Where do you draw the line? Is John von Neumann in the list? What about Feynman? Do you include Go or chess players that changed the game? What about Castro who successfully kept independence from the superpower next door? Linus Torval has made amazing contributions to modern computing by BDFL. What about Shannon, the father of information theory, or the men behind RSA?

Draw a line between these and choosing what field of study or what kind of change to the world counts to make a "special person" changes the number of special people dramatically.