By the same reasoning as in this article, almost no one has ever "mattered". Einstein? Come on, you think no one else could have thought of General relativity? How about Washington. Strike two - someone would have founded some kind of nation on this continent. Christ? Give me a break. A synthesis of Son-of-God worship and monotheism was just waiting to happen... if not him it certainly would have been some other Jesus (or Joseph or Judas or Thomas..) so-and-so!
This way of looking at things is like something a naive 15-year-old boy with no appreciation for history would come up with, and then write a little punk rock song about.
Hell, Al Gore would have invented it!
And I'm sure Edmund Hilary's misspelled namesake would have discovered an actual water passage if she hadn't been busy solving health care.