Whitney was only one of a handful of people making the same discovery, but the first to present it to people with the power to implement it. Putting Woodrow Wilson in the same category, however, is complete nonsense.

[–] invalidusernamelol@hexbear.net 16 points 21 hours ago

Vulcanization is another good one. Exploitation of a natural resource in South America. It was kinda useless, then vulcanization was "discovered" when they literally could have just spoken to the tribes they enslaved to harvest rubber for 3 seconds and seen that they had been vulcanizing for a thousand years...