FF, I agree with you that Gauss should be included.

(That's without regard to the question of who should be dumped to make room for him. I certainly could learn much more from hearing discussions of the infulence of various omitted names.)

The omitted name that strikes me of particular importance is the pope (Urban II?) who kicked off the Crusades. As I understand it:

a) the Crusades were tremendously important to European history (though more modern scholars have somewhat down-graded their importance).

b) Also, the Crusades and the resulting Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, a viciously-run state, quite justifiably triggered intense anti-european attitudes among the peoples native to the middle east -- attitudes still being played out today as a major undercurrent of modern middle-east political tensions.