Five People Who Changed The Course Of History

Published March 2, 2014
Updated June 7, 2018

Norman Borlaug Is Feeding You Right Now

Norman Borlaug

Source: Flickr

Not all history makers are killers. Whatever the evils of the bad guys on this list, Norman Borlaug is personally responsible for saving more lives than any of them could have ended.

Chinese Wheat

Source: Flickr

Norman Borlaug was a geneticist from the University of Minnesota who spent the 1940s developing high-yield, disease-resistant strains of wheat. During his career, Borlaug took the lead in developing and promoting genetically modified crops throughout Asia and Africa. His work eventually resulted in the development of strains of wheat and rice that are being grown on approximately 10 percent of the world’s arable land.

Borlaug began his work at a time when famine was a very real threat around the world. Within five years of his arrival in Pakistan, that country experienced a doubling of its agricultural output and became self sufficient in grain. The same thing happened when he worked in India. Ditto for his work in Latin America, Africa, and Central Asia. Today, it’s estimated that over a billion people have been saved from starving to death by Borlaug’s cereal grains.

Borlaug Monument

Source: Flickr

One billion people. That’s more than died in all the wars and upheavals of the 20th century put together. It’s more than the world population when Thomas Jefferson inked the Declaration of Independence. It’s a legacy that singlehandedly reverses the death toll from Stalin’s regime, the Black Death, and every war humanity has ever fought put together.

History is made by people. The one billion humans Norman Borlaug has saved will live to make history of their own, as will their children and grandchildren. After living to the age of 95, Norman Borlaug died peacefully in his home in Dallas, TX, in 2009.

If you enjoyed reading about people who changed history, be sure to see our posts on interesting facts and the greatest mysteries of human history!

author
Richard Stockton
author
Richard Stockton is a freelance science and technology writer from Sacramento, California.
editor
John Kuroski
editor
John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.