That's only two, Xen
Mine:
Heraclius
_ Well, how can you beat the excitement of this man's career. He came to the throne in 610 with the Roman Empire in a critical almost hopeless position. The Avars (who introduced the stirrup to the West) and Slavs were assailing the Danube frontier and had broken through into Macedonia, Thrace and the Peloponnese. In the east, that war-monger Chosroes was on the attack. He took Damascus in 613, Jerusalem in 614 (destroying the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and capturing the Holy Cross) and Egypt in 619. The empire was on the verge of destruction, more so than it had ever been or ever would be again until at least Manzikert. In August of 626 while Heraclius and his army were in distant Lazica, a Persian army attacked Constantinople from the east while an army of Avars, Slavs, and Bulgars attacked from the west and from the sea. But the brave Romans managed to fight them off. The next year, in an amazing act of daring, Heraclius grouped his forces and invaded Persia, winning at Nineveh and threatening the vastly overstretched Persians with the destruction of their capital. The Persians surrendered all their gains, and in 630 Heraclius delivered the True Cross back to Jerusalem.
But if all this weren't enough, within a couple of years, that armed prophet history knows as Muhammed died leaving a strong war-ready Arabian state as his legacy, armed with nomad tactical superiority and the new faith that he left them. In 634 the Arab armies invaded Syria and defeated Theodore, the emperor's brother, in a string of battles. Heraclius raised a large army that attacked the Arabs near the Yarmuk, a tributary of the Jordan, in the fall of 636. After a successful beginning, the larger Byzantine army was defeated allowing the conquest of Syria. The Byzantine defeat also led to the Arabs quickly taking Mesopotamia, Armenia and eventually Egypt. However, Heraclius's policy of defence in depth saved the Empire, in contrast to the Persians, who were destroyed.
Hernán Cortéz
This guy, with a few hundred free-booters, conquered modern Mexico despite being at war with his own government during the conquest. If you read Bernal Diaz, you'll encounter a whole range of anecdotes which show he was quite a character. I don't usually like to see distinctive civilizations disappear, but the Mexican Indian states, esp. the Aztecs, were as or more savage than any fiction that the sickest imagination could ever hope to contrive. It's a pleasure to know that their cannibal-sacrifice civilization was replaced.
Oh, and contrary to some slandering documentaries, Cortez was not illiterate - but actually highly educated. Most of the Spanish soldiers on the expedition were literate: they had to be.
Heinrich Schliemann
He's one of the most amazing and inspiring characters in history. He was from a humble background in a small village called Neu Buckow. He dreamed, as a child, of being a classical scholar, but family scandal got him kicked out of the gymnasium; still, he taught himself Homeric Greek. He had to get a job in a counting house, but he then taught himself to become fluent in Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese in the space of two years. He saved up money, started up his own business. Over time he made a fortune. Eventually, he had enough that he could give up business. He had never given up his childhood dream. He decided to go and find Troy. No-one in the world except him thought that the place could be real, but he gave up everthing to look. And he found it; he found Mycenae too.
