2001 Top Ten of Conflict for People

Irving Langmuir

Irving Langmuir was an American chemist, physicist, and engineer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1932 for his work in surface chemistry

Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art, which she performs in both English and Japanese, and filmmaking

Treatment of women by the Taliban

During its 1996–2001 rule in Afghanistan, the Taliban was considered notorious internationally for its misogyny and violence against women. Its stated motive was to create a "secure environment where the chasteness and dignity of women may once again be sacrosanct", reportedly based on Pashtunwali beliefs about living in purdah. Since the Taliban seized most of Afghanistan in 2021, there are many concerns

Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historical essayist, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and an Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and is the author of more than 150 books on

Mohamed Atta

Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta was an Egyptian terrorist hijacker and the ringleader of the September 11 attacks in which four United States commercial aircraft were commandeered with the intention of destroying specific civilian, military, and governmental targets. He was the hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11 which he crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center as part of the coordinated attacks. At 33 years of age, he was the oldest of the 19 hijackers who took part in

Galileo Galilei

Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei, commonly referred to as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath, from the city of Pisa, then part of the Duchy of Florence. Galileo has been called the "father" of observational astronomy, modern physics, the scientific method, and modern science

Aelbert Cuyp

Aelbert Jacobsz. Cuyp was one of the leading Dutch Golden Age painters, producing mainly landscapes. The most famous of a family of painters, the pupil of his father Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp (1594–1651/52), he is especially known for his large views of Dutch riverside scenes in a golden early morning or late afternoon light

Ahmad Shah Massoud

Ahmad Shah Massoud was an Afghan politician and military commander. He was a powerful guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989. In the 1990s, he led the government's military wing against rival militias; after the Taliban takeover, he was the leading opposition commander against their regime until his assassination in 2001

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas. His expeditions, sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, were the first European contact with the Caribbean, Central America, and South America

Charlemagne

Charlemagne or Charles the Great, a member of the Carolingian Dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy Roman Emperor from 800. Charlemagne succeeded in uniting the majority of western and central Europe and was the first recognized emperor to rule from western Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire around three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state that Charlemagne founded was known as the Carolingian Empire. He was canonized by