Here's the beginnings of a draft of the Scandinavian 81. For the moment, I'll content myself with the top 27. Each name links to the subject's wikipedia page. One day, I hope, this project will morph into a full-fledged, moderated wiki of its own.
1. Niels Bohr
2. Alfred Nobel
3. Tycho Brahe
4. Fridtjof Nansen
5. Dag Hammarskjold
6. Margrete Valemarsdatter
7. Henrik Ibsen
8. Carl Linnaeus
9. Hans Orsted
10. Jon Berzelius
11. Alva and Gunnar Myrdal
13. Kristian Birkeland
14. Svante Arrhenius
15. Soren Kierkegaard
16. Gustavus Adolphus
17. Gro Harlem Brundtland
18. Frederika Bremer
19. Ole Romer
20. Carl Wilhelm Scheele
21. Anders Celsius
22. Olof Palme
23. Linus Torvalds
24. Hjalmar Branting
25. Emmanuel Swedenborg
26. Sven Hedin
27. Raoul Wallenberg
I'm nowhere near satisfied with this yet, probably I never will be. I'm not certain that it's even possible to rank individual human beings in terms of their historical influence, even within the same field, much less between fields as various as science, cinema, politics, literature, art. But my reservations won't stop me from trying. If anything, they spur me on.
