Poll: 'Best' Revolution?

[Malty Milk Whistle]

A small idea that popped in my head, that the term revolution has been used a fair bit recently to denote things that...aren't particularly revolutionary.
So, we be kicking this old school, in your opinion, which revolution had the largest impact on the world as a whole (or the countries that it affected.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The Quit India Act. Achieving freedom by peacefully telling the assholes to fuck off. Wouldn't it be nice if every revolution worked out the same?

 

[Asclepion]

Agricultural? Being able to build cities was pretty huge, as is allowing people to specialize in other roles when not everyone is needed to produce food.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Probably American. In that it wasn't a revolution, it was just breaking away...much less messy, don't have to take the whole nation apart and put it back together.

"The" Industrial Revolution likewise...I put "The" in quote makrs because that sort of thing kept happening every so often.

 

[Verlander]

Industrial, I don't know if the importance of it is ever fully appreciated.

 

[Zhukov]

I'm hardly an expert, but what little I've learned about the 1949 Chinese revolution has proved fascinating.

The Chinese Communists where some crazy committed people. Pulled off some pretty amazing shit. The Long March is an epic in its own right.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I'm hardly an expert, but what little I've learned about the 1949 Chinese revolution has proved fascinating.

The Chinese Communists where some crazy committed people. Pulled off some pretty amazing shit. The Long March is an epic in its own right.

Bit of trivia...amongst the people who undertook the Long March were women who'd had their feet bound.

 

[giles]

Enlightenment. It took mankind thousands of years to finally break from the barbaric shackles of "tradition" and fairy tales that arbitrarily defined their lives. It's not called a revolution, but it set the stage for the industrial revolution and the modern era.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Oh, how about Athens? The Athenians getting rid of the Pesistratids and coming up with this weird democracy thing.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Ghandi hands down takes this contest. He was a deciding factor in the fall of the British empire and the peaceful release of India and Pakistan.

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

I forgot to put my one in the OP, silly old me.

Anyways, I'd say the French was the most influential, in that though it was ultimately short-lived, it really did set the record for how Europe would turn out, and gave rise to possibly the most astounding man in history, who took a battered and beaten country and turned it into the terror of Europe and America.
Damn Napoleon, you're so fly.

 

[Gatx]

I'm American so I grew up with that romanticized view of the American Revolution so I'll have to pick that one. Though looking at all the other revolutions, it definitely seems petty in comparison.

 

[Dango]

If I remember my history correctly, the only non-Industrial Revolution on that list that didn't go horribly wrong and end up with tons of unnecessary murders was the American Revolution. So go us, I guess.

 

[CaptainCoxwaggle]

Ghandi hands down takes this contest. He was a deciding factor in the fall of the British empire and the peaceful release of India and Pakistan.

Aside from Ghandi not starting a rebellion, he was also a fierce proponent of surrendering to the Nazis.

People forget that Quit India began in 1942, the most vital year of WW2, and that his former accomplice Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose started the Indian National Army that fought alongside the Imperial Japanese Army.

Also following the independence of India, massive religious genocides occurred along with what is considered the largest migration in human history. So it certainly wasn't a bloodless transition.

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

Those are all very interesting, but my two favorite revolutions have always been:

Spoiler: In blasphemous order

And now Revolution 9 in reverse, in which Paul McCartney fiddles with his car's radio dial as he gets into a fiery crash, and a crowd stands by in amazement listening to the trapped Sir Paul scream his final breaths in burning agony. They'd seen his face before, nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Paul(?). Hmm...

Turn me on, dead man.