Please no religious figures. I think it seems like there has probably been a couple, or maybe I just want some to exist. I would find the most persuasive answer to be ones that radically changed their own culture in some drastic fashion, not just the best conquerors. This is because I believe this argument from wikipedia "Spencer said that such great men are the products of their societies, and that their actions would be impossible without the social conditions built before their lifetimes." Thanks in advance for any answers.
Are you asking for a list of "great men"? Because our subreddit rules don't permit that.
Great Man theory was dealt the death blow by structuralism/processualism, but it has been replaced/reincarnated under the name of 'agency', the notion that people can have an influence over their own environment, or their culture. The whole concept of the 'great', as well as the masculin element of the 'great man', has been dropped, but essentially the notion that people shape their lives themselves (which was the main argument for GMT anyway) has been re-appropriated, which makes the theory even more obsolete. It does make a slight re-emergence in landscape studies, however, where the influence of a single 'great person', such as an urban planner or an architect, is now acknowledged in shaping a landscape.