Who were the most important people of the last millennium?

According to the editors of LIFE magazine and their expert advisers, the top 100 include a mystic-poet, a Portuguese sailor and an angel of mercy.

To make LIFE's list, "... a person had to change more than just a corner of the world -- he or she had to divert the great stream of human history, alter our perceptions perceptibly."

Some of the movers and shakers will be familiar to viewers of CNN's MILLENNIUM series, and for that reason we have organized the LIFE 100 by ranking as well as by century at right.

Reflecting the sociopolitical realities of the past thousand years, those profiled are overwhelmingly male and white. All but 17 are of European extraction; only 10 are women.

Yet, as LIFE's editors note, "(t)he next millennium's list of planet-rattlers promises to look strikingly different."

From the book The LIFE Millennium. Copyright 1998 Time Inc. Home Entertainment. LIFE is a registered trademark of Time Inc. Used by permission.