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You couldn't really say that anyone who invented or discovered something was influential. It was the creation or discovery that was influential. Without Columbus, Cabot or another would still have discovered the New World. The printing press, the atomic bomb, and the wheel would have been invented even without Gutenberg, Einstein or some nameless Mesopotamian.
IMHO, its the peddlers of ideas that have the most impact. Religious men like the Buddha and Jesus, political minds like Marx and Locke, philosophers and authors and ideologists. Ideas are more flexible and fragile than technological progress.
And I would avoid people in the last century, even the last millenium. A world without Caesar would be almost unrecognisable, but a world without, say, Ronald Reagan would be different but similar. Influence grows with time, the historical snowball effect.
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"Look, I'm pretty relaxed for a guy who just lost money on a rave. And who's currently speeding down the highway drunk off my tits. And I'm being chased by someone in a blue Corolla. Woohoo! I just ran a red light!"
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