Civil rights took a variety of forms this century. Women got the right to vote, gained control over their reproductive life and made strides toward achieving equal status in the workplace. Gays and lesbians gained the right to be proud of who they are.

Indeed, one defining aspect of our century has been the degree to which it was shaped not just by powerful political leaders but also by ordinary folks who civilly disobeyed: Nelson Mandela organizing a campaign in 1952 to defy South Africa's "pass laws" by entering white townships, Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus just as Gandhi had on the South African train, the unknown rebel blocking the line of tanks rumbling toward Tiananmen Square, Lech Walesa leading his fellow Polish workers out on strike, the British suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst launching hunger strikes, American students protesting the Vietnam War by burning their draft cards, and gays and lesbians at Greenwich Village's Stonewall Inn resisting a police raid. In the end, they changed the century as much as the men who commanded armies.

The Century of Science and Technology

It is hard to compare the influence of statesmen with that of scientists. Nevertheless, we can note that there are certain eras that were most defined by their politics, others by their culture, and others by their scientific advances.

The 18th century, for example, was clearly one marked by statecraft: in 1776 alone there are Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin writing the Declaration of Independence, Adam Smith publishing The Wealth of Nations and George Washington leading the Revolutionary forces. The 17th century, on the other hand, despite such colorful leaders as Louis XIV and the ch?teau he left us, will be most remembered for its science: Galileo exploring gravity and the solar system, Descartes developing modern philosophy and Newton discovering the laws of motion and calculus. And the 16th will be remembered for the flourishing of the arts and culture: Michelangelo and Leonardo and Shakespeare creating masterpieces, Elizabeth I creating the Elizabethan Age.

So how will the 20th century be remembered? Yes, for democracy. And yes, for civil rights.

But the 20th century will be most remembered, like the 17th, for its earthshaking advances in science and technology. In his massive history of the 20th century, Paul Johnson declares: "The scientific genius impinges on humanity, for good or ill, far more than any statesman or warlord." Albert Einstein was more pithy: "Politics is for the moment. An equation is for eternity."

Just look at the year the century was born. The Paris Exposition in 1900 (50 million visitors, more than the entire population of France) featured wireless telegraphs, X rays and tape recorders. "It is a new century, and what we call electricity is its God," wrote the romantic historian Henry Adams from Paris.

In 1900 we began to unlock the mysteries of the atom: Max Planck launched quantum physics by discovering that atoms emit bursts of radiation in packets. Also the mysteries of the mind: Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams that year. Marconi was preparing to send radio signals across the Atlantic, the Wright Brothers went to Kitty Hawk to work on their gliders, and an unpromising student named Albert Einstein finally graduated, after some difficulty, from college that year. So much for the boneheaded prediction made the year before by Charles Duell, director of the U.S. Patent Office: "Everything that can be invented has been invented."

So many fields of science made such great progress that each could produce its own contender for Person of the Century.

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