# The Top 100 Historical Persons in Japan

The Top 100 Historical Persons (超大型歴史アカデミー史上初1億3000万人が選ぶニッポン人が好きな偉人ベスト100発表 in Japanese), aired on Nippon Television on May 7, 2006. The program featured the results of a survey that asked Japanese people to choose their favorite great person from history. The show featured several re-enactments of scenes from the lives of the people on the list.
The survey asked Japanese people to name their most-liked historical figures, not the most influential. The selection was not restricted to Japanese people, and only about two thirds of the names are Japanese, mostly important Japanese historical figures, such as samurai, prime ministers, war leaders, authors, poets. and popular Meiji Restoration figures.
The program was followed up with a women-only Top-100 list (ニッポン人が好きな100人の美人) which aired September 23, 2006, and History's 100 Most Influential People: Hero Edition which aired in March 2007.

## List

The final list was as follows:
* Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) daimyō in the 16th century
* Sakamoto Ryōma (1836–1867) The samurai who overthrew the Tokugawa shogunate in bakumatsu Japan.
* Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598) politician, samurai who is regarded as Japan's second "great unifier"
* Matsushita Kōnosuke (1894–1989) industrialist, founder of Panasonic
* Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616) The founder and first shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate
* Minamoto Yoshitsune (1159–1189) A military commander of the Minamoto clan of Japan in the late Heian and early Kamakura periods
* Mother Teresa (1910–1997) Roman Catholic nun and missionary
* Helen Keller (1880–1968) author and lecturer who was a deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree
* Hijikata Toshizō (1835–1869) Fukucho of Shinsengumi, a great swordsman and a talented military leader who resisted the Meiji Restoration
* Noguchi Hideyo (1876–1928) bacteriologist who in 1911 discovered the agent of syphilis as the cause of progressive paralytic disease.
* Saigō Takamori (1828–1877) One of the three great nobles who led the Meiji Restoration.
* Princess Diana (1961–1997) Member of British royal family, philanthropist and known for her charity work
* Albert Einstein (1879–1955) physicist, known for theory of relativity
* Misora Hibari (1937–1989) singer and actress
* Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901) Japanese author, writer, teacher, translator, entrepreneur and journalist who founded Keio University
* Anne Frank (1929–1945) diarist, known for "Het Achterhuis"
* Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing.
* Yoshida Shigeru (1878–1967) Prime Minister of Japan
* Walt Disney (1901–1966) Entrepreneur, animator, voice actor and film producer.
* Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) German composer and pianist
* Ayrton Senna (1960–1994) One of the greatest formula one drivers of all time
* Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) polymath, universal genius
* Tezuka Osamu (1928–1989) Manga artist who created Astro Boy, cartoonist, animator, film producer, medical doctor
* Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) Emperor of French
* Prince Shōtoku (574–622) Semi-legendary regent and a politician of the Asuka period in Japan who served under Empress Suiko.
* John Lennon (1940–1980) Member of The Beatles
* Zhuge Liang (181–234) Imperial Chancellor and regent of the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period
* Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese swordsman, philosopher, writer and rōnin.
* Ozaki Yutaka (1965–1992) Musician
* Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) British actress during Hollywood's Golden Age, dancer and humanitarian.
* Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) activist, that led to Indian independence movement against British rule.
* Soseki Natsume (1867–1916) novelist
* Takasugi Shinsaku (1839–1867) Samurai from the Chōshū Domain of Japan who contributed significantly to the Meiji Restoration.
* Murasaki Shikibu novelist and poet
* Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austria's greatest composer
* Yamamoto Isoroku (1884–1943) Marshal Admiral of the Navy and the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II
* Miyazawa Kenji (1896–1933) author for children's literature
* John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th President of United States
* Ninomiya Sontoku (1787–1856) Agricultural leader, philosopher, moralist and economist
* Kondō Isami (1834–1868) Japanese swordsman and official of the late Edo period
* Ōkubo Toshimichi (1830–1878) Main founders of Modern Japan.
* Takeda Shingen (1521–1573) pre-eminent daimyō in feudal Japan
* Himiko (d. 248) was a shaman queen of Yamataikoku in Wa (ancient Japan)
* Inō Tadataka (1745–1818) surveyor and cartographer, completed the first map of Modern Japan.
* Ishihara Yujiro (1934–1987) actor and singer
* Sen no Rikyū (1522–1591) Prominent figure who had influence on chanoyu, the Japanese "Way of Tea", particularly the tradition of wabi-cha
* Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) actor of Silent Era
* Sugihara Chiune (1900–1986) Government official who served as vice consul for the Japanese Empire in Lithuania
* Date Masamune (1567–1636) Regional ruler of Japan's Azuchi–Momoyama period through early Edo period
* Tanaka Giichi (1864–1929) Prime Minister of Japan
* Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong actor and martial artist
* Okita Sōji (1842–1868) The captain of the first unit of the Shinsengumi, a special police force in Kyoto during the late shogunate period
* Matsuda Yusaku (1949–1989) One of Japan's most important actors
* Marie Antoinette (1755–1793) The last Queen of France before the French Revolution
* Ōishi Kuranosuke (1659–1703) (karō) of the Akō Domain in Harima Province
* Ikariya Chosuke (1931–2004) comedian and film actor
* Wright Brothers
* Katsu Kaishū (1823–1899) statesman and naval engineer during the late Tokugawa shogunate and early Meiji period
* Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) civil rights activist for black people
* Yoshida Shōin (1830–1859) distinguished intellectual in the closing days of the Tokugawa shogunate
* Kurosawa Akira (1910–1998) Japan's greatest director
* Uesugi Kenshin (1530–1578) daimyō
* Marie Curie (1867–1934) physicist and chemist, First woman to win a Nobel Prize
* Satō Eisaku (1901–1975) Prime Minister of Japan
* Sanada Yukimura (1567–1615) Samurai warrior of the Sengoku period
* Cao Cao (155–220) Chinese warlord and the penultimate Chancellor of the Eastern Han dynasty
* Kato Daijiro (1976–2003) Grand Prix motorcycle road racer,
* Cleopatra (69BC–30BC) the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt
* Tokugawa Mitsukuni (1628–1701) Prominent daimyō who was known for his influence in the politics of the early Edo period
* Elvis Presley (1935–1977) King of Rock and Roll
* Ogi Akira (1935–2005) professional Japanese baseball player, coach and manager
* Tōgō Heihachirō (1848–1934) Gensui or admiral of the fleet in the Imperial Japanese Navy and one of Japan's greatest naval heroes
* Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) Italian explorer, navigator, and colonizer that discovered America
* Itō Hirobumi (1841–1909) statesman and genrō
* Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) 20th century best painter
* Marco Polo (1254–1324) Italian explorer
* Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German theologian, organist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician.
* Yosano Akiko (1878–1942) author and social activist
* Andy Hug (1964–2000) Swiss karateka and one of the best kickboxers
* Tsuburaya Eiji (1901–1970) special effects director, co-creator of Godzilla
* Joan of Arc (1412–1431) Roman Catholic saint
* Honda Minako (1967–2005) pop star
* Uemura Naomi (1941–1984) adventurer
* Sugita Genpaku (1733–1817) scholar known for his translation of Kaitai Shinsho
* Confucius (551BC–479BC) ancient philosopher
* Jean-Henri Casimir Fabre (1823–1915) French naturalist, entomologist
* Natsume Masako (1957–1985) actress
* Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521) Portuguese explorer who organised the Spanish expedition to the East Indies from 1519 to 1522
* Honda Soichiro (1906–1991) engineer, founder of Honda
* Anne Sullivan (1866–1937) teacher, lifelong companion of Helen Keller
* Shohei "Giant" Baba (1938–1999) professional wrestler, co-founder of All Japan Pro Wrestling
* Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of United States
* Dazai Osamu (1909–1948) author
* Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer
* Ikkyū (1391–1481) iconoclastic Japanese Zen Buddhist monk and poet.
* Akechi Mitsuhide (1528–1582) samurai and general who lived during the Sengoku period of Feudal Japan
* Isaac Newton (1642–1727) physicist and theologian, known for implementing the law of gravity
* Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694) most known poet during Edo period
* Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) writer, known for creating the character Sherlock Holmes